WAR 07-11-2020-to-07-17-2020___THEWINDSofWAR

Housecarl · Jul 11, 2020

(425) 06-20-2020-to-06-26-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

WAR - 06-20-2020-to-06-26-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
(422) 05-30-2020-to-06-05-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** WAR -...

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(426) 06-27-2020-to-07-03-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

WAR - 06-27-2020-to-07-03-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
(423) 06-06-2020-to-06-12-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** WAR - 06-06-2020-to-06-12-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** (420)...

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(427) 07-04-2020-to-07-10-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

WAR - 07-04-2020-to-07-10-2020___THEWINDSofWAR

(424) 06-13-2020-to-06-19-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** WAR - 06-13-2020-to-06-19-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** Sorry for the delay...

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Arms Control, the ICBM Force, and Ballistic Missile Defense

The U.S. has just started negotiations with the Russians on a new nuclear arms control treaty. Our objectives include closing loopholes in the New START Treaty, bringing in all nuclear weapons, improv

www.realcleardefense.com

Arms Control, the ICBM Force, and Ballistic Missile Defense

By Mark B. Schneider
July 11, 2020

The U.S. has just started negotiations with the Russians on a new nuclear arms control treaty. Our objectives include closing loopholes in the New START Treaty, bringing in all nuclear weapons, improving verification and bringing China into the negotiation. Russia has rejected these objectives; it seeks to extend the New START Treaty without changes, according to Deputy Chairman of the Russian National Security Council (and former President) Dmitry Medvedev. Critically, a key Russian objective is to enhance limitations on U.S. missile defenses.

Our chief negotiator, Ambassador Marshall Billingslea, has said that extension of the Treaty will depend on progress with Russia on limiting all nuclear weapons and bringing China into the negotiation.

The extension of the New START Treaty would keep in place its limitations on missile defenses (Article V, paragraph 2):

Each Party shall not convert and shall not use ICBM launchers and SLBM launchers for placement of missile defense interceptors therein. Each Party further shall not convert and shall not use launchers of missile defense interceptors for placement of ICBMs and SLBMs therein. This provision shall not apply to ICBM launchers that were converted prior to the signature of this Treaty for the placement of missile defense interceptors therein.

Today, some advocate using ICBMs as missile defense interceptors and space launch vehicles and transferring the ICBM force to the new Space Force. The New START Treaty’s Article V, in combination with the restrictive New START definition of “missile defense interceptor” that requires that it must be used “solely” for missile defense, prohibits using an ICBM for missile defense. Putting our ICBMs under the Space Force is no more necessary than putting the Navy’s Trident submarines or the Army’s short-range ballistic missiles under the Space Force just because these missiles travel for a short time through space. Any significant space launch role for U.S. ICBMs is unlikely because of their limited orbital payload. Indeed, Russian efforts to market its much more powerful legacy Soviet ICBMs for space launch were not terribly successful.

Using a modified version of the Ground-based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), the Minuteman III replacement ICBM, as our Next Generation Interceptor, is a bad idea. Just over 20 years ago, the Clinton administration rejected the use of the Minuteman III as the Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI), which currently protects the U.S. (I personally opposed the use of the Minuteman III as Director of Strategic Arms Control Policy in OSD). While the START Treaty did not have New START’s legal prohibitions on missile defense or its restrictive definition of missile defense interceptor, it was obvious that the Minuteman III was very old, less reliable than modern design, limited in number and that the START Treaty’s restrictions on ICBM operations, notifications and its verification regime would create great problems, which the Russians would make worse. Many of these factors are still in play, and the Russians are now even more fanatically opposed to U.S. missile defense.

Putin’s Russia has engaged in a constant information war with the U.S. and its allies with missile defense, the main target. A barely legal modification of the GBSD into a missile defense interceptor (a three percent change in first stage length or diameter) would hand Russia a stick with which to beat us. A side-by-side comparison of the two versions just after launch would appear to show the same missile. The Russians have a history of making factually and legally inaccurate compliance charges against the U.S. For example, the Russian claim that the Aegis Ashore missile defense system in Europe was actually a prohibited deployment of INF-range cruise missiles was bogus. Russia will claim that a GBSD-derived missile defense interceptor is an ICBM and that its launchers were covert ICBM launchers in violation of New START.

Modifying the GBSD into a missile defense interceptor will negatively impact the U.S. large solid rocket motor industrial base, which is already in bad shape. It would terminate half of the planned U.S. development of large solid fuel rockets. U.S. design activity almost ended in the 1990s, and the number of large solid rocket motor producers declined from seven to two, one of which is struggling. After the GBSD, the only planned U.S. strategic missile program is the second Trident II life extension program. Life extension programs do not exercise the full range of missile design skills, which require full design activity. Had we taken similar advice in the 1990s and used the Minuteman III as the GBI, the result today would be a more degraded industrial base and a declining nuclear deterrent and missile defense capability. If we combine the two functions in essentially the same missile, any serious technical problem will impact both our deterrence and defense potential.

A 2006 Defense Science Board report concluded that we were losing large missile design skills, including our ability to fix problems in existing missiles if they develop. A 2006 teport by the DTRA Threat Reduction Advisory Committee said, “The current low level of effort on new or modified strategic strike systems is insufficient both to maintain the health of the infrastructure and to provide strategic options for the nation.” This situation was made worse by the termination of the Space Shuttle Program and NASA’s Ares booster system and other cuts. The 2009 report of the U.S. Strategic Commission noted that "The infrastructure that supports two-thirds of the strategic deterrent triad—the SLBMs and ICBMs—is not being sustained.” Just after this report, OSD raised concerns that simply continuing small scale Trident II production “…does not adequately address maintaining the design and development skills required for developing our next generation strategic systems.” A 2018 Presidential report and a 2019 OSD report on the U.S. industrial base said that over the last two decades, there were “no solid rocket motor improvements.” Converting the GBSD into a missile defense interceptor and terminating the MDA program for the Next Generation Interceptor would eliminate any serious competition in future ballistic missiles and large solid fuel rocket motors for space launch and would likely drive up costs. This is not what we need in an era of competition with Russia and China, both of which have multiple ballistic missile development and deployment programs underway.

It would be foolish indeed to ignore the fact that the GBSD is under political attack from Minimum Deterrence/arms control enthusiasts who frequently oppose missile defense. Adding the missile defense function in the GBSD program would simply make it a more attractive target, and these efforts would be supported by Russian and, probably, Chinese information warfare. The future of New START is unclear, but we should not assume arms control problems will disappear. Even more significant is that if the U.S. builds only one new large solid fuel rocket over the next 50 years, we will very likely lose the ability to design such systems. This will impact nuclear deterrence, missile defense, potentially hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, and to a lesser degree space launch with solid rocket motors to the detriment of U.S. national security.

Dr. Mark B. Schneider is a Senior Analyst with the National Institute for Public Policy. Before his retirement from the Department of Defense Senior Executive Service, Dr. Schneider served in a number of senior positions within the Office of Secretary of Defense for Policy including Principal Director for Forces Policy, Principal Director for Strategic Defense, Space and Verification Policy, Director for Strategic Arms Control Policy and Representative of the Secretary of Defense to the Nuclear Arms Control Implementation Commissions. He also served in the senior Foreign Service as a Member of the State Department Policy Planning Staff.

Housecarl · Jul 11, 2020

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Housecarl · Jul 11, 2020

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Intel: US CENTCOM commander meets with head of Syria’s Kurdish forces

The head of Syria’s Kurdish-led militias said he met today with the top commander of US forces in the Middle East, Gen. Frank McKenzie, in northeast Syria.

www.al-monitor.com

Intel: US CENTCOM commander meets with head of Syria’s Kurdish forces

Jared Szuba
@JM_Szuba
Jul 10, 2020

The head of Syria’s Kurdish-led militias says he met today with the top commander of US forces in the Middle East, Gen. Frank McKenzie, in northeast Syria.

Mazlum Kobane, who leads the US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against the Islamic State (IS), announced the meeting with the CENTCOM commander via Twitter.

A spokesperson for US Central Command declined to confirm or deny McKenzie’s visit, citing security concerns. Kobane, who also goes by the name Mazlum Abdi, said the two discussed their shared fight against IS and “achieving peace” in the region.

McKenzie met earlier this week with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and Iraq's chief of defense in Baghdad to discuss the future of the US military presence in Iraq.

Why it matters: Today marks McKenzie’s second reported visit to northeast Syria’s autonomous region since assuming command of CENTCOM last year, and comes as the United States consolidates its military footprint in neighboring Iraq as Baghdad’s security forces show greater ability to manage the IS insurgency.

News of the meeting is also likely to rile NATO ally Turkey. Officials in Ankara have objected for years to US support for the local Kurdish-led fighters.

US State and Defense Department officials failed last year to dissuade their Turkish counterparts from launching a military incursion into northeast Syria to push Mazlum’s People’s Protection Units (YPG) away from Turkey’s southeastern border. The incursion displaced more than 100,000 people and led to allegations that Turkey-backed Syrian fighters committed war crimes.

Turkey says the YPG, which forms the backbone of the Syrian Kurdish-led alliance, is a branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which Ankara, Washington, and their western allies consider a terrorist organization. News of McKenzie’s trip came as a reassurance amid continued fears in northeast Syria that Turkey may eventually expand its military presence in the area.

What’s Next: Some 600 US troops remain in Syria’s northeast, though how long they will remain is not clear. Pentagon officials have reported the SDF is increasingly able to combat IS on its own, but there is no political agreement in place to preserve the autonomous region. Both the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Turkish government say they will not tolerate the Kurdish-led autonomous region’s existence.

American officials have pushed for reconciliation between the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the political arm of the YPG, and rival Kurdish National Council. US officials apparently see a political agreement as a way to dilute the PYD’s dominance in northeast Syria in hope of alleviating Turkish pressure. Though tensions between Ankara and northeast Syria appear to have gone down since last year’s incursion, Turkey expanded a military operation against the PKK in northern Iraq last month.

Furthermore, Russia has been attempting to expand its footprint in northeast Syria, and may be seeking ways to pressure the SDF to make concessions.

US Marines recently thanked local Syrians for preventing Russian soldiers from establishing a position inside the American zone of operations. If the Russians can set up a base near Derik, they can pressure US supply lines and movement in the area.

More from Jared Szuba

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Read more: Intel: US CENTCOM commander meets with head of Syria’s Kurdish forces

Housecarl · Jul 11, 2020

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Op-ed | U.S. satellites increasingly vulnerable to China’s ground-based lasers

spacenews.com

Op-ed | U.S. satellites increasingly vulnerable to China’s ground-based lasers

by Brian G. Chow and Henry Sokolski — July 10, 2020

Of the world’s 50 satellite laser ranging stations, five fixed stations are in Shanghai, Changchun, Beijing, Wuhan and Kuming

The Defense Intelligence Agency warned in January 2019 that China likely will field in 2020 a ground-based laser weapon that can counter low-orbit space-based sensors. By the mid-to-late 2020s it may field higher power systems that could damage the structures of non-optical satellites.

How real is the threat? Analysts have already identified five Chinese laser bases. One in Xinjiang has four main buildings. One of these building is thought to be for tracking satellites, while equipment in the other three could be used to dazzle or disable satellite sensors. If the Xinjiang facility is representative of the other four, all five bases can be located and are vulnerable to aerial attacks.

In addition to these bases, China operates several satellite laser ranging stations. These have been used to determine the orbits of satellites and space debris but could be used to damage U.S. and allied satellite sensors.

Of the world’s 50 satellite laser ranging stations, five fixed stations are in Shanghai, Changchun, Beijing, Wuhan and Kuming. Two Chinese satellite laser ranging stations are mobile.

The ranging system at the Shanghai station uses a laser with a relatively low average power of 2.8 watts. The wattage at other stations are most likely the same or lower. Another laser of 60 watts at the Shanghai station has been used routinely to measure space debris. Calculations show that a 1-watt laser has 1 in 1,000 chance to cause permanent damage to a sensor, while a 40-watt laser would double the chance. These odds are low but likely to increase.

In the near term China’s top priority is to deny America and its allies imagery with high resolution of 10 centimeters or better. Fortunately, to damage a satellite’s optical elements such as pixels and filters, an offensive anti-satellite laser would have to be located within roughly 10 kilometers of what one wants to take a picture of.

What should Washington do to counter sensor-damaging lasers? First, it should determine how many of the Chinese targets it wants to take pictures of that have a laser base or fixed satellite laser ranging station within roughly 10 kilometers. There are probably only a few such laser-protected targets.

Second, our military and intelligence analysts need to estimate the risks and costs of snapping pictures from space of these laser-protected targets (i.e., the chance of our satellite’ sensors being damaged and what their repair or replacement costs might be) and the benefits of getting such imagery. Such an analysis would likely recommend that the United States and its allies:

Take pictures whenever possible during peacetime, as the chance of damage is far higher during crisis.
Update imagery less frequently, because fewer trips mean less chance of being hit.
Use as low a resolution for imagery as much as possible, as low-resolution sensors and their satellites are cheap and numerous compared to dedicated military imagery satellites

Third, the United States should secure imagery of all needed resolutions, including 10 centimeters or better, any way it can using commercial and dedicated military systems during peacetime, crisis and wartime. Once it has a diversified group of imagery providers, laser damage to a few of our sensors would become far less valuable to our adversaries, leading them not to initiate such attacks in the first place.

Finally, the United States should extend the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expires in February 2021, to keep its formal prohibitions on interference with national technical means of verification (including sensor-carrying satellites) in force. To the extent that Washington can bring China into arms negotiations with the Russians, it should focus on getting Beijing formally to agree to this prohibition.

The U.S. government will need to do more in the years ahead. Today, Chinese lasers must be located within roughly 10 kilometers of whatever Washington wants to snap pictures of to have any hope of beaming into American satellites’ telescope openings and damaging their sensors inside. Mid-decade, though, when Beijing acquires higher powered lasers, at least one of China’s lasers will be in range to damage several of our low earth orbiting satellites every day. As a result, Washington will not only have to make our satellite constellations resilient and harden some satellites’ exteriors, it must be prepared to disable China’s laser systems if they attack our satellites.

During this same period, the United States will also have to pay attention to Chinese satellite laser ranging stations and high power lasers that will have gone mobile. Because these mobile systems are likely to be dual-use, they cannot be banned. Instead, the United States and its allies should disadvantage any hostile use with diplomatic measures that would afford warning of such.

This could best be achieved by pushing for an international agreement to register all mobile dual-use lasers (including their locations), require their operators to announce their planned movement a month in advance, and demand their movements be broadcast in real time.

Brian Chow is an independent policy analyst. Henry Sokolski is executive director of The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Arlington, Virginia.

Housecarl · Jul 11, 2020

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North Korea slams Britain for sanctions aimed at prison camps

North Korea slammed Britain on Saturday for placing sanctions on two organizations British officials say are involved in North Korea’s grim prison labor camps. The sanctions, placed on the Mi…

nypost.com

North Korea slams Britain for sanctions aimed at prison camps

By Dana Kennedy
July 11, 2020 | 8:50am | Updated

North Korea slammed Britain on Saturday for placing sanctions on two organizations British officials say are involved in North Korea’s grim prison labor camps.

The sanctions, placed on the Ministry of State Security Bureau 7 and Ministry of People’s Security Correctional Bureau, are among the first under the UK’s new global human rights regime, Reuters reported Saturday.

“Britain’s latest move is a flagrant political plot to jump on the bandwagon of the United States’ inimical policy,” a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a statement on state media KCNA.

“We strongly condemn and reject the UK’s daring to impose sanctions on the institutions responsible for our country’s security as violent interference in domestic affairs.”

The sanctions will take the form of asset freezing. North Korea’s prison camps are believed to involve forced labor, torture and murder.

Tensions between North Korea, South Korea and the United States have been rising as a result of an impasse over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and international sanctions imposed on Pyongyang.

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Housecarl · Jul 11, 2020

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Arms race for peace? US ups the ante to bring China to table

Cold War-era strategy aims to alter Beijing's calculations

asia.nikkei.com

International relations
Arms race for peace? US ups the ante to bring China to table
Cold War-era strategy aims to alter Beijing's calculations

TETSURO KOSAKA, Nikkei senior staff writer
July 12, 2020 03:15 JST

TOKYO -- Three decades after the end of the Cold War, the arms control and reduction treaties that have contributed to peace have begun to fall apart.

The Trump administration is intent on going back to the drawing board and including China, holding that the current regime focusing primarily on the U.S. and Russia does not fit the new realities of the world.

But in a hostile climate, trust seems in short supply among the players to get a deal done. The geopolitical calculations also differ greatly from when the previous agreements were inked.

"Despite the actions by the United States to lead the world in reducing reliance on nuclear weapons, U.S. adversaries have gone in the other direction and placed greater emphasis on modernizing ... improving, expanding their nuclear arsenals," said Drew Walter, performing the duties of deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear matters, in May.

"We must pursue simultaneous, just-in-time replacement of the forces, warheads and infrastructure that underpins the enterprise," he said in a virtual event for the Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

The U.S. has not tested any nuclear weapons since September 1992. Yet speculation is mounting that China is secretly preparing to restart its own testing.

The U.S. and Russia suspended their Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in early 2019, with Washington formally withdrawing that August. The Trump administration announced its intent this past May to leave the Open Skies Treaty, a 34-nation agreement that lets countries fly over one another's territory to increase transparency and avoid miscalculations.

When American and Russian negotiators met in Vienna this June to discuss arms control, U.S. negotiator Marshall Billingslea said any new agreement must include all nuclear weapons, not just strategic ones, and also subject China to restrictions.

China, meanwhile, has little incentive to join an arms control treaty at this time.

So Washington looks to have concluded that the only way forward is to break free of existing treaties, engage in an arms race with China, and force decision-makers in Beijing to decide that they would be better off joining a treaty, just as the Soviets did.

But there is no guarantee that a new framework can be agreed to, or when that day will even come.

Certain conditions must exist for countries to sign an effective arms control treaty. First, politicians and military officers in charge of the armed forces must recognize the merits.
In the years after World War I, major powers signed treaties to limit naval construction. These were made possible by overlapping interests between the U.S. and the U.K. -- which wanted to thwart Japan's naval rise -- and a Japan that did not want the West to gain more of a military advantage than it already had.

Decades later, the Soviet Union was motivated by its own economic weakness and a desire to curtail American technological advances when it signed the INF and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Washington near the end of the Cold War.

The second requirement is mutual trust. The INF Treaty became the first-ever treaty to actually reduce deployed nuclear weapons, partly because the Americans and the Soviets agreed to extensive verification procedures to ensure that neither party was cheating.
But arms control treaties can also collapse under different conditions -- such as when countries develop new weapons and tactics that undermine existing agreements, when they lose trust in each other, or when new powers not bound by existing treaties emerge.

The post-World War I naval treaties ultimately fell apart with the rise of carrier-based aircraft, which they did not sufficiently restrict, as well as a growing rift between Japan and the U.S. over Asia.

A similar reality lay behind the collapse of the INF.

When North Korea tested a long-range missile for an intermediate operation, the boundaries between long and intermediate blurred, negating the INF's rationale.

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper told the House Armed Services Committee in December that "China has thousands of intermediate-range missiles along their periphery, along their eastern coast," making it necessary for the U.S. to also have such missiles.

Housecarl · Jul 11, 2020

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Risk Of Conflict Between US, China Rising In South China Sea – Analysis

By Drake Long The risk of the United States and China stumbling into conflict in the South China Sea is rising as their military exercises intensify and other nations adopt a more muscular presence in this key regional hotspot, analysts said. An increasingly assertive China has been sending...

www.eurasiareview.com

Risk Of Conflict Between US, China Rising In South China Sea – Analysis

July 11, 2020 BenarNews 0 Comments
By BenarNews

By Drake Long

The risk of the United States and China stumbling into conflict in the South China Sea is rising as their military exercises intensify and other nations adopt a more muscular presence in this key regional hotspot, analysts said.

An increasingly assertive China has been sending survey ships in waters where other claimant states want to explore for oil, and has repeatedly deployed Coast Guard and paramilitary fishing ships alongside them. On top of it all, China held naval drills in early July near the Paracel Islands that drew protests from Vietnam and the Philippines.

If Beijing’s show of force was intended to test Washington’s resolve, it appears to have backfired.

The U.S. and its allies are pushing back. For the first time in years, the U.S. has in the past week sent two aircraft carriers into the South China Sea on an exercise that was within sight of China’s own drill in the Paracels. Those carrier strike groups exercised with the navy of Japan, and both Japan and Australia have unveiled new defense strategies in recent weeks that highlight concerns over China.

The rival military maneuvers at sea are echoed on the diplomatic stage. This week, U.S, Japan and Australia defense officials denounced the “continued militarization of disputed features,” the “coercive use of coast guard vessels and maritime militia,” and the disruption of other countries’ right to resources. That drew a stiff response from China, which accused “non-regional countries” of threatening stability.

Notwithstanding the growing strains in the U.S.-China relationship – Hong Kong, the sanctioning of Chinese officials over atrocities in Xinjiang, or trade disputes – RAND Corp. analyst Andrew Scobell said both the U.S. and China tend to presume the risk of conflict in the South China Sea is unlikely – and that presents a danger in itself.

“It worries me because that gives both sides a sense that they can do things without worrying about the potential for escalation,” said Scobell, who is also professor at Marine Corps University.

Olli Pekka Suorsa, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, shared concern over the growing potential for an unintended conflict breaking out.

“With both China and the United States deploying significant numbers of ships and military aircraft in close proximity with one another, the risk of collision is an ever-present danger,” Suorsa said. “And with tensions running as high as they are today, an accident or miscalculation is never far away.”

Fear of accident
The analysts interviewed said the most likely spark for fighting in the South China Sea is an accident.

Scobell harked back to the EP-3 incident in 2001, when a U.S. intelligence-gathering plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet in mid-air over the Paracels, causing the death of a Chinese pilot and forcing the U.S. plane to land at China’s Hainan province, where its crew was detained.

That incident was defused successfully, but Scobell thinks any situation now would be more volatile and there would be more pressure on both the U.S. and China to act hastily.

As the U.S. patrols the skies and sea more frequently and China continues its paramilitary activity, the chance of ships colliding or trying to force one another to back down increases, analysts said. In the event of a crisis, there are hotlines between China and the United States, but Scobell said this direct line of communication is imperfect, slow and frequently frozen.

“What gets U.S. officials frustrated is that we have this hotline or you have someone’s phone number, you’ve exchanged business cards, you’ve built a relationship and then in a crisis the American decision maker picks up the phone to call his Chinese point of contact and nobody answers. That’s what often happens,” Scobell said.

He said this is because the difference in culture. Chinese military officials do not want to be responsible for responding to Americans during a crisis.

“From the perspective of a Chinese military commander, any initiative or modest deviation from one’s orders is not rewarded, you’re really worried about being slapped down for stepping out of line,” he said.

That has big implications for how a Chinese naval officer would respond to an accident at sea involving a U.S. ship. Whereas the U.S. Navy has a culture where officers and captains have significant flexibility in how they execute their orders, China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has far less.

“When you have rigid orders, and circumstances change, and you feel like you cannot deviate from those orders, that is where the danger is,” Scobell said.

Containing risk
The South China Sea is viewed as a hotspot for good reason. In addition to the plethora of tiny land features disputed by six governments, the waters are heavily fished and a potential source of undersea oil and gas.

The region is crisscrossed by shipping routes crucial for world trade, hence the concern paid to it by outside countries.

“If allowed to proceed unchecked,” said Hunter Stires, a fellow at the U.S. Naval War College, “China’s maritime insurgency will lead to a closed, Sinocentric and unfree sea, one where avaricious coastal states can fence off and lay claim to ocean areas nowhere near them to keep the ships and mariners of other countries out.”

The last major shooting match in the South China Sea was in 1988 when China and Vietnam clashed over Johnson South Reef in the Spratlys, which left 64 Vietnamese dead and China in control of the feature.

Historically, nations have managed to contain the risk of conflict. In April, a Vietnamese fishing boat was rammed and sunk by the Chinese Coast Guard. In February, China was accused of training a radar gun on a Philippine Navy ship, which prompted Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., to file a diplomatic protest.

Neither incident escalated, and for good reason, according to Dr. Huong Le Thu, a senior analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“It is in no one’s interests, neither China nor anyone in Southeast Asia, to escalate incidents into military confrontation,” she said.

But with no discernable progress in resolving the myriad territorial disputes in the South China Sea, few observers are optimistic about nations reaching a durable solution to protect against conflict.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has aspired for nearly two decades to negotiate with China a binding Code of Conduct, or CoC, which would mitigate the risk of accidents at sea. ASEAN members Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, and Indonesia all have claims to the South China Sea or borders that conflict with China’s claims.

Late last month, the bloc reiterated their desire to complete those negotiations.

But Dr. Le Thu said that it was “wrong to hang on to the hope” that the CoC would make the South China Sea safer.

“The same week when the senior ministers’ meeting between China and ASEAN reassured about each other’s good intentions and cooperation toward the CoC, China also sent ships into Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone and kept harassing other Southeast Asians,” she said.

Taking sides
Some Southeast Asian nations which lack the capacity to stand up to China believe stepping up cooperation with the U.S. is the best way to safeguard their interests, according to Mohamad Mizan Aslam, a geopolitical strategy expert at the Universiti Malaysia Perlis.

Scobell said one of the most remarkable regional developments this year has been the Philippines backtracking on plans to dial back its military ties with the U.S., its treaty ally.

“Beijing was starting to believe it had lured Manila away from Washington,” he said.

Manila shelved its sudden abrogation of a visiting forces agreement with Washington on June 1 and is taking a stronger line against China’s actions in the South China Sea.

Still, ASEAN countries remain wary about too much of a U.S. military presence in the South China Sea where there is the potential to be dragged into a U.S.-China conflict.

Dr. Le Thu said countries in the region “would be more comfortable with the U.S. that has a strategy and longer-term plan to manage the tensions rather than fueling it for its own benefit.”

ASEAN nations traditionally are loathe to pick sides. Suorsa said the more the Sino-U.S rivalry intensifies, the more pressure both Washington and Beijing are likely to exert over smaller powers to choose between them.

“High-level officials’ insistence that the U.S. will not force smaller powers to pick sides is also losing credibility,” Suorsa said.

The perception that the South China Sea has become a venue for that great power rivalry was echoed by a retired Vietnamese general this week.

Senior Lt. Gen. Vo Tien Trung, a former member of the Communist Party Central Committee, warned that the recent military drills by China and the U.S. have “created instability and a tense situation.”

“Such actions of the two countries’ militaries create the risk of a military clash leading to instability in the South China Sea region,” he told state-run Dan Viet newspaper. “So we ask both sides to exercise utmost restraint.”

Noah Lee in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.

Home » Risk Of Conflict Between US, China Rising In South China Sea – Analysis

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BenarNews’ mission is to provide readers with accurate news and information that reflects the complex and ever-changing world around them. With homepages in Bengali, Thai, Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia and English, BenarNews brings timely news to its diverse audience. Copyright BenarNews. Used with the permission of BenarNews

Housecarl · Jul 12, 2020

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Winning: Japan Choses Quiet Over Security

Because of poor planning, Japan has decided to cancel the installation of two Aegis Ashore ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) systems The decision to buy and install the two Aegis Ashore in two existing military bases was made at the end of 2017 This decisio

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Winning: Japan Choses Quiet Over Security

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July 12, 2020: Because of poor planning Japan has decided to cancel the installation of two Aegis Ashore ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) systems. The decision to buy and install the two Aegis Ashore in two existing military bases was made at the end of 2017.This decision was encouraged by the fact that in 2016 the first Aegis Ashore system became operational in Romania. The second one became active by 2018 in Poland.

Unfortunately, Japan is not like Romania and Poland, two nations that suffered decades brutal Russian occupation. Japan has prospered greatly under the protection of the American military after World War II and developed some bad habits when it came to defense matters. What killed the Aegis project were several of those bad habits. First, as defense officials were working out the details the soon found they had had underestimated the cost of preparing the two Aegis Ashore sites. That cost was about 25 percent higher than estimated. Costs threatened to increase still more when civilians living near the two Aegis base areas discovered that there were side-effects from the use of Aegis missiles. Planners made some adjustments to the area Aegis would occupy but that was not enough to assure local civilians that the booster portion of the two stage SM missile would never fall in or near a populated area. In one Aegis Ashore site there were civilian concerns about living too close to the AESA radar Aegis uses to detect and track incoming missiles. Once the Japanese media and local politicians get hold of issues like this they stay active until the “threat” goes away. North Korean and Chinese missiles are seen as less of a threat. In Poland and Romania Russia is always seen as the primary threat and the side effects of using Aegis are not an issue.

Japan might still reconsider but it is more likely that the Aegis Ashore funds will be used to upgrade two existing Japanese destroyers to provide these ships with Aegis ABM capabilities. This is not as effective as Aegis Ashore which, as a land base, is cheaper to maintain and always available to defend against North Korean or Chinese ballistic missiles. Ships have crews and ships spend only about a third of their time at sea.

North Korean remains the primary threat to Japan. North Korea unwillingness to get rid of its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons program persists. As a result, Japan is still moving ahead to expand its ballistic missile defenses. Most of these will still be based on the Aegis system, which is normally installed on large (8,000 tons and up) warships. Japan has five of these Aegis anti-missile system destroyers with another due to enter service in 2021.

The Maya class destroyers are improved versions of the earlier Atago class destroyers. The Mayas also borrow much from the first four Japanese Aegis-ABM ships, the 9,500-ton Kongos, which were built during the 1990s and modeled on the American Burke class Aegis destroyers. The Kongos have 90 VLS (Vertical Launch System) cells for anti-aircraft/missile missiles as well as ASROC anti-submarine rockets (that carry an anti-submarine torpedo to, in effect, extend the range of the torpedo by 22 kilometers). Japanese Burke type destroyers also carry a five-inch gun and eight Japanese designed anti-ship missiles (similar to the American Harpoon). The Maya class has 96 VLS cells (as do Atagos) as well as more advanced electronics that enable the Mayas to link with the U.S. Navy CEC (Cooperative Engagement Capability) that allows real-time sharing of sensor and other data in real time between other CEC equipped ships and even shore-based systems like Aegis Ashore.

The two land-based Aegis Ashore anti-missile systems were not expected to be in service until 2024. At that point, Japan would have eight Aegis anti-missile systems and could have two more Aegis anti-missile destroyers by 2024 by upgrading the Aegis systems on two of the older destroyers. That upgrade is more likely now that Aegis Ashore has been cancelled. It appears that North Korea will continue to be a threat and how much more of a ballistic missile threat China becomes is still considered less of a problem. China has a long history of threatening but not acting. North Korea has demonstrated an ability to attack without warning, and did so in 2010. North Korea has always been less cooperative than China although the Chinese are still a threat.

What prompted the original Aegis Ashore order was the Japanese decision, in 2017, that it did not need the more expensive THAAD anti-missile system when it realized that two land-based Aegis systems on the main island could do the same job at less cost. That plus the Aegis equipped destroyers armed with the SM-3A anti-missile missile would enable those two land-based Aegis systems to protect all three of the home islands.

In addition, Japan has 24 Patriot anti-aircraft missile batteries that can also fire the PAC-3 anti-missile missile. The PAC-3 has one drawback, it only has an effective range of 30 kilometers against incoming missiles. The Aegis SM-3 anti-missile missile has a range of from 700 kilometers (older Block 1) to more than three times that for the later Block II models. This is why two Aegis land-based systems can protect most of Japan (the main island). The Patriot PAC-3 provides local defense for key targets (the capital and major military bases).

The first (Romanian) Aegis Ashore system appears to be as reliable as the original ship-based systems. This was expected because the East European Aegis Ashore system had never been to sea. In early 2014 the only land-based Aegis system in existence (in New Jersey) was taken apart, packed into sixty 60 18.2-meter (40 foot) shipping containers and sent to Romania where it was put back together and in 2015 was an operational anti-missile system by early 2016. After that two more ground-based Aegis systems were ordered; one in Poland and one in Hawaii (for testing and development). All three, including new Aegis components for two of them and needed missiles (24 per location) and launching hardware for all of them came out costing $767 million each. Then came the Japanese Aegis Ashore order, which were initially estimated to cost over two billion dollars for each system. Defense projects have always been more expensive in Japan because of local laws (no weapons exports) and customs (creating the maximum number of jobs with government projects).

The U.S. has long sought to put anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe to protect against ballistic missile attacks from Iran. Russia has opposed this and sees it as a subterfuge to weaken the effect of Russian ballistic missiles attacking European targets. Most Europeans don’t know what to make of that, but East European countries (like Romania and Poland) that spent 1945-89 as involuntary Russian vassal (or “satellite”) states, do see a need for protection from Russian missiles and Russian aggression and domination in general. Romanians and Poles considered Russian anger over Aegis Ashore as a benefit, not a problem.

It is different in East Asia where Japanese atrocities during World War II are still remembered. Japan, in turn, considers itself a victim of World War II and still insists it was trying to help its neighbors. The neighbors disagree and two of them, North Korea and China, openly threaten Japan with more nuclear attacks.

Meanwhile Aegis remains one of the most effective missile defense systems available. Aegis has achieved an 83 percent success rate during live test firings. As a result, many countries want Aegis ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) ships for protection from local ballistic missile threats. The Aegis system was designed to operate aboard warships. These are usually cruisers and destroyers that have been equipped with the special software that enables the Aegis radar system to detect and track incoming ballistic missiles. Currently, the U.S. Navy has about 40 ships with the Aegis anti-missile system. There are over 100 American and foreign warships equipped with Aegis, but less than half of them had the software mods and anti-missile missiles that enable them to shoot down ballistic missiles and low-orbit satellites. Converting an Aegis ship to Aegis ABM costs about $30 million, mainly for new software and a few new hardware items. This is seen as a safe investment and the U.S. expects to see most Aegis equipped ships to be upgraded to ABM versions in the 2020s.

To knock down ballistic missiles Aegis uses two similar models of the U.S. Navy Standard anti-aircraft missile, in addition to a modified version of the Aegis radar system, which can now track incoming ballistic missiles. The anti-missile missile is the RIM-161A, also known as the Standard Missile 3 (or SM-3). It has a range of over 500 kilometers and max altitude of over 160 kilometers. The Standard 3 is based on the anti-missile version of the Standard 2 (SM-2 Block IV). This SM-2 missile turned out to be effective against ballistic missile warheads that are closer to their target, as is its replacement, the SM-6. One test saw a SM-2 Block IV missile destroy a warhead that was only 19 kilometers up. An SM-3 missile can destroy a warhead that is more than 200 kilometers up. But the SM-3 is only good for anti-missile work, while the SM-2 Block IV and SM-6 can be used against both ballistic missiles and aircraft. The SM-2 Block IV also costs less than half what a SM-3 costs. SM-3 is not being replaced by instead constantly upgraded.

The SM-3 has four stages. The first two boost the interceptor out of the atmosphere. The third stage fires twice to boost the interceptor farther beyond the earth's atmosphere. Prior to each motor firing it takes a GPS reading to correct course for approaching the target. The fourth stage is the nine kg (20 pound) LEAP kill vehicle, which uses infrared sensors to close on the target and ram it.

Zagdid · Jul 12, 2020

Army to order 72,000 assault rifles from United States amid border row

India signed the previous order worth Rs 700 crore in early 2019 and the deliveries of all the rifles have been completed. That order was also made through the fast track procedure (FTP) prescribed in India’s defence procurement rules.

www.hindustantimes.com

Army to order 72,000 assault rifles from United States amid border row
Updated: Jul 12, 2020 21:57 IST Rahul Singh | Edited by Sohini Sarkar

At a time when India and China are locked in a tense border dispute in eastern Ladakh, the Indian Army is laying the groundwork to buy an additional 72,000 Sig Sauer assault rifles for its troops from the United States, people familiar with the development said on Sunday.

This proposed purchase follows an order for 72,400 assault rifles placed with the US last year, and is expected to be made by invoking a key clause in India’s arms buying rules that governs speeding up purchases to meet urgent requirements, said one of the officials cited above.

India signed the previous order worth Rs 700 crore in early 2019 and the deliveries of all the rifles have been completed. That order was also made through the fast track procedure (FTP) prescribed in India’s defence procurement rules.

Housecarl · Jul 12, 2020

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U.S. weighs limited options to deal with China over Hong Kong - WSJ

The United States is weighing restricted options to deal with China over its recent moves in Hong Kong, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, as tensions between Washington and Beijing heat up.

www.reuters.com

World News
July 12, 2020 / 2:09 PM / Updated 5 hours ago

U.S. weighs limited options to deal with China over Hong Kong: WSJ

(Reuters) - The United States is weighing restricted options to deal with China over its recent moves in Hong Kong, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, as tensions between Washington and Beijing heat up.

Steps against Hong Kong's financial system risk hurting U.S., Western and Hong Kong companies and consumers, according to the report here, citing U.S. officials and analysts.

Measures like more targeted sanctions against Chinese officials and trade moves against products made in Hong Kong would have little impact on Beijing’s integration of the city into the mainland’s political and security system, the Journal added.

On Thursday, Trump administration officials discussed Hong Kong plans in a White House meeting, people familiar with the gathering told the Journal. Officials will regroup early this week and may announce sanctions or other measures, one person added.

Washington last week imposed sanctions on the autonomous region of Xinjiang’s Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, a member of China’s powerful Politburo, and three other officials.

Beijing described the sanctions as “deeply detrimental” to mutual relations between the countries and warned that China would impose reciprocal measures on U.S. officials and organizations.

As bilateral tensions escalate over matters ranging from the coronavirus, trade, the new Hong Kong security law and allegations of human rights violations against Uighurs in the Xinjiang region, the U.S. government alerted American citizens on Saturday to “exercise increased caution” in China.

Earlier, a Bloomberg report said Trump’s top advisers weighed proposals to undermine the Hong Kong currency’s peg to the U.S. dollar, although the idea did not appear to have gained traction.

Chinese state lenders were revamping contingency plans over the threat of U.S. sanctions, according to a Reuters report last week.

Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Cooney

Housecarl · Jul 12, 2020

Zagdid said:
Army to order 72,000 assault rifles from United States amid border row

India signed the previous order worth Rs 700 crore in early 2019 and the deliveries of all the rifles have been completed. That order was also made through the fast track procedure (FTP) prescribed in India’s defence procurement rules.

www.hindustantimes.com

Army to order 72,000 assault rifles from United States amid border row
Updated: Jul 12, 2020 21:57 IST Rahul Singh | Edited by Sohini Sarkar

At a time when India and China are locked in a tense border dispute in eastern Ladakh, the Indian Army is laying the groundwork to buy an additional 72,000 Sig Sauer assault rifles for its troops from the United States, people familiar with the development said on Sunday.

This proposed purchase follows an order for 72,400 assault rifles placed with the US last year, and is expected to be made by invoking a key clause in India’s arms buying rules that governs speeding up purchases to meet urgent requirements, said one of the officials cited above.

India signed the previous order worth Rs 700 crore in early 2019 and the deliveries of all the rifles have been completed. That order was also made through the fast track procedure (FTP) prescribed in India’s defence procurement rules.

FYI, these are 7.62 NATO chambered rifles....

Housecarl · Jul 12, 2020

Posted for fair use.....

Pakistan's Military Says Four Soldiers Killed In Shoot-Out In Northwest

Pakistan's military says four soldiers and four "terrorists" were killed during a gunfight in the northwestern region of North Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan.

www.rferl.org

Pakistan

Pakistan's Military Says Four Soldiers Killed In Shoot-Out In Northwest

July 12, 2020 20:02 GMT

Pakistan's military says four soldiers and four "terrorists" were killed during a gunfight in the northwestern region of North Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan.

A statement from the military’s public relations wing said the soldiers were killed during an "intelligence-based operation" early on July 12.

The statement said the gunfight erupted after soldiers surrounded what it called a military hideout near the town of Miran Shah, the main urban center in North Waziristan.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

North Waziristan served as a stronghold for local and foreign militants until 2014, when Pakistan’s army launched a massive military operation to clear the region of militants.

Despite the army’s claims of success, the region has continued to be the scene of violent attacks, targeted killings, and roadside bombs.

On June 10, the military said a roadside bomb targeting a vehicle carrying troops exploded, killing two soldiers and wounding two others.

Housecarl · Jul 12, 2020

Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

As U.S. Moves To Exit Afghanistan, Rivals Prepare To Swoop In

With U.S. forces scheduled to leave Afghanistan within a year, Pakistan, Iran, and Russia see an opportunity to step in.

www.rferl.org

Afghanistan
As U.S. Moves To Exit Afghanistan, Rivals Prepare To Swoop In
July 12, 2020 09:18 GMT

By Frud Bezhan

With U.S. forces scheduled to leave Afghanistan within a year, Pakistan, Iran, and Russia see an opportunity to step in.
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The U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was backed by most countries in the region, who shared the goal of ousting the extremist Taliban regime and eliminating the allied Al-Qaeda terrorist network.

The governments in Tehran, Moscow, and Islamabad readily helped the United States fight the extremist groups.

Iran provided crucial intelligence to support U.S. special forces and CIA teams orchestrating the invasion.

Russia supplied Soviet-era maps and intelligence and later allowed the U.S. military to send supplies to Afghanistan through its territory.

The stage has already been set, with many key actors -- including Russia and Iran -- increasing their ties with both the Afghan state and the Taliban."
-- Michael Kugelman, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Even Pakistan, the chief backer of the Taliban, offered its assistance in helping hunt down Al-Qaeda militants and became the main supply line for NATO forces.

But in the intervening 19 years, the regional consensus favoring the U.S. troops in Afghanistan has eroded.

Though the U.S. military swiftly overthrew the Taliban and eliminated Al-Qaeda safe havens in Afghanistan, many feel it got bogged down in mission creep.

Meanwhile, Washington’s ties with many regional players -- including Pakistan, Iran, and Russia -- became toxic.

With U.S. forces scheduled to exit Afghanistan next year as part of a framework peace deal with the Taliban, Washington’s rivals see an opportunity to step in and expand their footprint in the war-torn country.

Those efforts have intensified since the United States and the Taliban signed a deal in February aimed at negotiating an end to the war, which began way back in 2001.

Under that agreement, U.S. forces will withdraw from Afghanistan by May 2021 in exchange for counterterrorism guarantees from the Taliban, which has pledged to negotiate a permanent cease-fire and power-sharing deal with the Kabul government.

The delayed intra-Afghan peace talks are expected to be complex and protracted, and will likely take years.

Impatient to end the costly and unpopular war, President Donald Trump is considering fast-tracking the exit of American troops ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November, according to U.S. media reports.

Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa: Experts say Islamabad stands to be the biggest beneficiary of a U.S. military pullout from Afghanistan.
Experts say that in the absence of a peace deal, a U.S. military withdrawal could ignite a free-for-all that involves regional powers pursuing often competing interests in Afghanistan.

“The stage has already been set, with many key actors -- including Russia and Iran -- increasing their ties with both the Afghan state and the Taliban,” says Michael Kugelman, South Asia senior associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

“The objective is to develop more influence and generate more leverage with key actors across the board, so that they will be in a better position to pursue and achieve their goals in a post-America Afghanistan -- a place we can expect to be increasingly unstable and complex.”

Iran, Pakistan, and Russia -- with long histories of meddling in the country -- are hedging their bets. The three countries have sought to improve their relations with the Western-backed government in Kabul, while also reaching out to the Taliban in case it gains a role in a future Afghan government.

Islamabad has retained its long-standing ties with the Taliban and shelters the group’s leadership, while Tehran and Moscow have been tacitly working to bolster their ties with the militants, with the goal of expanding their own strategic interests in Afghanistan.

'Make The Taliban Even Stronger'

Pakistan has long been accused of playing a double game in Afghanistan, sheltering and aiding the Taliban while receiving billions in U.S. aid to clamp down on the militants.

Pakistan's ties to the Taliban date back to the 1990s, when it provided arms, training, and intelligence to the militants. Islamabad was one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban government when it took power in Afghanistan in 1996. After the regime's fall in 2001, many Taliban leaders took shelter inside Pakistan.

Observers say Pakistan sees the Taliban as an insurance policy for reaching its long-standing strategic goals in Afghanistan -- installing a pro-Pakistan government in Kabul and limiting the influence of its archrival India, which has close ties to Kabul.

Experts say Pakistan stands to be the biggest beneficiary of a U.S. military pullout from Afghanistan.

“If a withdrawal leads to a peace process that results in a settlement, then Pakistan would benefit as this would likely entail the Taliban holding a fair share of power,” says Kugelman. “If the peace process collapses and the U.S. withdrawal ushers in a period of extended destabilization, Pakistan would still benefit because it would make the Taliban even stronger.”

'Buffer Zone'

Iran has supported its traditional allies in Afghanistan -- the Shi’ite Hazara minority and the Persian-speaking ethnic Tajiks -- while recently establishing contacts with the Taliban, a predominately Pashtun group.

Iran and the Taliban were on the verge of war in 1998 -- when the group controlled most of Afghanistan -- after the deaths of eight Iranian diplomats in the Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: The relationship between Shi’ite-majority Iran and the Taliban, a fundamentalist Sunni group, is complex.
Tehran backed the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance before the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. But in recent years the Islamic republic and the Taliban have forged closer ties, with militant leaders even visiting Tehran.

The relationship between Shi’ite-majority Iran and the Taliban, a fundamentalist Sunni group, is complex. Iran officially opposes the Taliban, but experts say it provides some military support to the mainstream Taliban and even rival breakaway factions.

Analysts say that while Iran does not want the Taliban to return to power, Tehran is looking to maintain influence with the group as a hedge in case the Taliban becomes a political player in Afghanistan or it forcibly seizes control of the country.

“These initiatives serve the purpose of securing Iran's sphere of influence in Afghanistan and perhaps even creating a buffer zone on Afghan soil to protect parts of Iran's eastern borders from infiltration by forces hostile to Iran,” says Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

'A Great Power'

For more than a decade after the U.S.-led invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin praised Washington for taking on the “burden” of fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and urged it to “carry it to the end.”

But since 2014, the Kremlin has attempted to undermine the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, fueled by Moscow’s desire to be an international power broker and its rivalry with the West in Ukraine and Syria, where Russia joined Iran in supporting President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Moscow said it has established contacts with the Taliban in recent years because of the common threat posed by the Islamic State (IS) extremist group in Afghanistan. Washington has accused Russia of arming the Taliban, which it denies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin once praised Washington for taking on the “burden” of fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and urged it to “carry it to the end.”
In the past two years, Moscow has hosted two international conferences on the Afghan peace process, inviting Taliban leaders and Afghan opposition members.

Earlier this month, U.S. media reported that a Russian military intelligence unit had offered secret bounties to the Taliban if they killed U.S. or NATO-member troops in Afghanistan.

Moscow and the Taliban have denied the reports, which are based on U.S. intelligence assessments. But the revelations have served to highlight Moscow’s murky dealings in Afghanistan.

“Russia's interests in Afghanistan are twofold: to avoid an explosion of chaos on the borders of what it considers its sphere of influence, and to use it as an opportunity to demonstrate and assert its claim to be a great power,” says Mark Galeotti, a Russia analyst and a senior associate fellow at the British-based Royal United Services Institute.

Frud Bezhan
Frud Bezhan is a correspondent for RFE/RL who covers Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan.

Doomer Doug · Jul 12, 2020

Gee, if Doomer Doug was a space alien, I would fire up my anti-gravity machine, hit the cruise control and head back to Alpha Centari and a beer as fast as I could. I would post a sign saying "Crazed Humans, RUN FOR THE NEXT GALAXY before I left. :shkr:

Housecarl · Jul 13, 2020

Doomer Doug said:
Gee, if Doomer Doug was a space alien, I would fire up my anti-gravity machine, hit the cruise control and head back to Alpha Centari and a beer as fast as I could. I would post a sign saying "Crazed Humans, RUN FOR THE NEXT GALAXY before I left.

You and me both.....

Zagdid · Jul 13, 2020

US UAV, Israeli loitering bombs as Indian infantry gets lethal

The Indian army is set to acquire 200 pieces of RQ-11 UAV, which can fly up to 10 kilometers at an altitude of 500 feet and speed up to 95 kilometre per hour.

www.hindustantimes.com

US UAV, Israeli loitering bombs as Indian infantry gets lethal
Updated: Jul 13, 2020 10:59 IST Shishir Gupta

The Indian army has set its eyes on acquiring hand-launched, remotely controlled unmanned aerial vehicle Raven from US and state-of-the-art Israeli Spike Firefly “loitering” ammunition to add lethality to its ground infantry apart from long-range precision artillery shells with a range of over 40 kilometres.

While the army is sharpening the teeth of its infantry, the air force will get five Rafale multi-role fighter jets from Paris this month, with another four to be used for training in France. The five fighter jets will be based at Ambala.

The Indian navy is all set to commission its second ballistic missile-firing nuclear submarine, INS Arighat, later this year.

According to people in South Block aware of the development, the army is set to acquire 200 pieces of RQ-11 UAV, which can fly up to 10 kilometers at an altitude of 500 feet and speed up to 95 kilometre per hour, to help infantry troops conduct reconnaissance of the battle theatre ahead and placement of enemy troops.

After the Indian army brought Spike Mark III anti-tank guided missiles from Israel as part of emergency purchases due to the Ladakh standoff with China, it is now buying firefly ammunition that can deliver a precision strike on enemy troops hiding within a range of one km.

The latest Firefly ammunition not only has loitering capability to locate a target but also can be called back if the target has moved beyond range.

While the IAF and Indian Army have been at the forefront of the Indian posture in Ladakh, the Indian Navy has been on the front foot in the Indian Ocean against Chinese warships.

According to senior military officials, the Navy through its Fusion Centre at Gurugram, has kept a close watch on the Indian Ocean throughout the Ladakh crisis and has been able muscle out six Chinese warships from the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean region.

“These ships were around Gwadar port in Balochistan. First three ships went back to China with Indian Navy closely watching them and then the remaining three also returned to their home country. Today, there is not a single Chinese warship in Indian Ocean,” said a senior military officer on condition of anonymity.

While the senior military commander talks on disengagement in Ladakh will take place this week, the troop withdrawal exercise from all the four stand-off points is currently on with verification on the ground.

While the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has tried to link the withdrawal with other conditions, Indian army commanders have made it clear that the disengagement is unconditional.

jward · Jul 14, 2020

China ‘strategic accord’ could give Iran a $400 billion boost, up military ties
Under 25 year agreement reportedly finalized, Beijing and Tehran to increase military cooperation, including weapons development and intel sharing; China getting discount oil
By Agencies and TOI staff 13 July 2020, 12:47 am

Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, greets Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Qingdao in eastern China's Shandong Province on June 10, 2018. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Negotiations between Iran and China over the creation of a 25-year strategic accord appear to have concluded, with The New York Times on Sunday publishing excerpts from an 18-page agreement labeled “final version” that could see Beijing invest $400 billion over the next 25 years in exchange for discount oil.
The document — which The Times said was dated June 2020 and has yet to be approved by the Majles, Iran’s parliament — detailed how Beijing would receive Iranian oil at a sharply reduced price for the next quarter century in exchange expanding its economic involvement in a variety of fields, including banking and infrastructure, such as telecommunications and transport.
This would potentially include giving the Iranians access to China’s global positioning system and helping roll out an Iranian 5G network.

China is Iran’s top trading partner.

Tehran has been hit hard by American sanctions reimposed following Washington’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal in May 2018. Iranian crude exports have been severely curtailed by the US sanctions, as has much of the country’s foreign trade.
The deal could bring Iran as much as $400 billion in Chinese investment over the next quarter century, according to sources with knowledge of the deal who spoke with The Times.
The deal would also encompass military cooperation, including weapons development, combined training and intelligence sharing in order to combat ““the lopsided battle with terrorism, drug and human trafficking and cross-border crimes,” The Times reported.

Both Tehran and Beijing are currently at loggerheads with Washington, Iran over its nuclear program and China over ongoing trade disputes with the Trump administration.
The US has accused China of stealing its intellectual property and engaging in forced technology transfers from US firms doing business there.

The accord said that Iran and China as “two ancient Asian cultures, two partners in the sectors of trade, economy, politics, culture and security with a similar outlook and many mutual bilateral and multilateral interests will consider one another strategic partners,” the paper reported.

On Sunday, a senior aide to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the accord could be signed as early as next March, Radio Farda reported.
There has been some pushback in Iran regarding the deal.
Last Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told lawmakers that their country had been negotiating with the Chinese and that the terms would be announced once a deal is struck.

During the session, Zarif was heckled by lawmakers, largely over his key role in negotiating a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which the US unilaterally abandoned in 2018 as a prelude to reimposing biting sanctions.
It was his first address to parliament since a new house started work in late May in the wake of elections that were dominated by conservatives and ultra-conservatives.

Zarif insisted there was “nothing secret” about the prospective China deal.
The nation would be informed “when an accord has been concluded,” he said, adding that the intention had already been made public in January 2016 when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Tehran.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has come out publicly in support of a strategic bilateral partnership with China.

The planned China deal has been a hot topic on Iranian social media since populist ex-president Mahmud Ahmadinejad last month condemned negotiations underway with a foreign country.

China ‘strategic accord’ could give Iran a $400 billion boost, up military ties

Under 25 year agreement reportedly finalized, Beijing and Tehran to increase military cooperation, including weapons development and intel sharing; China getting discount oil

www.timesofisrael.com

jward · Jul 14, 2020

China: The aftermath of wolf-warrior diplomacy
With PM Narendra Modi addressing troops from Ladakh, the declaration of beginning of the end of China has happened. Historically, it all began with Zhou Enlai’s ‘wolf-warrior diplomacy’ that closed all the face-saving exit doors for the CCP.

Published 5:25 am IST
July 14, 2020

By
Shreedharan Raman

December 1962. The words of former Mongolian Prime Minister Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal during a meeting with former Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, “Sorry that China and India had quarreled.” And added further, “Quarreling with India over an uninhabited strip of land in the Himalayas would only force the Indians to turn to the West, and that would not help China’s cause.” (Source: Chinafile.com)

Fast forward to 2020. It seems Zhou Enlai, who is also dubbed as father of Chinese diplomacy, has scripted China’s downfall. For that downfall to happen, they are doing a natural climb up a vertical cliff. After the attack that killed 20 Indian Army personnel, events have now pushed the CCP clearly off balance. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing troops from Union Territory of Ladakh, the declaration of beginning of the end of China has happened. In other words, they have also been pushed from the top of the cliff.

For China, the downfall was visible. Music was slowing down due to trade war with the US. But to pick up a fight with India in the middle of a pandemic is a new low even according to Zhou Enlai’ism. As of today, China currently stares at an irreversible combined defeat on three fronts. The end is near for: 1) Political entity called People‘s Republic of China—diplomatic defeat. 2) Armed wing of CPC—People‘s Liberation Army—military defeat. 3) Communist Party of China—political defeat.

In this background, a sneak peek into some of those issues.

Diplomatic defeat
Zhou Enlai’s wolf-warrior diplomacy has closed all the facesaving exit doors for CCP. Implications are going to be rough and hard landing. Ranging from breakup of what we now know as China into multiple independent states and redrawing of maps of north Asia. This has huge implications on Belt and Road Initiative-trapped countries in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. This is going to have a global impact on the world economy with trillions of forex reserves going bust and turning valueless in a matter of a few weeks. Rumblings have already started over $400 billion in Hong Kong. Add to the mix, a probable implosion of Chinese regime in full. And a rogue PLA takeover, with weapons of mass destruction is the last thing the world would want right now. Powers that be should disarm PLA immediately after defeat and neutralise the nuclear threat in the best possible way. We should also leave no stone unturned to stop it from reaching a terrorist organisation or a state like Pakistan. This is going to be a diplomatic nightmare.
A good start would be to recognise Taiwan and send back Communist Party-appointed Envoys across countries. Give land allotted to People’s Republic of China missions to Republic of China. Let the flag of PRC be replaced by ROC. Let the message go to the larger free and democratic world, that the “game is over” for PRC. First one, to happily follow would be Australia and many African countries.

UNSC role and reform
The UN and the UNSC should step in immediately. The UN should be reformed by replacing China as a permanent member with India. Failing which, the UN may go League of Nations’ way in due course. No, this is not due to non-support of India. But UN’s credibility would be at stake in pages of history. By the time the PRC implodes, China would neither have the moral high ground nor represent the billion people nor have a great economy. Means, little justice to UNSC permanent seat anyways. CCP leadership should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity in International Courts for unleashing pandemic across the world & killing thousands of people while destroying the world economy as we knew it. This might sound punitive in nature, but does the world think China has the moral right to continue in UNSC as a permanent member? Just pure logic.
It is a poignant fact that India with an almost equal population and a democratic country is not being represented in UNSC as a permanent member. It is one of the many glaring failures of the UN, as a world body. This should be cascaded on to other world bodies too & PRC should see itself out of those as well.

The Tibet question
From India’s point of view, until 1950 we never had a border with China. Tibet was a buffer. Tibet that should be talked about in future should include all three provinces of the erstwhile Tibetan State. U-Tsang, Kham & Amdo. Yes, demography is changed, but over time people would turn inwards and find reason for justice. But we’re culturally linked till Mongolia.
We should have all future conversations regarding Tibet, only with Tibetan Government-inExile, that is in India currently. It should be formalized and recognized when they reach Potala Palace (seat of Government of Tibet, when Dalai Lama reaches Lhasa) in due course. In fact, this should be deliberated with Tibetan Government in Exile as the successor to the current political setup of China.
Strange fact, China calls the Shimla Accord (1914) illegal. Reason probably is, communists were not the signatory, but the agreement was with Republic of China (Taiwan). So, whenever CCP claims something, pause & think. Some facts are surely missing. Ask for documents. Chances are that they might not even have it.

Not just India, many other South East Asian countries have an interest in Tibet, also called the water table of Asia, as major rivers of the region have its source there. Brahmaputra, Mekong & Indus. China already has a project to have diverted water from South to North. Plus the mindless construction of dams across the Mekong River has made water levels low in lower riparian states of South-East Asia leaving many areas drought and also affecting inland water transport. Last year, water levels reached as low as 1.5m. Record low. Hope that conveys the intensity.
Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos & Vietnam can’t let China have a knife on their head over this matter. This is like what Chinese have been doing in our own Brahmaputra – where they are building dams to stop flow of water into India from Tibet. Luckily, for us more water comes from within Indian borders than from Tibet. Problem is when Chinese release water from the check dams without intimation or stop sharing hydrological data. Hence, Tibet can’t be with a country which gives zero value to rules-based world order and common sense, basis which humanity operates.

Tibet is sparsely populated and the challenging terrain. If need arises and at the request of Tibetan people and government, India should rise to the occasion and provide security cover to our spiritual brothers across the Himalayas. No, India doesn’t have to get the land or government there. Indian government policy is very clear in this regard. India is not in for greed of land, which PM Modi himself made very clear. We have our cultural interests in Tibet. Like, Kailash Manasarovar and cultural influence through Buddhism extends till Mongolia.
Now two questions might arise in the minds of Western countries: Can India be trusted with this responsibility of protecting Tibet and waters? Yes. Tibetans are spiritually and culturally our brothers. We shouldn’t repeat our monumental mistake of the 1950s. India is surrounded by small nations like Bhutan and Maldives. Never invaded them. In fact, India patrols Maldives’ EEZ in Indian Ocean. India has a free and open border with Nepal.

Can India protect Tibet’s resources on humanitarian reasons? Again, an impartial answer: YES. Purely based on our track record in adhering to Indus Water Treaty (brokered by a World Bank in 1960) has lived through decades of conflict and three major wars with the very country we had signed the treaty with. India has till date, not weaponised water. In fact, giving Pakistan more than what is mentioned in the agreement. Such a track record of commitments can be depended upon.

Taiwan
Taiwan should be recognised as a successor state in case Chinese Communist Party rule ends. An understanding with Taiwan should be reached in this regard, which should end all China’s claims with regards to Tibet and Inner-Mongolia. There should be no space for any political vacuum. Ultimate objective should be democratic, peaceful & demilitarised China—within its rightful land. This should solve the Hong Kong issue as well. Let us be very clear, the war is with Chinese Communist Party. Not the people of China, who have suffered from CCP more than anyone in the world. In return, Taiwan should give up untenable historical claims with various countries bordering it. Including Ladakh, Tibet (as per the original map of 1914. Parts of which are with other provinces) and handing over of inner-Mongolia to Mongolia. Any other dispute be only solved through peaceful negotiations.

Military
Quick facts about PLA: 1) PLA is an armed wing of CCP. 2) PLA reports not to the people but to the CMC (Central Military Commission) which is also headed by Xi. 3) PLA has its own businesses. Former PLA members are part of such companies.
China’s military power is not so powerful to damage us significantly, yet not to be taken lightly. But the caution ends there. A cursory research and even reading some factual replies to military related tweets from Global Times would give you a fair idea. PLA is done and dusted. And is on the verge of being disbanded. As of today, the PLA is behaving like Saddam’s army. CCP is turning out to be a redux of Ba’ath Party. The Iraq government was in denial of coalition forces entering Iraq and even after crossing Euphrates river. PLA’s might is a myth and stands busted. Strategy of the PLA is very simple. Put overwhelming numbers against PLA’s adversaries in the first wave. If the adversary survives the first wave and does calculated maneuvers, it won’t be tough for a battle-hardened force like that of India’s to punish PLA. With not much troops with PLA for back-up, they suffer significant loss as well.

The political commissar system has destroyed physical courage in the PLA soldiers. Else, by now, they won’t set out to start building a narrative of “we were attacked” on CCTV for their population. They would have already attacked India elsewhere, militarily. A military response not coming from such a big force, is a surprise for commoners. Not for those who give their deeds even a second glance.
Forget US, Australia, Japan, India and Russia. The socio-economic reasons behind every soldier of PLA would make one rate other smaller armies better. For example, the PLA has 2million troops. And many more in reserve. Even Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam have a combined troop strength of 1.5 million. That too, fully ready for combat in jungles and is as much battle-hardened as PLA. With some support from QUAD, PLA would be forced to fight another front in jungles of these countries, from high altitude regions of Tibet. This is just land. Situation at sea is even a bigger disadvantage for China. Imagine the theater commander’s nightmares.

China would not get support from North Korea and Pakistan to help them with India & Russia, in case they form an alliance against PLA, they are wrong. North Korea & Pakistan would already switch sides or cease to exist or get busy with their own troubles, when China requires their help most. With the movements happening in SCS & IndoPacific, with almost all affected countries contributing resources, lakhs of troops from friendly countries are ready to take PLA head on. PLA would end up spreading thin across the country. Forget Tibet, would they even be able to defend Guangzhou & Hainan, when push comes to shove? Who would police Xinjiang Uyghur camps? With the current socio-economic situation & past sins of CCP, will their population support CCP’s efforts?

With the majority of troops being young troopers of the “single child policy” generation, it is in the interest of China’s future that the PLA be disbanded. These young troopers are innocent & joined PLA either forcefully or joined to get a college fee waiver. Hence be vetted & sent to their families (except notorious ones). PLA should be downsized to less than 10 personnel / million people. Only police and civil defence should be allowed. For internal troubles. All other arms—PLAF, PLAN, PLARF, PAPF etc— should cease to exist as well. Including external intelligence agencies operating within the Ministry of State Security. With Russia, Taiwan and QUAD turning guarantors of peace and sovereignty of borders, why would China require anything beyond border patrols?

Political
China has started a victim narrative through CCTV by saying India crossed LAC and captured land. China here forgets that it is in occupied land post1962 war and has zero respect for India’s sovereignty in other parts of India’s Union Territory of Ladakh—by operating CPEC through Pakistan Occupied Ladakh. But treats even the slightest disagreement, as an insult.Recently discovered that China doesn’t have a President and that there is only the General Secretary of Communist Party of China & Chairman of the Central Military Commission. Even Xi wants him to be addressed as Chairman Xi and not as President Xi. Why is this information important? Just to point out that China has a head of Party and Military. No Head of State per se. Party has the country. Country doesn’t have a government. Subtle, yet significant.

Pattern to behaviour. CCP operates based on collective bullying & comparing with others. Like, “Everyone listens to me, why are you not listening?” is the standard syntax used for almost everything. This is quite clear in the mindset of ‘wolf-warrior’ diplomats too. Era of expansion through collective bullying is OVER. So, when the imminent overthrow/replacement of Xi Jinping happens, the fall of CCP should be completed too. Identify key people of CCP at village level. World should not be limited to encouraging regime change with another authoritarian in Beijing. Present with an alternative for the people of China (excluding Tibet, Inner-Mongolia & Xinjiang) & they’d prefer to be part of democratic society. Surrounded by democracies like India, South Korea, Japan, Australia & Mongolia, this would rather be quick.
The Chinese judicial system should be scrapped as well. It has a 99% conviction rate. Imagine, “Conviction is the norm, acquittal is an exception”. All symbols of Communism would vanish over time. A free democratic society would be tolerant to various practices like Feng Shui, Falun Gong, Tai Chi etc. A new democratic constitution, with strong affirmation of local bodies, reflecting the aspirations of a Chinese people is the way forward.
Last but not the least, economic costs might be imposed.

Economic costs
A blanket ban on Renminbi trade outside China. Through SWIFT/other mechanisms. Seize the assets of CCP, CCP members, CCP owned companies within & outside China. Including ships & other maritime assets.An investigation into all projects by CCP under BRI and CPEC. Any entity, company that is violating local laws and sovereignty in countries they operate be boldly acted upon and prosecuted without fear of repercussions / fear. Those who join the coalition now, to teach Chinese Communist Party a lesson, should be given an open offer: All overpriced loans would be renegotiated with the World Bank as mediator. All those unnecessary projects would be scrapped right away, freeing them of political compulsions. Then, those forcefully taken over by China in various countries should be returned immediately with financial loss adjusted against auction of seized assets of CCP / PLA. Remaining be given to Chinese people. This will open flood gates and lots of people would turn against CCP—within & outside China. Repatriations should also be paid to countries affected very badly by pandemic.
Overall, we are in a very interesting time which would be defined as a turning point in world history. Especially that of Asia, China and India. It is up to the people in power corridors to decide the exact course of action.

Shreedharan Raman watches strategic moves by countries around the globe, especially China, and writes his opinions occasionally. He can be contacted at write@shreedharan. com.

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China: The aftermath of wolf-warrior diplomacy

With PM Narendra Modi addressing troops from Ladakh, the declaration of beginning of the end of China has happened. Historically, it all began with Zhou Enlai’s ‘wolf-warrior diplomacy’ that closed all the face-saving exit doors for the CCP. - TheDailyGuardian

thedailyguardian.com

jward · Jul 14, 2020

The US Announces a New Position on Maritime Claims in the South China Sea: First Takeaways

In a welcome development, the revised U.S. position brings American policy in line with the July 2016 arbitral tribunal ruling.

By Ankit Panda

July 14, 2020

The US Announces a New Position on Maritime Claims in the South China Sea: First Takeaways

Credit: AP Photo/Andy Wong
On Monday, July 13, the U.S. Department of State unveiled an important set of clarifications concerning U.S. policy in the South China Sea. Specifically, the new policy positions explain in greater detail the U.S. government’s legal interpretations of certain excessive maritime entitlements in the South China Sea, with a focus on pushing back on Chinese claims.
The announcement came one day after the four year anniversary of the July 2016 arbitral tribunal ruling in the Philippines’ 2013 case against China over maritime entitlements in the South China Sea. In that ruling, a Hague-based international tribunal granted an award overwhelmingly in the Philippines’ favor, rejecting China’s maritime entitlement claims around specific features in the Spratly Islands.

“We are strengthening U.S. policy on South China Sea maritime claims, according to international law, in rejection of Beijing’s intimidation, bullying, and claims of maritime empire,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared on Twitter on Monday afternoon.
There’ll be more to say on the U.S. policy change in the coming days, but an initial read suggests that the change is both significant and less dramatic than it could have been. I understand that prior to the U.S. announcement, specific U.S. partners and allies in the region had been briefed on the contours of the new clarifications.
In any case, a few preliminary observations on the text of the new U.S. position, as released by the State Department.
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First, the driving impulse to this policy review appears to be China’s attempt to claim offshore resources in disputed waters. At the outside, the revised policy notes that “Beijing’s claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are completely unlawful, as is its campaign of bullying to control them.”
There have been indicators that U.S. policy was heading in this direction. Last year, the U.S. State Department and Defense Department put out multiple statements calling out Chinese “bullying” of Vietnam in its exclusive economic zone — particularly as a Chinese survey ship conducted activities within waters claimed by Hanoi.

Second, the U.S. position on freedom of navigation and overflight remains largely unchanged. Here, the position is basically the same from the one articulated during the first term of the Obama administration, when freedom of navigation was identified as a core U.S. interest in the South China Sea.
Third, and where the statement gets really interesting for South China Sea legal wonks, is the U.S. claim that China “has no legal grounds to unilaterally impose its will on the region,” and that Beijing has “offered no coherent legal basis for its ‘Nine-Dashed Line’ claim in the South China Sea since formally announcing it in 2009.” To support both these assertions, the United States cites the July 12, 2016, award in Philippines v. China.

Again, there have been signs that U.S. policy was heading here. A note verbale submitted by the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations on the South China Sea earlier this summer made a similar assertion. In three bullet points, the State Department statement clarifies how exactly the July 2016 ruling informs U.S. policy, noting that the U.S. position is being aligned “with the Tribunal’s decision.” The three points are as follows:

The PRC cannot lawfully assert a maritime claim – including any Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) claims derived from Scarborough Reef and the Spratly Islands – vis-a-vis the Philippines in areas that the Tribunal found to be in the Philippines’ EEZ or on its continental shelf. Beijing’s harassment of Philippine fisheries and offshore energy development within those areas is unlawful, as are any unilateral PRC actions to exploit those resources. In line with the Tribunal’s legally binding decision, the PRC has no lawful territorial or maritime claim to Mischief Reef or Second Thomas Shoal, both of which fall fully under the Philippines’ sovereign rights and jurisdiction, nor does Beijing have any territorial or maritime claims generated from these features.

As Beijing has failed to put forth a lawful, coherent maritime claim in the South China Sea, the United States rejects any PRC claim to waters beyond a 12-nautical mile territorial sea derived from islands it claims in the Spratly Islands (without prejudice to other states’ sovereignty claims over such islands). As such, the United States rejects any PRC maritime claim in the waters surrounding Vanguard Bank (off Vietnam), Luconia Shoals (off Malaysia), waters in Brunei’s EEZ, and Natuna Besar (off Indonesia). Any PRC action to harass other states’ fishing or hydrocarbon development in these waters – or to carry out such activities unilaterally – is unlawful.

The PRC has no lawful territorial or maritime claim to (or derived from) James Shoal, an entirely submerged feature only 50 nautical miles from Malaysia and some 1,000 nautical miles from China’s coast. James Shoal is often cited in PRC propaganda as the “southernmost territory of China.” International law is clear: An underwater feature like James Shoal cannot be claimed by any state and is incapable of generating maritime zones. James Shoal (roughly 20 meters below the surface) is not and never was PRC territory, nor can Beijing assert any lawful maritime rights from it.

By my reading, each of these points — with a few notable exceptions — finds precedent in the 500-page 2016 award. The notable exception is in point two, which makes reference to features that were outside of the ambit of the 2016 award, including Vanguard Bank, Luconia Shoals, and Natuna Besar. All, nonetheless, have been prominent flashpoints in recent years between China and claimant states.

The writing in parts of the State Department release could be clearer. For instance, the statement in point two, on “PRC claim to waters beyond a 12-nautical mile territorial sea” pertains specifically to claims derived off PRC-held features in the Spratly Islands. The 2016 award found that none of these features met the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea threshold for classification as a natural island, which would have otherwise granted them a 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone.

As a result, only a handful of features were deemed to be “rocks,” entitled to a 12 nautical mile territorial sea. Others, meanwhile, were acknowledged as low-tide elevations, entitled to no exclusive maritime claims. This was particularly important in the context of China’s seven artificial island facilities, whereby the previous status of the features was irreversibly changed by Chinese land reclamation activities in the years leading up to the ruling. As I noted back in July 2016, the tribunal’s award took the following view of specific features:

Regarding the status of features in the Spratly Islands–a key feature of the Philippines’ case against China–the Tribunal ruled that “Scarborough Shoal, Johnson Reef, Cuarteron Reef, and Fiery Cross Reef are high-tide features and that Subi Reef, Hughes Reef, Mischief Reef, and Second Thomas Shoal were submerged at high tide in their natural condition.” These designations comport with the Philippines’ original positions in its filing to the Tribunal, demonstrating that the country’s legal reasoning for why these features should be considered either high-tide features or low-tide elevations was accurate.

The Tribunal disagreed with the Philippines on the status of just two features: Gaven Reef (North) and McKennan Reef, concluding that both are high tide features. Under UNCLOS, high tide features or “rocks” are entitled to a 12 nautical mile territorial sea.

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It’s notable, also, that the new U.S. position does not cross an important Rubicon in maintaining the general agnosticism regarding the territorial sovereignty of features. Just as the United States took no position on who owned what in the South China Sea in years past, it will continue to do so.
While its jarring to see the Trump administration appeal to an international arbitral decision given, well, everything else about the administration’s conduct on the world stage, there’s inherently little objectionable here. It makes sense for Washington to do this.

The 2016 award should have been a moment for states supporting the rules-based order in the South China Sea to stand by the Philippines and affirm that might does not make right in international affairs. While the U.S. supported the award at the time, much of this support was immediately undermined by the then-newly inaugurated Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who spun Manila’s geopolitical orientation by 180 degrees and began rapprochement with China.
In practical terms, even with a U.S. election just months away now, I’d expect this newly reinterpreted U.S. policy toward the South China Sea to outlast the Trump administration.

In the U.S.-China context, it’s not difficult to see that this latest step will add to a growing list of flashpoints between the two countries. It’ll be interesting to see how Beijing chooses to respond the State Department’s statements. While China rejected the 2016 arbitral tribunal’s validity and didn’t participate in legal proceedings, it submitted a position paper. One low-hanging option would be to react with a reiteration of Beijing’s legal position.
Separately, the new understanding could open a new front in how Beijing chooses to handle ongoing U.S. military activities in the South China Sea. The State Department’s clarifications come not long after two U.S. Navy carrier strike groups conducted joint operations in the South China Sea for the first time. China has taken to criticizing the United States for “militarization” activities in the region and may grant a freer hand to the China Coast Guard and People’s Liberation Army Navy to shadow U.S. vessels. We may even see a return to dangerous and unsafe conduct, as a means of sending a message.

posted for fair use

The US Announces a New Position on Maritime Claims in the South China Sea: First Takeaways

In a welcome development, the revised U.S. position brings American policy in line with the July 2016 arbitral tribunal ruling.

thediplomat.com

Housecarl · Jul 14, 2020

BTT...

Housecarl · Jul 14, 2020

Posted for fair use....

US Army uses French port as new launch point for Europe mission

Dozens of U.S. Army helicopters began flights Monday from La Rochelle, a port in western France used during the Cold War that is now playing a key role in deploying soldiers to NATO’s eastern flank.

www.stripes.com

US Army uses French port as new launch point for Europe mission

By JOHN VANDIVER | STARS AND STRIPESPublished: July 13, 2020

STUTTGART, Germany — Dozens of U.S. Army helicopters began flights Monday from La Rochelle, a port in western France used during the Cold War that is now playing a key role in deploying soldiers to NATO’s eastern flank.

About 60 Chinook, Black Hawks and Apaches from the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Combat Aviation Brigade are headed to Latvia, Poland and Germany. The operation is part of a nine-month rotation connected to the Atlantic Resolve mission, which is focused on deterring potential Russian aggression.

“The port is vital to the reception, staging, and onward movement of the 101st CAB from the U.S. to the European continent,” U.S. Army Europe said in a statement Monday. “Using La Rochelle Port strengthens the France/U.S. bilateral relationship by providing increased military mobility for the collective defense of Europe.”

USAREUR said this is the first time it has used La Rochelle’s port for the Atlantic Resolve effort, which began in 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

U.S. European Command has emphasized the need to expand logistical options so that commanders have more choices in a crisis. La Rochelle, once a hub for U.S. forces in the 1940s and later in the Cold War, now joins a location in Bremerhaven, Germany, as a significant port in the Army’s modern network.

The 101st CAB helicopters will travel this week to forward locations in Illesheim, Germany, where about 40 will be stationed. Approximately 20 others will continue on to Powidz, Poland. Ten will remain in Powidz, a logistics and aviation center about 150 miles west of Warsaw.

The remaining 10 aircraft will fly to Lielvarde, Latvia. Soldiers with the 101st CAB are expected to conduct training missions all along NATO’s eastern borders.

USAREUR said flights departing La Rochelle were scheduled to occur between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. and that no weekend flights are planned. Ahead of the flights, USAREUR issued advisories that communities in the flight path could see large helicopter formations.

“These flights will adhere to standard noise abatement procedures,” USAREUR said.

It was expected to take about a week for all the aircraft to reach their destinations.

vandiver.john@stripes.com
Twitter: @john_vandiver

danielboon · Jul 14, 2020

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1283166983526252544

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/no_itsmyturn/status/1283166983526252544

Housecarl · Jul 14, 2020

Hummmm......

Posted for fair use.....

Desperate For More Firepower, Congress Asks About Arming Navy Cargo Ships

Congress wants more warfighting capability forward. Adding 64 cell Vertical Launching Systems to each of America’s 14 Lewis and Clark class dry cargo/ammunition ships brings 896 VLS cells to the fleet, cheaply. Why isn't the Navy rushing to do it?

www.forbes.com

EDITORS' PICK|24,028 views|Jul 12, 2020,09:06am EDT
Desperate For More Firepower, Congress Asks About Arming Navy Cargo Ships
Craig HooperSenior Contributor
Aerospace & Defense
I evaluate national security threats and propose solutions.

Adding missile launch capability to cargo ships boosts America's combat power
ASSOCIATED PRESS
At a House Armed Services Committee hearing in June, Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), inquired into the potential for incorporating Mk 41 Vertical Launching Systems (VLS) into the cargo ships operated by the Virginia-based Military Sealift Command, remarking, “I just think that’s a concept that requires further examination.”

Representative Luria, a former Navy captain and an up-and-coming member of the House Armed Services Committee, has a point. Adding 64 VLS cells to each of America’s 14 Lewis and Clark class dry cargo/ammunition ships, called, in military parlance, T-AKEs, would bring 896 VLS cells to the fleet, cheaply. And, given that the 14 T-AKEs and 17 fuel-distributing oilers currently on the U.S. Navy’s battle fleet inventory generally operate at sea for six months or more every single year, adding missiles on these otherwise unarmed platforms puts substantial firepower forward.

Luria is not the first to propose this. The concept of adding VLS cells—or some other type of missile launch capability—-aboard Military Sealift Command-operated ships has been mapped out and studied in detail, but the Navy has not moved forward beyond that. Insiders guess that the Navy has a challenge filling the VLS cells it already has and that the Navy can get more from other investments. Or the Navy is just dragging its feet.
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But the Navy needs to respond to Congress. There are a lot of sacred cows at stake here. Dispersing weaponry into the cheap, civilian-operated ships of the Military Sealift Command is a big change. It disrupts a cozy iron triangle of suppliers, legacy assets and bureaucracy that are invested in keeping the Navy operating the way it has for the past 70 years.

While the Navy likes to claim that everything that floats will fight, the Navy has been sitting on the idea of putting VLS cells on auxiliary ships for more than a decade. In this era of great power competition, it is time to fish or cut bait.

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VLS Cells For The Rest Of Us
Integration of the Mk 41 Vertical Launch System into one of America’s 14 T-AKE replenishment ships can be done. Decades-old unclassified engineering studies demonstrate that VLS modules of various sizes fit aboard T-AKEs without compromising the resupply ship’s vital mission of passing “beans, bullets and black oil” to surface combatants and aircraft carriers.

Installing the launchers is not hard. Shipyards can shoehorn in bare-bones “remote” or “autonomous launch” capability aboard T-AKEs in the space of three to six months. Additional tweaks may even enable the T-AKE to dip into their own ammunition magazines, reloading spent VLS cells organically, which, in turn, offers fleet commanders forward resupply opportunities (Today, after surface combatants fire missiles from their VLS cells, new missiles can only be put into place when the combatant is in port or alongside a moored resupply vessel).

The operational concept is relatively sound. Increasing overall fleet missile capability via logistical ship-based launchers offers Fleet Commanders far more flexibility. For example, each Long-Range Land Attack Missile aboard a T-AKE is an extra free missile silo that a subsurface or surface combatant can devote towards missions that rely upon the radars and other gear aboard the combatant.

According to Luria, “knowing how the mission data is loaded in a Tomahawk missile in a VLS launcher there really isn’t a need to transfer it [the missile] from one ship to another with the technology that we have today. It could be a command and control solution, using a launcher in another type of platform.”

Luria is right. With some added tweaks, a T-AKE could carry and even be cued to launch almost everything else that fits into a VLS cell today. Of course, bare-bones T-AKEs would not be able to “fight” their missiles themselves. The ships would need help. For example, if a T-AKE had standard missiles in a VLS cell, a nearby Aegis combatant (which has the radars and other things needed to help a missile to a target) could tap into the T-AKE’s VLS system to launch the missiles on targets. Such a scheme gives combatants an opportunity to hoard their own limited supply of VLS rockets, saving them for when they are needed.

Adding missiles means adding Navy personnel and changing the status of the auxiliary vessel. The fiscal viability of the Navy’s logistical fleet rests in fielding a lower-cost civilian crew that operates very differently than the crew aboard the average naval combatant. And while adding a VLS launching system effectively makes the T-AKE a warship, forcing the armed auxiliary ship to be formally “commissioned” into the active naval fleet, other Military Sealift Command platforms have successfully navigated the challenge of operating as a hybrid-crew warship.

The Devil In The Details:
Arming the Combat Logistics Fleet comes with some big operational challenges that the now-somnolent Military Sealift Command may prefer to avoid grappling with.

The current generation of resupply ships (The T-AKEs and the forthcoming John Lewis class (T-AO-205) oilers) were not built to cruise with big battle groups. They are an accountant-minded fleet of cheap platforms, built to requirements that were first set when U.S. operations at sea were largely uncontested. The T-AKE, for example, was built to commercial standards, and is a slow-moving and likely noisy and radar-reflective vessel—the kind of friendly vessel surface combatants prefer to avoid during conflict.

If the Navy seeks to develop a VLS-equipped Combat Logistics Force fleet for anything other than Tomahawk missiles, VLS-equipped logistical ships will likely need to be in relatively close proximity to a modern or recently-updated Aegis combatant (or, potentially, some other surrogate launcher). That nearby combat asset, as the launcher/controller, can conceivably use its combat system and associated equipment to effectively remotely-launch and help guide the missiles aboard the VLS-equipped merchant ships towards their targets. But with modern Aegis combatants a high-demand asset, commanders will be loathe to coordinate their best vessels with a rag-bag set of auxiliary ships wallowing about far from the battle.

Adding to the complexity, the logistical support ships in the Military Sealift Command are at sea for more than 300 days a year, far more than their combat-oriented cousins in the battle fleet. The ships are at sea so often that simply finding sufficient time to install the VLS cells is an almost insurmountable challenge. The ship’s operational tempo also means that a T-AKE’s launch system would likely need to mesh and align with several different ships and crews over a single deployment (and each of those ships may have differing combat system alignments). Training would be a challenge, as would missile loadout and, potentially, ship berthing.

Crew size is another issue. The Navy’s logistical support ships are big, but they have limited berthing capability, and any contingent of Navy missiles will come with a good-sized missile-dedicated detachment. Accounting for a larger crew aboard the low-cost logistics fleet is never easy, and adding crew is never popular with the budget-concious minders of the U.S. Fleet.

Nothing Good Is Ever Easy
Change is hard, but here is no obvious reason to wait in implementing this concept—the idea of arming logistical ships has been around for years, and while the idea appears to be viable, the Navy seems to be exhibiting an odd lack of urgency in addressing this idea. Adding missiles to the vessels of the Military Sealift Command—or other merchant ships—is an easy way to bring combat power forward.

Adding a VLS battery capable of either supporting long-range surface strike or serving as an extra source of missiles for an Aegis combatant makes sense. At a minimum, a trial VLS battery aboard a Military Sealift Command ship can serve as a low-risk demonstrator for certain unmanned concepts. The Navy needs to really understand how robotic missile-barges will work, and a VLS-armed auxiliary ship makes as good a testbed as any.

If arming merchant ships with VLS cells proves viable, it may force a conversation about the Navy’s fleet resupply tactics—tactics which haven’t really changed much since the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The current strategy, where logistical ships operate all alone at various stations out on the high seas, is a luxury afforded only to uncontested navies and needs to change anyway. Incorporating VLS launchers aboard precious resupply platforms—platforms that Navy insider Robert Work, back in 2002, suggested “presents an attractive asymmetrical target for a potential adversary,” would, when they are afforded an Aegis-equipped escort (or other cueing and guiding asset), make the Navy’s logistical support fleet a far harder target to eliminate.

The other alternative, protecting the logistical fleet by attaching logistical ships to fast-moving task groups is no trivial proposition. Even if logistical ships are provided with VLS cells, the plodding John Lewis class oilers and the T-AKE resupply ships are not exactly the right ships to incorporate into a hard-hitting and fast-moving task group. We’d need resupply ships that could keep up with the carrier and take the rigors of combat. We have a few, but the last two remaining members of the Supply Class shock-hardened fast combat support ships, a type of resupply ship built to travel fast and resupply combat ships with fuel, stores and ammunition, are regularly eyed for disposal. Their recapitalization was canceled in 2005, and nobody is willing to float a replacement for these ships today.

Conclusion:
Obviously, the route to an up-armed logistical ship is not easy. But the concept is sound, and the Navy’s inaction in the face of emergent great power competition and increasingly contested seas is difficult to explain. Congress is correct to remind the Navy that, while arming logistical ships might be hard to pull off, being beaten in a sea fight is far harder.

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danielboon · Jul 14, 2020

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1283173776033710081

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1283173776033710081

danielboon · Jul 14, 2020

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1283175628964007936

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/eha_news/status/1283175628964007936

danielboon · Jul 14, 2020

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1283178563978567683

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/Archer83Able/status/1283178563978567683

Housecarl · Jul 14, 2020

Posted for fair use.....Those PRC warhead counts are based on their statements. Estimations of the amount of weapons grade fissile material they've produced runs that number up into the thousands. That being said, the number of weapons in inventory is generally a lot greater than delivery systems for them....HC

China Rejects US Nuclear Talks Invitation as Beijing Adds to Its Arsenal

Nuclear weapons may join 5G, trade as flashpoints in bilateral tensions

www.voanews.com

VOA News on China
China Rejects US Nuclear Talks Invitation as Beijing Adds to Its Arsenal

By John Xie
July 13, 2020 03:38 PM

China has rejected any prospect of joining in nuclear talks with the United States and Russia, raising fears that nuclear weapons will become a new issue of contention between Washington and Beijing.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters Friday that "China's objection to the so-called trilateral arms control negotiations is very clear, and the U.S. knows it very well."

To try to reduce the odds of nuclear annihilation, Washington and Moscow reached a reduction treaty in 2010 that limits the number of deployed nuclear warheads each can possess. As Beijing’s military has steadily grown as a global power, Robert O’Brien, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, said in February that the new pact should include China.
“The president believes that it shouldn’t just be the U.S. and Russia," he said to a group of 50 foreign ambassadors in Washington, adding, “The days of unilateral American disarmament are over.”

State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said last Thursday in a statement that the special presidential envoy for arms control, Ambassador Marshall Billingslea, would invite China to join in negotiations and that it was time "for dialogue and diplomacy between the three biggest nuclear weapons powers on how to prevent a new arms race."

However, China doubled down on its opposition last week, accusing the U.S. of "playing dumb."

“The U.S. keeps badgering on the issue and even distorted China’s position,” Zhao said.

The US-China nuclear deadlock
The current arms control architecture, which helped keep the world from nuclear annihilation during the U.S.-Soviet Cold War of the 1980s, was a result of years of tough negotiations between Washington and Moscow.

By inviting China to the talks, analysts say Washington essentially is acknowledging Beijing’s status as a military power.
"The U.S. knows it is unlikely that China will join the talks, but the fact that China was invited shows that the U.S. recognizes China as an increasingly very powerful country with a military that the U.S. regards as threatening. That wasn't the case years ago," Timothy Heath, a senior international and defense researcher for the policy research group the RAND Corporation, told VOA.

“The notion of trying to pull the Chinese into that agreement is, in theory, a good idea. In practice? impossible,” former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said last month at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China has about 320 nuclear warheads, only a fraction of what the U.S. and Russia have. In comparison, SIPRI estimated that the U.S. has 5,800 warheads in its stockpile and Russia has 6,375.

Analysts say that given "the huge gap" between China's nuclear arsenal and that of the U.S. and Russia, "it is unrealistic" to expect China to join the negotiations.

"My view is that the United States is unlikely to convince China to join the nuclear negotiations with Russia. Moscow and Washington retain far more nuclear weapons, so Beijing sees little reason to enter into the negotiations," said Zack Cooper, a former U.S. official working on China-related issues at the White House and the Department of Defense. "So in the view of Communist Party leaders, it is not in their strategic interest to negotiate from a position of weakness," Cooper told VOA.
A senior Chinese diplomat said last week Beijing would be happy to join talks if the U.S. agreed to lower its number of nuclear weapons to match China's.

"I can assure you that if the U.S. says that they are ready to come down to the Chinese level, China will be happy to participate the next day," Fu Cong, head of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's arms control department, said at a news briefing in Beijing. "But actually, we know that's not going to happen."

Yang Chengjun, a former Chinese nuclear negotiator, said last month that Washington’s true aim is getting China to provide an accurate count of its nuclear weapons. "They invited China to participate in the talks to get to the bottom of our nuclear forces." Yang wrote in the state-run Global Times.

A growing nuclear threat
While the Chinese military currently has far fewer nuclear weapons than the U.S. and Russia, it is widely believed that Beijing has dramatically increased its nuclear capability. The New York Times reported early this month that the American officials surprised their Russian counterparts with a classified briefing on China's threatening nuclear capabilities at a recent negotiation in Vienna. Billingslea described the Chinese program as a “crash nuclear buildup.”

The report said that nuclear weapons are joining the other issues — including trade deals and 5G — that Trump has put at the center of a series of U.S.-China standoffs.

General Robert P. Ashley, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said last year that "the resurgence of great power competition is a geopolitical reality." According to a speech posted on the agency's website, Ashley said China launched more ballistic missiles for testing and training than the rest of the world combined in 2018, and over the next decade, China is likely to at least double the size of its nuclear stockpile in the course of implementing the most rapid expansion and diversification of its nuclear arsenal in China’s history.

In Beijing, Washington’s foreign policy choices are increasingly being seen as aggressive and aimed at containing China. They say Chinese officials may see the country’s nuclear weapons program as one way to respond.

“If left unaddressed, this issue would continue fueling China’s anxiety about its nuclear deterrent and seriously disrupting the stability of the bilateral nuclear relationship,” Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing, wrote on June 29. He said this comes “at a time when the world’s existing arms control institutions are falling apart and there are public voices within China calling for massive Chinese nuclear expansion."

One of the calls for more weapons came from Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of Global Times. Hu argued in a recent Weibo post that “China needs to expand the number of its nuclear warheads to 1,000 in a relatively short time and procure at least 100 DF-41 strategic missiles.”

Last October, China had a massive military parade that displayed some of the country’s most advanced military equipment, including a supersonic drone, hypersonic missile and a robot submarine. But the huge intercontinental-range DF-41 ballistic missile took center stage in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Touted as the most powerful missile on the planet in China, the DF-41 is capable of carrying 10 independently targeted nuclear warheads and could theoretically hit the continental United States in 30 minutes, according to the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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jward · Jul 14, 2020

At least 16 killed in Armenia-Azerbaijan border clashes
UN urges calm after Azerbaijani general killed in fighting involving artillery and drones

Associated Press in Yerevan
Tue 14 Jul 2020 12.51 EDT Last modified on Tue 14 Jul 2020 15.22 EDT

An Armenian soldier on the frontline where fighting with Azerbaijan began on Sunday. Photograph: AP

At least 16 people, including an army general, have been killed in fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan forces in the worst outbreak of hostilities in years.
Skirmishes on the volatile border between the two south Caucasus nations began on Sunday. Azerbaijan said it has lost 11 service personnel and one civilian in three days of fighting, and Armenia said four of its troops were killed on Tuesday.
The two neighbours have been locked in conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of Azerbaijan that has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a war there ended in 1994. International efforts to settle the conflict have stalled.
Armenian and Azerbaijani forces have frequently engaged in clashes. The current skirmishes appear to mark the most serious spike in hostilities since 2016 when scores were killed in four days of fighting.

The latest incident began when Armenian and Azerbaijani troops exchanged fire in the northern section of their border. Officials in both countries blamed each other for starting the fighting and said sporadic shelling had continued.

Azerbaijan’s defence ministry said two senior officers were killed in fighting on Tuesday along with five other service personnel.

Armenian officials claimed Azerbaijani drones launched an attack on the town of Berd, targeting civilian infrastructure. The defence ministry spokeswoman Shushan Stepanyan said one of the drones was shot down.

Stepanyan also claimed the Azerbaijani military used civilians as shields, placing artillery close to the village of Dondar Gushchu in the Tovuz district about 6 miles from the border.

The Azerbaijani military denied losing a drone and in turn claimed that its forces shot down an Armenian drone and destroyed an Armenian artillery system and its crew.

As hostilities continued, Armenia also accused Azerbaijan of launching cyberattacks on Armenian government websites.

The Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, on Monday accused Azerbaijan of provoking the clashes and warned that it would “bear responsibility for the unpredictable consequences”. The Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, denounced what he described as “another provocation of Armenia” and vowed to protect Azerbaijan’s national territory.

Turkey, which has close ethnic and cultural ties with Azerbaijan, has voiced strong support for its government in the conflict.

The US and Russia, which co-chair the Minsk group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that has tried to negotiate a settlement of the conflict, have condemned the violence and called for restraint.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, had separate calls with his counterparts in Armenia and Azerbaijan on Monday to call for an immediate ceasefire.

Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Moscow was “deeply worried” about the fighting and stands ready to mediate.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, also expressed worry. His spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, said in a statement that the UN chief “urges an immediate end to the fighting and calls on all involved to take immediate steps to de-escalate the situation and refrain from provocative rhetoric”.

posted for fair use

At least 16 dead after Armenia and Azerbaijan border clashes

UN urges calm after Azerbaijani general killed in fighting involving artillery and drones

www.theguardian.com

Zagdid · Jul 15, 2020

Greek Foreign Minister: The List Of EU Sanctions Against Turkey Is Long

The Greek Foreign Minister stated that there will be a follow-up on the issue of sanctions against Turkey in August.

greekcitytimes.com

GREEK NEWS4 HOURS AGO
Greek Foreign Minister: The list of EU sanctions against Turkey is long
by PAUL ANTONOPOULOS

The Greek Foreign Minister stated that there will be a follow-up on the issue of sanctions against Turkey in August.

Greece is asking the European Union for a wide list of sanctions against Ankara, from tourism and banks to the suspension of imports and exports with Turkey, as revealed by Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias, speaking on Star Channel.

“I asked for an order from the Foreign Affairs Council for [European Union Minister for Foreign Affairs Josep] Borrell to draft a proposal with financial sanctions in the event that Turkey commits criminal acts against Greece. The Council agreed and gave the mandate to the High Representative,” said Dendias.

The Foreign Minister clarified that there will be a follow-up to the issue of Turkey and sanctions in August and not in September, as originally planned.

Regarding the article on EU defence assistance to a Member State, which Dendias warned EU Foreign Ministers that there would be a Greek request in case of violation of Greek sovereignty, the Greek Foreign Minister said: “that Greece has strong armed forces that have a constitutional obligation to defend its national territory and will call for the activation of Article 42. It is analogous to Article 5 of NATO, which clearly demonstrates European solidarity, so that we can also be in agreement with our partners. Greece, if there is a violation of national space, will react.”

Regarding the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood-Turkish memorandum to steal Greek maritime space, Dendias said it is non-existent and the area for which Turkey is requesting research permits is part of the Greek continental shelf.

“As long as one looks at the map, as I said in the council, one can swim there from Greece, one does not even need a boat,” he said.

The Foreign Minister pointed out to his counterparts “Turkey should know where the Europeans are going. It is not only a Greek space, it is a European space.”

Regarding the EU, Dendias underlined that “the EU is Turkey’s largest trading partner. It can create huge problems in Turkey. The EU, if it wants to, is a global superpower. I do not think there will be a Member State that does not want to defend another Member State.”

Zagdid · Jul 15, 2020

Taiwan Navy fires live torpedo during drill for first time in 13 years - Focus Taiwan

Taipei, July 15 (CNA) A live torpedo was fired from a Taiwan Navy submarine off the southeast coast of the island during a military drill Wednesday, marking the first time in 13 years that such weapons were deployed as part of the country's annual Han Kuang exercises.

focustaiwan.tw

Taiwan Navy fires live torpedo during drill for first time in 13 years
07/15/2020 06:15 PM By Matt Yu and Joseph Yeh

Taipei, July 15 (CNA) A live torpedo was fired from a Taiwan Navy submarine off the southeast coast of the island during a military drill Wednesday, marking the first time in 13 years that such weapons were deployed as part of the country's annual Han Kuang exercises.

The heavyweight Surface and Underwater Target (SUT) torpedo, fired from a Chien Lung-lass diesel electric submarine, hit its target, upending the decommissioned Knox-class frigate, according to a military source.

The last time a Taiwan Navy submarine fired a live torpedo during the annual military exercises was in May 2007, according to the source.

Another source told CNA that the Navy rarely conducts live-fire torpedo drills because it only has about 60 of the heavyweight German-made SUT torpedoes, which it is seeking to replace with the more modern MK-48 Mod 6ATs from the United States.

Taiwan bought 46 MK-48 Mod 6ATs heavyweight torpedoes from the U.S. in 2017 and this year gained approval from the U.S. to acquire another 18.

The Taiwan Navy currently has four submarines in active service -- two Dutch-built Chien Lung-class diesel electric submarines from the 1980s and two U.S. Guppy-class submarines built during World War II.

The Navy drill on Wednesday was part of the 36th edition of the annual Han Kuang live-fire exercises, which are being held July 13-17.

The major war games, involving all branches of the military and reserve forces, have been held every year since the early 1980s to test Taiwan's combat readiness in the event of an attack by China.

Also on Wednesday, the military held a joint live-fire exercise at Jiupeng military base in the southeastern county of Pingtung, during which all of its major missile systems were test fired.

The weapons fired from the coastal base included the indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III anti-ship missiles and Tien Kung I and III anti-tactical ballistic missiles, and the U.S.-made Harpoon missiles, Patriot PAC-2 missiles, and Standard Missile 1 (SM-1).

During the drill, all the missiles, except the SM-1s, hit their targets, according to the military.

Meanwhile, the Air Force scrambled its fighter jets late Tuesday to intercept a simulated attack by Chinese warplanes.

The F-16 jets took off simultaneously at 7:45 p.m. from air bases in the southwestern county of Chiayi and from Hualien County in the east to engage simulated enemy fighters, according to the military.

As part of the air raid drill, air defense units on the ground also deployed AIM-7 Sparrow radar-guided missiles and 35mm Anti-Aircraft twin guns across the country to counterattack the invading forces, the military said.

The air defense drill was staged against a backdrop of frequent incursions of Chinese military aircraft into Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone over the past few months.

The live-fire drills will end Friday, and the second stage of the Han Kuang exercises, which comprises computerized war games, will be held Sept. 14-18.

Housecarl · Jul 15, 2020

Posted for fair use.....https://www.wsj.com/articles/japan-china-military-provocations-revival-disputed-islands-pacifism-11594735596

China Provocations Hasten Japan’s Military Revival
Beijing’s naval maneuvers reshape security policies across Asia-Pacific region; Japan’s Self-Defense Forces want to be ready to put troops into battle
By
Alastair Gale
and
Chieko Tsuneoka
July 14, 2020 10:09 am ET

RESPONSES

TOKYO—It was the kind of provocation that has become familiar to Japan. On June 18, a Chinese submarine passed within a few miles of Japan’s territorial waters near the island of Amami-Oshima. Tokyo mobilized three destroyers and surveillance aircraft to make sure it didn’t stick around.

Breaking precedent, Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono publicly identified the submarine as Chinese and said the incident was part of a pattern of China’s assertiveness that includes a recent border clash with Indian troops and a push to...

Housecarl · Jul 15, 2020

Hummm......

Posted for fair use.....

Pentagon: US has withdrawn from 5 bases in Afghanistan after Taliban agreement

The Defense Department announced Tuesday that U.S. troops have withdrawn from five military bases and reduced the size of its forces in Afghanistan as part of the agreement reached with the Ta…

thehill.com

Pentagon: US has withdrawn from 5 bases in Afghanistan after Taliban agreement

BY JUSTIN WISE - 07/14/20 08:11 PM EDT 270 Comments

The Defense Department announced Tuesday that U.S. troops have withdrawn from five military bases and reduced the size of its forces in Afghanistan as part of the agreement reached with the Taliban in February.

Pentagon chief spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement that "U.S. forces in Afghanistan remain in the mid-8,000s and five bases formerly occupied by U.S. forces have been transferred to our Afghan partners."

"We maintain the capabilities and authorities necessary to protect ourselves, our Allies and partners, and US national interests," Hoffman said. "We will continue to execute our counterterrorism mission while simultaneously supporting the 38-nation NATO Resolute Support Train, Advise, Assist mission and Afghan National Defense and Security Forces as they work to secure peace in the country."

The U.S. and the Taliban earlier this year signed a historic deal with the goal of winding down what has become America's longest war. The U.S. agreed to a reduction in troops in exchange for a commitment from the Taliban that Afghanistan will not be used by terrorists to attack the U.S.

The deal called for the U.S. to complete its withdrawal from the country within 14 months if the Taliban lived up to the deal, which includes commitments for counterterrorism and intra-Afghan negotiations. The negotiations have produced uncertainty, however, amid recent attacks by the Taliban and an impasse over the number of prisoners the two sides intend to release.

Data provided to the Pentagon's Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction showed that the Taliban increased its attacks on America's allies in Afghanistan in the month after the agreement was signed, according to a CNN report in early May.

jward · Jul 15, 2020

Indonesia’s Stake in Australia’s New Strategic Update
Greta Nabbs-Keller

July 14, 2020

Indonesian_Army_infantryman_participating_in_the_GPOI

Editor’s Note: A version of this article was originally published by The Interpreter, which is published by the Lowy Institute, an independent, nonpartisan think tank based in Sydney. War on the Rocks is proud to be publishing select articles from The Interpreter.

One might assume that Australia’s announcement of a significant increase in defense funding and move to a more assertive military posture would be welcomed by Jakarta. After all, as the old proverb goes, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and Indonesia certainly has its own challenges with China, seen starkly in Beijing’s increasing encroachment into Indonesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

But in reality, Jakarta’s response to the 2020 Defence Strategic Update and 2020 Force Structure Plan is likely to be more complex and will require deft management by Australian policymakers.
Given that a perceived lack of consultation by Australian governments on policy announcements of vital national concern to Indonesia has been the catalyst for repeated bilateral tensions in the past, one would expect that Canberra’s key defense and foreign policy interlocutors in Jakarta were briefed well ahead of such a significant policy announcement. Assuming there were no surprises in Canberra’s policy announcement, the shift in Australia’s defense policy heralds opportunities for Indonesia.

The update’s underlying strategic imperatives would be well understood by Indonesia’s strategic policymakers, who appreciate the impact of emerging technologies, and the implications of Beijing’s growing strategic reach into the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. Such factors explain the expanded definition of the “immediate region” in the update to an “area ranging from the north-eastern Indian Ocean, through maritime and mainland South East Asia to Papua New Guinea and the South West Pacific” as Australia’s area of “most direct strategic interest.”
Similarly, the update and the Force Structure Plan’s recognition of “grey zone” tactics, including “coercive paramilitary tactics in the South China Sea,” is a pressure felt more directly by Indonesia than Australia, due to maritime territorial violations by China Coast Guard-led fishing fleets around Indonesia’s Natuna island chain.

The Indonesian defense apparatus would also understand that the three new strategic objectives identified in the update as the basis of defense planning — shape Australia’s strategic environment, deter actions against Australia’s interests, and respond with credible military force — are all partly contingent upon Indonesia’s cooperation.
A high-intensity conflict in the Indo-Pacific is a scenario that the update predicts as “still unlikely” but “now less remote.” But it would not necessarily take a high-intensity conflict to make Indonesia’s cooperation essential in enabling the Australian Defence Force to operate in and maneuver through Indonesian air and maritime space. This is in addition to the critical need to share information and intelligence on evolving threats and warn of the deployment of ADF personnel, weapons, and military hardware.

In this sense, the 2020 Defence Strategic Update and 2020 Force Structure Plan hold promise for the Indonesian Armed Forces in particular, although this would never be expressed publicly. Indonesia’s military, now constrained in its own military modernization program by the economic damage caused by COVID-19, may look with envy at Australia’s investment. Australia’s annual defense funding in the 2020 to 2021 period is AU$42.2 billion ($29.3 billion), according to the update. In contrast, Indonesia’s 2020 defense budget was $9.26 billion, and it was recently cut by $590 million due to the pandemic.

For the Indonesian military, Australia’s Defence Cooperation Program has long been seen as a vital source of skills development and an overseas education opportunity. However, the update’s focus on “strengthened international engagement” will likely see enhanced joint exercises, technology transfer, capacity building, information exchange and intelligence sharing. It is still unclear what the update’s reference to improved wide-area surveillance of Australia’s eastern approaches provided by the Jindalee over-the-horizon radar network might mean for Indonesia’s own maritime domain awareness — an awareness in critical need of improvement in order to deter territorial violations by Chinese and other vessels.

Similarly, the update’s commitment to continue “working alongside” the United States to develop defense cooperation in the region carries opportunities for the Indonesian military and the country’s maritime security agencies. Greater coordination not only between Australia and the United States but also Japan, India, and South Korea will undoubtedly bring benefits in access to military and paramilitary equipment, intelligence sharing, maritime domain awareness, training, and enhanced interoperability. Moreover, an increased Australian and American presence in the region would support the ability of the Indonesian military and coast guard to protect the country’s maritime zone, potentially compensating for Jakarta’s own constrained budgetary environment.

At a more practical level, Canberra and Washington will need to balance Jakarta’s procurement priorities with U.S. political tensions with Moscow. Russia remains a very important defense partner for Indonesia. Jakarta’s planned procurement of 11 more Russian-made Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker E multirole fighters, which would enhance its deterrent capabilities against China, remains hampered by U.S. sanctions on Russian defense exports. Deconflicting U.S. political tensions with Russia and its strategic aims in the Indo-Pacific will require close consultation and necessary policy exemptions.
While the Indonesian military can be seen as a potential beneficiary of Australia’s more assertive defense posture, diplomats in Indonesia’s foreign ministry will likely feel unease about its implications for escalating strategic rivalries and its potential to further bypass ASEAN as the principal arbiter of the regional order. Indonesia views ASEAN centrality as key to moderating tensions not just between major powers, but increasingly between China and ASEAN claimant states themselves over Beijing’s illegitimate maritime claims. However, ASEAN’s ability to mediate regional tensions, traditionally predicated upon Indonesia’s strong leadership within the regional grouping, has been less evident in recent years. ASEAN’s relative ineffectiveness has also been exacerbated by the absence of a coherent strategic policy on China within the Indonesian government itself.

There are also those within Indonesia’s political apparatus who, although they do not welcome China’s intrusion in Natuna waters or its expanding claims to historic maritime rights and entitlements, are uneasy with aspects of Australia’s more assertive defense posture evident in the procurement of long-range missiles, submarines, frigates, smart sea mines and investment in hypersonics, space capabilities and autonomous systems.
The mooted closer coordination with the United States on regional security engagement, meanwhile, risks evoking nationalist sentiment and old resentments about Australia as a U.S. proxy. As jockeying ahead of Indonesia’s 2024 presidential election gathers pace, Australia’s strategic objectives may be either hampered or boosted by politicization of regional security issues. The propensity to conflate Indonesian Chinese with mainland Chinese and the actions of Beijing is highly susceptible to manipulation by political elites, as evidenced by Indonesia’s recent election contests.

As the strategic environment of the Indo-Pacific deteriorates, Australia’s relationship with Indonesia will assume even greater importance. Canberra must be ready to accept, however, that despite growing strategic convergence, its views will not always align with those in Jakarta, and there are relationship risks ahead that require policy consideration now. As a result, new and innovative modalities of cooperation with Indonesia and other regional states will need to be formulated and adequately resourced if Australia is to achieve its new strategic objectives in the Indo-Pacific.

posted for fair use

Indonesia's Stake in Australia's New Strategic Update - War on the Rocks

Editor’s Note: A version of this article was originally published by The Interpreter, which is published by the Lowy Institute, an independent,

warontherocks.com

jward · Jul 15, 2020

Will India Invite Australia to the Malabar Naval Exercise?

After years of wariness, concerns about provoking Beijing just don’t hold the same weight in New Delhi as they once did.

By Grant Wyeth

July 15, 2020

Will India Invite Australia to the Malabar Naval Exercise?

The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) and Japanese Maritime Self-defense Force Akizuki-class destroyer JS Fuyuzuki (DD-118) sail alongside the Indian Deepak-class fleet tanker INS Shakti (A 57) during a replenishment-at-sea exercise as a part of Exercise Malabar 2015.
Credit: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Chad M. Trudeau/Released
China’s recent assertive behavior is proving to be a major strategic blunder. It is hardening the attitudes of other countries toward Beijing, and making it more difficult for China to exploit its growing power. One of the clearest examples of this is India being increasingly drawn toward the orbit of the United States and its allies. India had already been inching toward this reality, but as its belligerent neighbor makes consistent incursions into its territory, the country’s instinctive drive to remain unaligned to major power blocs is now being seen in New Delhi as no longer serving India’s interests.

In the latest demonstration of this movement — as is being reported in the Indian press — New Delhi may soon invite Australia to become a participant in its annual Malabar naval exercise, alongside the United States and Japan. This will generate a formal and practical security application for the long-discussed “Quad” grouping of the four maritime-capable Indo-Pacific democracies.
Australia last participated in what was originally an India-U.S. bilateral exercise in 2007. Japan’s participation was regularized in 2015, but India had been cool toward Australia’s wishes to make Malabar a quadrilateral exercise, wary of provoking Beijing. This wariness has now dissipated.

China has seen the growing security cooperation between the U.S., India, Japan, and Australia as a containment strategy. It is likely that Beijing will object to such a development, but it’s also likely that New Delhi has factored these objections into its decision-making. The expansion of Malabar is a clear sign of the concerns that India and Australia — as well as Japan and the United States — have about the less secure environment that is emerging in the Indo-Pacific. None of these countries should be shy about admitting this.
Australia and India have been drawing closer to each other for some time now. The decision to include Australia in the Malabar exercises follows closely from the security relationship between the two countries being upgraded to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership during a virtual summit Prime Ministers Scott Morrison and Narendra Modi held in early June. The summit also concluded a mutual logistics support agreement to allow access to each others’ military bases and ports.

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These developments have been at least a decade in the making, with Canberra having made a concerted push to deepen its relationship with India. Australia’s 2017 foreign policy white paper recognized India as a country of “first order” importance. Despite political developments in India that are complicating Australia’s “shared values” with India, there are still considerable “shared interests” to drive the relationship, maritime security being first among them.
While Australia may like to project itself as a two-ocean power, in reality the Indian Ocean is Australia’s second sea. Its population — and export markets — is heavily weighted toward the Pacific and its maritime and security perspectives obviously follow. Yet, Australia would also recognize that the Indian Ocean is an increasingly contested geostrategic space, and be wary of China’s ambitions and increasing capabilities through the region, as well as the influence it is developing in states of the South Asian littoral.

While its own capacities in the Indian Ocean may not be extensive, Australia should be willing to support New Delhi’s self-identification as the rightful resident power in the Indian Ocean. With this there are significant opportunities for the two countries to coordinate. As Darshana Baruah recently detailed for War On The Rocks, India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Australia’s Cocos (Keeling) Islands are strategically positioned to allow both countries to maintain significant maritime awareness in the major chokepoints in the eastern Indian Ocean. The newly signed mutual logistical support agreement would allow for the two navies to cooperate more effectively for this purpose.

Canberra and New Delhi are gravitating toward maritime cooperation because it is the area where both countries have considerable natural advantages, with significant coastlines as well as the above mentioned well-placed island territories. Last year’s bilateral AUSINDEX naval exercises were the largest and most complex since they were established in 2015, with a notable focus on anti-submarine warfare, given China’s increasing capabilities in this area.
However, Malabar is India’s flagship cooperative naval exercise, which indicates the invitation for Australia to participate is a significant intensification of the relationship. It also provides the opportunity for New Delhi, Canberra, Washington, and Tokyo to expand their information and intelligence sharing, naval interoperability, and habits of cooperation. Cooperation is the key element to these exercises.

India is moving toward seeing the advantages of alliances. Australia’s defense and foreign policies are structured around building and maintaining alliances, and despite some past difficulties in the relationship, New Delhi is now starting to see Canberra as a capable and reliable partner. Especially attractive for New Delhi is Australia’s willingness to stand up to the assertive behavior from China that India is now finding highly problematic. While China may be disgruntled at this move to regularize the naval cooperation between the four democracies, and will protest what it — correctly — see as a containment strategy, Beijing really only has itself to blame.

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Will India Invite Australia to the Malabar Naval Exercise?

After years of wariness, concerns about provoking Beijing just don’t hold the same weight in New Delhi as they once did.

thediplomat.com

Housecarl · Jul 16, 2020

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A Hard Year in a Long War without End - Modern War Institute

Erik Edstrom, Un-American A Soldier’s Reckoning of our Longest War (Bloomsbury, 2020) “There is no betrayal more intimate than being sent to kill or die for nothing, by your […]

mwi.usma.edu

A Hard Year in a Long War without End

Robert Cassidy | July 15, 2020

Erik Edstrom, Un-American A Soldier’s Reckoning of our Longest War (Bloomsbury, 2020)

“There is no betrayal more intimate than being sent to kill or die for nothing, by your own countrymen.”
“Numbers, names, and percentages don’t go in the graveyard. People do.”
— Erik Edstrom

It is impossible to look back at the past nineteen years and ignore the glaring mismatch between policy, strategy, and the violence of war that has characterized America’s post-9/11 war making. A new memoir by Army veteran Erik Edstrom, Un-American, offers a biting indictment of that mismatch. The book is personal, raw, very critical, soul-bearing, obscene, profound, and seething with underlying ire in places. Edstrom, a West Pont graduate and former infantry officer, propounds a cogent and candid counterargument to the wars America has waged and continues to wage in response to those terrible attacks of 9/11 almost two decades ago. His book is an unsparing condemnation of US senior civilian and military leadership for failing to think through and devise a viable strategy that aligned America’s instruments of war with ends that America and its allies could achieve, within a reasonable magnitude in cost and duration. The overarching purpose of war is to improve a country’s security and bring a better and durable peace. Yet, there are markedly more Islamist terrorists and more violent Islamist groups fomenting violence around the globe today who remain intensely inimical to the United States than there were in 2001.

Edstrom graduated from West Point in 2007. He received his commission in the infantry, completed Ranger School, and then served a year-long tour in Kandahar province as a platoon leader with the 4th Infantry Division. During his relatively short time in the Army, he led firefights in the Taliban’s heartland, witnessed a number of civilian casualties, buried friends, struggled with depression, and became deeply disillusioned with the role of the US government, the US military, and his infantry company in the war in Afghanistan, and with the post-9/11 wars generally. He separated from the US Army after he fulfilled his service commitment in the Old Guard, serving as the platoon leader of the Presidential Escort Platoon. After the Army, Edstrom earned two master’s degrees at Oxford University.

The book’s organization derives from the author’s threefold premise and charge to all US citizens to do the following before signing on to war: imagine your own death in the war; envision the deaths of innocent civilians who will die as a consequence of the war; and contemplate what will be lost in the war in terms of lives, limbs, resources, and opportunities. This book’s three parts generally align with that premise: In the first, Edstrom describes growing up in rural Massachusetts and attending West Point; in the second, he relives his hard, belief-altering tour in southern Afghanistan; and in the third he reflects on the real costs and the opportunity costs of America’s wars in the greater Middle East since 2001.

There is way too much compelling substance to cover in a short review, but there is one quote—which would have been my pick as an alternate title—that conveys the essence of this memoir: America’s wars in response to 9/11, Edstrom writes, “strip-mined my soul.”

At the beginning of the book, Edstrom asks, “What responsibility do citizens have—what expectation of basic foreign policy competence is required—to send soldiers to war or go to war yourself?” None, he answers. “It does not even require citizens to know where on the map we are sending our soldiers or whether the country we are invading is even loosely connected with the crime we seek to avenge.” The horrible combat wounding of one friend and the combat death of another friend in Iraq began to wear on Edstrom’s youthful optimism even before he deployed for his first and only combat tour in Afghanistan. He attended the funeral of the latter, and this was when the abstract idea of serving in war collided with the concrete reality that war has gruesome consequences. “At that moment, the glowing romance of war and serving one’s country died” for Edstrom.

The book’s second part is the most poignant. The author’s irreversible metamorphosis from true-faith believer in American might and right to disillusioned apostate occurred during his tour in Kandahar, where his platoon served a year “in one of the most dangerous combat roles, in one of the most violent districts, during what was the most deadly time to be there.” He does not exaggerate. Zhari and Panjwai are among the four districts his platoon patrolled and from Edstrom’s evolving perspective on the ground, this fight was one of futility and asymmetry where it seemed that violence was not serving strategy and policy but serving itself. Reflecting back on who he was at the beginning of his tour, he offers: “He will lead his men to face the constant threat of death in patrols that he does not believe in.” Edstrom describes the deployment as “a year defined by the horror of watching good people getting mutilated and dying horrible deaths.” A bad tour in a very hard place ruined his idea of patriotism, destroyed whatever faith he had in any god, caused deep despair, and exhausted his belief in and support of US policy. As for the asymmetry of will and means that obtained between some of the ostensibly best equipped and trained platoons in the world and the Taliban, Edstrom offers a pithy insight: “We were being foiled by fertilizer, lamp cord, water jugs, and a car battery.”

There are a few flaws, a small bit of hyperbole, and an ample amount of disdain in this memoir but the work is otherwise a genuine, factual, and laudable effort to make American citizens understand the meaning and consequences of perpetual war for those who are directly involved in the violence, and to bring leaders to account for it. It is also a damning indictment of the militaristic mythology that induces major segments of the US polity to see America as preeminent, exceptional, exemplary, and righteous. This book is not for those who eschew candor, avoid bad but factual news, or espouse Pollyannaish views of immaculate American perfection. Nor is it for those who conflate patriotism with nationalism. Edstrom includes a quote from Sydney Harris at the beginning of the book that percipiently distinguishes between these two concepts. Patriotism is a sense of pride and responsibility in what one’s country does that is good. Nationalism is a feeling of pride and blind arrogance no matter what one’s country does. Nationalism leads to war. This provocative memoir will compel readers to critically examine the scope and magnitude, the costs and consequences, and the lasting harm the United States has wrought in waging twenty-first-century wars enamored of tactics and devoid of strategy.

The errors and flaws in the book are few but conspicuous. The subtitle is A Soldier’s Reckoning of our Longest War. A soldier reckoning is a good thing but “our longest war” is factually problematic. To be sure, a host of pundits have proffered this vacuous platitude in many media over the last several years but it does not comport with the fact that the Vietnam War was a twenty-five-year war that spanned six presidential administrations. A more disputable error of fact in the book is the author’s assertion that the United States “illegally attacked and invaded” Afghanistan. This is true for Iraq but not correct for Afghanistan, where just war theory supported a war against the 9/11 attackers and the regime that was willfully providing sanctuary and refused to stop doing that.

Another minor but irksome error was the author’s use of the incongruent term “operational strategy” to characterize route security operations on Highway 1, the main artery in Afghanistan. This is likely attributable to Edstrom’s limited time in the Army and to the fact that he served only at the tactical level.

Still, these flaws are outweighed by the book’s relevance. It explores the war in Afghanistan specifically and criticizes America’s war-making after 9/11 generally from the ground level, where the effects of bad strategy or no strategy ultimately flow, where ignorance about the character of the war, the nature of the enemy, and the limitations of one’s own forces bring bloody and irreversible consequences for the young American and allied combat soldiers in small units who do most of the fighting and dying in these wars. Lots of technology, few troops, and little strategy have also brought markedly more destruction, death, and misery to the innocent civilians populating Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere in the greater Middle East and around the globe. According to Edstrom’s calculations, derived from credible sources like the Brown University Watson Institute Costs of War Project, the United States’ post-9/11 wars have directly caused over 310,000 civilian deaths. America and its allies have killed over one hundred times the number of civilians reacting to 9/11 than al-Qaeda killed in its attacks on 9/11.

Un-American is a readable, insightful, and introspective memoir that explores the myths and realities of America, West Point, and the post-9/11 wars the United States has undertaken to ostensibly prevent another attack of similar scope and magnitude. The author and his close colleagues entered West Point after America went to war in both Afghanistan and Iraq, spending a good part of their twenties either at war or recovering from these wars. This book evokes reflections and empathy similar to those that Rick Atkinson’s 1989 book The Long Gray Line evoked. Atkinson explored the West Point class of 1966 and its members’ experiences at the academy, in Vietnam, and after that deeply divisive and unsuccessful war. Both books portray the sadness and tragedy that stem from the yawning gap between the patriotism and idealism these young men and women exuded when they entered West Point and completed that the rigorous program and the disillusion and disgust that emerged when they faced the reality, violence, and injustice of a long war that saw too many deaths of innocent civilians and too little or no strategy linking the violence they imposed to an end that brought a better peace.

This book is imperfect but it is generally well written, though raw, angry, and dark. The candor and the moral courage of the author are compelling and this book should be required reading for all general officers and senior national security practitioners because it reveals the grave and harmful consequences of throwing young leaders and soldiers into a series of wars without end because of a failure to think through the logic and grammar of strategy and war. The costs and damage in lives, resources, and time in the endless wars since 9/11 have far exceeded any rewards, for Afghans, Iraqis, maimed and killed Americans and allies, and the current and future credibility and security of the United States.

Robert Cassidy, PhD, is a retired US Army colonel who teaches at Wesleyan University as the Andersen Fellow in Defense and Foreign Policy. He has served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Housecarl · Jul 16, 2020

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Will We See a US-Vietnam Strategic Partnership?

Common concerns over China’s have brought the United States and Vietnam together, but there are frictions, too.

thediplomat.com

Will We See a US-Vietnam Strategic Partnership?

Common concerns over China’s have brought the United States and Vietnam together, but there are frictions, too.

By Bich T. Tran
July 15, 2020

In the context of U.S.-China strategic competition, Vietnam has become increasingly important in U.S. foreign policy as indicated in the 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy, the 2018 U.S. National Defense Strategy, and the 2019 Indo-Pacific Report. Once enemies, the United States and Vietnam became partners when they signed a comprehensive partnership in 2013. As 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations, will the two countries upgrade the relationship to a strategic partnership?

Common concerns over China’s provocative and unilateral actions in the South China Sea have brought the United States and Vietnam together in a short time. As China has repeatedly used economic coercion to punish countries that challenge its territorial claims and foreign policy ambitions, the best way for the United States to compete with China strategically is to reduce Beijing’s economic power by helping U.S. allies and partners lessen their economic dependences on the Chinese market.

Since the establishment of the U.S.-Vietnam comprehensive partnership, the two sides have committed to heightening diplomatic and political relations. Vietnamese leaders who paid official visits to the White House include President Truong Tan Sang (2013), General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (2015), and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (2017). From the U.S. side, former President Barack Obama and current President Donald Trump visited Vietnam in 2016 and 2017 respectively. When Trump came to Hanoi for the second North Korea-U.S. summit in February 2019, he also had an official meeting with General Secretary and President Trong.

Meanwhile, bilateral trade grew 261 percent between 2013 and 2019, from $29.7 billion to $77.6 billion. The United States is now Vietnam’s third largest trading partner and biggest export market.

U.S.-Vietnam defense ties have also strengthened dramatically since 2014, when China deployed a state-owned oil rig on Vietnam’s side of the hypothetical median line of their overlapping exclusive economic zones (EEZs). In 2016, Obama lifted the ban on lethal weapons sales to Vietnam during his visit to Hanoi. Since then, the United States has helped Vietnam improve its maritime capability, including the transfer of a Hamilton-class cutter to the Vietnamese Coast Guard in 2017 and the delivery of 18 “Metal Shark” patrol boats in the following years. Then-U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited Vietnam twice in 2018. The U.S. Navy has sent two aircraft carriers to Vietnam’s Da Nang port—the USS Carl Vinson in March 2018 and the USS Theodore Roosevelt in March 2020. Vietnam joined the Rim of the Pacific exercise in 2018 and planned to participate again in 2020.

Despite remarkable achievements, there are challenges in U.S.-Vietnam relations. Although Hanoi has improved its human rights record, concerns remain in several areas, including freedom of expression and labor rights. Members of the U.S. Congress, especially those whose constituencies include large Vietnamese American populations, have put pressure on the U.S. government to criticize Vietnam over rights issues. This leads to suspicion from Hanoi about a perceived “peaceful evolution” — that U.S. support of pro-democracy dissidents and promotion of higher human rights standards aims at overthrowing the Vietnamese Communist Party.

Meanwhile, Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a comprehensive and high-standard free trade agreement between 12 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, removed a major plank of trade relations with Vietnam.

Besides the TPP issue, the two countries have other irritants in the trade relations. The U.S. trade deficit with Vietnam has grown steadily since 1997, surpassing $20 billion in 2014. It increased a whopping 41 percent as the U.S.-China trade war escalated, going from $39.5 billion in 2018 to $55.8 billion in 2019. In February 2020, the Trump administration removed Vietnam from the list of self-declaring developing countries that receive preferential trade benefits under the World Trade Organization. It appears that the move was heavily based on the U.S. trade deficit with Vietnam.

Defense and security cooperation — despite impressive growth — has not matured as fast as U.S. expectations. Since the lift of lethal weapons ban, Vietnam has not made any purchase of American-made weapons. As more than 80 percent of Vietnam’s military equipment is from Russia, it would be a considerable challenge to incorporate U.S. weapons into the existing systems. Additionally, Russian-made weapons and equipment are seen as less expensive than American counterparts.

Another challenge in U.S.-Vietnam defense relations is Vietnam’s status under the 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, through which the United States imposes sanctions on countries that buy arms and military equipment from Russia. Although former U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis sought a waiver from Congress for Vietnam, the final decision has not been made.

Although problems exist, the prospects for a U.S.-Vietnam strategic partnership are largely positive. Unlike the U.S. Congress, the Trump administration appears to downplay human rights issue in its relations with Vietnam. It has not imposed any sanctions on Vietnam as it has done toward other countries.

In response to U.S. concern over its trade deficit, Vietnam has showed commitments to repair the trade balance. The Vietnamese government promised to increase its imports from the United States, especially farm products, and announced that it was also considering cutting tariffs on U.S. agricultural imports.

In Vietnam’s most recent defense white paper, published in November 2019, the country’s longstanding “three noes” principle (no military alliances, no siding with one country against another, and no foreign military bases) is now followed by a caveat: “depending on circumstances and specific conditions, Viet Nam will consider developing necessary, appropriate defense and military relations with other countries… regardless of differences in political regimes and levels of development.” This is the first time Vietnam has explicitly given room for interpretation of its “three noes” principle, which will pave the way for Vietnam to deepen defense cooperation with the United States.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic introduced new uncertainty to U.S.-Vietnam relations. Like the rest of the world, the United States and Vietnam are occupied by the domestic consequences of the outbreak. More importantly, the accusations between the United States and China about the virus’ origin and their handlings of the crisis put Vietnam in an awkward position. Notwithstanding China’s increasing aggression in the South China Sea, it remains Vietnam’s most important partner. The decision to form a strategic partnership with the United States amid worsening U.S.-China competition could appear too sensitive. Thus, the likelihood of a U.S.-Vietnam strategic partnership too will “depend on circumstances.”

Bich T. Tran is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Antwerp, a researcher at the Global Affairs Research Center in Kyoto, and a former Asia Studies Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington.

SAPPHIRE · Jul 16, 2020

Eric Edstrom's comments in Housecarl post # 35 is just what I thought perusing this thread........geo-political aggression/war/skirmishes/etc. depends upon the blood of each nation's citizens with no conscience concerning all the misery, grief, sorrow, pain, mental & physical & spiritual.....we are all fodder for this wicked system's never-ending wars...

Housecarl · Jul 16, 2020

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Drug cartel ‘narco-antennas’ make life dangerous for Mexico’s cell tower repairmen

The young technician shut off the electricity at a cellular tower in rural Mexico to begin some routine maintenance. Within 10 minutes, he had company: three armed men dressed in fatigues emblazoned with the logo of a major drug cartel. The traffickers had a particular interest in that tower...

dailytimes.com.pk

World
Drug cartel ‘narco-antennas’ make life dangerous for Mexico’s cell tower repairmen

Agencies
July 16, 2020

The young technician shut off the electricity at a cellular tower in rural Mexico to begin some routine maintenance.

Within 10 minutes, he had company: three armed men dressed in fatigues emblazoned with the logo of a major drug cartel.

The traffickers had a particular interest in that tower, owned by Boston-based American Tower Corp, which rents space to carriers on its thousands of cellular sites in Mexico. The cartel had installed its own antennas on the structure to support their two-way radios, but the contractor had unwittingly blacked out the shadowy network.
The visitors let him off with a warning.

“I was so nervous… Seeing them armed in front of you, you don’t know how to react,” the worker told Reuters, recalling the 2018 encounter. “Little by little, you learn how to coexist with them, how to address them, how to make them see that you don’t represent a threat.”

The contractor had disrupted a small link in a vast criminal network that spans much of Mexico. In addition to high-end encrypted cell phones and popular messaging apps, traffickers still rely heavily on two-way radios like the ones police and firefighters use to coordinate their teams on the ground, six law enforcement experts on both sides of the border told Reuters.

Traffickers often erect their own radio antennas in rural areas. They also install so-called parasite antennas on existing cell towers, layering their criminal communications network on top of the official one. By piggybacking on telecom companies’ infrastructure, cartels save money and evade detection since their own towers are more easily spotted and torn down, law enforcement experts said.

The practice has been widely acknowledged by telecom companies and Mexican officials for years. The problem persists because the government has made inconsistent efforts to take it on, and because companies have little recourse to stop it, experts on law enforcement and Mexican society said.

“There is a sense of powerlessness” in Mexico, said Duncan Wood, director of the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute in Washington. He said companies feel they “cannot respond to issues like this because (they) are afraid of the consequences from groups that essentially enjoy impunity.”

Mexico’s Defense Ministry said it provides security for federal agencies that request its help in dismantling “parasitic equipment” installed by cartels on cell towers.

The nation’s Attorney General’s office did not respond to a request for comment about criminal activity at these sites. The Federal Telecommunications Institute, Mexico’s telecom and broadcasting regulator, said its compliance unit had not received reports of parasite antennas from any companies under its jurisdiction.

Reuters has provided the first in-depth account of how traffickers exploit Mexico’s telecom infrastructure and the toll it takes on workers. The news organization interviewed 14 current and former telecom workers about the interactions that they and their colleagues have had with criminal groups at cell towers.

Twelve of them said they had seen parasite antennas on towers belonging to Telesites SAB de CV, a tower rental company in which the family of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is a major shareholder; as well as American Tower, US carrier AT&T Corp, Spain’s Telefonica SA and Mexico’s Axtel SAB de CV.

Reuters is omitting the technicians’ names, details of where they work and most names of cartels they encounter for the workers’ protection. Two technicians shared texts they exchanged with colleagues regarding on-the-job run-ins with organized crime at the cell towers, and one of them shared a photo of an illicit device he discovered in the course of his work.

The incidents the 12 workers recounted occurred between 2015 and 2020 in several Mexican states.

Most of the technicians said they encounter the devices, known colloquially as narco-antennas, just a few times a year.

But one engineer who spoke with Reuters estimated that parasite antennas are present on roughly 20% of towers where his firm works, while another said about 30% of his sites had them when local criminals were particularly active in his area in 2018.

Their No. 1 rule when discovering cartel equipment on a tower is simple: Don’t touch it.
Dealing with gangsters in person is trickier, they said, requiring diplomacy and a cool head. Some said their interactions have been cordial, bordering on friendly. Others said they have been threatened, detained and at times fearful for their lives.

The traffickers “convey their superiority, …it’s like when someone wants to mark their territory,” one technician said. “I can’t get nervous because they pick up on when someone is secure and when someone is very afraid.”

‘SECURITY’ PAYMENTS
Cartels and other criminal groups sometimes demand telecom workers pay “security payments” or “quotas” in order to perform maintenance on towers and other tasks, according to five contract laborers who have worked on projects involving America Movil SAB de CV, Slim’s telecommunications firm, as well as American Tower and AT&T.

These people said the best strategy is to be polite, stay calm and pay up immediately. Those costs get passed along to their employers; laborers for subcontractors said their firms often charge the big telecom companies higher rates for working in dicey areas.

A spokesman for America Movil and Telesites declined to comment. Axtel, which sold some of its telecom towers in 2017, said it had not received any reports of incidents on its remaining infrastructure. AT&T said that “under no circumstances” does it “tolerate or authorize payments outside of those established by law.”

An American Tower spokesman said “we have not received any credible reports” of parasite antennas or other cartel activities at the company’s Mexican sites. He said the firm alerts local authorities immediately if a site is vandalized, and that “the safety of those who work on our towers, as well as the towers’ continued secure operation, are our top priorities.”

Guillermo Ramos, Telefonica’s director of security in Mexico, said the company has not received any reports of parasite antennas over at least the past year.

Housecarl · Jul 16, 2020

Hummm........

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Key House Democrats want to lock in New START weapons limits

The chairmen of the House foreign affairs and intelligence committees are pushing a measure meant to extend the last remaining U.S.-Russia arms control agreement amid fears President Donald Trump will let it lapse.

www.defensenews.com

Congress
Key House Democrats want to lock in New START weapons limits

By: Joe Gould 1 day ago

WASHINGTON ― The chairmen of the House foreign affairs and intelligence committees are pushing a measure meant to extend the last remaining U.S.-Russia arms control agreement amid fears President Donald Trump will let it lapse.

Led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the proposal would require congressional approval to increase the nuclear arsenal above the limits of the 2010 New START treaty, if the pact is allowed to expire next year.

The measure was offered as an amendment to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, which is set for floor consideration next week. Engel’s amendment was cosponsored by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and House Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee Chairman Jim Langevin, D-R.I.

“This Administration’s recklessness has left New START as the only remaining agreement limiting Russia’s nuclear weapons. Despite the White House’s claims, there’s no ‘better deal’ with Russia and China on the horizon, and the clock on New START is ticking,” Engel said in a statement. “The president doesn’t seem to have a problem with Russia developing more and more nuclear weapons that could strike the United States, so Congress has to do everything we can to keep these protections in place.”

The action came days after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned he’s not very optimistic about prospects for an extension because of Washington’s focus on making China sign onto the pact. U.S. and Russian envoys held talks last month in Vienna, but Beijing has refused to take part.

Engel’s amendment states that the U.S. should extend the pact for five years, to an expiration date of February 5, 2026, unless Russia is in material breach of the treaty or if it is replaced by a new, stronger agreement. It also provides the executive branch with permission to continue inspection activities and other transparency measures if New START expires on February 5, 2021, assuming that the government of Russia reciprocates these steps

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., speaks during the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on Venezuela at Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The New START treaty limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers and envisages sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance.

The amendment would bar funding to increase the arsenal above the treaty limits unless the president notifies Congress in advance of the new military requirements, certifies that the additional deployments are necessary and justifies the deployments, reports the associated costs and operational implications, and requires that any increase in deployed nuclear weapons is subject to a joint resolution of approval.

It also requires detailed reports on Russian nuclear forces and, with and eye toward potential growth in China’s nuclear arsenal, requires briefings and reports regarding the administration’s arms control approach with Beijing, according to a summary.

It also requires a presidential certification before New START would lapse that this would serve U.S. national security interests, an assessment whether continuing limits on Russian nuclear forces would serve U.S. interests and a plan for how the U.S. military and intelligence communities will address the post-New START environment, including the potential funding and development of additional nuclear deterrence and intelligence requirements.

If Engel’s amendment is accepted by the House Rules Committee and adopted by the House, it would almost certainly invite resistance from hawkish supporters of the president during negotiations to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the NDAA. Senate Armed Services Committee’s Chairman Jim Inhofe, a proponent of nuclear weapons spending, has historically been a skeptic of the treaty.

Kingston Reif, the Arms Control Association’s director for disarmament and threat reduction policy, said the Trump administration doesn’t seem like it will extend New Start and that Congress ought to be putting in roadblocks.

“Crucially, the amendment would require congressional approval to increase the nuclear arsenal above the treaty limits, if the treaty is allowed to expire next year. A decision as consequential as increasing the size of the deployed arsenal, which hasn’t occurred in decades, merits special scrutiny,” Reif said.

After both Moscow and Washington withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty last year, New START is the only remaining nuclear arms control deal between the two countries.

Russia has offered its extension without any conditions, while the Trump administration has pushed for a new arms control agreement that would also include China. Moscow has described that idea as unfeasible, pointing at Beijing’s refusal to negotiate any deal that would reduce its much smaller nuclear arsenal.

Trump declared an intention to pull out of the agreement in May, citing Russian violations. Russia denied breaching the pact, which came into force in 2002, and the European Union has urged the U.S. to reconsider.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Housecarl · Jul 16, 2020

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Hot Issue – The Houthi Art of War: Why They Keep Winning in Yemen

Executive summary: After five years of war against the Saudi-led coalition and its allies, Yemen’s Houthi rebels remain defiant and are once again on the offensive. The Houthis’ keen understanding and consistent application of the algebra of insurgency are fundamental to their martial success in...

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Hot Issue – The Houthi Art of War: Why They Keep Winning in Yemen
By: Michael Horton

June 29, 2020 09:20 AM Age: 2 weeks

(source: middle-east-online.com)

Executive summary: After five years of war against the Saudi-led coalition and its allies, Yemen’s Houthi rebels remain defiant and are once again on the offensive. The Houthis’ keen understanding and consistent application of the algebra of insurgency are fundamental to their martial success in Yemen. Ironically, the greatest threat to the Houthi leadership may be peace. Peace will bring internal tensions within the Houthi leadership and growing discontent among the Yemeni people to the fore.
Introduction
Underestimating or having contempt for an enemy, argues Lao Tzu, is among the costliest mistakes a commander can make. [1] This alone has led to more defeats than any other miscalculation. Conversely, underestimating the enemy is a great asset to those who are underestimated. The military and political capabilities of Yemen’s Houthi rebels have been underrated for nearly two decades. First, by the government of former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, and then by Saudi Arabia and its supporters, including the United States.

From 2004-2010, the government of Ali Abdulla Saleh fought and lost six wars against the Houthis. The Houthi takeover of the Yemeni capital of Sana’a in September 2014 and their subsequent move southward toward Aden partly prompted Saudi Arabia and the UAE to launch their ill-fated intervention in Yemen in March 2015. The Saudis and Emiratis bet on a quick victory over the Houthis. Now, more than five years on, it is clear they have lost their bet. The Houthis and those allied with them have proved themselves to be resilient, capable, and strategically and tactically creative.

The Houthis and their allies have withstood five years of aerial bombardment, blockades, and attacks on multiple fronts by forces backed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Throughout the last five years, the Houthis have been outgunned, outspent, and subject to persistent aerial and satellite surveillance. Yet the intervention has not materially weakened them, and now, the Houthis are once again on the offensive across multiple fronts (al-Monitor, March 12).

The resiliency of the Houthis stems from their leadership’s understanding and consistent application of the algebra of insurgency. T.E. Lawrence used the term, or a version of it, in an article he wrote for Army Quarterly in 1920. The article, “Evolution of a Revolt,” argues that insurgents would be victorious if they applied certain “algebraical factors.” [2] These include force mobility and security as well as time and respect for the populace. [3] The Houthis broadly apply these and multiply them with superior human intelligence and an intimate knowledge of northwest Yemen’s daunting mountainous terrain. The Houthis, partly due to technical support from Iran, have also added drone and missile technology to the equation. These factors combine to make the Houthis a formidable force.

Move or Die
Force mobility has been—and remains—fundamental to the Houthis’ success in battling elements of the Saudi and Emirati militaries as well as those forces they support. These forces include Yemen’s internationally recognized government-in-exile, led by President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, which is allied with Saudi Arabia, and a panoply of militias and armed groups supported by the UAE. The Houthis understand and readily apply what Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley explained in 2016, “on the future battlefield, if you stay in one place longer than two or three hours, you will be dead.” [4] General Milley made his comments in light of the widespread use of drones and other rapidly developing battlefield technologies.

The UAE’s and Saudi Arabia’s ability to field unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has increased over the last three years. Both countries use Chinese manufactured UAVs in Yemen, most of which are operated by Chinese contractors as Riyadh and Abu Dhabi suffer from a lack of well-trained personnel. Saudi Arabia and the UAE also enjoy drone and satellite surveillance provided by the United States, which flies its own UAVs over Yemen on a daily basis.

In response to what, at times, has been persistent aerial surveillance, the Houthis make extensive use of highly mobile small combat units. These units are critical to the Houthis’ ability to defend territory, harass enemy forces, and plan and launch offensives. The combat units most often consist of no more than 20 men—roughly equivalent to a squad or specialized platoon—who rely on two or three light trucks and/or technicals. These trucks and/or technicals are easy to disguise and traverse Yemen’s worst roads and tracks.

Even smaller groups of men—equivalent to a fire team—are tasked with harassing enemy forces and collecting intelligence. The smaller teams may operate for weeks with all but minimal resupply. Most importantly, many of these units are not dependent on ranking commanders for daily or even weekly orders. The fire teams, or forward operating squads, are given a broad remit that remains in place until cancelled or amended. The Houthis are well aware that all electronic communications are monitored and consequently keep them to a minimum or use alternative means. These small, highly mobile units, especially the ones deployed along the edges of—and in—enemy-held territory operate on their individual commanders’ initiatives and seize on any vulnerabilities or opportunities they come across. [5]

Intense competition for spots in these combat teams takes place among those who aspire to rise up the ranks of the Houthi-led forces. Command within these units, from the lowest level to the equivalent of captains, is largely a meritocracy. Those who are most capable and successful are rewarded with rank, favors, and/or cash bonuses. On a deeper and more consequential level, the best fighters and commanders are the ones who survive by adapting to—and exploiting—the dynamic conditions in which they operate. Many, if not most, of the senior members of the Houthi leadership have firsthand experience in battle and are themselves the product of combat Darwinism. Only those who were capable and fortunate survived the years of fighting with the Saleh-led Yemeni government.

The Houthi leadership—at least parts of it—places a high value on bottom-up learning. While senior members of the Houthi family dominate the core leadership, the broader organization is open to those who possess the skills and talent that the group and their allies require.

The combination of what is largely a meritocracy with battlefield selection means that the Houthis and those allied with them benefit from motivated and creative officers and NCOs or their equivalents. [6] This contrasts with the forces arrayed against the Houthis and their allies. The armies of Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser degree, the UAE suffer from a pronounced lack of experienced and capable officers and NCOs. The UAE partly makes up for these deficiencies by employing mercenaries. The re-constituted “Yemeni Army” that is now fighting on behalf of Yemen’s government-in-exile also contends with poorly trained and ineffective officers and NCOs. Field grade and general officers in the re-constituted Yemeni Army most often achieve their ranks via personal connections to the Saudi Arabia-based government-in-exile. Furthermore, many of these senior officers are more interested in preserving their resources and thus sustaining their power and influence than engaging the enemy in protracted and costly battles.

Security and Intelligence
To a large degree, the mobility of Houthi forces ensures their security. The combat units that rove around their assigned sectors are indistinguishable from civilians since a significant percentage of Yemeni men in northwest Yemen carry weapons. Long before the start of the current war, bearing arms was a part of the culture. Additionally, the Toyota trucks used by the Houthis are as ubiquitous as the Kalashnikovs and G3 rifles carried by many across large swaths of Yemen.

The combat teams maintain their security by only massing when a target emerges that requires the combined firepower of multiple units. More often than not, a target such as a convoy (the Houthis’ largest source of weapons and material is coalition-backed forces) is first flagged by human intelligence. The Houthis maintain an informal but extensive human intelligence network that extends across Yemen and well into southern Saudi Arabia where they carry out hit and run raids on Saudi forces (al-Jazeera, September 29, 2019). Informants, who act out of loyalty and for material gain, pass along intelligence about enemy movements, proposed routes, and details about armaments and cargo to their handlers. The handlers then notify Houthi commanders charged with tasking. Combat units in the area through which the convoy or some other target will pass use a combination of human intelligence and hand launched drones to monitor the progress of a target. When the target approaches a predetermined area that is favorable to attack, combat units swarm the target by approaching from multiple directions. Once the attack is complete the units disperse.

Many of the combat teams that operate deep within enemy territory are semi-autonomous. The commanders of these units work their own human intelligence sources in their assigned areas, decide when to attack, and deploy hand launched drones to monitor and identify threats and opportunities. The autonomy helps ensure security by reducing electronic communication and nimbleness. Once an opportunity for engaging an enemy is identified, little or no chain of command exists to obtain permission to strike.

Human intelligence, like their small mobile combat units, is critical to the Houthis’ success on the battlefield. Via their extensive network of informants, the Houthis often know more about the location and capabilities of enemy forces than the general officers charged with commanding them. [7] Despite their enemies’ superior weapons, air support, and persistent overhead surveillance, the Houthis routinely anticipate and thwart offensives and counter-offensives. This is primarily due to the human intelligence that they receive from informants across Yemen. The Houthis’ use of numerous types of modified and indigenously produced UAVs allows them to confirm and augment the intelligence generated via informants. The pairing of human and UAV generated intelligence combined with the Houthis and their allies’ intimate knowledge of Yemen’s rugged mountains and canyons, acts as an effective force multiplier. The Houthis often anticipate the moves made by their foes and respond with deadly force. The accuracy of their responses means they are often able to “arrange the minds of their enemies” by eroding morale and undermining trust in the officers and commanders who lead the opposing forces. [8]

Anatomy of Failure
In contrast to the Houthis, the military forces opposing them suffer from slow and ineffective chains of command, dated and politically influenced intelligence, and poorly motivated men and officers. Decision making within the re-constituted Yemeni Army supporting the Hadi government is slow, top-heavy, and frequently compromised by in-fighting between rival politicians and military commanders. When orders are issued, they are often received by ranking commanders in frontline areas like Marib as suggestions rather than orders. This might be because the commanders have a better understanding of the situation or it may be the case that a particular officer and his backers think it advantageous to preserve their men and supplies.

The hoarding of supplies and the taking of a percentage of salaries by ranking officers was a problem in the Yemeni Army before the current conflict. These practices have continued and grown worse in the re-constituted Yemeni Army. The timely payment of salaries and distribution of supplies has a material impact on the willingness of many of the soldiers who have signed up to fight for the Hadi government. Most of these men, who are primarily from the south, only joined the Hadi-allied forces to collect a salary. Many of them have families who depend on the promised income. When these salaries are not paid or are reduced due to graft among ranking officers, many soldiers desert. In addition to low morale, a significant percentage of the soldiers listed on rosters are ‘ghost soldiers.’ They either do not exist, or, if they do, they are not actively involved in the fighting and are only on the roster to collect a percentage of a salary.

Saudi Arabia’s ‘blank check’ approach to the war in Yemen has exacerbated these problems. While indications that Saudi Arabia is cutting its expenditures in Yemen have emerged, the culture of corruption will persist. In fact, reduced aid from Saudi Arabia may mean that ranking officers and political figures are more inclined to preserve their resources to assure themselves a place in whatever political order follows.

As Saudi Arabia reduces its financial and military support for the Hadi government, the already limited effectiveness of its military will be further reduced. This is evident in the Yemeni governorate of Marib, where the Hadi government is struggling to hold the capital, Marib City. Despite air support from Saudi Arabia for Hadi’s military forces, the Houthis continue to gain ground. If Marib City falls to the Houthis and their allies, desertion rates among the opposing forces will soar and brittle chains of command will break.

Conclusion
The defeat of the Houthis has, according to many analysts and think tanks, been imminent for much of the past five years. The better equipped militaries of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and their various proxy forces were supposed to rapidly defeat the Houthis and their allies. Great emphasis was placed on the technical superiority of the Western-equipped militaries of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Yet despite the expenditure of vast sums on weapons and materiel by Riyadh and the Abu Dhabi, the Houthis have consolidated their control of northwest Yemen and are poised to capture the governorate of Marib.

The Houthis’ ability to defy and defeat technologically superior forces is a reminder that, as the military strategist and fighter pilot Colonel John Boyd argued, “machines don’t fight wars, terrain doesn’t fight wars. Humans fight wars. You must get into the minds of humans. That’s where the battles are won.” [9] The Houthis excel on the battlefield and this is unlikely to change, no matter how much Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and their backers spend on the war in Yemen. However, despite their military success, the Houthis may lose the core battle for the hearts and minds of Yemenis. Ironically, it is the end or reduction of hostilities that will most weaken the Houthis’ hold on power.

The war and their martial abilities are the Houthis’ greatest sources of legitimacy and support. Many of those who back the Houthis do so only for pragmatic reasons. For example, many Yemenis want to stop what they see as a foreign invasion by the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Yemenis of various political persuasions calculate that only the Houthis are capable of preventing outside powers from carving up Yemen. Others support the Houthis because they provide a measure of security and predictability, especially when compared with southern Yemen. Members of the Yemeni elite most often align themselves with the Houthis for financial and political gain rather than any shared ideology. The Houthis’ have, so far, stitched together impressive and durable networks of political and tribal support. However, alienation among a significant percentage of the population of northwest Yemen is growing due to Houthi abuses and their exclusivist policies. [10]

The Houthi leadership recently introduced a bylaw that stipulates that a percentage of the zakat—an obligatory tax and one of the five pillars of Islam—be paid to Hashemite families (al-Monitor, June 21). The Hashemites are those families who trace descent from the Prophet Muhammad’s great-grandfather. As Hashemites, this will benefit the Houthi family and the organization’s leadership. This bylaw, as well as what many view as the increasing influence of Iranian Jafari Shi’a religious practices, is drawing the ire of Yemenis—including Zaydis, a sect of Shi’a Islam followed by the Houthis.

While the Houthis will remain a martial and political force in northwest Yemen for the foreseeable future, resistance to the Houthi family itself will grow if the war winds down. Without the threat posed by the coalition and coalition-backed forces, the dominance of the Houthi family in the political arena of northwest Yemen will be more difficult to justify and sustain. Tensions within the core leadership will also threaten this dominance. The immediacy of war provides most of the cohesiveness that the Houthi leadership has enjoyed. Without the war, tensions within the core leadership will become more pronounced. As rival leaders attempt to broaden and reinforce power bases, there will be more space for old and emergent elites to reassert their authority. Over time this will lead to the dilution of the power held by the Houthis’ core leadership.

Notes
[1] See: Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (Shambala Edition, 2007).
[2] Thomas Edward Lawrence, “Evolution of a Revolt,” Army Quarterly 1:1 (1920).
[3] The Houthis are guilty, as all sides in the war are, of numerous and continuing human rights abuses. However, they do offer relatively high-levels of predictability and security for those living in the areas that they and their allies control.
[4] See: Radical Change Is Coming: Gen. Mark A. Milley Not Talking About Just Tinkering Around the Edges
[5] Author interviews with Yemen based analysts and former government officials (June 2020).
[6] Many of the most capable officers and NCOs from the Yemeni Army and Air Force allied themselves with the Houthis following the Saudi led intervention. The Houthis continue to benefit from the expertise of these men, many of whom received training in the West as well as in former Soviet bloc countries.
[7] Author interview, Yemen based security analyst (June 2020).
[8] See: Liddell Hart, Colonel Lawrence: The Man Behind the Legend (Dodd, Mead and Company, 1934).
[9] See: Robert Coram, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (Back Bay Books, 2002).
[10] See: Human Rights Watch, “Yemen: Houthi-Hostage Taking” (September 2018); Human Rights Watch, “Yemen Events of 2019.”

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