WAR 07-10-2021-to-07-16-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

Sorry for the delay, today has been a bit challenging......HC

(478) 06-19-2021-to-06-25-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(479) 06-26-2021-to-07-02-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(480) 07-03-2021-to-07-09-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

______________________________________________

Posted by Jward earlier:
War Games In California And Florida Linked To Test Massive "Kill Web" And Autonomous Drone Tech

WAR - 07-03-2021-to-07-09-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(477) 06-12-2021-to-06-18-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** (478) 06-19-2021-to-06-25-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** (479) 06-26-2021-to-07-02-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** ____________________________________ Posted for fair use...

www.timebomb2000.com

Posted by MzKitty earlier:
US forces attacked in Iraq and Syria with rockets......

WAR - 07-03-2021-to-07-09-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(477) 06-12-2021-to-06-18-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** (478) 06-19-2021-to-06-25-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** (479) 06-26-2021-to-07-02-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** ____________________________________ Posted for fair use...

www.timebomb2000.com

 

[Housecarl]

Japan Threatens China with WAR over Taiwan

• Old Gray Mare
• Yesterday at 4:00 PM

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Expect White House to face 'a lot of pressure' on Guantanamo amid Afghanistan withdrawal, defense attorney says

Expect White House to face 'a lot of pressure' on Guantanamo amid Afghanistan withdrawal, defense attorney says

news.yahoo.com

Expect White House to face 'a lot of pressure' on Guantánamo amid Afghanistan withdrawal, defense attorney says

Tim O'Donnell, Contributing Writer
Sat, July 10, 2021, 12:16 PM·1 min read

As the United States continues to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, "it's going to be harder for the government or deferential courts" to justify the continued detention of prisoners Guantánamo Bay, Guantánamo defense attorney Ben Farley told NPR.

Following 9/11, NPR notes, Congress passed the "authorization for use of military force," which gave the executive branch the power to pursue anyone suspected of playing a role in the terrorist attacks, and the government has maintained the law includes the ability to detain prisoners without charge or trial during wartime. But how does the looming end of the the U.S.'s conflict in Afghanistan affect the Guantánamo's last 40 detainees?

"One of the fraught questions for the past 20 years has been whether or not the war on terrorism extends beyond the borders of Afghanistan and nearby Pakistan," said Guantánamo defense attorney Michel Paradis. "Is the war a war against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan? Or is it a war against terrorism broadly? Is it a war against al-Qaida and anything that shares al-Qaida's ideology, any organization that splits off from al-Qaida?"

There likely won't be a neat answer to those questions, but Farley said he expects to see "a lot of pressure put on the [Biden} administration, and on the government more generally in litigation, arguing that the armed conflict has ended and detention authority has evaporated." Read more at NPR.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Extremist attack in Somalia’s capital kills at least 9

A large explosion in Somalia’s capital killed at least nine people and injured eight others, a health official said Saturday. Dr. Mohamed Nur at the Medina Hospital told reporters that the toll reflected only the dead and wounded who were taken to the facility in Mogadishu where he works. A...

news.yahoo.com

Extremist attack in Somalia’s capital kills at least 9

HASSAN BARISE
Sat, July 10, 2021, 3:06 AM

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A large explosion in Somalia’s capital killed at least nine people and injured eight others, a health official said Saturday.

Dr. Mohamed Nur at the Medina Hospital told reporters that the toll reflected only the dead and wounded who were taken to the facility in Mogadishu where he works.

“I am sure the number is bigger as some of the victims were rushed to other hospitals, such as the privately owned ones,” he said.

The al-Shabab extremist group claimed responsibility.

A Somali police spokesman said Mogadishu's police commissioner, Col. Farhan Mohamud Qaroleh, was the target of the attack but he was safe.

“A suicide car bomber with heavy explosives plotted by the terrorist group al-Shabab has targeted the Mogadishu police commissioner,” police spokesman Said Adam Ali said. “They hit the vehicle of the Mogadishu police commissioner."

It was the second such large explosion in the city this month. A blast targeting a teashop killed at least 10 people last week.

Last month, a suicide bomb attack at a military base in Mogadishu killed at least 15 people.

 

[jward]

hmm. I like maps n charts as organizational tools. . .
Van Jackson
@WonkVJ
2h

Was asked to map US nuclear thinking along several dimensions. Not sure if this is right, but it's a first crack

 

[Housecarl]

I guess there aren't enough Leo2's available at fire sale prices........

Posted for fair use.....

Poland could purchase M1 Abrams tanks from US

The Polish Armed Forces are reportedly interested in acquiring up to 250 tanks in the M1A2 SEPv3 variant and a further dozen tracked vehicles for training.

www.defensenews.com

Europe
Poland could purchase M1 Abrams tanks from US
By: Jaroslaw Adamowski   1 day ago

WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s Defence Ministry is reportedly preparing to buy about 250 M1 Abrams tanks from the United States, two months after it announced plans to buy 24 Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones.

Two sources close to the deal told Polish news site Gazeta.pl that the ministry is negotiating the potential contract terms.

“It has been rumored that something like this [acquisition] is possible. Now it’s more than just that. Details are being worked out, although a final decision has not yet been taken,” one of the sources said.

Asked about the potential tank acquisition and its status, a spokesperson for the Polish Defence Ministry told Defense News that “as part of the ongoing analyses related to the operational needs, we have identified the necessity to provide [Polish] armored military units with modern tanks that would comply with the requirements of the modern battlefield.”

“We are currently performing analytical-conceptual work with the aim to define the possibilities of securing these capacities based on the available technical solutions that are proposed [to Poland] by potential suppliers,” the spokesperson said.

The Polish Armed Forces are reportedly interested in acquiring up to 250 tanks in the M1A2 SEPv3 variant and a further dozen tracked vehicles for training under a deal estimated to be worth between 11 billion zloty (U.S. $2.9 billion) and 19 billion zloty (U.S. $5 billion).

The potential acquisition would significantly expand Poland’s modern tank capacities. In the latest additions to its tank fleet, in 2002, the country secured 128 Leopard 2A4 tanks from the German military. In 2013, the Defence Ministry signed a deal to acquire a further 119 A4 and A5 tanks from Germany.

Poland has been readying to purchase a new tracked vehicle platform to replace the country’s outdated Soviet-designed T-72 and PT-91 tanks. In 2019, Warsaw declared interest in the European main battle tank project, an initiative spearheaded by a French-German tandem. But to date, these declarations have not been followed by any binding decision.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

Posted for fair use.....

CCTV confirms DF-41 range and other specifications

www.china-arms.com

CCTV confirms DF-41 range and other specifications
July 8, 2021

in China's New Military Weapons

The DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile has been rumored to have a range of 14,000 kilometers and can carry 10 sub-guided warheads. Today, this rumor has been confirmed by CCTV.

CCTV military revealed in a recent program that the DF-41 has a maximum range of about 14,000 kilometers, a missile length of 16.5 meters, a circular probability error of about 100 meters, a weight of over 60 tons, and can carry 10 split-guide nuclear warheads; And DF-41 features flexible, can be launched on the highway or even on the basketball court.

CCTV’s statement is equivalent to denying the US media’s speculation about China’s construction of DF-41 silos in the northwest and implying that DF-41 missiles can easily cover all U.S. territory.

 

[jward]

We might be done with jihadis but they are not done with us
The withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan on the anniversary of 9/11 will be seen as a victory for their cause Raffaello Pantucci

Taliban fighters and villagers celebrate the peace deal in Laghman Province, in March last year © Noorullah Shirzada/AFP/Getty

There is a wind of optimism sweeping through the global jihadist community. A narrative of victory is gaining momentum just as the west tries to turn the page and focus on great power conflict with China and Russia. Scanning the horizon, they see victories in Afghanistan and Mali as western forces announce their withdrawal. In north-western Nigeria and Mozambique, Isis-affiliated groups are gaining ground. And in north-eastern Syria, an al-Qaeda linked group is rebranding itself as an acceptable government. The decision to withdraw from Afghanistan has been made as the Taliban are ascendant on the battlefield.

The deadline of September 11 this year only seems to highlight the inconclusive nature of what the west has tried to do there. In the wake of the attacks on the US in 2001, President Bush lumped the Taliban in with the responsible al-Qaeda terrorists they were hosting. He warned: “They [the Taliban] will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate.” Yet two decades later, the Taliban have not handed over any terrorists, broken with al-Qaeda or shared their fate. Al-Qaeda has suffered setbacks. A decade after 9/11, Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by the US. His successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is in hiding and there is speculation of his demise. In contrast, Taliban leader Mullah Omar is believed to have died of natural causes. His successors are still fighting and their narrative is that they are going to take power in Kabul. Al-Qaeda’s media has praised the Taliban’s “historic” victory. This sense of success is bolstered by France announcing its withdrawal from Mali and Isis affiliates taking territory in Nigeria and Mozambique. In Idlib, Syria, al-Qaeda spawned Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is rebranding itself as a government willing to negotiate with the west. In an interview with US television, its leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, presented himself as a politician who is simply trying to govern. Yet none of these groups have given any indication that they have changed their views. Seen from the perspective of the jihadist community, the overall trajectory looks positive. Very few of the problems that created the groups in the first place — bad governance, inequality or ethnic tensions — have been addressed.

Arguably, they have multiplied. Jihadist terrorism is erupting in more places than before. Prior to 2001, it was not a concern in some parts of Africa, where it now thrives. A 2018 report by US think-tank CSIS showed the number of groups have almost tripled since 2001. And the chaos following the announcement of withdrawal from Afghanistan raises questions about what has been achieved with 20 years of conflict. All of this is likely to rejuvenate the global jihadist movement. With creative reporting, it can portray itself as ascendant, with the US withdrawal giving it tangible evidence of success. This will motivate individuals and groups elsewhere around the world, who will see that their struggle is winnable if they just stick at it for long enough. While this may lead to suffering on the ground, it will not necessarily result in an immediate upsurge in terrorism in the west. The world is far more attentive to these threats, and Afghanistan is not the country it was pre-9/11. But in contexts where we see jihadist groups, a sense of triumph may animate them and push them forwards. Over time, this will probably evolve in ways that will surprise us. No one expected Isis to rise so abruptly from the ashes of Iraq’s insurgency. Violent Islamist terrorism in Africa has also spread in ways that were not immediately predictable.

Few would have expected the growth of Isis affiliates in Congo or Mozambique. But all of these groups have a perspective and outlook which is anathema to the west, and support Isis’ global aims. The threat is festering rather than going away. We may have tired of the groups and narratives of the war on terror — but those we are fighting have not. They will take this moment and savour what they see as their success. In the longer term they will present a new kind of problem that we will have to address. They will find a way of violently capturing our attention with dramatic attacks against western targets in unexpected places or new battlefields that draw in foreigners. Whitehall and Washington may want to focus on China but jihadist conflicts are still very much with us. Given that we seem unable to resolve the issues that animate these movements, we are obliged to simply manage them. But handing them rhetorical victories is not helpful.

posted for fair use

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News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication

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[jward]

Keith B. Payne and Michaela Dodge, The Strategic Stability Dialogue: Think Before You Speak, No. 495, July 8, 2021


The Strategic Stability Dialogue: Think Before You Speak
Dr. Keith B. Payne
Dr. Keith B. Payne is a co-founder of the National Institute for Public Policy, professor emeritus of the Graduate School of Defense and Strategic Studies at Missouri State University and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense.
Dr. Michaela Dodge
Dr. Michaela Dodge is a Research Scholar at the National Institute for Public Policy and received her Ph.D. from George Mason University in 2019.


Introduction


The United States and Russia will soon begin a much-heralded strategic stability dialogue “to lay the groundwork for future arms control.”[1] Deterrence “stability” typically is equated to a condition in which there exist decisive disincentives against the employment of nuclear weapons. Establishing disincentives to nuclear war, of course, is the priority goal, and in principle, there is nothing amiss with the contemporary initiation of U.S-Russian “stability talks.”[2] In practice, however, prior to engaging in a “strategic stability dialogue” with Moscow, the United States ought to first establish a contemporary consensus understanding of what constitutes deterrence stability, and how U.S. deterrence policies and forces can contribute to that stability, i.e., the words must have an agreed, contemporary meaning—at least domestically.

That most certainly does not exist. Until the United States establishes an understanding of what “strategic stability” means in light of contemporary geopolitical realities—and the implications of that meaning for policy and forces—it will have little basis other than transient political fashion for discussing its own or others’ policies, doctrines, or forces for deterrence or arms control purposes.


To risk understatement, there has been a paucity of official thinking, military or civilian, devoted to this subject for decades—government interest appeared to dwindle with the end of the Cold War and the rise of the terrorist threat.[3] While this lack of attention has now come to an end, Cold War thought and jargon about deterrence stability continue to abound in much Western thinking and most public commentary. Yet, that thought and jargon provide dubious useful guidance at this point, particularly now that Moscow seems to envisage nuclear first-use threats and possible limited nuclear first use as a means for advancing Russia’s expansionist geopolitical goals—a notion wholly contrary to any Western conceptualization of deterrence “stability.”

It is important to recognize that Russia’s and China’s rhetorical commitments to the phrase “strategic stability” create images in Western minds of defensive, non-aggressive intentions—given the traditional meaning of those words in Western thinking and commentary. But a non-aggressive conception of “strategic stability” does not comport with Russia’s or China’s expressed geopolitical goals, doctrine or force deployments. Their public lip service to the phrase appears to be hollow virtue-signaling designed only to soothe Western audiences. Given the character of the post-Cold War threat environment, and particularly apparent Russian views regarding the first use of nuclear weapons, the still-prominent U.S. Cold War stability paradigm and its typology of stabilizing vs destabilizing forces offer little useful guidance for meeting today’s challenging deterrence realities or guiding U.S. arms control goals.


The Cold War Stability Paradigm and Arms Control


During the early years of the Cold War, American civilians developed a particular nuclear deterrence paradigm that was the basis for deterrence policies known popularly as a “stable balance of terror” or “mutual assured destruction” (MAD). Despite these different labels, the common ingredient of this paradigm was the expectation that a reliable condition of U.S.-Soviet mutual societal vulnerability to nuclear retaliation would ensure “stable” mutual deterrence. Generally, a stable condition was defined as one in which mutual deterrence would function reliably because the potential cost of employing nuclear weapons first or taking highly provocative steps would be too high. For sensible U.S. and Soviet leaders, no goal short of an imminent threat to national existence could be worth the risk of taking an action that could trigger the opponent’s possible nuclear retaliation. Mutual U.S.-Soviet societal vulnerability to nuclear retaliation was expected to ensure an overpowering disincentive to either’s nuclear provocation or to large-scale conventional attacks that could escalate to nuclear war.

While in office in the 1960s, Secretary of Defense McNamara defined the U.S. side of this balance of terror as being based on an “assured destruction” threat to Soviet population and industry.[4] As the late Nobel Laureate and renowned deterrence scholar Thomas Schelling emphasized, this deterrence paradigm mandated that, “Human and economic resources were hostages to be left unprotected.”[5] Deterrence was expected to be stable when both sides were so mutually vulnerable.

The “mirror-imaging” presumption underlying this reasoning was obvious: U.S. and Soviet leaders were expected to calculate and act according to a particular set of reasonable goals, norms and values, i.e., those prominent in the United States. The Cold War stable deterrence paradigm presumed this shared U.S. and Soviet understanding of what constitutes rational deterrence-related thought and behavior. As Herbert York, former Director of Defense Research and Engineering in the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations said during the 1970 SALT I hearings, “We imagine them trying to deter us as we try to deter them.”[6]

This ethnocentric mirror-imaging was the basis for the Cold War stability paradigm—it was assumed that for any rational leader, an action that might threaten to escalate to nuclear war, and thus mutual nuclear destruction, was “unthinkable.” Schelling pointed to this presumption of shared goals with his 1991 observation that the fundamental deterrence assumption was “that NATO and the Warsaw Pact, in the event of war in Europe, would do everything possible to keep nuclear weapons out of that war.”[7] Starting with the expectation that both sides were fully committed to avoiding nuclear use was fundamental—it reflected the belief that neither could rationally risk the use of nuclear weapons to advance its geopolitical or military goals.

This mirror imaging was critical to the stable deterrence paradigm and its application to U.S. arms control policy. The functioning of deterrence was considered predictable precisely because U.S. and Soviet perceptions and decision making pertinent to deterrence were assumed to be similarly cautious and well understood—and thus predictable. The functioning of deterrence was thought to be understood in such detail that different types of strategic forces could be categorized as having a predictably stabilizing or destabilizing effect on deterrence. Armed with this supposed precise knowledge of how deterrence would function and whether particular forces were stabilizing or destabilizing, the former could be embraced and the latter eliminated or subjected to limits via arms control—the goal being to codify a stable balance of terror.
So understood, establishing and sustaining deterrence stability became the priority criterion for judging the effect of various capabilities and the purpose of U.S. strategic arms control efforts. Schelling observed in his 1991 retrospective on arms control that “the purpose of arms control was to help make certain that deterrence worked.”[8] And, the paradigm so informing how deterrence was expected to “work” and the related purpose of U.S. strategic arms control was a stable balance of terror.[9]


Specifically, U.S. nuclear policies or programs that contributed to mutual societal vulnerability were said to be stabilizing, while those U.S. forces that might impede the Soviet nuclear retaliatory threat to U.S. society were judged unnecessary for deterrence and likely destabilizing. The U.S. development and deployment of such strategic forces also was thought to be the prime cause of the arms race. The logic behind this latter thought—derived from the stability paradigm—was simple: because the Soviet Union was presumed to adhere, at least roughly, to balance of terror norms, U.S. “destabilizing” moves that might threaten to degrade the Soviet nuclear deterrent threat would compel Moscow to react by increasing its own capabilities so as to sustain its side of the stable balance of terror,[10] thus extending the arms race. the Soviet Union typically was cast as the responder to destabilizing U.S. actions in this supposed U.S.-led “action-reaction” cycle driving the arms race.[11] This 1960s argument that deems the United States culpable of instigating an arms race continues to be a familiar staple of contemporary commentary.[12]

This stable deterrence paradigm and related explanation of the arms race became the basis for much U.S. arms control policy.[13] Together, they led to U.S. arms control efforts being about codifying “strategic stability” by attempting to control technical parameters of weapon systems and their (largely) quantitative restrictions.[14] As one commentator observed, “Stability became an essential metric for evaluating nuclear forces, particularly regarding the wisdom of new nuclear capabilities and deployment options.

Equally important, stability became the new rationale for U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms control.”[15] The purpose of arms control was to codify the balance of terror and thereby stop the action-reaction arms race cycle; U.S. arms control policy came to be geared to that end.[16] The pursuit of “stability” meant that the United States should avoid weapon programs that might undermine the Soviet retaliatory deterrent threat to U.S. society and thus avoid compelling the Soviet Union to react to U.S. actions in a new cycle of the arms race. Such U.S. restraint would lead to an “inaction-inaction” cycle that would end the arms race and possibly initiate a “peace race.”[17] Arms control could advance this happy outcome by limiting or prohibiting destabilizing systems and thereby slow down if not stop the purported action-reaction dynamic underlying the arms race.

The Cold War stability paradigm became a governing basis for U.S. strategic arms control goals and policy: The belief that strategic systems defined as destabilizing or unnecessary per the Cold War stability paradigm were the cause of the arms race and thus should be limited or prohibited via arms control was broadly applied to U.S. strategic forces, but particularly to strategic missile defense and ICBMs carrying multiple warheads (MIRVs). Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger summarized this dynamic as follows: “The primary U.S. goal in negotiations was to enshrine forever the strategic doctrine of mutual vulnerability. By putting caps on each side’s strategic nuclear arsenals and foregoing the deployment of all but the most limited anti-ballistic missile systems, strategic stability was to be enhanced.”[18]

An Inconvenient Truth

This approach to arms control follows from the underlying Cold War stability paradigm and its mirror-imaging presumption. Assuming opponents’ decision making to be based on known and shared parameters is the basis for the corresponding beliefs that the conditions that constitute stable deterrence are fully understood and the functioning of deterrence is so predictable that strategic forces can be categorized as stabilizing or destabilizing. This mirror imaging presumption was highly questionable during the Cold War;[19] it is even more so now because the contemporary international threat environment is far more diverse and unpredictable.[20] Some contemporary adversaries may well not share the U.S. definition of reasonable, value system or decision-making process. In particular, they may not share U.S. perceptions of nuclear risk or consider U.S. balance of terror-style threats sufficiently credible to be deterred by them.[21] Indeed, their goals and decision making may drive behavior that recklessly threatens U.S. and allied security in ways deemed “unthinkable” per the Cold War stability paradigm.

The United States now confronts a multi-dimensional nuclear environment and a diverse set of threats. Most notably, it must contend with new adversaries armed with sophisticated missile and nuclear capabilities, revanchist powers willing to employ coercive nuclear first-use threats to achieve their revisionist geopolitical goals,[22] and countries with worldviews fundamentally different from, and opposed to those of the United States and its allies. These states see the United States as the impediment to their revisionist geopolitical goals. Indeed, the presumptions underlying the Cold War stability paradigm are now so divorced from the realities of the international environment that it can no longer be considered a prudent guide for U.S. deterrence or arms control considerations.

 

[jward]

continued

Thomas Schelling observed in 2013, “Now we are in a different world, a world so much more complex than the world of the East-West Cold War. It took 12 years to begin to comprehend the ‘stability’ issue after 1945, but once we got it we thought we understood it. Now the world is so much changed, so much more complicated, so multivariate, so unpredictable, involving so many nations and cultures and languages in nuclear relationships, many of them asymmetric, that it is even difficult to know how many meanings there are for ‘strategic stability,’ or how many different kinds of such stability there may be among so many different international relationships, or what ‘stable deterrence’ is supposed to deter in a world of proliferated weapons.”[23]

As Schelling suggested, relatively new post-Cold War conditions require a new understanding of deterrence stability—an understanding different from that of the Cold War paradigm that has for decades dominated U.S. arms control policies and much public commentary—if not all actual U.S. nuclear policy. A new understanding of deterrence stability must take into account the great variability and diversity in adversaries’ beliefs, perceptions, and goals. Whereas the Cold War stability paradigm assumed similarly reasonable Russian decision-makers with essentially defensive deterrence goals, at least some contemporary opponents appear to see nuclear weapons as tools of coercion, and the United States may have only modest understanding of the diverse decision-making processes and value systems in “key parts of the world.”[24]

Given the great diversity of opponents, and the types of capabilities that may be necessary to deter them, the rigid Cold War categorization of forces derived from bipolar mirror imaging no longer makes sense, if it ever did. Forces necessary for deterrence may vary greatly depending on the opponent and context. In particular, technical characteristics alone cannot be the basis for declaring a capability to be stabilizing or destabilizing—understanding opponents’ goals and perceptions also is key, particularly the purposes they envisage for their nuclear arsenals. Are those purposes essentially defensive, i.e., for the preservation of an existing order and boundaries? Or, are they essentially offensive, i.e., for the destruction of an existing order and boundaries? The same types of nuclear weapons may be put into service for either purpose, and correspondingly, the same types of weapons may be stabilizing or highly destabilizing depending on the intended purpose. This reality upends the apolitical stabilizing vs destabilizing categorization of forces derived from the Cold War stability paradigm.

It must now be asked: How do Moscow’s leaders, and the leaderships of other nuclear-armed states, perceive the risks associated with limited nuclear first-use threats or employment? And, what nuclear risks are these leaders willing to accept in pursuit of their expansionist goals, including Moscow’s goal of re-establishing the hegemony in much of Eurasia that Russian leaders believe the West unfairly wrested from Moscow. And, more to the point, how credible against Russian and other limited nuclear first-use threats (that may avoid U.S. territory entirely) is the old U.S. balance of terror-oriented deterrence threat when the consequence for the United States of executing such a strategy could be its own destruction? The same questions must be asked of China’s leadership and its thinking about nuclear weapons use and risk—especially with regard to Taiwan, and of North Korea’s leadership regarding the Korean Peninsula.

A 2020 study by the U.S. State Department captures this contemporary Russian dynamic: “Russia seeks to restore its sphere of influence, both in the countries of its so-called ‘near-abroad’ (e.g., Ukraine and Georgia) and by acquiring client states farther afield (e.g., Syria) through the use of blatant military aggression, proxy forces, political and military subversion….The Kremlin is also notably risk-tolerant in its policy choices, not shying away from reckless gambles and extravagant provocations…”[25] Presuming that opponents will predictably share U.S. definitions of what constitutes reasonable goals, cost, and risk—the basic mirror imaging-methodology of the Cold War stability paradigm—may now be quite dangerous. Adversaries’ reasoning may not resemble U.S. calculations, goals, and decision-making whatsoever. This certainly is not to say that they are irrational, but that their perceptions, norms and understanding of what constitutes reasonable behavior and their calculation of risk vs gain can be fundamentally different from American norms and expectations. Opponents’ contemporary use of coercive nuclear first-use threats to advance revisionist geopolitical goals certainly reflects behavior that the Cold War deterrence paradigm simply dismisses as impossible for any rational leadership. The contemporary reality of those goals and threats demolishes the mirror-imaging-derived Cold War categorization of systems as “stabilizing” or “destabilizing,” and correspondingly, the basic Cold War notion that arms control should be about focusing on those systems that the Cold War stability paradigm defines as “destabilizing.”

For example, a newly-released U.S. Navy strategy document reportedly expresses concern that large-scale U.S nuclear deterrent threats may not be sufficiently credible to deter if Russia were to anticipate that “some kind of initial targeted, yet crippling [Russian] first strike tactical nuclear attack could enable rapid take over [of] a disputed area, all while raising the risk level so high that the U.S. simply might choose not to respond to avoid global catastrophe.”[26] Given this concern, “many prominent U.S. military leaders are clear that the Pentagon’s ongoing efforts to engineer and deploy low-yield tactical nuclear weapons can actually strengthen deterrence by ensuring an immediate response to any kind of Russian nuclear weapons use.”[27] This conclusion simply recognizes that a broader and more diverse range of U.S. threat options than is accepted under the Cold War stability paradigm is needed if deterrence is to apply to opponents who require other than a potentially incredible threat of massive societal destruction to be deterred. A spectrum of deterrence threat options seems only prudent in the post-Cold War threat environment given the diversity of opponents, their expressed nuclear threats, and the potential variability of their decision making.

The need for credible deterrent options other than, and more flexible than the massive society-destroying threats envisioned in the Cold War’s stable balance of terror deterrence paradigm is now obvious, but not new. As President Carter’s Secretary of Defense, Harold Brown, observed in 1979: “Effective deterrence requires forces of sufficient size and flexibility to attack selectively a range of military and other targets, yet enable us to hold back a significant and enduring reserve. The ability to provide measured retaliation is essential to credible deterrence.”[28] The much greater diversity and complexity of the contemporary threat environment now makes flexible, tailored deterrent options even more critical for deterrence. In short, the deterrence requirement for flexibility, i.e., a spectrum of options, is not new—but it likely is magnified greatly by the uncertainties of the post-Cold War environment, opponents coercive nuclear first-use threats, and the multiplication of opponents and threats. Correspondingly, U.S. deterrence policies and capabilities must now be resilient, flexible and tailored to support credible deterrence policies across the growing and diverse range of strategic threats to us and our allies—including capabilities criticized as “destabilizing” or unnecessary according to the antiquated Cold War paradigm.

Stability and Missile Defense

The Cold War stability paradigm’s presumption against U.S. strategic missile defenses continues today, with various commentators labeling them “destabilizing” and unnecessary based on the familiar Cold War arguments.[29] Yet, U.S. arms control planning must recognize that the Cold War stability paradigm is no longer the relevant tool by which to judge U.S. strategic defenses. The inherent uncertainties of deterrence, magnified by contemporary threat realities, have profound implications for U.S. missile defense capabilities. The decision whether opponents will be deterred from using a nuclear weapon against the U.S. homeland or allies lies not in Washington, D.C., but in their respective capitals; it cannot be predicted with full confidence.[30] Because there are inherent and irreducible uncertainties regarding the functioning of deterrence, giving actors like Iran and North Korea an “easy” avenue to attack the U.S. homeland with ballistic missiles should be recognized as unacceptably imprudent.

In addition, defensive capabilities for the U.S. homeland and in regional theaters can help to remove the coercive leverage of opponents’ limited nuclear first use threats and discourage their expectation of freedom to move militarily regionally, i.e., defensive capabilities can contribute to effective deterrence. Given these considerations, a measure of strategic and theater missile defense capabilities should be considered both prudent and stabilizing—rather than dismissed reflexively as destabilizing folly.

In short, given changes in international environment over the past two decades, the Cold War stability paradigm’s presumption against missile defense is no longer the proper measure for U.S. strategic defensive systems. Instead, U.S. arms control efforts ought to help facilitate U.S. and allied defensive capabilities. Such an emphasis is now simply prudent—consistent with the government’s constitutional obligation “to provide for the common defense”—potentially stabilizing, and in line with international legal and Just War principles of protecting the innocent.

Conclusion

The United States will engage in a dialogue with Moscow on strategic stability in preparation for arms control negotiations. For that dialogue to be useful, the United State must recognize that the aged Cold War stability paradigm and its mirror-imaging presumption are disconnected from current realities. It must avoid an approach to arms control that is predicated on the Cold War stability paradigm’s rigid and narrow definition of what is adequate for deterrence and what constitutes stabilizing and destabilizing policies and capabilities. Instead, the United States must re-establish the meaning of strategic stability consistent with the new realities of the post-Cold War threat environment and identify an approach to arms control that contributes to the type of U.S. force posture and resilience that may be necessary to preserve peace and order in a highly-dynamic and uncertain threat environment. Understanding the problems with the archaic Cold War stability paradigm and with conducting arms control as a function of that paradigm is an imperative given the dramatic changes since the end of the Cold War.


This Information Series draws from, Keith B. Payne, Redefining “Stability” for the New Post-Cold War Era (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, 2021). The authors would like to thank the Sarah Scaife Foundation and the Smith Richardson Foundation for their generous support that made this Information Series possible.

Available for Download here:

https://nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IS-495-final.pdf

Please see source for footnotes and addition documents

Keith B. Payne and Michaela Dodge, The Strategic Stability Dialogue: Think Before You Speak, No. 495, July 8, 2021 – Nipp

nipp.org

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

Posted for fair use.....

Border expert: 'Terrorist' labels for Mexican drug cartels long overdue

A new Fox News Investigates podcast, "Alchemy of Violence: Narcos, Reapers, and Survival," launches Monday, exclusively on Fox News Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts.

www.foxnews.com

BORDER SECURITY

Published 11 hours ago
Border expert: 'Terrorist' labels for Mexican drug cartels long overdue
Listen to episode one of the new series right here for free
By Alex Diaz | Fox News

Ed Calderon has been squaring up with Mexico's ruthless drug cartels for the majority of his professional career, if not his entire life.

Calderon, who served as a paramilitary law enforcement officer in the Baja region of Mexico - home to major border cities like Tijuana - says many of his childhood friends "went to work for the cartels right off the bat."

And in a new Fox News Investigates podcast, "Alchemy of Violence: Narcos, Reapers, and Survival," he argues that these criminal syndicates should be treated by the U.S. government like the terrorist groups they truly are.

One such group is the relatively new Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), a group described in a June 2021 Department of Justice news release as "one of the most dangerous transnational criminal organizations in the world... [and] one of the most powerful Mexican cartels operating within the United States."

That particular announcement outlined the arrest of a group of CJNG enforcers, who apparently planned more than 150 murders over the course of just 6 and a half months. Those same enforcers, known as Los Cabos, were also allegedly responsible for the murders of two United States citizens in Tijuana in November 2018.

A State Department travel advisory updated as recently as June 17, 2021, still advises American citizens to "reconsider travel due to crime and kidnapping" in the Baja/U.S. border region of Mexico, primarily due to cartel & criminal activity. "U.S. citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs) have been victims of kidnapping," the release warns.

Mexico began military-backed efforts to eradicate the cartels in earnest back in December 2006, when Calderon himself was operational. He can't reveal too many specifics about his exact unit, because of the risks that still exist for himself and his colleagues, but he saw his fair share of the more than 80,000 deaths that have been attributed to the conflict since then. By the end, Calderon had experienced the murder of colleagues, their family, and even childhood friends.

When an American family was massacred south of the border, a case of what Calderon says was nothing more than mistaken identity, he was convinced the United States would be pushed to classify these groups as terrorists instead of simply criminals.

TOP CARTEL LEADER, 2 OTHER MEMBERS ARRESTED IN CONNECTION TO MORMON MASSACRE

As of today, there are still no Mexican cartels among the groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United States.

"A lot of people make the argument that cartels are not terrorists or terrorist organizations, and they always mention the fact that they don't have a clear political kind of aim," Calderon says. "But political candidates get killed, mayors get killed... So clearly, some of these cartel groups do have political motivations," he added.

Calderon says groups like the CJNG "meet every single definition to most Mexicans of a terrorist organization: they hang people from bridges, they torture people to death in videos - actually, ISIS was influenced by the cartel videos being placed online, how they were basically used as psychological warfare tool. You know they meet all these definitions, but for some reason, the U.S. government decided to walk back that designation."

Calderon goes into detail about his experience confronting Mexico's cartels in a new Fox News Investigates podcast, "Alchemy of Violence: Narcos, Reapers, and Survival." He also discusses how his former career led him to literally run for his life, his internationally recognized "Sneak Reaper" philosophy of self-reliance, and how years spent fighting crime led to his new existence helping others heal.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The series launches Monday, exclusively on Fox News Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts. But you can listen to episode one right here for free.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm........

Posted for fair use.....

Nuclear Deterrence And Stability In South Asia: Inadequacies Of A Regional Lens – OpEd

By Dr Manpreet Sethi* A recent report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), London, on how to stabilise the nuclear situation in South Asia, adds to a long list of offerings …

www.eurasiareview.com

Nuclear Deterrence And Stability In South Asia: Inadequacies Of A Regional Lens – OpEd
July 13, 2021 IPCS 0 Comments
By IPCS


By Dr Manpreet Sethi*

A recent report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), London, on how to stabilise the nuclear situation in South Asia, adds to a long list of offerings by well-meaning strategic analysts and think-tanks from around the world. Nuclear Deterrence and Stability in South Asia: Perceptions and Realities assesses the extent to which India and Pakistan may be “at risk from imprudent or mistaken use of nuclear weapons.” It finds “grave deficiencies and asymmetries in India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear doctrines, which are compounded by mutual disbelief, existing and emerging military capabilities, and the prolonged absence of related dialogue mechanisms.” This, it cautions, could heighten risks of miscalculation, misperception, and misjudgement in crisis.

This conclusion evokes a sense of prognostication for region-watchers. Dubbed ‘the most dangerous flashpoint on Earth’ many moons ago, the fear that India and Pakistan could end up ‘nuking’ each other, owing to their unresolved territorial disputes and a history of wars, has often been expressed.

Pakistan fuels the sense of nuclear fragility by playing up the imminence of nuclear conflagration. The risk of nuclear escalation is meant to stymie India’s conventional superiority. The assumption is that the international community would ‘counsel’ India against escalating a ‘situation’ created by Pakistan’s sponsorship of terrorism. Deterrence instability, thus, is used by Pakistan as a shield for its use of terror.

Is the situation as unstable as Pakistan likes to project and others take at face value? The IISS publication that claims to sift reality from perception was expected to dig deep. However, while it has well-assessed reality by collating facts on military assets, bilateral nuclear confidence-building measures (CBMs), and major statements on nuclear issues, on perceptions, it falls prey to the hackneyed narrative on instability in the region.

The authors of the report, all of whom have considerable experience as South Asia watchers, identify emerging technologies, doctrinal asymmetries, and political developments as drivers exacerbating Indo-Pak instability. These factors, however, are neither new, nor unique to this relationship. All adversarial nuclear dyads experience them. India and Pakistan are not oblivious to the attendant risks either, having carefully observed US-USSR/Russia nuclear dynamics over seven decades, possessed own nuclear weapons for 23 years now, and survived many crises.

The report expresses concern—naturally so—on the escalatory potential of every Indo-Pak crisis. However, the worries seem to reflect the immediate nuclear cacophony that Pakistan creates around such events to deter an Indian response. Unfortunately, the report does not take into account the unspoken comprehension of the role and risks of nuclear weapons which has been evident in both countries’ crisis behaviour. Therefore, to conclude that de-escalation of the February 2019 crisis was only a matter of “chance” may be premature, since the inside story, including of back channels or external players, is not known in the public domain. Nor would it be fair to the leadership of both sides to believe that they were unmindful of escalation risks, despite the crisis rhetoric.

Those worried about deterrence instability in South Asia could help by focussing not just on a particular crisis and its possible escalation, but its causes and their mitigation. It is no secret that Pakistan-sponsored terrorism poses risks to the region and beyond. Western states and international institutions like the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) have demanded action and imposed punitive measures. Think-tanks like IISS, too, could help the cause of deterrence stability through analysis that underscores the differences in levels of responsibility shown by India and Pakistan in their nuclear behaviour, doctrines, and capability choices.

Also, by opting for a purist India-Pakistan focus, the authors choose to omit other issues. In fact, they themselves identify some such issues: “trends and crises involving nuclear weapons in other regions; past and present proliferation crises and their effects on the region; the details of crisis-escalation dynamics before nuclear use occurs; China’s role in shaping the India-Pakistan nuclear relationship; global nuclear diplomacy….” However, they don’t examine them, which leaves the picture incomplete.

Two examples illustrate this. One, the report mentions China, but only in the context of India’s security concerns with its growing capabilities. It ignores the six-decade old China-Pakistan strategic nexus. The authors acknowledge that India has a two-front challenge, but they perceive India’s capability build-up imperative only from the prism of Pakistan, thereby divorcing India-China nuclear dynamics from India-Pakistan. By looking at these relations as separate compartments rather than as a chain, many of their recommendations for bilateral India-Pakistan CBMs and arms control appear untenable. However well-intentioned, they are unfortunately undoable without fresh ideas on how to count China in, since it cannot be counted out.

Second, the report disregards the impact of global nuclear developments on the region. For instance, doctrinal drifts towards ‘limited nuclear war’ in Washington and ‘escalate to de-escalate strategies’ in Moscow tend to popularise tactical nuclear weapons. Such trends encourage Pakistan to flaunt similar capability despite its risks, particularly so in a country that houses scores of terrorist organisations. The report worries about the high “odds of deterrence failure in South Asia,” but it overlooks global developments that are adding to this risk.

Interestingly, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which maintains time on a doomsday clock to depict the state of global stability, uses a more wide-angle lens. In 2021, it put the world at 100 seconds to midnight, or the apocalypse. Factors considered for this assessment include the prevailing permissive nuclear environment created by great power competition, strategies encouraging usability of nuclear weapons, a shaky arms control architecture, and increased risk of proliferation.

Deterrence instability is today a global concern. Lack of dialogue, risks of misperceptions, and unregulated technological advancements afflict all nuclear dyads. In fact, many of the 15 thoughtful recommendations offered by the report can be used by any of these. Some can even be picked up for the Strategic Stability Dialogue that has just been announced after the summit between Presidents Biden and Putin. A resultant change in the global nuclear mood would be good for deterrence stability everywhere.

*Dr Manpreet Sethi is Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS), New Delhi.

IPCS
IPCS (Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies) conducts independent research on conventional and non-conventional security issues in the region and shares its findings with policy makers and the public. It provides a forum for discussion with the strategic community on strategic issues and strives to explore alternatives. Moreover, it works towards building capacity among young scholars for greater refinement of their analyses of South Asian security.

 

[jward]

reuters.com

Iranian commander urged escalation against US forces at Iraq meeting, sources say
Reuters

5-7 minutes


BAGHDAD, July 13 (Reuters) - A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander urged Iraqi Shi'ite militias to step up attacks on U.S. targets during a meeting in Baghdad last week, three militia sources and two Iraqi security sources familiar with the gathering said.

American forces in Iraq and Syria were attacked several times following the visit by an Iranian delegation led by Revolutionary Guards intelligence chief Hossein Taeb, which came after deadly U.S. air strikes against Iran-backed militias at the Syrian-Iraqi border on June 27.

While encouraging retaliation, the Iranians advised the Iraqis not to go too far to avoid a big escalation, three militia sources briefed on the meeting said.
The Iranians did, however, advise them to widen their attacks by retaliating against U.S. forces in Syria, according to one of the three militia sources, a senior local militia commander briefed on the meeting.

The flare-up comes as significant differences cloud diplomatic efforts to revive the Iranian 2015 nuclear agreement, which was abandoned by former U.S. President Donald Trump but which Iran wants reinstated to allow it to resume key exports of oil.
A senior official in the region, who was briefed by Iranian authorities on Taeb's visit, said that Taeb met several Iraqi militia leaders during the trip and conveyed "the supreme leader’s message to them about keeping up pressure on U.S. forces in Iraq until they leave the region".
Since the U.S. air strikes, attacks on U.S. troops and personnel or bases where they operate have intensified in Iraq and widened to eastern Syria. read more

Iran's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to questions from Reuters for this article, and officials at the Revolutionary Guards public relations office were not immediately available for comment.
Iran's U.N. envoy this month denied U.S. accusations that Tehran supported attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, and condemned U.S. airstrikes on Iranian-backed militants there. read more
There was no immediate response from the Iraqi government or the prime minister's office to questions about the meeting.
The sources whom Reuters spoke did so on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject.

U.S.-IRANIAN RIVALRY
The Arab world's biggest Shi'ite majority country, Iraq has been a theatre of U.S.-Iranian rivalry since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Sunni leader Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The Shi'ite militias have been waging a sustained and increasingly sophisticated campaign against U.S. forces which, after withdrawing in 2011, returned to Iraq in 2014 at the head of a coalition to fight the Islamic State group.
But the attacks, including explosives-laden drones, have gone up a gear since the U.S. air strikes, which Iran-aligned militias say killed four of their members.
The two Iraqi security sources close to the activities and operations of the groups said the Iranians handed their Iraqi allies aerial maps of U.S. positions in eastern Syria at the July 5 meeting.
The Pentagon said it was deeply concerned about the attacks, including a July 7 rocket barrage on the Ain al-Asad air base in which two American service members were wounded. read more

A senior Guards figure, Taeb is a mid-ranking Shi'ite cleric seen by insiders and analysts of Iranian politics as close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The senior official in the region said Khamenei had sent Taeb to Iraq after visits there by Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani, appointed last year as head of the Guards' expeditionary branch, the Quds Force, had failed to yield an escalation.
An Iraqi government official said it appeared Iran was seeking to use its allies in Iraq to apply pressure for a return to the nuclear deal, under which harsh U.S. sanctions would be lifted in return for curbs on Iran's atomic activities.
A senior Iranian diplomat said Taeb's visit to Baghdad indicated that Khamenei was getting directly involved in Iraq affairs after the killing of General Qassem Soleimani, a previous Quds Force head, in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq early last year.
A spokesman for one of the Iranian-backed militia groups hit by the U.S. air strike last month confirmed that the recent attacks were carried out by the Iraqi Islamic Resistance, a reference to the Shi'ite Iran-backed groups.

"The military escalation against the American forces will continue until all their combatant forces leave Iraq," Kadhim al-Fartousi, the spokesman for the Kataib Sayyed al-Shuhada faction, told Reuters.
Saad al-Saadi, a senior official in the political office of the Iranian-backed group of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, said if the Americans continued to strike at militias, then more effective attacks on U.S. forces could be expected anywhere in Iraq and Syria.
The meeting was held in Baghdad's upscale Jadiriya neighbourhood in a villa just across the river Tigris from the U.S. embassy, two of the local militia commanders said.

Iran and the United States began indirect negotiations in Vienna in early April to restore the nuclear deal. No date has been set for further talks, which adjourned on June 20.
Some Western and Iranian officials have said the talks are a long way from a conclusion, as disagreements on which U.S. sanctions should be lifted and on the nuclear commitments that Iran has to make and when still remain in place.
Reporting by Baghdad newsroom; Editing by William Maclean

Posted for fair use

Iranian commander urged escalation against US forces at Iraq meeting, sources say

A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander urged Iraqi Shi'ite militias to step up attacks on U.S. targets during a meeting in Baghdad last week, three militia sources and two Iraqi security sources familiar with the gathering said.

www.reuters.com

 

[jward]

Culture is Upstream of Everything
how much time are you willing to spend to get lucky?





Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) along wtih Congressmen Jim Banks (R-IN), Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), and Mike Gallagher (R-WI) commissioned a study by Lieutenant General Robert E. Schmidle, USMC, Ret. and Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, USN, Ret. on a series of issues familiar to regulars here and on Midrats.
It was released on Monday and at only 22 pages is an easy read. The aptly titled, "A Report on the Culture of the United States Navy Surface Fleet" is a compact summary you should take time to read in full.
What does it use as the basis for its review?

77 unique and formal interviews were conducted with Navy personnel via an extensive hour-long process to establish a common controlled approach to the questions at hand. ...

Instead of chasing the laser dot across the floor, they are focused on,

...underlying systemic problems... larger institutional issues...

They are taking a non-traditional approach and, thankfully, their own authority;

...by conducting the interviews from outside the chain of command via the exercise of the Congress’s Title I oversight authority, and by pledging anonymity to participants, interviewers enjoyed a significant level of candor in these conversations. Ultimately the process was able to identify trends that, by the admission of those interviewed, would not normally be shared with their own chain of command.

What did they find?

The results of this project are unambiguous. There was a broad consensus across interviewees on numerous cultural and structural issues that impact the morale and readiness of the Navy’s surface force. These include: an insufficient focus on warfighting skills, the perception of a zero defect mentality accompanied by a culture of micromanagement, and over-sensitivity and responsiveness to modern media culture. Structural issues identified include lack of resources and consistency in surface warfare training programs, and the Navy’s underwhelming commitment to surface ship maintenance—a problem that spans decades.

Though all the Representatives and the Senator here are Republicans, they correctly identify this as a multi-decade, bi-partisan problem. Not (R), not (D). No, this is all (N); this is a Navy problem.

They found six major issues:
1. Insufficient leadership focus on warfighting.
2. A dominant and paralyzing zero-defect mentality.
3. Corrosive over-responsiveness to media culture.
4. Under-investment in surface warfare officer training.
5. Poorly resourced and executed surface ship maintenance programs.
6. Expanding culture of micromanagement.
Let's dive in to the sections above and see what we find.

Insufficient leadership focus on warfighting:

... many sailors found their leadership distracted, captive to bureaucratic excess, and rewarded for the successful execution of administrative functions rather than their skills as a warfighter.

This is a recurring theme through all the sections; distraction. All humans only have 24-hrs in a day. You can only do so much, and less well. When the important is crowded out by the unimportant, you become inefficient, ineffective, and live in the moment just to survive to the next Outlook refresh.

... “the very difficult problem for an O-5 CO (Commanding Officer) is that he’s got 1,000 requirements pushed on him, many of which are administrative or operational…and so his real job is figuring out which requirements he’s just going to blow off…whether it be fixing a material issue or training or warfighting readiness.

The rewards and incentives that an organization signals will drive what is on top and what is on the bottom of a rack-and-stack prioritization.

There was considerable apprehension that the surface warfare community in particular lost a component of its fighting edge...

How much time in the last quarter century ... and how many funded programs ... were spent on the ability of our navy to do what is the foundational purpose of navies throughout time - sink opponents ships and deny them access to the seas ... at range?

One recent destroyer captain lamented that, “where someone puts their time shows what their priorities are. And we've got so many messages about X, Y, Z appreciation month, or sexual assault prevention, or you name it. We don't even have close to that same level of emphasis on actual warfighting.”

From the US Navy's official YouTube page, look at the topics of the videos the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gilday, USN, has put out in the last year.
He sets the tone. He sets the priorities. Check them out yourself. I don't need to say more.

Frustration with nonessential training was found to be overwhelming and not limited to the surface warfare community. Navy leaders have contributed to morass of requirements, but so have senior civilian defense leadership and Congress. While programs to encourage diversity, human sex trafficking prevention, suicide prevention, sexual assault prevention, and others are appropriate, they come with a cost. The non-combat curricula consume Navy resources, clog inboxes, create administrative quagmires, and monopolize precious training time. By weighing down sailors with non-combat related training and administrative burdens, both Congress and Navy leaders risk sending them into battle less prepared and less focused than their opponents.

This is part of the administrative burden. You only have finite training time. Priorities derived from incentives and disincentives will drive decisions throughout the chain of command.

“Sometimes I think we care more about whether we have enough diversity officers than if we’ll survive a fight with the Chinese navy,” lamented one lieutenant currently on active duty. “It’s criminal. They think my only value is as a black woman. But you cut our ship open with a missile and we’ll all bleed the same color.”

We need more of that LT, and less of others.
One interesting note, and credit to him and the authors, is the one person named - and insisted on being named - is our friend Bryan McGrath;

“[The ships] are very busy,” he said. “I think there are too few of them for what is being asked…The operational requirements squeeze out maintenance, they squeeze out some training.”

This brings back to a call here for years; where is "Admiral No?" The problem Bryan outlines is a manifestation of our priorities driven by the "now." In what few hours you have in the day, what do you need to do to not get in trouble, not to get a phone call, not to get a message that will create trouble? You get in survival mode. The job of leaders is to create an environment for your subordinate leaders to get their heads up and out of survival mode.

A recently retired senior enlisted leader suggested that this dynamic was more a lack of proper prioritization. “I guarantee you every unit in the Navy is up to speed on their diversity training. I’m sorry that I can’t say the same of their ship handling training.”

What metrics are being tracked by who and why?

A dominant and paralyzing zero-defect mentality:

Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman has framed this in an historical context, suggesting that none of the four key Admirals who led victorious fleets in World War II would have made it to the rank of Captain in today’s Navy. “Nimitz put his first command on the rocks,” Lehman said. “And Halsey was constantly getting into trouble for bending the rules or drinking too much…Ernie King was a womanizer and a heavy drinker. And Admiral Leahy may be the only one that might have made it through, but he had quite a few blots on his record as well.”

A few questions come to mind:

1. Why were previous generations more flexible?
2. What did they do to make a 2nd chance institutionally worth forgiveness?
3. Is there an assumption of expendability when it comes to our people? If so, to whose benefit? Why?

I think in the next pull quote, we may have a partial answer:

“But in each case, there was a critical mass of leadership in the Navy that recognized that these were very, very promising junior officers. And so, while they were punished for mistakes, they were kept in a career path. That’s not the case today. It’s just not done because it’s too dangerous for anybody that tries to help someone who has made a mistake.”

That last part is underappreciated. "The system" doesn't just go after the individual in the barrel, but anyone who associates with or shows sympathy to that individual. It is absolutely heartbreaking to talk to people who all of a sudden find themselves at a meeting where on one will sit within two seats of them. Calls and emails are not returned. Social events are cancelled. Wives and children are ostracized. Just heartbreaking what we can do to each other out of fear.
Fear.
That is a common thread in our culture; fear. We will face death and will calmly give orders that results in the deaths of hundreds, but we are terrified of a mention in an article, an angry phone call, or worst ... being called a nasty name. Great warriors become quivering piles of goo.

However, isolated infractions such as an alcohol-related indiscretion, a poor choice of words with no malice or offense intended, a ship-board accident with no damage or injuries and no demonstrated neglect, and similar offenses are supposed career-ending faults that could instead be weighed in the context of an overall service record and provided with an opportunity for redemption. One officer noted the example of Captain Robert J. Kelly, a combat-tested aviator who ran the USS Enterprise aground in San Francisco Bay several decades ago but went on to earn 4 stars and command of the Pacific Fleet. It was a rare mercy in the early 1980s and unheard of today.

The "how and why" of the change over four decades would be an interesting study in the mentality and motivations of the chain of command and selection boards. The media have always been with us, they are not new. Is it generational? A byproduct of training, accessions, competition? There's a PhD to be earned out there on this topic ... if an academic institution would allow an open investigation of such.

“Goldman Sachs, Amazon, Apple, Google, whatever. All of these institutions of high performance and high excellence do circus flips trying to figure out how to cultivate and retain talent,” said one former naval officer who is now a senior leader at a major hedge fund’s philanthropic arm. “The Navy all but chases it out the door.”

Career path rigidity is a disincentive to innovative and restless intellects. That is a large part why so many quality people leave at first chance. We are not good here.

... interviewers found no credible defense of the one-mistake Navy and its influence on officer careers in particular. The practice creates fear and apprehension in the fleet. It degrades lethality, atrophies talent, inhibits reenlistments, encourages careerism, and advances those that avoid risks and challenges up the ranks.

Fear. There it is again. A military shaped by fear.

 

[jward]

continued...

Corrosive over-responsiveness to media culture:

The “one-mistake” culture appears to be somewhat recent phenomena in Navy history and some suggested that today’s unyielding news environment could bear some of the blame for its rise.

Much of this comes from senior leadership lacking sufficient training or ability to have confidence in themselves to respond appropriately.
Back to point;

There is an undercurrent of fear in the surface fleet.

We need to keep pulling that string on "fear."

The first is a loss of faith in the chain of command. In the wake of a damaging story, the senior ranks are perceived as quick to sacrifice junior personnel to preserve the credibility of the unit or the career of the senior leader in charge.

A byproduct of concern that the chain of command is driven by fear. It isn't bad news that people are worried about, it is how their boss will react to bad news. Junior personnel lack confidence in the intestinal fortitude of their superiors. That peacetime suspicion bleeds over to the operational side as well. That simply is not healthy.

“COs would be quite risk-adverse,” one officer recalled, “they would have their senior department heads manning a lot of watches, especially on the bridge and things like that to make sure that nothing went wrong, because nobody wanted to end up in the media, and nobody wanted to end up on the cover of Navy Times.” He finished his statement with a telling observation that, in this day and age, this reaction was “totally understandable.”

The press isn't the problem; it is the fear of the press that is the problem. It is also an archaic, ham-fisted understanding of the news cycle exasperated by the culture of the now;

Commanders do not appear to understand that stories come in a flash and disappear just as quickly

Like a summer squall on a lake, you don't abandon ship, you just secure things and wait it out. It passes faster than you think and then the press is on to other click-bait.

The Navy has forgotten how to differentiate between stories that are ignorable and stories that demand corrective measures.

We could help commanders by having better Public Affairs (PA) and Human Resources (HR) professionals. I have seen a lot of solid leaders needlessly spooked by excitable PA and HR "professionals." Then again, it is a commander's responsibility to ensure he has a good staff, and knows who on his staff he is free to ignore.

...a 30-year veteran of the Navy, who would have been an invaluable asset in a conflict at sea, resigned. In what would have normally been discipline via stern conversation from a higher officer, three decades of honorable service were instead ignobly ended.

What a great example of how corporate Navy values service. People remember this and other similar acts of callousness. Memories of such events are long lasting. Just ask anyone who was a JO during the post-Tailhook '91 era.

The trend has not gone unnoticed. It creates the impression in the lower ranks that Navy leaders are easily cowed by the press and will throw sailors to the wolves should their name appear in print.

Ground truth ... and when done by senior leadership, this trickles down to lower echelons.

Under-investment in surface warfare officer training:

The surface warfare officer community has frequently been under pressure to look for efficiencies, both in resource allocation and time spent before entry to the Fleet. The aviation and submarine communities had no such pressures.

That lies firmly at the feet of the surface warfare community. Why? They will have to answer that.

In 2003, the Navy surface warfare community, in its effort to become more efficient, eliminated the initial SWOSDOC training at Newport as well as many of the unit specific combat and engineering systems schools.

This cohort are commanding our ships today. We've corrected this error and a lot of good work has been done in recent years to improve SWO training ... but this horrible child of the Age of Transformationalism - that same group that begat LCS and DDG-1000 - will continue to impact our Navy for another decade at least.
Read page 13-14 for the second and third order effects for that cohort that only ended in the last decade. This was all predicted.
There is one area we did continue to do right, and I was glad to see the authors mention it. This is another thread I would like pulled ... the why and how we did, and continued to, get this right.

Nearly every respondent, both in the pre-2003 and post-2003 eras attested to the fact that initial basic firefighting and damage control training as well as frequent refresher training in these essential skills was both prioritized and accomplished as required. Many respondents offered sentiments similar to one officer who stated that the Navy was “very intent on damage control and fire-fighting training [that was] crucial to day-to-day operations.” One important insight was that fire-fighting and damage control simulators had continuously evolved over the past generation to “become very advanced. We developed the use of ones that you could set off fires and contain the smoke and clean the air.” The degree to which the crews of both the USS McCain and the USS Fitzgerald were able to stabilize and counter the serious flooding that occurred following their separate collisions suggest that this is true. While Congress still waits for the full account of the origins of the USS Bonhomme Richard fire, the Navy’s focus on damage control can largely be praised as an example of how proper prioritization of essential training can yield effective results.

Poorly resourced and executed surface ship maintenance programs:
The opening is heartbreaking because if we had only followed a report we've had over a decade ago, so much of what we are trying to fix would be better;

The 2010 VADM Philip Balisle Report on Surface Force Readiness highlighted a number of manpower, maintenance, training, and readiness issues plaguing the surface warfare enterprise.

You get what you inspect. You get what you reward. Organizations follow leadership priorities. This is basic stuff.

Surface ship maintenance packages are perceived as “bare bones” and unable to absorb growth. The cumulative effect of this underfunding and poor execution has left the surface warships less modernized and less ready for combat operations.

Also basic is an understanding of where the path of deferred maintenance leads to. This was a choice, not an accident.

“If you have budget X and you only do whatever maintenance that is required that you can do under budget X, then you have all the rest of the stuff that you had to descope because you're limited by the budget. And then that just creates a bow wave because what's the second and third order effects to deferring that maintenance? You end up with, for instance, on a cruiser where…we knew that the fuel tank tops in one of the machinery spaces, that if we did the ultrasonic testing (UT) on that space, that then the safety requirements would require us to replace the tank tops. We didn't have the budgets to do the tank tops, so we didn't do the UT. And then it wasn't until we went into the shipyard and we were doing the required cleaning of the tanks, which that was a requirement under the package, then all of a sudden, one of the shipyard workers goes up and goes, ‘Oh, I see sunlight through this tank top.’ Well, now you're forced to do the UT. So now you're forced to re-scope the work. So now you're forced to cram more work into a yard package that you should have had planned in the first place.”

Expanding culture of micromanagement:
As you read the report, are you seeing another common theme?

We are “holding back more of that autonomy and probably accelerating those cultural tendencies that are creating officers that are less confident and less competent and less comfortable exercising command,” he said.

Again, you get what you reward. You promote what answers the bell. That is why who you select for senior leadership is so important; they establish rewards and promotion standards.

“Ducks pick ducks,” said another, recently retired, career surface warfare officer. “So now those admirals that we have and that were in charge were successful being micromanaged. And so now they view [micromanagement] as success.” ... “And so, this level of micromanagement just flows up. And, again, it's evolved for a reason. You want to have metrics. You want to track things. And so, the command autonomy that people aspire to is no longer one that is what it might have been in the past.” ... “there’s always this underlying administrative concern that’s looming over the fleet, and I don’t think it’s because people don’t think tactics are important. I just think that’s not the thing that we spend our days being told is important.”

Back to time being finite; words and the dedication of time by senior leadership signals priorities. Priorities get action.

Recommendations and Conclusions:
As some of these are repetitive to comments above and others discussed here for years, I'll let you read them for yourself. There are a few things that are clear - and here are my points to them;

• Congress will need to force any change if we desire change this decade. At some point, we will need civilian leadership who will defund the billets driving fear, especially in the expanding political and sociological games being played by our Navy (see recommendation #6).
• Admirative burdens must be cut dramatically. The lowest hanging fruit here would be something as simple as awards and repetitive "required training" on issues that are only there from fear of the media; "We conducted training...not my fault." (see recommendation #8).
• Find out what is creating "fear" and go after it with a blow torch and a pair of plyers.

They end the report with a solid quote:

Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis said in testimony that “the United States does not have a preordained right to victory on the battlefield.” Unless changes are made, the Navy risks losing the next major conflict.

I'll just end to repeat my previous comment for emphasis: the present Navy's uniformed senior leadership under the expected civilian leadership for the near future is not structured, inclined, or positioned to make these changes. We are well past the luxury of waiting for better luck, we are out of time.
Congress must act. Now.
You can read the full report here , or view the embed below.

Culture is Upstream of Everything

how much time are you willing to spend to get lucky?

cdrsalamander.substack.com

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

First Improved W88 Nuclear Warhead For Navy's Trident Missiles Rolls Off The Assembly Line

The modernized W88 nuclear warheads are part of a major initiative to update America's submarine-launched nuclear arsenal.

www.thedrive.com

First Improved W88 Nuclear Warhead For Navy's Trident Missiles Rolls Off The Assembly Line
The modernized W88 nuclear warheads are part of a major initiative to update America's submarine-launched nuclear arsenal.
By Brett Tingley July 13, 2021

• The War Zone

DOE
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The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has announced the completion of the first production example of the improved W88 Alteration 370 warhead, or W88 Alt 370, after 11 years of work, and a major, costly delay that was first revealed more than a year ago. This modernization program is aimed at mitigating issues relating to the age of the existing stockpile of W88s and maintaining the readiness of these warheads, which are among multiple types presently available for loading into the U.S. Navy's Trident D5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

The first production unit of the W88 Alt 370 was completed at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas on July 1, 2021. Specific details about the warhead are classified, but the Alt 370 upgrade package “replaces the arming, fuzing, and firing subsystem, adds a lightning arrestor connector, and refreshes the conventional high explosives within the weapon to enhance nuclear safety and support future life extension program options,” according to an official fact sheet. In addition, the effort is concurrent with "planned exchanges of limited-life, or routinely replaced, components, including the gas-transfer system and neutron generators." National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has estimated that the total cost for the program, which is expected to continue updating W88s through 2026, will be around $2.8 billion.

NNSA

The W88 Alt 370 arming, fuzing, and firing assembly.




The original W88 was developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which began producing the warheads in 1988 and delivered the first units in 1989. The warheads have an estimated yield of 475 kilotons and can be deployed in either airburst or contact detonation methods. The warheads measure just under six feet in length, making them small enough for use aboard multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs). It's estimated that around 400 W88 warheads were manufactured.





Pentagon's New Nuclear Strategy Is Unsustainable And A Handout To Defense Industry By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

U.S. To Spend Hundreds Of Millions To Replace A $5 Part In Revamped Nuclear Weapons By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone

Get To Know America's Long Serving B61 Family Of Nuclear Bombs By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone

U.S. Ballistic Missile Sub Fired An Impressive Four Trident II Missiles In Just Three Days By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone

The U.S. Government Hides Some Of Its Darkest Secrets At The Department Of Energy By Brett Tingley Posted in The War Zone


Dr. Charles Verdon, Acting NNSA Administrator, stated in a Department of Energy press release that the completion of the first production unit is proof of the NNSA’s effectiveness when it comes to maintaining the nuclear stockpile:

This accomplishment is the culmination of over a decade of work, featuring contributions from several sites within the NNSA Nuclear Security Enterprise, members of the NNSA federal workforce, and members of the DoD. The W88 Alt 370 is a crucial part of Nation’s strategy for the sea-based leg of the nuclear triad, and a testament to the Enterprise’s ability to execute major modernization programs. As we continue to modernize the stockpile, the successes and lessons learned from this program will bolster our future warhead activities to provide a safe, secure, and reliable deterrent.

The Nuclear Weapons Council, a joint advisory group staffed by the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense, first approved the W88 Alt 370 program in 2012.






Flight testing of inert prototypes of the W88 Alt 370 began in 2014. The fourth and final test was conducted in November 2015, when an unarmed warhead was launched aboard a Trident II missile from the Ohio class ballistic missile submarine USS Kentucky at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii. After that launch, the NNSA concluded that “the weapon system alteration is functional and in line with NNSA’s commitment to complete development on schedule.”

DOE

A drop test was conducted as part of the W88 Alt 370 program at Sandia National Laboratory.


Each Trident II can carry up to 14 individual warheads, but the missiles are generally only loaded with five or six at a time due to a succession of arms control agreements between the United States and Russia, including the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which the two countries agreed to extend earlier this year. In addition to W88 series warheads, the Trident IIs can also be loaded with W76-1s, which have an estimated yield of around 100 kilotons, as well as the new W76-2 variant. The W76-2 is a lower-yield design that reports have suggested could have a yield of just five kilotons and you can read more about it and the controversy surrounding it here.

NNSA had previously planned to have the first round of the W88 Alt 370 units completed in December 2019, but concerns over a $5 off-the-shelf capacitor found in each warhead caused significant delays. By September 2019, the decision was eventually made to replace those capacitors with more durable versions that cost nearly $75 each, a change that added $850 million to the total price tag of the entire effort and pushed the schedule back considerably.

Despite those delays, NNSA called the completion of the first unit a “major milestone” for the United States, claiming the successful first production unit was achieved “one month ahead of schedule after more than 11 years of design, development, qualification, and component production.”

DOE

Shipping container for the W88 warheads


Efforts to modernize and maintain America’s nuclear arsenal are expected to cost $1.5 trillion over the next three decades. However, because of the secrecy surrounding America’s nuclear enterprise, the astronomical costs of these programs can often avoid the public attention and oversight that more public defense programs receive, as you read more about here.

President Joe Biden's Administration has asked for approximately $15.5 billion for various nuclear weapons-related activities in the proposed budget for the 2022 Fiscal Year. This is $139 million more than Congress appropriated for the relevant accounts in the 2021 Fiscal Year, but $460 million less than President Donald Trump's administration had projected for the upcoming fiscal cycle.

NNSA is clearly hopeful that, having made it past the parts issue, the W88 program will now remain on track and on budget as it continues to upgrade these warheads over the next five years.

Contact the author: Brett@TheDrive.com

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

Posted for fair use.....

Mearsheimer on Great Power Politics

www.armscontrolwonk.com

Mearsheimer on Great Power Politics

by Michael Krepon | July 13, 2021 | No Comments

Quotes of the week:

“In a world where freedom, not tyranny, is on the march, the cynical calculus of pure power politics simply does not compute.” – President Bill Clinton, 1992

“It is clear, absolutely clear … that this is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies.” – President Joe Biden, 2021

John Mearsheimer’s provocative book, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, is now twenty years old. John adheres to an international relations theory of “offensive realism.” He argues that “great powers seek to maximize their share of world power,” and that “multipolar systems which contain an especially powerful state – in other words, a potential hegemon – are especially prone to war.” After two decades of shelf life, John’s thesis could be tested by Beijing and Washington.

Is war between the United States and China inevitable? Is hegemonism even possible in a multipolar world? Would Xi Jinping throw caution to the winds? It takes enormous nerve and/or epic miscalculation for two major powers armed with nuclear weapons to engage in open-ended conventional warfare.

Much depends upon how much Xi wishes to change the status of Taiwan and what steps Washington takes to dissuade China’s supreme leader from doing so by coercive means. Adept diplomacy will be needed, including restraint by Taipei alongside actions that signal Washington’s intent to come to Taiwan’s defense without crossing China’s red lines.

Even the most diplomatically adept U.S. plans will fail, however, if Xi has resolved to bring Taiwan into the fold by whatever means necessary. If so, Washington will face a monumental choice between acceptance of or active resistance to Beijing’s wishes.

Both Moscow and Beijing wish to rise at Washington’s expense, but Moscow doesn’t have what it takes to regain past glory. Its strong suit, nuclear weapons, won’t get the job done. Beijing’s strong suit — economic power and the things that money can buy — can accomplish much, especially when the United States has badly misspent its power and is deeply divided at home.

China has claimed disputed islands, manufactured new ones to establish military outposts, and considers international waters as its own. All of China’s maritime neighbors feel uneasy about Beijing’s actions.

Taiwan would be the main event in a contest of wills between Washington and Beijing. The outcome of any severe crisis over Taiwan would define the contours of geopolitics in the decades ahead.

The status quo between the PRC and the Republic of China doesn’t appear to be sustainable. Beijing and Taipei are moving in different directions. Xi seems to be in a hurry. Consensual change in the status quo over Taiwan doesn’t seem to be in the cards – certainly not after Beijing’s disregard for the special status it promised Hong Kong. So where are we headed?

Raymond Aron once observed that in the nuclear age, crises have taken the place of warfare between nuclear-armed states. There are still clashes and border disputes, but nuclear weapons have (so far) been holstered and rivals have sought to avoid major conventional war.

The outcome of crises between nuclear-armed states can either be inconclusive, which favors the status quo, or decisive. So far, crises and clashes have been inconclusive — with the crucial exception of the Cuban missile crisis. The reasons why are worthy of reflection in the context of a possible crisis over Taiwan.

Other crises have been inconclusive. A newly nuclear-armed China clashed with the Soviet Union in 1969, but the result was a muddle, at least to me. Thirty years later, Pakistan tried to change the status quo across the Kashmir divide by surreptitiously advancing troops in the dead of winter, but this gambit backfired.

China and India as well as India and Pakistan continue to clash along disputed borders. In these cases, offsetting nuclear weapons have not compelled favored outcomes, regardless of imbalances in nuclear capabilities. The key determinants in the outcome of these crises have been usable forces in being in the zone of contention and the will of the contestants.

If Xi wishes to change the status quo over Taiwan badly enough, and if diplomatic means don’t get the job done, then the remaining options are compellance by quarantine, by conventional power projection, or both. In such scenarios, the outcome will again hinge on contesting wills, logistics, and usable, effective military force that arrives quickly to the scene.

Nuclear weapons are too dangerous to use and too prone to uncontrolled escalation to have military utility. These weapons are useful for deterrence but not war fighting. The most useful U.S. military instruments in the event of a crisis over Taiwan are those that cannot be located and that can destroy China’s surface navy and submarines. Nuclear-powered attack submarines will likely have an outsized role in a severe crisis between Washington and Beijing.

These extremely dangerous scenarios can be avoided. Washington doesn’t have to chart a course by which Xi concludes that war is inevitable, and Xi can seek to avoid a conflict in which he loses more than he gains.

Like the wife of Rumpole of the Bailey, Xi is the leader who must be obeyed at home. If Xi is intent on coercion, and if successful coercion requires, in his judgment, a quarantine or the use of force, then John Mearsheimer is right. If, however, there is enough power for Washington and Beijing to share, if the stakes of conventional warfare are too great, and if nuclear weapons have a sufficiently sobering effect, he’s wrong.

Here are some excerpts from John’s book:

“Hopes for peace will probably not be realized, because great powers that shape the international system fear each other and compete for power as a result… Strength ensures safety, and the greatest strength is the greatest insurance of safety. States facing this incentive are fated to clash as each competes for advantage over the others. This is a tragic situation, but there is no escaping it…”

“The sad fact is that international politics has always been a ruthless and dangerous business, and it is likely to remain that way… Great powers do not merely strive to be the strongest of all the great powers, although that is a welcome outcome. Their ultimate aim is to be the hegemon—that is, the only great power in the system.”

“Great powers are rarely content with the current distribution of power; on the contrary, they face a constant incentive to change it in their favor. They almost always have revisionist intentions, and they will use force to alter the balance of power if they think it can be done at reasonable price.”

“Just as the United States made it clear to distant great powers that they were not allowed to meddle in the Western Hemisphere, China will make it clear that American interference in Asia is unacceptable.”

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

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Israel To Seek 'Advanced' Tech From US In Case Of New Iran Deal - Breaking Defense

If the US signs a new Iran deal, Israel wants defense technologies it has never before received as compensation.

breakingdefense.com

• Allies, Naval Warfare, Threats

Israel To Seek ‘Advanced’ Tech From US In Case Of New Iran Deal
If the US signs a new Iran deal, Israel wants defense technologies it has never before received as compensation.

By Arie Egozi on July 13, 2021 at 10:55 AM

TEL AVIV: Should the US and Iran reach a new nuclear agreement, Israel will request new military compensation from Washington — including technologies that have not previously been exported to Israel, sources say.


Israel is weighing a request for “advanced systems” that would enable a preemptive strike on Iran should intelligence show Tehran has crossed the nuclear enrichment threshold needed to create a bomb, sources here tell Breaking Defense.


While Israeli sources would not say exactly what systems would be involved in the discussions, the capability could be applied to the Israeli Navy’s new Dolphin AIP submarines. According to regional sources, one of these submarines is always “in the vicinity of Iran.”


Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Cochavi said a few days ago that if Iran gets close to acquiring nuclear weapons, Israel will take offensive military action.


In addition, Israel has already asked the US to speed deliveries of the Boeing KC-46 tanker, aiming to have delivery of the first two planes moved to as early as the end of 2023 and the second at the beginning of 2024. It was originally planned for late 2025,



Israel seeks a fleet of eight KC-46 tankers to replace its 707 fleet.


Although it is unclear when or if a new nuclear deal will be reached — UN experts last week announced that Iran has started the process of producing enriched uranium metal, raising red flags in Europe and Washington — Israeli concerns about a potential new deal are being compounded by the US exit from Afghanistan, and a sense that the American presence in the region is likely to shrink in coming years as the country pivots more towards a Pacific posture.


“These countries see the hasty pull out of the Americans from Afghanistan and they know what is coming their way” an Israeli government source told Breaking Defense.

That feeling has led Israel to open a strategic dialogue with other powers in the region concerned about Iran. But Israel is very worried by the new alliances that may be formed between some Arab states and Iran.


Mordechai Kedar, one of Israel’s foremost experts on regional issues, told Breaking Defense that an interesting and potentially dangerous political shift can be seen in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, two important countries for Israel.


“These two countries are clearly [diplomatically] approaching the coalition linking Iran, Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood, which has so far taken control of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen,” Kedar said.


Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet met King Abdullah II of Jordan in Amman. The meeting was secret but it was leaked to the Israeli media. Israeli defense sources told Breaking Defense that Iranian efforts to gain greater influence in the region was one of the main issues in the meeting in the capital of Jordan.

Bennett also had a telephone call with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. The two agreed to meet soon.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

The Great Illusion: The 'Nuclear Balance'

We need to think less about arms control and more about adversary nuclear capabilities—and ours.

www.newsmax.com

The Great Illusion: The 'Nuclear Balance'
By Peter Pry Tuesday, 13 July 2021 12:48 PM

Generations of U.S. and allied policymakers, strategists, academics, and the general public have been conditioned by arms control theory, which is unique to our strategic culture, to measure our security against nuclear war by the “nuclear balance”—most simply, comparing the number of U.S. nuclear weapons to those of potential adversaries.


According to this simplistic paradigm, the U.S. is safer and more likely to deter nuclear conflict as long as it maintains rough parity in the nuclear balance with its closest peer competitor: Russia.


So, the New START Treaty limits the U.S. and Russia to 1,550 nuclear warheads deployed on intercontinental delivery systems (ICBMs, SLBMs, bombers) on the assumption that equality in numbers of nuclear weapons contributes to strategic stability, deterrence, and peace.

Furthermore, by the logic of arms control theory about the nuclear balance, the U.S. should be safer and even more likely to deter nuclear conflict against nations like China and North Korea, whose nuclear arsenals are numerically far inferior to the United States.


Consequently, responding to the recent discovery that China is building some 145 new ICBM silos, the press has been quick to remind and reassure the public that the U.S. is still far superior to China in the nuclear balance. For example, Kyle Mizokami writes in Popular Mechanics (8 July 2021):


“China, the fifth country to develop nuclear weapons, now maintains an arsenal of between 250 to 350 nukes. This contrasts to the U.S.’s [sic] arsenal of 5,800 weapons, with 1,373 deployed on missiles, bomber bases, or submarines…”


Counting the nuclear balance is an arms control imperative—but that does not mean the confidently expounded and oft repeated estimates of the U.S. Government and independent analysts are trustworthy.


The notion that we know for sure the “nuclear stockpiles” and “operationally deployed” numbers of nuclear weapons belonging to Russia, China, and North Korea is a great illusion:


--Russia, China, and North Korea’s nuclear weapons inventories, stockpiled and operational, are unknown to the U.S. Government, and estimates vary by tenfold.


--For example, Russia may have a 2-to1 advantage over the United States in operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons, despite the New START Treaty, as its verification provisions are grossly inadequate.

--For example, the Defense Department recently estimated China has about 200 strategic nuclear weapons, the Federation of American Scientists estimates 320 weapons, Russian General Viktor Yesin estimates 1,600-1,800 weapons, and former DOD analyst Phil Karber calculates China could have up to 3,000 nuclear weapons.

--For example, North Korea up until 2017 was estimated by the International Institute for Strategic Studies to have as few as 6 nuclear weapons, 6-20 weapons was the most often cited estimate by media. But after North Korea tested an H-bomb in September 2017, the intelligence community reportedly increased its estimate to 60 weapons, and some independent analysts estimate North Korea could have over 100 nuclear weapons.

On the China nuclear threat, an excellent article “How Many Nuclear Weapons Does China Really Have?” is well worth reading.

Dr. Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon official and nuclear weapons expert, writes: “China has traditionally been extremely secretive about its nuclear forces. In 1982, Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, said that China should ‘…hide our capabilities and bide our time.’”

Perhaps the truest thing ever said by Federation of American Scientists President, Hans Kristensen, is: “Only the Chinese Government knows how many nuclear weapons China has”—and this is also true of Russia and North Korea.

Intelligence, arms control, and academic communities pretend to have omniscience about the numbers of nuclear weapons deployed by adversaries, despite often being wrong, and despite extraordinary efforts by Russia, China, and North Korea to conceal their nuclear forces.

Prudent policymakers and military planners should have low-confidence in intelligence community and other estimates of the nuclear balance—and prepare for the worst.

The worst is that Russia, China, and North Korea do not think like Western arms control theorists—they think and plan like nuclear warfighters.

For example, China knows it does not need nuclear parity with the United States, an equal number of nuclear weapons, in order to prevail.

A successful counterforce attack must destroy 90% of the 400 U.S. ICBM silos, and all of 3 strategic bomber bases, 2 SSBN ports, and some other key C3I nodes—altogether fewer than 500 targets.

China’s DF-41 ICBM has 10 warheads, each with selectable yield (20, 90, 150, or 250 kilotons), and accuracy of 100 meters CEP, comparable to the accuracy of the U.S. Peacekeeper ICBM deployed in the 1980s.

At the higher yields, 400 DF-41 warheads can achieve over 90% probability of damage against 400 U.S. ICBMs, while China’s less accurate missiles can destroy the softer U.S. targets.

Thus, China already has, or is very close, to 40 DF-41 ICBMs and a first strike capability. Just having the capability may be sufficient to prevail by deterring the U.S. in a crisis or conflict.

We need to think less about arms control and more about adversary nuclear capabilities—and ours.

 

[jward]

German spy chief warns of Islamic State's strength

The head of Germany's foreign intelligence agency has warned that the Islamic State is just as strong as it ever was — even without its caliphate. Terrorism experts agree that it has morphed into a powerful network.






Germany's foreign intelligence chief warns Islamist terrorism has developed and the danger increased

The head of Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, has given a rare interview specifically to warn that despite appearances, terrorism remains a real threat to world order, even 20 years after 9/11.

Speaking to the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Monday, Bruno Kahl said that though Europe and the US had not seen any more major terrorist attacks like those of two decades ago, "Islamist terrorism has developed further and cost very many human lives. The number of terrorist actors and the danger they pose has increased."

There have of course been major successes in the fight against the Islamic State in the past few years — especially the 2019 killing of the group's self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the destruction of the "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq as a quasi-state entity. But since then, said Kahl, IS has turned into a decentralized network, much like al-Qaida, whose suborganizations "are even spreading out."


Germany's BND chief, Bruno Kahl, is concerned over the terror threat

This isn't exactly news, according to Mirna El Masri, a radicalization and terrorism researcher at the Hamburg-based German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA). "There had been indications in 2019 after the loss of its territories that IS had strengthened considerably," she told DW. "On the other hand, new circumstances have exacerbated the situation in the past year, which might explain why Kahl has decided to talk about this now."

For one thing, the spread of the coronavirus in the Middle East region has weakened the Iraqi government and increased the desperation of many people, which has turned refugee camps in northern Syria into particularly good IS recruitment centers. The longer the pandemic continues, El Masri said, the more it will help IS.



Watch video 03:27

Syria Kurds struggle to stop 'Islamic State' resurgence
New strategies — military and financial

The Islamic State has also learned to adapt its strategies, according to El Masri. Commanders have been subdivided into specific operational sectors in the region, taking over decision-making responsibilities. The latest reports also suggest that IS fighters have withdrawn completely from urban areas, but are able to move freely in the open country simply by avoiding state forces, especially near the city around the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor.


IS has also developed new business models, adopting organized crime tactics such as demanding illegal taxes along oil and trade routes and using hotels, real estate and even car dealerships to launder money between Iraq, Syria, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.


"That has made it more difficult to see and monitor for German and international intelligence agencies," said Eric Stollenwerk, terrorism and Sahel region researcher for GIGA, who agrees that the group is still very powerful in both Syria and Iraq. "Beyond that, it has strong connections with other regions in the world, such as sub-Saharan Africa and especially the Sahel region," he added.




Watch video 05:03

'We don't think Syria is in any way a safe place,' says UNHCR spokesman
Intervention as a remedy — but what kind?

Kahl told DZ that there is only one way to stop the development of terrorist organizations such as IS: "The imposition of the monopoly of state power, the erection of state structures, the guarantee of security." That, he argues, is where European and Western powers can help countries such as Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria. "We have to support the states in regaining control or at least to maintain it where it can be maintained," he said.


El Masri agrees with Kahl's assessment: "A basic driver of terrorist organizations is a weak state," she said. "Because IS can act as a kind of alternative state: by offering income, security, and social mobility for their members. In other words, they can take over the role of the state." The European Union could and should help strengthen government powers, El Masri said.


Stollenwerk said there was more to it than that. "Only strengthening the state will defeat neither al-Qaida nor IS," he said. "Because these are regions where autocratic regimes are relatively predominant — if all you do is strengthen state powers that repress their own population, it can have the exact opposite effect on fundamentalist movements: Namely, you're more likely to play into the hands of those organizations."




Watch video 02:29

Nigeria faces growing threat from violent extremists

For Stollenwerk, what matters is embedding state structures in a democratic, civil society. "That means both local and international NGOs and foundations, but also supporting religious organizations on the ground," he said. "Because I think what Kahl neglects in this interview is that for most Muslims in these regions, organizations like IS are a huge problem. There is a big potential for mobilization against terrorist organizations in the civilian population."


That doesn't mean trying to impose democracy wholesale. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown how disastrous those undertakings can be — a lesson not lost on the BND's Bruno Kahl. "We shouldn't promise any castles in the sky, like the export of democracy and the rule of law and idyllic conditions," he told SZ. "The main thing is to organize security."


El Masri called this "a very realistic statement." "I think we're a long way away from European-style democracy in the Sahel region," she said. "It's a process of security first, and then everything else follows that."


Hürcan Asli Aksoy, deputy head of Centre for Applied Turkey Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), also thinks that European engagement with real "political weight, with clear strategies and clear offers to the conflict parties" is vital to contain the damage done by the conflict.


But Aksoy is also unconvinced that a solution can be achieved through a simple focus on security. "Conflict resolution and conflict management must be equipped with medium- and long-term strategies according to a rights-based, multilateral order."


That requires more than just putting troops on the ground. As El Masri underlines — it also means sending more training units to support local security forces and providing humanitarian support to refugee camps in Syria and Iraq.


Exporting democracy might be illusory, Stollenwerk said, "but it's just as illusory to think that by strengthening the state you will automatically guarantee security."




Watch video 03:40

'Islamic State' in Germany now communicates in 'smarter way,' says Iraqi journalist
IS in Germany

Like its foreign intelligence counterpart, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, also believes that the threat of terrorism is just as high now as it has been over the past few years. In its latest report, published last month, the BfV reported minor Islamist attacks in Germany in 2020. Most notable was the stabbing in Dresden in October, when a man believed to have Islamist sympathies attacked two openly gay tourists with a knife, one of whom later died.


Nevertheless, the BfV warned, "complex and multiple attacks, controlled by terrorist groups abroad, have not taken place in Germany yet, but could happen any time."


Even though he believes that IS should not be underestimated, Stollenwerk said the danger of IS "returnees" carrying out frequent and large-scale terrorist attacks in Germany was relatively low.


"It's unrealistic to say that, if IS experiences more losses in the Middle East, a wave of terror would wash over Germany," he said. "But the danger of so-called lone wolves — e.g., people who become radicalized on the internet — is extremely difficult for intelligence agencies to monitor or prevent."


The BfV report, which is usually filled with statistics on the number of extremists believed to be in the country, makes this clear: It is has been unable to establish exactly how many IS or al-Qaida members or supporters are currently living in Germany.


While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society, with an eye toward understanding this year’s elections and beyond. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing, to stay on top of developments as Germany enters the post-Merkel era.



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German spy chief warns of Islamic State's strength – DW – 07/13/2021

The head of Germany's foreign intelligence agency has warned that the Islamic State is just as strong as it ever was — even without its caliphate. Terrorism experts agree that it has morphed into a powerful network.

www.dw.com

 

[Housecarl]

I guess there aren't enough Leo2's available at fire sale prices........

Posted for fair use.....

Poland could purchase M1 Abrams tanks from US

The Polish Armed Forces are reportedly interested in acquiring up to 250 tanks in the M1A2 SEPv3 variant and a further dozen tracked vehicles for training.

www.defensenews.com

Europe
Poland could purchase M1 Abrams tanks from US
By: Jaroslaw Adamowski   1 day ago

WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s Defence Ministry is reportedly preparing to buy about 250 M1 Abrams tanks from the United States, two months after it announced plans to buy 24 Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones.

Two sources close to the deal told Polish news site Gazeta.pl that the ministry is negotiating the potential contract terms.

“It has been rumored that something like this [acquisition] is possible. Now it’s more than just that. Details are being worked out, although a final decision has not yet been taken,” one of the sources said.

Asked about the potential tank acquisition and its status, a spokesperson for the Polish Defence Ministry told Defense News that “as part of the ongoing analyses related to the operational needs, we have identified the necessity to provide [Polish] armored military units with modern tanks that would comply with the requirements of the modern battlefield.”

“We are currently performing analytical-conceptual work with the aim to define the possibilities of securing these capacities based on the available technical solutions that are proposed [to Poland] by potential suppliers,” the spokesperson said.

The Polish Armed Forces are reportedly interested in acquiring up to 250 tanks in the M1A2 SEPv3 variant and a further dozen tracked vehicles for training under a deal estimated to be worth between 11 billion zloty (U.S. $2.9 billion) and 19 billion zloty (U.S. $5 billion).

The potential acquisition would significantly expand Poland’s modern tank capacities. In the latest additions to its tank fleet, in 2002, the country secured 128 Leopard 2A4 tanks from the German military. In 2013, the Defence Ministry signed a deal to acquire a further 119 A4 and A5 tanks from Germany.

Poland has been readying to purchase a new tracked vehicle platform to replace the country’s outdated Soviet-designed T-72 and PT-91 tanks. In 2019, Warsaw declared interest in the European main battle tank project, an initiative spearheaded by a French-German tandem. But to date, these declarations have not been followed by any binding decision.

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Polish Defence Ministry confirms plan to buy M1 Abrams tanks

Deliveries of the new tanks are expected to begin in 2022.

www.defensenews.com

Polish Defence Ministry confirms plan to buy M1 Abrams tanks

By: Jaroslaw Adamowski  
15 hours ago

WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s defense minister announced Wednesday that the country will buy 250 M1A2 Abrams SEPv3 tanks from the U.S. to counter Russian military capabilities, confirming previous reports of a planned acquisition.

“So we are ordering the most modern tanks. Tanks available in the best equipped version, tanks that are combat proven, tanks which were constructed to counter the most modern Russian T-14 Armata tanks,” Mariusz Błaszczak said during a military ceremony in Wesoła, as quoted in a statement.

Wesoła is a district of Poland’s capital Warsaw and is home to the 1st Warsaw Armored Brigade. The brigade is equipped with the Leopard 2A4 and Leopard 2A5 tanks which are currently the most modern tracked vehicles operated by the Polish Land Forces.

Błaszczak said once the U.S. tanks are delivered to the Polish military, they will be deployed to the country’s eastern area.

“These tanks will be in the first line of defense, of course if there will be such a need,” the minister said.

Deliveries of the new tanks are expected to begin in 2022. The value of the upcoming deal was not disclosed.

The forthcoming acquisition is to allow Warsaw to replace its outdated Soviet-designed T-72 and PT-91 tanks with a new tracked vehicle platform. Under the plan, the designed contract is to include logistics, training and simulators for Polish troops.

The latest development comes shortly after local media broke the story, citing sources close to the deal.

At that time, when asked about the potential purchase, a spokesperson for the Defence Ministry told Defense News the ministry had identified “the necessity to provide [Polish] armored military units with modern tanks that would comply with the requirements of the modern battlefield,” and it was working to “define the possibilities of securing these capacities based on the available technical solutions that are proposed [to Poland] by potential suppliers.”

The SEPv3 variant of the Abrams tank weights 73.6 tons, can travel at 42 mph. According to the U.S. Army’s Acquisition Support Center, the development of a SEPv4 variant is ongoing through fiscal 2023.

About this Author

About Jaroslaw Adamowski
Jaroslaw Adamowski is the Poland correspondent for Defense News.

 

[Housecarl]

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The U.S. says it can answer cyberattacks with nuclear weapons. That’s lunacy. | Stanford Law School

(This opinion essay was first published in the The Washington Post on July 10, 2021.) Over the July 4 weekend, the Russian-based cybercriminal organi

law.stanford.edu

The U.S. says it can answer cyberattacks with nuclear weapons. That’s lunacy.

• July 12, 2021
• By
  • Allen S. Weiner
  • Scott Sagan

(This opinion essay was first published in the The Washington Post on July 10, 2021.)

Over the July 4 weekend, the Russian-based cybercriminal organization REvil claimed credit for hacking into as many as 1,500 companies in what has been called the largest ransomware attack to date. In May, another cybercriminal group, DarkSide, also apparently located mainly in Russia, shut down most of the operations of Colonial Pipeline, which supplies nearly half the diesel, gasoline and other fuels used on the East Coast — setting off a round of panic buying that ended only when the company handed over a ransom. These incidents were bad enough.

(Continue reading the opinion essay on The Washington Post’s page here.)

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

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Egypt, Iraq and Jordan: A New Partnership 30 years in the Making?

At first glance, a partnership grouping together Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan appears rather strange. But the new partnership potentially heralds a far more ambitious project to bring together the countries of the Levant more broadly.

www.lawfareblog.com

Middle East and North Africa
Egypt, Iraq and Jordan: A New Partnership 30 years in the Making?
By Katherine Harvey, Bruce Riedel
Wednesday, July 14, 2021, 11:57 AM

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on Order from Chaos.

In April, the news that Iraq was mediating between longtime rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran captivated Middle East watchers. Iraq’s new role as a Saudi-Iran intermediary comes as the Saudis have taken concrete steps in recent years to build a meaningful relationship with their northern neighbor, such as reopening their border last November for the first time since 1990. Yet while the new Saudi-Iraq relationship is indeed noteworthy, Iraq has simultaneously been forging a regional partnership with two other Arab states: Egypt and Jordan. Indeed, Baghdad hosted a summit in late June attended by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and King Abdullah II of Jordan. It was the fourth time leaders of the three countries have met together since March 2019, and the first time on Iraqi soil. It was also the first visit by an Egyptian president to Iraq in more than 30 years.

At first glance, a partnership grouping together Egypt, Iraq and Jordan appears rather strange. One commentator, not without reason, called it an alliance composed of the “region’s odd fellows.” However, Iraq has historically had important economic relationships with both Egypt and Jordan, and in fact the three countries—along with North Yemen—came together in a very short-lived partnership called the Arab Cooperation Council (ACC) from 1989 to 1990. Today, like 30 years ago, economic cooperation lies at the heart of the trilateral relationship. But then and now it has also had strategic goals. And in the longer term, the new partnership potentially heralds a far more ambitious project to bring together not just Egypt, Iraq and Jordan, but the countries of the Levant more broadly.

Back to the Future
Iraq’s close economic ties to Egypt and Jordan date to the 1980s, during the Iran-Iraq War. Jordan became Iraq’s economic lifeline at that time, serving as a conduit for imports and oil exports through the port of Aqaba. Jordan also received most of its own oil, highly subsidized, from Iraq. King Hussein was Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s closest ally at the time, visiting Baghdad often during the war. Egypt, meanwhile, saw more than one million of its citizens relocate to Iraq during the 1980s to fill jobs made vacant by the mass conscription of Iraqi men into the armed forces—so many that Iraq constituted Egypt’s largest source of remittances.

Soon after the end of the war, the three countries, joined by North Yemen, formed the ACC. Each had a political motive to forge the pact. All wanted allies to balance against the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Saudi-led alliance of the six Gulf monarchies created during the war. Saddam owed the Saudis billions of dollars in loans from the war, while Amman and Sana’a had longstanding concerns about Saudi expansionism and interference in their internal affairs.

Nevertheless, economic cooperation formed a central pillar of the formation. The ACC was envisioned as a mechanism to increase trade among member states, as well as to facilitate labor movements, particularly from Egypt and Jordan to Iraq.
The ACC had barely launched before it fell apart due to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. But even during the 1990s, while Iraq faced an onerous international sanctions regime, trade between it and Egypt and Jordan continued. Iraq continued to be Egypt’s second biggest export market, under the U.N. Oil-for-Food Programme. Jordan remained dependent on Iraqi oil, which it continued to receive with U.S. acceptance. King Hussein only very reluctantly broke with his long-time friend, Saddam, when Washington agreed to welcome Jordan back as a close ally.

Not surprisingly, therefore, Egypt and Jordan were among the first Arab states to build ties to the new Iraq following the 2003 U.S. invasion. In 2005, then-Jordanian Prime Minister Adnan Badran became the most senior Arab official to visit Iraq since the invasion; three years later Abdullah was the first Arab head of state to visit. Egypt and Iraq reestablished trade ties in 2004. The following year Cairo sent an ambassador to Baghdad, although tragically the Egyptian diplomat was assassinated by al-Qaeda in Iraq a few weeks after his arrival. The Jordanian embassy in Baghdad was also among the first targets of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The development of Iraq’s economic relationships with Egypt and Jordan was significantly hindered by its sectarian civil war of the 2000s and the rise of the Islamic State group in the 2010s. But in recent years, the three countries have again taken meaningful steps to rebuild economic ties. In 2017, Egypt began to receive oil from Iraq, after its oil supply was cut off by Saudi Arabia. Jordan began to take delivery of Iraqi oil in 2019. Since at least 2017, the three countries have anticipated undertaking a major joint energy project, linking Iraq’s oilfields in Basra to Aqaba via pipeline, which could be further extended to Egypt. Meanwhile, Iraq has also looked to Egyptian and Jordanian companies for the massive reconstruction projects it will need to undertake to recover from four decades of wars. There are also plans to connect Iraq to Jordan and Egypt’s electricity grids to reduce its dependence on electricity exported from Iran.

Nevertheless, all three countries are cash-strapped—a major challenge for their ambitions. At the end of last year, Egypt and Iraq agreed, in effect, to trade Iraqi oil for Egyptian reconstruction assistance. In the longer run, the three countries will need to look to outside parties for financing.

While Iraq is heading to elections this fall, most of its leaders appear enthusiastic about the partnership’s economic promise. Discussions for the project were already underway during the premiership of Haider al-Abadi. Subsequently, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, on his first trip abroad as prime minister in March 2019, attended the first trilateral summit in Cairo. President Barham Salih met with el-Sissi and Abdullah in New York, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, in September 2019. Current Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi headlined Iraqi attendance at the third summit in Amman in August 2020.

A New Levant?
Economic cooperation is the driving force behind the formation, but as in 1989, each of the three has a political incentive to come together. Iraq wants to diversify its regional relationships beyond Iran—though it is important to emphasize that Baghdad does not aim to develop its relations with its Arab neighbors at the expense of its relationship with Tehran. Iraq wants friendly relations with both. The Iranians, for their part, might actually look favorably on Iraqi economic cooperation with Egypt and Jordan—if, down the line, they will also be able to benefit economically. By contrast, if Egypt and Jordan, and for that matter the United States, seek to use the formation as a means to isolate Iran, Tehran will undoubtedly sow problems. The extent to which Iran may be allowed to benefit will ultimately depend on the outcome of its ongoing negotiations with the Biden administration.

Egypt and Jordan, meanwhile, want to reduce their dependence on Saudi Arabia. For Jordan, this is particularly critical following reports of Saudi involvement in a recent conspiracy to destabilize the country and replace King Abdullah with former Crown Prince Hamza. The new formation would give Jordan, as well as Egypt and Iraq, greater leverage vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries.

But the most significant, if still implicit, political objective may be to provide a means in the longer term to rehabilitate Syria. Leaders from the three countries have begun to call their formation “the new Levant,” or “al-Sham al-Jadid” in Arabic. Sham is a reference to the city of Damascus, and more broadly to Syria and the Levant. By definition, there cannot be a new “Sham” without Syria. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Egypt, Iran and Jordan have let it be known that partnership in their new bloc will be open to other countries in the region, without specifying which. In fact, this aspect of the new formation also has roots in the short-lived ACC experiment. ACC member states did not view their partnership as exclusive, and there was some anticipation that Syria and Lebanon might have joined at some point.

The Egypt-Iraq-Jordan formation is in many ways the resurrection of the old ACC, which was disrupted for 30 years by instability and war in Iraq. The U.S. has welcomed and should continue to support this growing partnership of three of its close partners in the region. In the longer run, if Syria and Lebanon are invited to join, U.S. support would be complicated by the continuation in power of Bashar al-Assad, rightfully seen as a war criminal. Nevertheless, the “new Levant” project could ultimately serve as a means to undertake the massive reconstruction needed in Syria and to reduce the considerable economic misery of the people there and in Lebanon.

After a decade of war in Syria, and four decades of war in Iraq, there has never been greater need for a new vision for the region. The nucleus of a new beginning might just lie in an economic partnership first launched more than 30 years ago.

 

[jward]

Nigerian Army confirms murder of General Hassan Ahmed
16 July 2021




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The Nigerian Army has confirmed the murder of Major General Hassan Ahmed, a former Provost Marshal.


DAILY POST broke the story Thursday night, a few hours after the mishap.
A source close to the family said the ambush occured close to the Abaji area of Abuja.
The aggressors kidnapped General Ahmed’s sister, Safina Ahmed (initially mistaken for the wife).



The siblings and the deceased’s driver, Sergeant Bukar were returning to the nation’s capital from Okene when they were attacked.
DAILY POST further gathered that General Ahmed didn’t travel heavy as he made the trip without guards.
Director Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Onyema Nwachukwu announced the death in a statement early Friday morning.

The spokesman said the incident happened when the top officer’s vehicle was “attacked by gunmen while transiting along Lokoja – Abuja”.
Nwachukwu disclosed that an Army delegation, led by the Chief of Policy and Plans, Major General Anthony Omozoje, has visited the widow and other members of the bereaved family.
Members of the Nigerian Army Officers’ Wives Association (NAOWA), led by the Deputy National President, Stella Omozoje have also paid a condolence visit.
“The remains of the deceased senior officer will be accorded a befitting burial at the Lungi Barracks Cemetery on Friday, 16 July 2021 by 10 a.m.”, the statement added.


Nwachukwu conveyed the sympathies of the Chief of Army Staff, Faruk Yahaya, officers and men of the military arm.
Yahaya recently appointed Ahmed as a Director at the Army Headquarters in Abuja.


EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3

Update: US Embassy preparing for emergency situation... The Nigerian Army has confirmed the murder of Major General Hassan Ahmed, a former Provost Marshal. Reports saying Army General’s daughter has also been kidnapped by several gunmen.

8:26 PM · Jul 15, 2021·Twitter Web App

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

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The Laundromat: Hezbollah’s Money-Laundering and Drug-Trafficking Networks in Latin America

Over the past decades, Hezbollah has built a well-oiled, multibillion-dollar money-laundering and drug-trafficking machine in Latin America that cleans organized crime’s ill-gotten gains through mul

besacenter.org

The Laundromat: Hezbollah’s Money-Laundering and Drug-Trafficking Networks in Latin America





By Dr. Emanuele OttolenghiJuly 14, 2021

Mideast Security and Policy Studies No. 194

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: On January 6, 2021, the Gulf news network Al Arabiya published an explosive revelation. In late 2016, a high-placed Hezbollah operative named Nasser Abbas Bahmad came to what is known as the Tri-Border Area (TBA), where the frontiers of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet. His apparent mission: establish a supply line of multi-ton shipments of cocaine from Latin America to overseas markets in order to generate funds for the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.

Investigative pieces soon followed in the Argentinian and Paraguayan press. And they are onto something: a law enforcement source from one of the three countries told this author, on condition of anonymity, that Bahmad and his business partner, Australian-Lebanese national Hanan Hamdan, were put on a US watchlist in December 2020.

Yet for all the stories reveal, much remains murky.

Over the past decades, Hezbollah has built a well-oiled, multibillion-dollar money-laundering and drug-trafficking machine in Latin America that cleans organized crime’s ill-gotten gains through multiple waypoints in the Western hemisphere, West Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Traditionally, Hezbollah used the TBA’s illicit economy as a hub for money-laundering—less so for cocaine trafficking. For years, Hezbollah-linked drug traffickers in the TBA moved only relatively small quantities of cocaine. Multi-ton shipments are another story.

The large cocaine shipments tied to Hezbollah’s money-laundering networks used to flow from Colombia and Venezuela, and with good reason. Colombia remains Latin America’s largest producer of the white powder, and Venezuela, under the Iran-friendly narco-regime of Nicolas Maduro, is a key transit point for cocaine shipments. If Hezbollah is now involved in establishing a major cocaine supply line in the TBA, something must have changed in its modus operandi. Have Hezbollah’s trade routes shifted?

As if that were not puzzling enough, here is another mystery the media revelations leave unsolved. By December 2017, Bahmad—once a film producer known for his skill as a propagandist but with seemingly no business experience—had left the area, never to return. GTG Global Trading Group S.A., the company he established only a few months before disappearing, lies dormant to this day. Why did Bahmad vanish before the first consignment of his product shipped from Paraguay? Did local authorities thwart his mission? Did someone snitch on him? Or did the producer produce—that is, did he accomplish his mission, leaving no reason for him to stay in the TBA? Did he fool everyone, establish his supply line, and place it in trusted hands before vanishing?

Based on dozens of interviews with confidential sources, documents obtained from regional intelligence informants, and open-source research, this study reveals the singular story of Nasser Abbas Bahmad and his foray into Latin America. His story in turn illustrates how Hezbollah established its largest financial laundromat in Latin America, and how, despite efforts by US and South American law enforcement agencies, it is running at full speed and bankrolling the arming of enemies of America and Israel.

Here is how the laundromat works, and what Washington can do to stop it.

Emanuele Ottolenghi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington, DC-based research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

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[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

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Xi and Beyond

More ambitious, more educated and more engaged — the CCP powers into the second century. After more than four decades of reform and opening up, the centenary celebrations of the Chinese Communis

www.realcleardefense.com

http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/

Xi and Beyond

By Jennifer Hsu
July 15, 2021

More ambitious, more educated and more engaged — the CCP powers into the second century.

After more than four decades of reform and opening up, the centenary celebrations of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were an opportunity for the Party-state to proclaim the success of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. President Xi Jinping’s speech on 1 July made no bones about China’s future and the centrality of the CCP – “China’s success hinges on the Party.”

China’s new confidence and its approach to the world is thanks to the CCP. The “rejuvenation” of China is repeated 24 times in Xi’s speech. In practice, though, what does this rejuvenation mean? China will continue to pursue development, domestically and abroad, in its own way – that is, “socialism with Chinese characteristics” – but the Party-state will be front and centre in this approach. As I have argued elsewhere, China’s development approach is typified by being state-led – not just economically, but socially, too. It involves an array of stakeholders from both the central state as well as the local level. And now, pivotal to that development is the Party, for it is the Party that has led and will further lead China in its rejuvenation, according to Xi.

The centenary celebrations in Tiananmen Square and Xi’s speech demonstrated a confident China, one that wants to be seen as a nation that will stand up to bullies and rightfully assert its power to do so. Simultaneously, Beijing also wants to be seen as an advocate for peace and peaceful development. While those aims are not dichotomous, they do suggest that Beijing has struggled to find the right balance between assertive – cue Wolf Warrior diplomacy – and being seen as a friend, empathic and committed to “a people-centred philosophy of development … [that] safeguard social fairness and justice”.

As Xi notes, the complexities in the international environment will surely challenge China in its attempt. Nonetheless, this quest to strike the right balance between assertive China and peaceful China is not something that Australia will likely benefit from in its bilateral relations. It seems clear that Beijing is firmly sticking to its approach, where “sanctimonious preaching” – think of Australia’s role in initiating the WHO enquiry into the origins of Covid-19 – is unwelcome. To guard against the bullies of the world, China must have a strong military. And as Kurt Campbell, White House Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, noted last week, China is seeking to “cut Australia out of the herd”.

The CCP is the largest governing party in the world with some 95 million members. With the recentralisation of power under Xi Jinping, Party membership will be even more important. Yet, membership to the Party has slowed since Xi came into power. This is largely the result of additional criteria being put in place to recruit “quality” candidates, for example, younger and more educated individuals. By 2019, those with academic degrees made up just over 50 per cent of Party membership, compared to just under 35 per cent for those who identified as workers and farmers, the CCP’s traditional support base.

Figures released by the CCP in 2019 showed that only 8.4 per cent of its members worked for the Party and government. However, anyone in a position of authority – whether in the military, universities, educational institutions or state-owned enterprises – will almost certainly be a Party member. And this coincides with the mandatory and rapid institutionalisation of Party cells in civil society organisations and private enterprises. Efforts to formalise control of these sectors indicate that CCP membership, while increasingly difficult to attain, will nonetheless be critical when scaling the career ladder, irrespective of the sector.

As the CCP enters its second century, its role in Chinese society, politics and the economy will be greater than in the previous decades of reform and opening-up. That will have spill-over effects as Beijing seeks out ties and engagement with other nations to fulfil its Chinese Dream.

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Jennifer Hsu is a Research Fellow in the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program. She is currently working on a project which explores the intersections of Australia’s multiculturalism and foreign policy. Prior to joining the Institute, Jennifer was a Policy Analyst with China Matters. After completing her PhD at the University of Cambridge in Development Studies, she researched and taught in development studies, political science and sociology in universities in North America and the UK. Jennifer is also a Visiting Fellow at the Social Policy and Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. Her research expertise broadly covers state-society relations, state-NGO relations, civil society and the internationalisation of Chinese NGOs, and she has published widely in these areas.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm........

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B-21 Progress Means Current Bombers Need Fast Retirement | Air & Space Forces Magazine

The US Air Force must move quickly as it brings on the B-21 and modernizes the B-52, sending B-1 and B-2 bombers to retirement, a top USAF general said.

www.airforcemag.com

Progress on B-21 Means Current Bombers Need a Fast Retirement
July 15, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Air Force needs to move quickly as it brings on the B-21 and modernizes the B-52, because operating four bombers at a time is not sustainable. This means the venerable B-1s and B-2s need to head to the boneyard for retirement ASAP, the service’s top planner said.

The secretive, next-generation B-21 Raider is being built right now and will be flown in the “not-too-distant future,” said Lt. Gen. David S. Nahom, the deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, during a July 14 AFA Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event. When that happens, the Air Force will be flying the B-1, B-2, B-52, and B-21 simultaneously.

“That is not affordable,” Nahom said. “The B-1 and B-2, as phenomenal as they are, we’ve got to get those out of service as the B-21 comes on and we get ourselves to that two-bomber fleet, which is a B-21 and a modernized B-52.”

Lt. Gen. David Nahom, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, speaks with retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, on July 14.

In the near term, B-52s are undergoing significant modernization, including re-engining, upgraded avionics, and a new “digital backbone,” Nahom said. B-52s will leave service to receive the upgrades, making fewer bomber available for tasking.

“We’re going to have a deficit in availability while those airplanes are being modified,” he said. “That is my biggest concern on the bomber fleet … over the next, I’ll call it, five to seven years as we bring on the B-21 and then just beyond that when we start bringing out the B-1s and B-2s. I think this is the critical time,” Nahom said.

The Air Force eventually wants to grow to a fleet of 220 bombers. As the B-21 comes online, the service will begin sending B-1s and B-2s to the boneyard.

The Air Force expects the first B-21 to roll out of the factory and make its first flight in 2022, when it heads to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., for testing. The first of 17 B-1s planned for retirement already flew to the “boneyard” at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., as the service prepares to draw down that fleet to 45 aircraft, split about evenly between its two operating bases: Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., and Dyess Air Force Base, Texas.

• 11 Comments

FWGuy • 3 hours ago • edited
Last time the Democrats controlled both Congress and the Presidency they cancelled the F-22 in favor of the F-35 even though it really wasn't ready and was still in design. That same group then started buying F-35s that are stuck in the Block-2 configuration with limited war fighting capability.
Now the same party has a bill in Congress right now to cancel the modernization of our ICBM forces. I am betting the LRSO will be next.

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  James M FWGuy • 2 hours ago
  Except the bombers grow in CA. They just shoot the ICBMs in CA. Always other things they can launch commercially. Planes getting built here, not so much.

(One commenter suggested converting the B-2s into tankers.....HC)
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Air Force general warns of ‘extreme problems’ without some A-10 cuts as lawmakers back the popular aircraft

The service wants to cut 42 A-10s from its 281-jet fleet in 2022. The Air Force made the request in its fiscal 2022 budget request submitted to Congress in May, telling lawmakers the move would save the service some $344 million.

www.stripes.com

Air Force general warns of ‘extreme problems’ without some A-10 cuts as lawmakers back the popular aircraft
BY
COREY DICKSTEIN
• STARS AND STRIPES • JULY 15, 2021

A top Air Force general defended the service’s plan to cut dozens of its vaunted A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jets next year, telling lawmakers this week the Air Force must move resources and airmen from the A-10 fleet to shore up its growing F-35 formations.

“The A-10 is a wonderful airplane. It’s done incredible things for our nation,” Air Force Lt. Gen. David Nahom, the service’s plans and programs chief, told the House Armed Services Committee’s tactical air and land forces subpanel on Tuesday. “But we have to start repurposing some of the resources out of the A-10 into some modern capabilities — specifically manpower. If we don’t reduce the A-10 slightly this year, we run into extreme problems.”

The service wants to cut 42 A-10s from its 281-jet fleet in 2022. The Air Force made the request in its fiscal 2022 budget request submitted to Congress in May, telling lawmakers the move would save the service some $344 million. On Tuesday, Nahom said the Air Force plans to cut another 21 A-10s in fiscal 2023, reducing the fleet to 218 aircraft.

Several lawmakers have already expressed opposition the proposed cuts to the A-10 fleet, the military’s most proven close-support aircraft designed in the 1970s specifically to fly low over front-line troops to provide firepower from the air. In recent years — including last year when the Air Force proposed cutting 44 A-10s, known as Warthogs — Congress has routinely blocked the service from retiring any of the jets.

Among his top concerns, Nahom said A-10 maintainers need to be shifted to the F-35 fleet to keep the advanced, multirole stealth fighter jets flying as the service’s inventory continues to grow. Air Force leaders believe the F-35 is the cornerstone of its future fighter jet fleet and critical in potential major combat operations against the likes of China or Russia and their formidable air defense systems.

Air Force officials argue the A-10 remains useful today in fights against low-tech adversaries, but they do not believe it would be useful in a high-end fight against a near-peer adversary with similar capabilities to the U.S. military. Service officials have said they believe the F-35 could ultimately take over close air-support missions.

The Defense Department has completed a study comparing the abilities of F-35s and A-10s to conduct close air support, but its results are classified, said Raymond O’Toole, the Pentagon’s acting director for operational tests and evaluation. He did say the F-35 has showed some signs of improvement in that role, but “in many areas [the F-35] still falls short of the required threshold.”

The A-10 was the first aircraft built specifically to conduct close air support. It flies low and slow, capable of operating below 1,000 feet and carrying a number of air-to-ground bombs and its most famous weapon — the 30mm GAU-8/A cannon, a seven-barrel Gatling gun that fires 3,900 rounds per minute. It has been used extensively to support ground operations in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, where it was used in Operation Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom and most recently against the Islamic State in Operation Inherent Resolve.

It is designed to take direct hits from armor-piercing or high-explosive rounds without destroying the aircraft, according to the Air Force. It can continue to fly and land even after it loses hydraulic power.

Lawmakers argue the F-35 has yet to prove itself capable of withstanding enemy attacks at low range as does the A-10 while delivering devastating airpower against enemies fighting close-in battles with American forces.

The F-35 program also has faced substantial delays and cost overruns, military officials have acknowledged. It has also proven more costly to fly and maintain than expected, though officials have said some of those costs have improved in recent years.

Among the A-10’s top supporters in Congress, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., has questioned the F-35’s close air-support capabilities. Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy fighter pilot who flew combat missions during Desert Storm, warned President Joe Biden in a June 8 letter provided by his office that retiring any A-10s without a capable close air-support replacement “would leave a severe capability gap within our military.”

“Sen. Kelly remains opposed to retiring A-10s without a suitable replacement to carry out the close air-support mission that is critical to our national security and protecting American troops,” Jacob Peters, a spokesman for Kelly, wrote in an email on Thursday. “Sen. Kelly will continue working through the National Defense Authorization Act process to keep the A-10 flying at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, and to ensure [Davis-Monthan] remains integral to the Air Force’s mission, our national security, and to the southern Arizona economy.”

Several other senators also have opposed plans to retire A-10s, including Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., Georgia’s Democratic Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossof, and Michigan’s Democratic Sens. Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow.

Davis-Monthan would see the brunt of the cuts to the A-10 fleet, losing 35 aircraft and 632 troops, according to Kelly’s office.

Air Force officials have said they plan to cut two of the service’s nine A-10 squadrons, an active-duty squadron from Davis-Monthan’s 355th Wing and the Indiana National Guard’s 122nd Fight Wing, 163rd Fighter Squadron. The Guard unit would convert to an F-16-flying squadron under that plan, officials said.

The service, which in the mid-2010s floated cutting the entire A-10 force amid budget constraints, has committed to keeping most of its Warthogs flying into the 2030s. A service spokesman said Wednesday that the service had purchased enough upgraded wing sets needed for the A-10s to continue flying into that decade for the 218 planes it plans to keep.

As of July, 173 of the Air Force’s A-10s had received new wings and 45 were scheduled to receive them, said Capt. Josh Benedetti, an Air Force spokesman. He did not say what the Air Force would do if Congress mandates the service keep all 281 A-10s.

Nahom on Tuesday gave lawmakers another reason the service wants to retire some of Davis-Monthan’s A-10s. He told them that the service needs to make room for other A-10s and HH-60 Pave Hawk combat search and rescue helicopters to move to the Arizona base from their longtime home at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

The Air Force selected Nellis to house more F-35s in the coming years as the service’s primary training center for fifth-generation fighter aircraft — F-35s and F-22 Raptors. To make room for new F-35s, it proposed last month moving the A-10 Weapons Instructor Course and Test and Evaluation operations from Nellis to Davis-Monthan in 2022. The HH-60 Weapons Instructor Course and other combat search and rescue units including the 66th Rescue Squadron, 58th Rescue Squadron, the 34th Weapons Squadron and the 855th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron would move from Nellis to Davis-Monthan in the following years, according to that plan.

Nahom said the Air Force must move the A-10s and rescue helicopters from Nellis to relieve over-crowding at the base.

The general said Nellis has had an influx of troops and aircraft during the past decade, and the base is already overcrowded “not only in the dormitories for the airmen, [but] certainly in the airspace and certainly on the ramp.”

“So, if we do not reduce those A-10s [at Nellis] we’re going to — we’re just going to have to go back and do some further analysis and see what we can do,” Nahom said. “Right now, it would be problematic to keep all the A-10s, as are in the system right now.”

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[jward]

China Says It Conducted A Successful Suborbital Test Of A Reusable Spaceplane
The Chinese spaceplane test appears to be linked to ostensibly commercial endeavors, but could have military applications.
By Joseph Trevithick July 16, 2021

• The War Zone

Joseph Trevithick View Joseph Trevithick's Articles
@FranticGoat


The state-run China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, or CASC, released a statement earlier today stating that it had successfully carried out the first suborbital test of a reusable space vehicle that can land in a similar fashion to a traditional plane. Details about the test and the spaceplane itself are limited, but CASC has been publicly working on such technologies, ostensibly for commercial use, for years now and had previously said it expected to carry out such a flight test last year
A Chinese-language statement from CASC said that it had launched the spaceplane from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, which sits in a part of the Gobi Desert in China's Inner Mongolia region. The corporation said that the vehicle subsequently landed "horizontally" at Alxa Right Banner Badanjilin Airport, which is also in Inner Mongolia and is situated some 220 kilometers, or almost 137 miles, southeast of Jiuquan. No details were provided about the spaceplane's basic design or performance specifications, or how long the flight lasted, how high it flew, and whether any payloads were aboard at the time.

Google Earth

A satellite image of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

Google Earth
A satellite image of Alxa Right Banner Badanjilin.

Here is the landing site (RHT, ZBAR) pic.twitter.com/y5F95h8M7u
— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) July 16, 2021​

The Chinese description of the vehicle launched from Jiuquan to Alashan Youqi today is
亚轨道重复使用演示验证项目运载器 or Ya (sub) guidao (orbital) chongfu shiyong (reusable) yanshi (demo) yanzheng (verification/test)
xiangmu (project) yunzai (carrier) qi (vehicle)
— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) July 16, 2021​

Where the Earth's atmosphere ends and space begins is a matter of debate, but the so-called Karman Line, which is defined as being at an altitude of roughly 62 miles up, is a defined boundary in common usage. While "suborbital" can then mean anything below that, the term is typically used for flights that get right to the edge of this line.
CASC also did not say how the spaceplane gets aloft and stays there, or how it then maneuvers back to Earth. However, back in 2016, the company had described plans for a vehicle that is boosted initially by a traditional space launch rocket and then get the rest of the way with a secondary booster. It would return to Earth in an unpowered mode.

HAN PENGXIN / CHINA ACADEMY OF LAUNCH VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY
A graphic from circa 2016 depicting the method of operation of one of CASC's planned spaceplanes.

This would fit well with a launch from Jiuquan, which regularly conducts more traditional space launches. Jiuquan was also the site of the launch of another, secretive "reusable experimental spacecraft" last year using a Long March 2F carrier rocket. That vehicle appeared to have subsequently landed a remote airstrip near China's Lop Nor nuclear test site and could be related to a military spaceplane project called Shenlong.

Now then -- this could be something exceptional. The rumours are that inside this exceptional payload fairing atop a CZ-2F is a CASC spaceplane, launching from Jiuquan Friday. Source: 俊了个锅 via 林晓弈。 Sina Visitor System https://t.co/OESvzyDyEl pic.twitter.com/ZPnpwAIfyO
— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) September 3, 2020​

This latest spaceplane test, which appears to be unrelated, at least officially, to the one last year, would also align with CASC's stated plans, as of 2016, to develop such a flight vehicle that could reach the Karman Line. At that time, the projected design was described as an 11-ton vehicle with a wingspan of 21 feet that would be capable of carrying five people. There were also plans for a larger version, an artist's conception of which is seen at the top of this story, which could carry up to 20 people and that would be able to fly beyond the Karman Line.

In addition, in 2017, CASC said that it planned to conduct a flight test of a prototype reusable spacecraft in 2020. That year, the company also outlined a "space transportation roadmap" that included reusable spaceplanes and a nuclear-powered space shuttle. It would not be hard to see how the flight test plans could have been delayed due to a variety of factors, including the complexity of the design and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
If the flight test today is indeed related to the projects that CASC was publicly discussing in 2016 and 2017, it would seem that the vehicle in question is ostensibly intended for commercial use. This is bolstered by the fact the flight ended at a public regional airport, rather than an isolated military test center.

With this in mind, it's also worth pointing out that this announcement comes just days after space tourism firm Virgin Galatic's founder Richard Branson and three other passengers flew to the edge of the Karman Line in the company's VSS Unity, a Scaled Composites SpaceshipTwo reusable spaceplane. Unlike CASC's previously stated concepts of operation for its spaceplane designs, however, the SpaceShipTwo design uses a specialized mothership aircraft rather than a traditional space launch rocket to makes its initial ascent. This is a general space launch concept that NASA and the U.S. military, as well as Russia and China, have explored in the past, which you read about more here.

At the same time, any reusable spaceplane technology could certainly have military applications. CASC is the primary contractor for the Chinese space program, which is heavily intertwined with the country's military. Jiuquan is a People's Liberation Army (PLA) base.

Reusable spaceplanes could provide a variety of valuable capabilities for military activities in space, as well as closer to Earth, offering the potential for rapidly transporting personnel and cargo across large distances, as well as a more flexible method for inserting certain payloads into orbit. Reusable spaceplanes could very well carry out offensive actions against hostile space-based assets or defensive missions to protect friendly ones, as well. There has been very similar speculation over the years about exactly what the U.S. military is doing with its own X-37B miniature space shuttle, which is now under the control of the U.S. Space Force.

This is just one of a number of similar projects that we know about that the various branches of the U.S. military have pursued since the 1960s, as well. Just this year, the Department of the Air Force, which now includes the Space Force, announced a new formal research and development program, called Rocket Cargo, to explore the possibility of conduct long-range logistics across space using large, potentially reusable suborbital rockets. You can read more about that program here.

“The development of reusable space transportation technology is an important symbol of China’s transition from a ‘big’ space-faring nation to a ‘powerful’ space-faring one,” CASC said in the statement today about its spaceplane flight test.
It will be interesting to see what new information about CASC's spaceplane projects might emerge now with this reportedly successful flight of a prototype design.
Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

posted for fair use

China Says It Conducted A Successful Suborbital Test Of A Reusable Spaceplane

The Chinese spaceplane test appears to be linked to ostensibly commercial endeavors, but could have military applications.

www.thedrive.com