WAR 07-22-2017-to-07-28-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
China Connection
TB Fanatic
TheDrive.com on July 17, 2017:
by Tyler Rogoway
Early last April, we were among the first to report that Russia intended to send the world's largest submarine, the Typhoon class Dmitry Donskoy, and their largest surface combatant, the nuclear powered Kirov class battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy, to the relatively tight and tense confines of the Baltic Sea. Now both ships have officially set sail from their home port of Severomorsk on their unprecedented voyage.
The ships are part of a massive flotilla of Russian naval power that will take part in a parade on September 30th at the far eastern reach of the Baltic Sea in St. Petersburg. The two ships represent some of the most destructive vessels the world has ever seen, and sailing them into Northern Europe's most strategic waterway will raise eyebrows, especially among NATO member countries that call the Baltic home.
Just getting the vessels in and out of the enclosed Baltic Sea will be a sensitive operation, as we wrote in April:
"The Baltic Sea is usually the playground of smaller attack submarines, namely of the diesel electric variety, not of huge ballistic missile carrying "boomers." The body of water is very much a littoral environment, with an average depth of around 180 feet, which is hardly the environment for a Typhoon class submarine that displaces 48,000 tonnes while submerged and was built to literally find a place in the deep and remote ocean to hide for long periods of time. According to The Barents Observer even transiting into the region will be a tight squeeze for the Dmitry Donskoy:
"For those who want to see, but can’t go to St. Petersburg, the vessel will have to sail at surface under the Great Belt bridge where vessels with a maximum draught of 15 meters can sail. According to Swedish Maritime Administration, the waters under the Öresund bridge or the Flint channel are too shallow. The draught of a Typhoon submarine is 12 meters."
But even if the huge submarine doesn't have a tactical purpose in the Baltic Sea, its appearance there will send a very big reminder to the region and beyond of the heavy-hitting naval capabilities the Russian Navy retains. A Kirovclass battlecruiser is also not especially well-suited for operating in such a environment, but its abilities do pose a threat to the region.
The ship was built to tear apart American carrier battle groups in the open ocean, but their missiles can be used against other targets as well, and its long-range air defenses pose a credible challenge. But the fact is Russian long-range air defense assets, ballistic missiles, and even possibly land-based cruise missiles are already present in Kaliningrad, so although the Pyotr Velikiy does bring some new capabilities to the table in the region, Russia already has plenty of ways to turn on a no-fly-zone at a flick of a switch, and bombard NATO countries from nearly the inside-out if they actually wanted to do so. Not to mention the fact that a huge battlecruiser in a closed body of water is a big fat target itself.
Maybe above all else, the fact that multiple nuclear reactors (both vessels run on nuclear power) of Soviet vintage will be plodding through the region is likely to draw the most ire from Moscow's European neighbors."
According to a release from the Russian Ministry of Defense, the parade will include "10 ships and 28 aircraft and helicopters" from the Northern Fleet. The Baltic Fleet forces will likely add many more ships to that roster, as well as aircraft from units based in the region, including in Russia's Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad.
Based on this info, this should be one hell of a naval parade.
The imposing Dmitry Donskoy, whose class inspired the beloved Cold War classic The Hunt for Red October, is the last of her kind. The other five giant Typhoon class boats have been scrapped or are decommissioned (and largely rotting) and are about to be meet a similar fate. Different rumors have popped up in recent years as to the Donskoy's future. Today it serves as a test ship for Russian Navy ballistic missiles, and by some accounts there are no plans to retire her from that mission anytime soon. But other sources say the iconic submarine's days are numbered. Maybe we will find out about what he Russian Navy has in store for the unique submarine after its adventure into the Baltic Sea concludes.
The Kirov class nuclear battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy on the other hand has a long life ahead of it. It has received some upgrades in recent years and its sister ship, the Admiral Nakhimov, is undergoing a deep refit that includes installing a host of new weaponry and sensors. Once the Admiral Nakhimov is returned to the fleet, Pyotr Velikiy will go through the same refit process, giving both ships a common configuration around the middle of the next decade.
Russia's Northern Fleet armada sailing into the Baltic Sea, regardless of if it is for a parade or not, will draw huge press coverage in Europe, but their voyage around Scandinavia will also be closely monitored by local militaries. We'll keep an eye on their progress and report back on the status of their voyage soon.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...b-and-warship-have-set-sail-to-the-baltic-sea
by Tyler Rogoway
Early last April, we were among the first to report that Russia intended to send the world's largest submarine, the Typhoon class Dmitry Donskoy, and their largest surface combatant, the nuclear powered Kirov class battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy, to the relatively tight and tense confines of the Baltic Sea. Now both ships have officially set sail from their home port of Severomorsk on their unprecedented voyage.
The ships are part of a massive flotilla of Russian naval power that will take part in a parade on September 30th at the far eastern reach of the Baltic Sea in St. Petersburg. The two ships represent some of the most destructive vessels the world has ever seen, and sailing them into Northern Europe's most strategic waterway will raise eyebrows, especially among NATO member countries that call the Baltic home.
Just getting the vessels in and out of the enclosed Baltic Sea will be a sensitive operation, as we wrote in April:
"The Baltic Sea is usually the playground of smaller attack submarines, namely of the diesel electric variety, not of huge ballistic missile carrying "boomers." The body of water is very much a littoral environment, with an average depth of around 180 feet, which is hardly the environment for a Typhoon class submarine that displaces 48,000 tonnes while submerged and was built to literally find a place in the deep and remote ocean to hide for long periods of time. According to The Barents Observer even transiting into the region will be a tight squeeze for the Dmitry Donskoy:
"For those who want to see, but can’t go to St. Petersburg, the vessel will have to sail at surface under the Great Belt bridge where vessels with a maximum draught of 15 meters can sail. According to Swedish Maritime Administration, the waters under the Öresund bridge or the Flint channel are too shallow. The draught of a Typhoon submarine is 12 meters."
But even if the huge submarine doesn't have a tactical purpose in the Baltic Sea, its appearance there will send a very big reminder to the region and beyond of the heavy-hitting naval capabilities the Russian Navy retains. A Kirovclass battlecruiser is also not especially well-suited for operating in such a environment, but its abilities do pose a threat to the region.
The ship was built to tear apart American carrier battle groups in the open ocean, but their missiles can be used against other targets as well, and its long-range air defenses pose a credible challenge. But the fact is Russian long-range air defense assets, ballistic missiles, and even possibly land-based cruise missiles are already present in Kaliningrad, so although the Pyotr Velikiy does bring some new capabilities to the table in the region, Russia already has plenty of ways to turn on a no-fly-zone at a flick of a switch, and bombard NATO countries from nearly the inside-out if they actually wanted to do so. Not to mention the fact that a huge battlecruiser in a closed body of water is a big fat target itself.
Maybe above all else, the fact that multiple nuclear reactors (both vessels run on nuclear power) of Soviet vintage will be plodding through the region is likely to draw the most ire from Moscow's European neighbors."
According to a release from the Russian Ministry of Defense, the parade will include "10 ships and 28 aircraft and helicopters" from the Northern Fleet. The Baltic Fleet forces will likely add many more ships to that roster, as well as aircraft from units based in the region, including in Russia's Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad.
Based on this info, this should be one hell of a naval parade.
The imposing Dmitry Donskoy, whose class inspired the beloved Cold War classic The Hunt for Red October, is the last of her kind. The other five giant Typhoon class boats have been scrapped or are decommissioned (and largely rotting) and are about to be meet a similar fate. Different rumors have popped up in recent years as to the Donskoy's future. Today it serves as a test ship for Russian Navy ballistic missiles, and by some accounts there are no plans to retire her from that mission anytime soon. But other sources say the iconic submarine's days are numbered. Maybe we will find out about what he Russian Navy has in store for the unique submarine after its adventure into the Baltic Sea concludes.
The Kirov class nuclear battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy on the other hand has a long life ahead of it. It has received some upgrades in recent years and its sister ship, the Admiral Nakhimov, is undergoing a deep refit that includes installing a host of new weaponry and sensors. Once the Admiral Nakhimov is returned to the fleet, Pyotr Velikiy will go through the same refit process, giving both ships a common configuration around the middle of the next decade.
Russia's Northern Fleet armada sailing into the Baltic Sea, regardless of if it is for a parade or not, will draw huge press coverage in Europe, but their voyage around Scandinavia will also be closely monitored by local militaries. We'll keep an eye on their progress and report back on the status of their voyage soon.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...b-and-warship-have-set-sail-to-the-baltic-sea
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/07/22/weekly_recon__multi-domain_updates_111871.html
Weekly Recon – Multi-Domain Updates
By Blake Baiers
July 22, 2017
Good Saturday morning and welcome to Weekly Recon. On this day in 1987, in a dramatic turnaround, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev indicates that he is willing to negotiate a ban on intermediate-range nuclear missiles without conditions. Gorbachev’s decision paved the way for the groundbreaking Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with the United States. On July 22, 1987, Gorbachev dramatically announced that he was ready to discuss the elimination of intermediate-range missiles on a worldwide basis, with no conditions. In December 1987, during a summit in Washington, the two men signed off on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons.
On the Ground
Major John Spencer of the U.S. Military Academy’s Modern War Institute penned an insightful piece in the Wall Street Journal this week on the future of armed conflict and its shift from the open field to the confines of the urban jungle. Using the battle of Mosul as an example, Spencer notes: “America’s next war will be the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu on steroids.” Spencer has long advocated for greater attention to be paid to urban warfare in the way that the U.S. military thinks about and prepares for war. He advocates for the use of abandoned quadrants of major U.S. cities to be taken over by the military and used as training areas, such as is done in mountains, swamps, and deserts across the country. Writing at the Modern War Institute, Zachary Griffiths draws from experiences in Mosul, current U.S. doctrine on urban warfare, and existing training programs to chart a potential route forward in developing military preparedness for combat in urban environments. Focusing on urban combat will require major paradigm shifts across the military, but Spencer and Griffiths provide concrete examples of how to chart this new course.
Air Superiority
A new age of close-air-support is on the horizon, and it is taking shape in the New Mexico desert. This week Sierra Nevada’s A-29 Super Tucano and Textron Industries AT-6 Wolverine were in the air, being flown by U.S. Air Force pilots that will be putting the planes through a series of tests to evaluate their capabilities as close-air-support platforms as part of the OA-X experiment, which is set to begin next month. A later portion of the experiment will include Textron’s jet entry for the experiment, the Scorpion. The Super Tucano, Wolverine, Scorpion, and a fourth entrant, the Air Tractor AT-802U, will compete in a multitude of combat scenarios, such as: “such as close air support, air interdiction, combat search and rescue and strike coordination and reconnaissance.” Although this test shows promise for the future of lower-end close-air-support, the Air Force signaled this week that a replacement for the A-10 Warthog may no longer be in the works.
Maritime Matters
The first of class USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) will be commissioned today. Although the “goddam steam” won’t be on hand, President Trump will be in Norfolk to welcome the ship into the fleet. If you would like to tune into the festivities, DVIDS is hosting a live stream that begins at 0955 EST. However, even as the ship prepares to set sail, it still has many problems that the crew is still figuring out. Problems extend beyond CVN 78 to the other ships of the Ford-class. Next to commission will be the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79). Kris Osborn at Scout Warrior reported last month that the Kennedy is now 50 percent structurally completed. A recent Government Accountability Officer report claims, however, that the ship is likely to run over its $14.1 billion budget by the time the ship commissions. These are troubling signs for the program as planning for construction of the third Ford-class carrier, the USS Enterprise (CVN 80), was kicked off this week when Huntington Ingalls Industries was awarded a $148.7 million contract to begin work on the ship.
Space Wars
SpaceX is preparing to launch the first of its new class rockets later this year, which will be a ‘souped up’ version of the existing Falcon9 design. Dubbed the ‘Falcon Heavy,’ the craft will triple the number of engines and add two external boosters to an existing Falcon9 rocket. SpaceX’s founder and chief Elon Musk acknowledges that the first test runs a great risk of failure. This new rocket could be a potential contracting boon for SpaceX as it competes with United Launch Alliance for government dollars. That will all rely on how successful tests of the rocket are, of course.
The Fifth Domain
U.S. Cyber Command is ever closer to becoming an independent combatant command. Its material divorce from the National Security Agency is all but certain to happen, and an announcement of a decision on the matter is expected in the coming weeks. Separating CYBERCOM from NSA could present a series of challenges for the military, however. The NSA provides the bulk CYBERCOM’s support under the current structure, and separating the two entities could strain that relationship. If CYBERCOM is not as self-sufficient as policymakers believe it to be, it could experience some growing pains at the start. In the meantime, the military is stepping up recruiting of cyber talent as the fifth domain becomes increasingly important to the American way of war. RealClearDefense’s Sandra Erwin sat down this week with Lt. Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, commander of U.S. Army Cyber Command, to discuss his organization's efforts to recruit new talent. Nakasone notes that the military “find a lot of interest in what the DoD is doing” because it does” some interesting things” and has “some unique authorities.” However, at the end of the day, the military is “looking for talent just like everyone else.” The competition for talent between the private sector, the military, and other government agencies will continue to be a challenge for the foreseeable future.
SEND RCD YOUR INPUT: Please send your tips, suggestions, and feedback to editors@realcleardefense.com. Make sure to follow us on Twitter at @RCDefenseand follow Blake Baiers @BlakeBaiers
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/07/22/weekly_recon__multi-domain_updates_111871.html
Weekly Recon – Multi-Domain Updates
By Blake Baiers
July 22, 2017
Good Saturday morning and welcome to Weekly Recon. On this day in 1987, in a dramatic turnaround, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev indicates that he is willing to negotiate a ban on intermediate-range nuclear missiles without conditions. Gorbachev’s decision paved the way for the groundbreaking Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with the United States. On July 22, 1987, Gorbachev dramatically announced that he was ready to discuss the elimination of intermediate-range missiles on a worldwide basis, with no conditions. In December 1987, during a summit in Washington, the two men signed off on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons.
On the Ground
Major John Spencer of the U.S. Military Academy’s Modern War Institute penned an insightful piece in the Wall Street Journal this week on the future of armed conflict and its shift from the open field to the confines of the urban jungle. Using the battle of Mosul as an example, Spencer notes: “America’s next war will be the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu on steroids.” Spencer has long advocated for greater attention to be paid to urban warfare in the way that the U.S. military thinks about and prepares for war. He advocates for the use of abandoned quadrants of major U.S. cities to be taken over by the military and used as training areas, such as is done in mountains, swamps, and deserts across the country. Writing at the Modern War Institute, Zachary Griffiths draws from experiences in Mosul, current U.S. doctrine on urban warfare, and existing training programs to chart a potential route forward in developing military preparedness for combat in urban environments. Focusing on urban combat will require major paradigm shifts across the military, but Spencer and Griffiths provide concrete examples of how to chart this new course.
Air Superiority
A new age of close-air-support is on the horizon, and it is taking shape in the New Mexico desert. This week Sierra Nevada’s A-29 Super Tucano and Textron Industries AT-6 Wolverine were in the air, being flown by U.S. Air Force pilots that will be putting the planes through a series of tests to evaluate their capabilities as close-air-support platforms as part of the OA-X experiment, which is set to begin next month. A later portion of the experiment will include Textron’s jet entry for the experiment, the Scorpion. The Super Tucano, Wolverine, Scorpion, and a fourth entrant, the Air Tractor AT-802U, will compete in a multitude of combat scenarios, such as: “such as close air support, air interdiction, combat search and rescue and strike coordination and reconnaissance.” Although this test shows promise for the future of lower-end close-air-support, the Air Force signaled this week that a replacement for the A-10 Warthog may no longer be in the works.
Maritime Matters
The first of class USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) will be commissioned today. Although the “goddam steam” won’t be on hand, President Trump will be in Norfolk to welcome the ship into the fleet. If you would like to tune into the festivities, DVIDS is hosting a live stream that begins at 0955 EST. However, even as the ship prepares to set sail, it still has many problems that the crew is still figuring out. Problems extend beyond CVN 78 to the other ships of the Ford-class. Next to commission will be the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79). Kris Osborn at Scout Warrior reported last month that the Kennedy is now 50 percent structurally completed. A recent Government Accountability Officer report claims, however, that the ship is likely to run over its $14.1 billion budget by the time the ship commissions. These are troubling signs for the program as planning for construction of the third Ford-class carrier, the USS Enterprise (CVN 80), was kicked off this week when Huntington Ingalls Industries was awarded a $148.7 million contract to begin work on the ship.
Space Wars
SpaceX is preparing to launch the first of its new class rockets later this year, which will be a ‘souped up’ version of the existing Falcon9 design. Dubbed the ‘Falcon Heavy,’ the craft will triple the number of engines and add two external boosters to an existing Falcon9 rocket. SpaceX’s founder and chief Elon Musk acknowledges that the first test runs a great risk of failure. This new rocket could be a potential contracting boon for SpaceX as it competes with United Launch Alliance for government dollars. That will all rely on how successful tests of the rocket are, of course.
The Fifth Domain
U.S. Cyber Command is ever closer to becoming an independent combatant command. Its material divorce from the National Security Agency is all but certain to happen, and an announcement of a decision on the matter is expected in the coming weeks. Separating CYBERCOM from NSA could present a series of challenges for the military, however. The NSA provides the bulk CYBERCOM’s support under the current structure, and separating the two entities could strain that relationship. If CYBERCOM is not as self-sufficient as policymakers believe it to be, it could experience some growing pains at the start. In the meantime, the military is stepping up recruiting of cyber talent as the fifth domain becomes increasingly important to the American way of war. RealClearDefense’s Sandra Erwin sat down this week with Lt. Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, commander of U.S. Army Cyber Command, to discuss his organization's efforts to recruit new talent. Nakasone notes that the military “find
SEND RCD YOUR INPUT: Please send your tips, suggestions, and feedback to editors@realcleardefense.com. Make sure to follow us on Twitter at @RCDefenseand follow Blake Baiers @BlakeBaiers
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thediplomat.com/2017/07/beware-the-illusion-of-south-china-sea-calm/
Beware the Illusion of South China Sea Calm
The cooling down some are playing up masks underlying tensions and broader strategic realities.
By Prashanth Parameswaran
July 21, 2017
A year after the supposedly game-changing arbitral tribunal ruling on the Philippines’ South China Sea case against China, the region appears to have entered another period of calm that some are happy to play up. But though a superficial glance might suggest that a cooling down period is truly at play in the South China Sea, a deeper look points to the reality that any calm is illusory at best and shows few signs of lasting.
The illusion of calm in the post-ruling context is due to a confluence of various factors. Chief among them is the election of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines last June, which, at least for now, has seen Manila shift from the most forward-leaning Southeast Asian claimant in the face of Chinese assertiveness to a laggard, downplaying the South China Sea issue and the ruling it had sought in a bid to reset ties with Beijing (See: “The Limits of Duterte’s US-China Rebalance”).
Though Duterte is often singled out as the main factor in the perceived changing the strategic environment in the South China Sea, the reality is that others have either been complicit in this change or have benefited from it (See: “The Truth About Duterte’s ASEAN South China Sea Blow”). Most obviously, China has exploited this idea of what its officials like to term “cooling down” for now, playing up what is at best a skeletal draft framework on the code of conduct and shutting down attempts by non-claimants to interfere as it remains preoccupied with the 19th Party Congress later this year.
Among Southeast Asian states, though a few, particularly Vietnam, remain anxious about this period of illusory calm, the other two Southeast Asian claimants, Malaysia and Brunei, do find some comfort in the fact that they, as one Southeast Asian official put it to me in June, “have just some time to breathe.” This reflects not just the divisions within ASEAN on the South China Sea issue, but also other dynamics beyond the issue itself such as the changing threat environment brought about by the Islamic State’s advances in the subregion, domestic politics with upcoming elections in Malaysia and Indonesia (a non-claimant but interested party, as I have noted before), and the growing pressure China is asserting on individual Southeast Asian states – from Vietnam to Singapore (See: “China: New White Paper, Old Asia Conundrum”).
This complicity does not stop at the region itself. The election of Donald Trump had initially played into the illusion of calm in the South China Sea as well. Rather than the more hawkish U.S. China policy many in the region were expecting given Hillary Clinton’s views as well of those articulated by some of Trump’s advisers during the campaign, the initial wild swings we saw in the administration’s approach to Beijing had given rise to the idea that we could see a tacit agreement by the two powers to downplay the South China Sea issue in favor of cooperation on North Korea (See: “Trump’s Real ASEAN Test”).
This view, still held in some Southeast Asian capitals that worry about the unpredictability of Trump’s transactional approach to diplomacy, tends to intensify doubts about U.S. credibility and reinforce unilateral actions, and, to a much lesser extent, intra-ASEAN cooperation and hedging tendencies.
But a deeper look suggests that any kind of “cooling down” in the South China Sea is illusory. First, though major forms of destabilizing behavior have been absent, tensions continue to simmer and in some cases have already begun to boil over.
Most notably, as data from the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative has illustrated, even as China engages in negotiations with ASEAN states over the draft framework of the COC, Beijing has shown no signs of stopping the construction of military and dual-use facilities on the Spratly Islands, which violates the DOC and President Xi Jinping’s own non-militarization pledge and only confirms that it is bent on assuming de facto control of the South China Sea.
ASEAN states are well aware of this reality, and so they too have continued pursuing their own unilateral steps quietly and at times publicly to safeguard their claims even as they continue on the negotiating track with Beijing. More visible steps of late have included Indonesia’s recent announcement of the North Natuna Sea designation and the Sino-Vietnamese tussle, allegedly over the typical range of issues from energy exploitation to Vietnam’s foreign alignments (See: “Why Did Indonesia Just Rename its Part of the South China Sea?”). But to that we must also add quieter moves that are notable too, including Malaysia’s hardening rhetoric and tougher enforcement against maritime encroachments even as Prime Minister Najib Razak continues to engage Beijing on issues like its Belt and Road Initiative.
Meanwhile, the United States and other extraregional powers have not let up on the South China Sea issue, even if they may be quieter now about what they are doing. U.S. kinetic actions in the South China Sea – from the much-ballyhooed but often poorly understood freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) to much more frequent presence operations – have continued and in some cases even accelerated (See: “What Mattis’ Shangri-La Dialogue Speech Revealed About Trump’s Asia Policy”).
Other influential actors, such as Japan, India, and Australia have also continued a range of measures designed to assist Southeast Asian states who are more than happy to oblige, no doubt realizing that unless they get the external assistance to close the vast asymmetry in naval, coast guard, and aerial capabilities between them and Beijing, they will essentially be acquiescing to Chinese control of the South China Sea that would not be in their interests for a stable balance of power in the region.
Second, there is reason to expect underlying tensions are likely to boil over sooner than later and put an end to this period of illusory calm.
The pattern of Chinese behavior over the past few years in the South China Sea suggests that any brief period of calm such as this one is likely nothing more than temporary tactical maneuvering rather than some sort of strategic rethinking that some keep hoping for. As I have repeatedly pointed out, including last year just as we began to enter this so-called cooling down period, the evidence indicates that Beijing tends to calibrate its assertiveness with alternating periods of charm and coercion (See: “Beware the Illusion of China-ASEAN South China Sea Breakthroughs”).
For instance, just seven months after unveiling a new strategy for ASEAN-China relations as part of a new charm offensive in Southeast Asia, China moved an oil rig into Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone in the summer of 2014. And in spite of hopes that China may change its South China Sea approach in 2015 – which Beijing had declared “the year of ASEAN-China maritime cooperation” – it ultimately sped up its island-building activities while continuing to intrude into the waters of some ASEAN states and stonewall negotiations on a COC. Though this time might be different, history suggests that this would be a bad bet to make.
Thus, there is every reason to expect that Beijing will at some point step on the gas pedal in the South China Sea once again, whether it be infringements into ASEAN states’ waters from its outposts in the Spratlys that many expect or even bolder cost-imposition strategies on claimant and non-claimant Southeast Asian states designed to both test their resilience and further divide ASEAN. Even though China carefully calibrates its actions tactically, it has shown few signs of departing from its strategic objective of acquiring the full range of capabilities required for control of the South China Sea.
Given this, ASEAN states are unlikely to stop their own unilateral efforts to safeguard their claims to not just particular areas of the South China Sea, but the resources therein. Indeed, these actions could even accelerate soon. The public announcement by a Philippine energy official last week that drilling for oil and gas on the Reed Bank could resume before the end of the year – a move that would be consistent with the tribunal ruling but nonetheless would rankle Beijing – was an important reminder of how tensions could flare up if the clock runs out on Duterte’s charm offensive aimed at China.
Meanwhile, in the United States, as the Trump administration continues to test the limits of engagement with China on issues ranging from North Korea to economic collaboration, hawkish voices, which had already begun gaining ground in Washington towards the end of the Obama administration, are getting even louder. Compared to 2009, when we first began to see the first signs of Chinese maritime assertiveness,in Washington it is much more common now to hear the South China Sea issue being framed as a test of American credibility and case study in how a rising China plans on treating its neighbors (See: “US South China Sea Policy After the Ruling: Opportunities and Challenges”).
If U.S.-China ties sour even more and we see Beijing undertake more provocative measures, such as reclaiming Scarborough Shoal or declaring an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the South China Sea, we should not rule out the possibility of the United States taking some of the bolder cost imposition measures that have long been debated in think tank circles, and ones I had outlined in these pages back years earlier (See: “The Case for a Bolder US South China Sea Policy”).
More broadly, though some Chinese interlocutors had grown fond of Trump’s transactional approach, it is worth noting that this narrow worldview is a double-edged sword. Deals may be easily made, but they are also easily broken, and relationships based on deals can quickly go south because they are based more on impulses in a divided administration than deeply-held worldviews in a more unified one (relatively speaking) under Obama. Within a U.S. foreign policy context, the U.S. president is also of many actors, and to conflate the views of the president who has no prior foreign policy experience with the overall course the administration ends up adopting would be a serious mistake.
As some continue to obsess over details in this period of illusory calm in the South China Sea, be it the specifics in the draft framework of the code of conduct or Duterte’s pro-China rhetoric, it is worth bearing the broader strategic perspective in mind.
Posted for fair use.....
http://thediplomat.com/2017/07/beware-the-illusion-of-south-china-sea-calm/
Beware the Illusion of South China Sea Calm
The cooling down some are playing up masks underlying tensions and broader strategic realities.
By Prashanth Parameswaran
July 21, 2017
A year after the supposedly game-changing arbitral tribunal ruling on the Philippines’ South China Sea case against China, the region appears to have entered another period of calm that some are happy to play up. But though a superficial glance might suggest that a cooling down period is truly at play in the South China Sea, a deeper look points to the reality that any calm is illusory at best and shows few signs of lasting.
The illusion of calm in the post-ruling context is due to a confluence of various factors. Chief among them is the election of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines last June, which, at least for now, has seen Manila shift from the most forward-leaning Southeast Asian claimant in the face of Chinese assertiveness to a laggard, downplaying the South China Sea issue and the ruling it had sought in a bid to reset ties with Beijing (See: “The Limits of Duterte’s US-China Rebalance”).
Though Duterte is often singled out as the main factor in the perceived changing the strategic environment in the South China Sea, the reality is that others have either been complicit in this change or have benefited from it (See: “The Truth About Duterte’s ASEAN South China Sea Blow”). Most obviously, China has exploited this idea of what its officials like to term “cooling down” for now, playing up what is at best a skeletal draft framework on the code of conduct and shutting down attempts by non-claimants to interfere as it remains preoccupied with the 19th Party Congress later this year.
Among Southeast Asian states, though a few, particularly Vietnam, remain anxious about this period of illusory calm, the other two Southeast Asian claimants, Malaysia and Brunei, do find some comfort in the fact that they, as one Southeast Asian official put it to me in June, “have just some time to breathe.” This reflects not just the divisions within ASEAN on the South China Sea issue, but also other dynamics beyond the issue itself such as the changing threat environment brought about by the Islamic State’s advances in the subregion, domestic politics with upcoming elections in Malaysia and Indonesia (a non-claimant but interested party, as I have noted before), and the growing pressure China is asserting on individual Southeast Asian states – from Vietnam to Singapore (See: “China: New White Paper, Old Asia Conundrum”).
This complicity does not stop at the region itself. The election of Donald Trump had initially played into the illusion of calm in the South China Sea as well. Rather than the more hawkish U.S. China policy many in the region were expecting given Hillary Clinton’s views as well of those articulated by some of Trump’s advisers during the campaign, the initial wild swings we saw in the administration’s approach to Beijing had given rise to the idea that we could see a tacit agreement by the two powers to downplay the South China Sea issue in favor of cooperation on North Korea (See: “Trump’s Real ASEAN Test”).
This view, still held in some Southeast Asian capitals that worry about the unpredictability of Trump’s transactional approach to diplomacy, tends to intensify doubts about U.S. credibility and reinforce unilateral actions, and, to a much lesser extent, intra-ASEAN cooperation and hedging tendencies.
But a deeper look suggests that any kind of “cooling down” in the South China Sea is illusory. First, though major forms of destabilizing behavior have been absent, tensions continue to simmer and in some cases have already begun to boil over.
Most notably, as data from the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative has illustrated, even as China engages in negotiations with ASEAN states over the draft framework of the COC, Beijing has shown no signs of stopping the construction of military and dual-use facilities on the Spratly Islands, which violates the DOC and President Xi Jinping’s own non-militarization pledge and only confirms that it is bent on assuming de facto control of the South China Sea.
ASEAN states are well aware of this reality, and so they too have continued pursuing their own unilateral steps quietly and at times publicly to safeguard their claims even as they continue on the negotiating track with Beijing. More visible steps of late have included Indonesia’s recent announcement of the North Natuna Sea designation and the Sino-Vietnamese tussle, allegedly over the typical range of issues from energy exploitation to Vietnam’s foreign alignments (See: “Why Did Indonesia Just Rename its Part of the South China Sea?”). But to that we must also add quieter moves that are notable too, including Malaysia’s hardening rhetoric and tougher enforcement against maritime encroachments even as Prime Minister Najib Razak continues to engage Beijing on issues like its Belt and Road Initiative.
Meanwhile, the United States and other extraregional powers have not let up on the South China Sea issue, even if they may be quieter now about what they are doing. U.S. kinetic actions in the South China Sea – from the much-ballyhooed but often poorly understood freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) to much more frequent presence operations – have continued and in some cases even accelerated (See: “What Mattis’ Shangri-La Dialogue Speech Revealed About Trump’s Asia Policy”).
Other influential actors, such as Japan, India, and Australia have also continued a range of measures designed to assist Southeast Asian states who are more than happy to oblige, no doubt realizing that unless they get the external assistance to close the vast asymmetry in naval, coast guard, and aerial capabilities between them and Beijing, they will essentially be acquiescing to Chinese control of the South China Sea that would not be in their interests for a stable balance of power in the region.
Second, there is reason to expect underlying tensions are likely to boil over sooner than later and put an end to this period of illusory calm.
The pattern of Chinese behavior over the past few years in the South China Sea suggests that any brief period of calm such as this one is likely nothing more than temporary tactical maneuvering rather than some sort of strategic rethinking that some keep hoping for. As I have repeatedly pointed out, including last year just as we began to enter this so-called cooling down period, the evidence indicates that Beijing tends to calibrate its assertiveness with alternating periods of charm and coercion (See: “Beware the Illusion of China-ASEAN South China Sea Breakthroughs”).
For instance, just seven months after unveiling a new strategy for ASEAN-China relations as part of a new charm offensive in Southeast Asia, China moved an oil rig into Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone in the summer of 2014. And in spite of hopes that China may change its South China Sea approach in 2015 – which Beijing had declared “the year of ASEAN-China maritime cooperation” – it ultimately sped up its island-building activities while continuing to intrude into the waters of some ASEAN states and stonewall negotiations on a COC. Though this time might be different, history suggests that this would be a bad bet to make.
Thus, there is every reason to expect that Beijing will at some point step on the gas pedal in the South China Sea once again, whether it be infringements into ASEAN states’ waters from its outposts in the Spratlys that many expect or even bolder cost-imposition strategies on claimant and non-claimant Southeast Asian states designed to both test their resilience and further divide ASEAN. Even though China carefully calibrates its actions tactically, it has shown few signs of departing from its strategic objective of acquiring the full range of capabilities required for control of the South China Sea.
Given this, ASEAN states are unlikely to stop their own unilateral efforts to safeguard their claims to not just particular areas of the South China Sea, but the resources therein. Indeed, these actions could even accelerate soon. The public announcement by a Philippine energy official last week that drilling for oil and gas on the Reed Bank could resume before the end of the year – a move that would be consistent with the tribunal ruling but nonetheless would rankle Beijing – was an important reminder of how tensions could flare up if the clock runs out on Duterte’s charm offensive aimed at China.
Meanwhile, in the United States, as the Trump administration continues to test the limits of engagement with China on issues ranging from North Korea to economic collaboration, hawkish voices, which had already begun gaining ground in Washington towards the end of the Obama administration, are getting even louder. Compared to 2009, when we first began to see the first signs of Chinese maritime assertiveness,in Washington it is much more common now to hear the South China Sea issue being framed as a test of American credibility and case study in how a rising China plans on treating its neighbors (See: “US South China Sea Policy After the Ruling: Opportunities and Challenges”).
If U.S.-China ties sour even more and we see Beijing undertake more provocative measures, such as reclaiming Scarborough Shoal or declaring an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the South China Sea, we should not rule out the possibility of the United States taking some of the bolder cost imposition measures that have long been debated in think tank circles, and ones I had outlined in these pages back years earlier (See: “The Case for a Bolder US South China Sea Policy”).
More broadly, though some Chinese interlocutors had grown fond of Trump’s transactional approach, it is worth noting that this narrow worldview is a double-edged sword. Deals may be easily made, but they are also easily broken, and relationships based on deals can quickly go south because they are based more on impulses in a divided administration than deeply-held worldviews in a more unified one (relatively speaking) under Obama. Within a U.S. foreign policy context, the U.S. president is also of many actors, and to conflate the views of the president who has no prior foreign policy experience with the overall course the administration ends up adopting would be a serious mistake.
As some continue to obsess over details in this period of illusory calm in the South China Sea, be it the specifics in the draft framework of the code of conduct or Duterte’s pro-China rhetoric, it is worth bearing the broader strategic perspective in mind.
For links see article source.....
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https://geopoliticalfutures.com/sunni-arab-crisis-leadership/
The Sunni Arab Crisis of Leadership
July 21, 2017 The Shiite-Sunni struggle itself is the direct result of the Sunnis’ own divisions.
By Kamran Bokhari
Now that the Islamic State has been forced out of Mosul, Iraq’s Sunnis and historical leaders appear to be coming out of the shadows. Iraqi Sunni leaders held a conference July 15 in Baghdad to discuss the future of their community. Attendees included political blocs, tribal chiefs, lawmakers, ministers and governors.
Predictably, the Shiite political forces that dominate the government were concerned about the gathering. What is more significant, however, is that the meeting laid bare the divisions within the Iraqi Sunni community.
The incoherence of the Sunni Arabs, the majority population of the Middle East, is at the heart of the region’s chaos. Their rifts have only widened since the 2011 uprisings in the region and made space for the emergence of groups like the Islamic State. So long as Sunni Arabs are at odds with one another, the Middle East will be in conflict.
A Weakened Majority
Ever since the British created Iraq as a sovereign state in 1920, Sunni Arabs have dominated it. First came the Hashemite monarchy, which was overthrown in 1958 and replaced with a republican regime dominated by the Baath Party and the military. Even though Shiites make up the majority of the population in Iraq, this Sunni-led system was able to survive because it suppressed religious politics of all kinds until 2003. The old order came tumbling down when the U.S. overthrew the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein.
Iraq’s Shiites and Kurds rose up in place of Saddam’s fallen regime to assume control of the new democratic order that Washington sought to build. Sunnis initially resisted the new republic, but the resistance was divided and collapsed upon itself. No longer united under the Baath Party, the Sunnis split along tribal, ideological and partisan lines. The discord allowed the Shiites to consolidate power, but another group benefited just as much: jihadists. Over time, jihadists grew in strength and in number to become the most potent force among Iraq’s Sunnis.
The jihadists were actually helped by the fact that the Shiites exploited the Iraqi Sunnis’ internal differences. Some Sunnis joined the Shiite-dominated political system, while others opposed it. Shiite efforts to marginalize the Sunnis undermined mainstream forces within the community. The predecessors to IS filled the vacuum, and the transnational caliphate project gained appeal among the Sunnis, pushing out the traditional political forces that were still hoping to be a part of the Iraqi national government.
The conditions were similar in Syria when popular uprising gave way to civil war. The rebels were mostly Sunnis but were deeply divided in every way except in their desire to topple Bashar Assad’s government. But an aspect of Syrian Sunni division that doesn’t receive much attention is that a significant number of Sunnis have not just refused to join the rebellion – they still support the Assad regime. This regime is dominated by the minority Alawite community, an offshoot of Shiism.
The jihadists in Iraq were well positioned to exploit the divisions among the Sunni majority in Syria. Given that the Islamic State of Iraq (as the Islamic State was known as the time) was far more experienced and organized than any of the Syrian rebel factions, it quickly took control of territory in eastern Syria. By 2013, the Islamic State of Iraq had transformed the two neighboring countries into one battlespace; it changed its name to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria to reflect the new reality. The following year, using its cross-border strategic depth and the disarray within the Iraqi Sunni community, the group seized Mosul, declared the re-establishment of the caliphate and renamed itself the Islamic State.
Who Will Lead?
Three years later, IS has been pushed out of Mosul and driven back into its rural desert habitat. This isn’t the first time the jihadists in Iraq were weakened, and yet they keep coming back – usually stronger. That’s because the social, political and economic conditions that allowed IS to emerge in the first place have not improved.
In fact, those conditions are poised to get worse. The Middle East’s religious and ethnic sects are growing ever more polarized. The cost of liberating Mosul has been that, for the first time in Iraq’s history, the mostly Sunni city is under the control of a mostly Shiite military force. It is only a matter of time before the Sunnis’ disdain for the Islamic State is redirected toward the Shiites who now occupy territory that has historically been theirs.
The Shiite-Sunni rivalry does a good job of explaining why Iraq, Syria and the wider region have an Islamic State problem. But the Shiite-Sunni struggle itself is the direct result of the Sunnis’ own divisions. After all, the Shiites are a minority in the Arab world. The only way the Shiites – led by an ethnically Persian power, Iran – could enhance their geopolitical fortunes is if the Sunni Arabs were weak and divided. They have been for a long time now, and it’s nearing a breaking point.
There is no Sunni Arab center of gravity. Saudi Arabia, the wealthiest player, is trying to offer leadership. But its source of power is being drained every day that the price of oil, the lifeblood of its economy, is low. Even if that was not the case, the Saudis have historically relied on the United States to guarantee their national security. How could they provide for regional security and protect Sunni Arab interests if they cannot protect themselves? The Saudi-led war in Yemen is a prominent example of Riyadh’s inability to impose order in its own backyard. But perhaps the most glaring example is Qatar, a tiny Gulf Arab state that refuses to subordinate itself to Saudi Arabia’s strategy for the region.
Egypt is the other major Sunni Arab power. It has a far more robust state than Saudi Arabia and a formidable military. But Egypt’s economy is weak, and it actually depends on the Saudis and its other rich Gulf Arab allies.
The greater problem, however, is that these states don’t offer a viable political-economic model for the Sunni Arab world. It is this poverty of thought that has allowed IS to sell its caliphate model to many Sunni Arabs in the region, a clear majority of whom are youths. Though its fighting force is on the defensive right now, IS will resurrect itself in some shape or form. All the while the Sunni Arab world – the Islamic State’s major base of fighters and support and the one force that could overwhelm the group’s ideology – will fail to move beyond antiquated religious-leaning monarchies and secular republican regimes.
Posted for fair use.....
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/sunni-arab-crisis-leadership/
The Sunni Arab Crisis of Leadership
July 21, 2017 The Shiite-Sunni struggle itself is the direct result of the Sunnis’ own divisions.
By Kamran Bokhari
Now that the Islamic State has been forced out of Mosul, Iraq’s Sunnis and historical leaders appear to be coming out of the shadows. Iraqi Sunni leaders held a conference July 15 in Baghdad to discuss the future of their community. Attendees included political blocs, tribal chiefs, lawmakers, ministers and governors.
Predictably, the Shiite political forces that dominate the government were concerned about the gathering. What is more significant, however, is that the meeting laid bare the divisions within the Iraqi Sunni community.
The incoherence of the Sunni Arabs, the majority population of the Middle East, is at the heart of the region’s chaos. Their rifts have only widened since the 2011 uprisings in the region and made space for the emergence of groups like the Islamic State. So long as Sunni Arabs are at odds with one another, the Middle East will be in conflict.
A Weakened Majority
Ever since the British created Iraq as a sovereign state in 1920, Sunni Arabs have dominated it. First came the Hashemite monarchy, which was overthrown in 1958 and replaced with a republican regime dominated by the Baath Party and the military. Even though Shiites make up the majority of the population in Iraq, this Sunni-led system was able to survive because it suppressed religious politics of all kinds until 2003. The old order came tumbling down when the U.S. overthrew the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein.
Iraq’s Shiites and Kurds rose up in place of Saddam’s fallen regime to assume control of the new democratic order that Washington sought to build. Sunnis initially resisted the new republic, but the resistance was divided and collapsed upon itself. No longer united under the Baath Party, the Sunnis split along tribal, ideological and partisan lines. The discord allowed the Shiites to consolidate power, but another group benefited just as much: jihadists. Over time, jihadists grew in strength and in number to become the most potent force among Iraq’s Sunnis.
The jihadists were actually helped by the fact that the Shiites exploited the Iraqi Sunnis’ internal differences. Some Sunnis joined the Shiite-dominated political system, while others opposed it. Shiite efforts to marginalize the Sunnis undermined mainstream forces within the community. The predecessors to IS filled the vacuum, and the transnational caliphate project gained appeal among the Sunnis, pushing out the traditional political forces that were still hoping to be a part of the Iraqi national government.
The conditions were similar in Syria when popular uprising gave way to civil war. The rebels were mostly Sunnis but were deeply divided in every way except in their desire to topple Bashar Assad’s government. But an aspect of Syrian Sunni division that doesn’t receive much attention is that a significant number of Sunnis have not just refused to join the rebellion – they still support the Assad regime. This regime is dominated by the minority Alawite community, an offshoot of Shiism.
The jihadists in Iraq were well positioned to exploit the divisions among the Sunni majority in Syria. Given that the Islamic State of Iraq (as the Islamic State was known as the time) was far more experienced and organized than any of the Syrian rebel factions, it quickly took control of territory in eastern Syria. By 2013, the Islamic State of Iraq had transformed the two neighboring countries into one battlespace; it changed its name to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria to reflect the new reality. The following year, using its cross-border strategic depth and the disarray within the Iraqi Sunni community, the group seized Mosul, declared the re-establishment of the caliphate and renamed itself the Islamic State.
Who Will Lead?
Three years later, IS has been pushed out of Mosul and driven back into its rural desert habitat. This isn’t the first time the jihadists in Iraq were weakened, and yet they keep coming back – usually stronger. That’s because the social, political and economic conditions that allowed IS to emerge in the first place have not improved.
In fact, those conditions are poised to get worse. The Middle East’s religious and ethnic sects are growing ever more polarized. The cost of liberating Mosul has been that, for the first time in Iraq’s history, the mostly Sunni city is under the control of a mostly Shiite military force. It is only a matter of time before the Sunnis’ disdain for the Islamic State is redirected toward the Shiites who now occupy territory that has historically been theirs.
The Shiite-Sunni rivalry does a good job of explaining why Iraq, Syria and the wider region have an Islamic State problem. But the Shiite-Sunni struggle itself is the direct result of the Sunnis’ own divisions. After all, the Shiites are a minority in the Arab world. The only way the Shiites – led by an ethnically Persian power, Iran – could enhance their geopolitical fortunes is if the Sunni Arabs were weak and divided. They have been for a long time now, and it’s nearing a breaking point.
There is no Sunni Arab center of gravity. Saudi Arabia, the wealthiest player, is trying to offer leadership. But its source of power is being drained every day that the price of oil, the lifeblood of its economy, is low. Even if that was not the case, the Saudis have historically relied on the United States to guarantee their national security. How could they provide for regional security and protect Sunni Arab interests if they cannot protect themselves? The Saudi-led war in Yemen is a prominent example of Riyadh’s inability to impose order in its own backyard. But perhaps the most glaring example is Qatar, a tiny Gulf Arab state that refuses to subordinate itself to Saudi Arabia’s strategy for the region.
Egypt is the other major Sunni Arab power. It has a far more robust state than Saudi Arabia and a formidable military. But Egypt’s economy is weak, and it actually depends on the Saudis and its other rich Gulf Arab allies.
The greater problem, however, is that these states don’t offer a viable political-economic model for the Sunni Arab world. It is this poverty of thought that has allowed IS to sell its caliphate model to many Sunni Arabs in the region, a clear majority of whom are youths. Though its fighting force is on the defensive right now, IS will resurrect itself in some shape or form. All the while the Sunni Arab world – the Islamic State’s major base of fighters and support and the one force that could overwhelm the group’s ideology – will fail to move beyond antiquated religious-leaning monarchies and secular republican regimes.
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/i...face-of-possible-us-sanctions/article/2629431
Iran launches new missile program in face of possible US sanctions
by Anna Giaritelli | Jul 22, 2017, 4:25 PM
Video
Iran will launch a new missile production line despite new U.S.-imposed sanctions over its ballistic missile program, Iranian state media reported Saturday.
Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan told people attending a ceremony Saturday that the Sayyad 3 missile will be able to travel up to 74 miles at an altitude of 16 miles. The device could be used to attack fighter planes, helicopters, and cruise missiles, according to a Reuters report of the remarks.
Dehghan cited a $110 billion weapons deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia as Iran's reason for developing new missile technologies.
The House will hold a vote on the Russia, Iran, and North Korea Sanctions Act on Tuesday, according to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Iran will launch a new missile production line despite new U.S.-imposed sanctions over its ballistic missile program, Iranian state media reported Saturday.
Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan told people attending a ceremony Saturday that the Sayyad 3 missile will be able to travel up to 74 miles at an altitude of 16 miles. The device could be used to attack fighter planes, helicopters, and cruise missiles, according to a Reuters report of the remarks.
Dehghan cited a $110 billion weapons deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia as Iran's reason for developing new missile technologies.
The House will hold a vote on the Russia, Iran, and North Korea Sanctions Act on Tuesday, according to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/i...face-of-possible-us-sanctions/article/2629431
Iran launches new missile program in face of possible US sanctions
by Anna Giaritelli | Jul 22, 2017, 4:25 PM
Video
Iran will launch a new missile production line despite new U.S.-imposed sanctions over its ballistic missile program, Iranian state media reported Saturday.
Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan told people attending a ceremony Saturday that the Sayyad 3 missile will be able to travel up to 74 miles at an altitude of 16 miles. The device could be used to attack fighter planes, helicopters, and cruise missiles, according to a Reuters report of the remarks.
Dehghan cited a $110 billion weapons deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia as Iran's reason for developing new missile technologies.
The House will hold a vote on the Russia, Iran, and North Korea Sanctions Act on Tuesday, according to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Iran will launch a new missile production line despite new U.S.-imposed sanctions over its ballistic missile program, Iranian state media reported Saturday.
Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan told people attending a ceremony Saturday that the Sayyad 3 missile will be able to travel up to 74 miles at an altitude of 16 miles. The device could be used to attack fighter planes, helicopters, and cruise missiles, according to a Reuters report of the remarks.
Dehghan cited a $110 billion weapons deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia as Iran's reason for developing new missile technologies.
The House will hold a vote on the Russia, Iran, and North Korea Sanctions Act on Tuesday, according to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/afghan-o...overruns-district-headquarters-055454525.html
Officials: Taliban overrun 2 districts in as many days
Associated Press
AMIR SHAH
Associated Press
July 23, 2017
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban fighters overran a second district headquarters in as many days on Sunday, this one in western Ghor province, the provincial police chief said.
At least eight police were killed in separate battles against Taliban militants, who have stepped up their attacks in the north and west of the country laying siege to district headquarters, said Mohammad Mustafa Moseni.
Moseni said the Taliban launched four assaults on Ghor's Taywara district headquarters early Sunday and "we had no choice but to retreat." He said police have taken up positions about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the district headquarters while they wait for reinforcements to launch a counterattack.
The Taliban, in a statement to the media, announced the capture of Taywara district headquarters. The statement, however, said 46 Afghan government security forces were killed. There was no way to independently verify either death toll.
In northern Faryab province's Lawlash district two police were killed late Saturday night when Taliban using the cover of darkness to attack the district headquarters, setting fire to the police headquarters buildings, Abdul Karim Yourish, provincial police chief spokesman, said Sunday.
Government offices as well as the police headquarters were located inside the compound, he said.
In recent days, Taliban have launched dozens of attacks in northern Afghanistan, temporarily closing a key highway between the capital Kabul and northern Afghanistan. The attacks reflect the Taliban's efforts to apply pressure on government troops and police across the country and not just in their strongholds in the south and east of Afghanistan.
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/afghan-o...overruns-district-headquarters-055454525.html
Officials: Taliban overrun 2 districts in as many days
Associated Press
AMIR SHAH
Associated Press
July 23, 2017
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban fighters overran a second district headquarters in as many days on Sunday, this one in western Ghor province, the provincial police chief said.
At least eight police were killed in separate battles against Taliban militants, who have stepped up their attacks in the north and west of the country laying siege to district headquarters, said Mohammad Mustafa Moseni.
Moseni said the Taliban launched four assaults on Ghor's Taywara district headquarters early Sunday and "we had no choice but to retreat." He said police have taken up positions about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the district headquarters while they wait for reinforcements to launch a counterattack.
The Taliban, in a statement to the media, announced the capture of Taywara district headquarters. The statement, however, said 46 Afghan government security forces were killed. There was no way to independently verify either death toll.
In northern Faryab province's Lawlash district two police were killed late Saturday night when Taliban using the cover of darkness to attack the district headquarters, setting fire to the police headquarters buildings, Abdul Karim Yourish, provincial police chief spokesman, said Sunday.
Government offices as well as the police headquarters were located inside the compound, he said.
In recent days, Taliban have launched dozens of attacks in northern Afghanistan, temporarily closing a key highway between the capital Kabul and northern Afghanistan. The attacks reflect the Taliban's efforts to apply pressure on government troops and police across the country and not just in their strongholds in the south and east of Afghanistan.
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/marawi-s...underlining-crisis-philippines-074859191.html
Marawi standoff enters third month, underlining crisis in Philippines
Reuters
By Martin Petty
Reuters
July 23, 2017
MANILA (Reuters) - Two months after Islamist militants launched an assault on one of the biggest southern cities in the Philippines, the fighting is dragging on, and President Rodrigo Duterte says he is prepared to wait for a year for it to end.
The defense top brass admits it underestimated its enemy and is struggling to finish off the highly organized, pro-Islamic State fighters who swept through Marawi City on May 23 and have held parts of it despite sustained ground attacks by hundreds of soldiers and daily pummelling by planes and artillery.
On Saturday, lawmakers approved Duterte's request to extend martial law to the end of the year on the island of Mindanao, granting greater powers to security forces to go after extremists with a reach that goes far beyond Marawi.
But it remains unclear how exactly Duterte plans to tackle extremism after troops retake Marawi, where about 70 militants remain holed up in the debris of what was once a flourishing commercial district, along with many civilian hostages.
More than 500 people have been killed, including 45 civilians and 105 government troops. After missing several self-imposed deadlines to re-take the city, the military says its options are limited because of the hostages.
Duterte has said he had asked to military to avoid more civilian casualties.
"I told them 'do not attack'. What's important is we do not want to kill people," he said on Friday. "If we have to wait there for one year, let us wait for one year."
The southern Philippines has been marred for decades by insurgency and banditry. But the intensity of the battle in Marawi and the presence of foreign fighters fighting alongside local militants has raised concerns that the region may be becoming a Southeast Asian hub for Islamic State as it loses ground in Iraq and Syria.
Militants from neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia, both Muslim-majority nations, are fighting in Marawi.
About 5 million Muslims live in the Catholic-majority Philippines, mostly on Mindanao. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana indicated on Saturday that after Marawi, the government would strengthen surveillance in the region, widening the net to detect rebel training camps and movements of militants.
"We need communications equipment, high-tech communications equipment that we can use to monitor cellphones of the enemies. We also need drones," he told Congress.
OVERHAUL
Security experts say the government needs a strategic overhaul after failing to act on warnings long ago that radical ideology was taking hold in Mindanao, and luring foreign fighters unable to join Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
"Things have changed dramatically ... our country must pursue some paradigm shifts," said analyst and retired police intelligence officer Rodolfo Mendoza.
"We have to counter the spread of terrorism not only by supporting use of intelligence or counter intelligence, but tackling the root causes."
The Marawi assault was planned and executed by a relatively new group, Dawla Islamiya, better known as the Maute Group, which wants recognition from Islamic State as its regional affiliate.
Led by two brothers, the Maute Group want a "Wilayah", or province of Islamic State, in Lanao del Sur province, where it has engaged in fierce, days-long battles with the military since 2016, each time suffering heavy losses before regrouping months later.
The brothers, Abdullah and Omarkhayam Maute, have been joined by Isnilon Hapilon, the anointed Southeast Asian "Emir" of Islamic State and leader of a faction of another Mindanao group, Abu Sayyaf.
The Marawi fighting has been much publicised across militant networks and experts say it could attract more fighters to the region.
"It has inspired young extremists from around the region to want to join," the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict said in a report on Friday, adding the fighting had "lifted the prestige of the Philippine fighters in the eyes of ISIS Central".
Richard Javad Heydarian, a political science professor at Manila's De La Salle University, said the military should seek to neutralize the Maute brothers to buy time to disrupt recruitment and stop fighters regrouping.
Moderate separatist groups from Mindanao should be co-opted to counter the extremist message, he said, while the military should work closer with the United States and Australia, which have provided operational advice and surveillance planes.
The Marawi crisis erupted not because of intelligence failures, but the policy priorities of Duterte, Heydarian added.
He said Duterte, who came to power a year ago, channelled security resources into a war on drugs instead of countering Islamic radicalization in the south, an issue the president himself has himself flagged in the past.
"They were all aware of this. It was just a matter of time," Heydarian said.
For a graphic on 'The battle for Marawi' click http://tmsnrt.rs/2rhRPEa
(Edited by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/marawi-s...underlining-crisis-philippines-074859191.html
Marawi standoff enters third month, underlining crisis in Philippines
Reuters
By Martin Petty
Reuters
July 23, 2017
MANILA (Reuters) - Two months after Islamist militants launched an assault on one of the biggest southern cities in the Philippines, the fighting is dragging on, and President Rodrigo Duterte says he is prepared to wait for a year for it to end.
The defense top brass admits it underestimated its enemy and is struggling to finish off the highly organized, pro-Islamic State fighters who swept through Marawi City on May 23 and have held parts of it despite sustained ground attacks by hundreds of soldiers and daily pummelling by planes and artillery.
On Saturday, lawmakers approved Duterte's request to extend martial law to the end of the year on the island of Mindanao, granting greater powers to security forces to go after extremists with a reach that goes far beyond Marawi.
But it remains unclear how exactly Duterte plans to tackle extremism after troops retake Marawi, where about 70 militants remain holed up in the debris of what was once a flourishing commercial district, along with many civilian hostages.
More than 500 people have been killed, including 45 civilians and 105 government troops. After missing several self-imposed deadlines to re-take the city, the military says its options are limited because of the hostages.
Duterte has said he had asked to military to avoid more civilian casualties.
"I told them 'do not attack'. What's important is we do not want to kill people," he said on Friday. "If we have to wait there for one year, let us wait for one year."
The southern Philippines has been marred for decades by insurgency and banditry. But the intensity of the battle in Marawi and the presence of foreign fighters fighting alongside local militants has raised concerns that the region may be becoming a Southeast Asian hub for Islamic State as it loses ground in Iraq and Syria.
Militants from neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia, both Muslim-majority nations, are fighting in Marawi.
About 5 million Muslims live in the Catholic-majority Philippines, mostly on Mindanao. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana indicated on Saturday that after Marawi, the government would strengthen surveillance in the region, widening the net to detect rebel training camps and movements of militants.
"We need communications equipment, high-tech communications equipment that we can use to monitor cellphones of the enemies. We also need drones," he told Congress.
OVERHAUL
Security experts say the government needs a strategic overhaul after failing to act on warnings long ago that radical ideology was taking hold in Mindanao, and luring foreign fighters unable to join Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
"Things have changed dramatically ... our country must pursue some paradigm shifts," said analyst and retired police intelligence officer Rodolfo Mendoza.
"We have to counter the spread of terrorism not only by supporting use of intelligence or counter intelligence, but tackling the root causes."
The Marawi assault was planned and executed by a relatively new group, Dawla Islamiya, better known as the Maute Group, which wants recognition from Islamic State as its regional affiliate.
Led by two brothers, the Maute Group want a "Wilayah", or province of Islamic State, in Lanao del Sur province, where it has engaged in fierce, days-long battles with the military since 2016, each time suffering heavy losses before regrouping months later.
The brothers, Abdullah and Omarkhayam Maute, have been joined by Isnilon Hapilon, the anointed Southeast Asian "Emir" of Islamic State and leader of a faction of another Mindanao group, Abu Sayyaf.
The Marawi fighting has been much publicised across militant networks and experts say it could attract more fighters to the region.
"It has inspired young extremists from around the region to want to join," the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict said in a report on Friday, adding the fighting had "lifted the prestige of the Philippine fighters in the eyes of ISIS Central".
Richard Javad Heydarian, a political science professor at Manila's De La Salle University, said the military should seek to neutralize the Maute brothers to buy time to disrupt recruitment and stop fighters regrouping.
Moderate separatist groups from Mindanao should be co-opted to counter the extremist message, he said, while the military should work closer with the United States and Australia, which have provided operational advice and surveillance planes.
The Marawi crisis erupted not because of intelligence failures, but the policy priorities of Duterte, Heydarian added.
He said Duterte, who came to power a year ago, channelled security resources into a war on drugs instead of countering Islamic radicalization in the south, an issue the president himself has himself flagged in the past.
"They were all aware of this. It was just a matter of time," Heydarian said.
For a graphic on 'The battle for Marawi' click http://tmsnrt.rs/2rhRPEa
(Edited by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
So who didn't see this coming?....
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/iran-iraq-sign-accord-boost-military-cooperation-122631873.html
Iran and Iraq sign accord to boost military cooperation
Reuters
July 23, 2017
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran and Iraq signed an agreement on Sunday to step up military cooperation and the fight against "terrorism and extremism", Iranian media reported, an accord which is likely to raise concerns in Washington.
Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan and his Iraqi counterpart Erfan al-Hiyali signed a memorandum of understanding which also covered border security, logistics and training, the official news agency IRNA reported.
"Extending cooperation and exchanging experiences in fighting terrorism and extremism, border security, and educational, logistical, technical and military support are among the provisions of this memorandum," IRNA reported after the signing of the accord in Tehran.
Iran-Iraq ties have improved since Iran's long-time enemy Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003 and an Iraqi government led by Shi'ite Muslims came to power. Iran is mostly a Shi'ite nation.
U.S. President Donald Trump has voiced concern over what he sees as growing Iranian influence in conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, where it is aligned with Shi'ite fighters.
Tensions between Iran and the United States have heightened since the election of Trump, who has often accused Tehran of backing militant groups and destabilizing the region.
Earlier this month, Trump said that new threats were emerging from "rogue regimes like North Korea, Iran and Syria and the governments that finance and support them".
The U.S. military has accused Iran of stoking violence in Iraq by funding, training and equipping militias. Iran denies this, blaming the presence of U.S. troops for the violence.
(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Toby Chopra)
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/iran-iraq-sign-accord-boost-military-cooperation-122631873.html
Iran and Iraq sign accord to boost military cooperation
Reuters
July 23, 2017
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran and Iraq signed an agreement on Sunday to step up military cooperation and the fight against "terrorism and extremism", Iranian media reported, an accord which is likely to raise concerns in Washington.
Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan and his Iraqi counterpart Erfan al-Hiyali signed a memorandum of understanding which also covered border security, logistics and training, the official news agency IRNA reported.
"Extending cooperation and exchanging experiences in fighting terrorism and extremism, border security, and educational, logistical, technical and military support are among the provisions of this memorandum," IRNA reported after the signing of the accord in Tehran.
Iran-Iraq ties have improved since Iran's long-time enemy Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003 and an Iraqi government led by Shi'ite Muslims came to power. Iran is mostly a Shi'ite nation.
U.S. President Donald Trump has voiced concern over what he sees as growing Iranian influence in conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, where it is aligned with Shi'ite fighters.
Tensions between Iran and the United States have heightened since the election of Trump, who has often accused Tehran of backing militant groups and destabilizing the region.
Earlier this month, Trump said that new threats were emerging from "rogue regimes like North Korea, Iran and Syria and the governments that finance and support them".
The U.S. military has accused Iran of stoking violence in Iraq by funding, training and equipping militias. Iran denies this, blaming the presence of U.S. troops for the violence.
(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Toby Chopra)
mzkitty
I give up.
Holy freakin' Christ. I am warning you right now, you will never see anything like this. This guy is hacked and hacked and hacked to death. I know the muzzies do the same damn thing. Watch at your own risk. It's a couple down at the moment.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Pakistan Zindabad @securepakistan 20m20 minutes ago
#Breaking: The real face of #India. This is how Muslims are killed all over India including Jammu and Kashmir by civilians and paramilitary.
https://twitter.com/securepakistan
northern watch
TB Fanatic
Holy freakin' Christ. I am warning you right now, you will never see anything like this. This guy is hacked and hacked and hacked to death. I know the muzzies do the same damn thing. Watch at your own risk. It's a couple down at the moment.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Pakistan Zindabad @securepakistan 20m20 minutes ago
#Breaking: The real face of #India. This is how Muslims are killed all over India including Jammu and Kashmir by civilians and paramilitary.
https://twitter.com/securepakistan
mzkitty,
When the British Indian Empire was being broken up between what is now Indian and Pakistan, people found themselves in the wrong country, Hindus in Pakistan and Moslems in India. So people took the train to the country of their ethnic group, Hindus to India and Moslems to Pakistan.
When the trains arrived at the station and the doors to the passenger cars were opened, everyone inside was dead, slaughtered. Hindus or Moslem no difference.
This I know to be true, I was told it second hand.
NW
mzkitty
I give up.
Northern Watch, I was only two when the partition happened: 1947. But even as a little girl I usually enjoyed reading the newspapers we got every day. Not this though:
How many people were killed during partition of India?
It is estimated that around 1–2 million people died during the partition of British India. The most violent clauses were centred around Punjab where the Muslim population of East Punjab was forcibly expelled and the Hindu/Sikh population in West Punjab.
Shubham Agarwal, works at Photographic Society, BIT Mesra
Answered Mar 29, 2015
At the time of partition, around 10 million Hindus were on the Pakistan side and around 5 million Muslims on the Indian Side who wished to move. British Colony had already sent their most of the troops back to England and there were literally no arrangements for the people moving to another place. There was no food, no transportation, no water nothing for them. They had to walk 15-20 miles a day in hot summers. People were starving, children were dying but no help came from the government. It is to be estimated that around 1 million died in that moving process. Simultaneously communal tensions were on its peak on both sides, In the region of Punjab, massacre on the basis of religion became everyday news, we can just get an idea that Lahore had 35.5% of Hindu-Sikh population before partition and within few days of it, this figure almost came down to 0.
No agency could identify the no. of deaths in these massacres but it is estimated to be in millions.
northern watch
TB Fanatic
Chinese fighter jets intercept US Navy reconnaissance plane over East China Sea
By Elizabeth McLaughlin ABC News
July 24, 2017, 12:39 PM ET
A U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane operating in international airspace during a routine mission over the East China Sea was intercepted by two Chinese J-10 fighter jets on Sunday, the Pentagon confirmed.
One of the J-10s flew underneath the U.S. EP-3 aircraft at a high rate of speed, slowed, and then pulled up, forcing the U.S. plane to "take evasive action to prevent the possibility of collision," Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said.
A U.S. official said the Chinese jet's actions were described as "unsafe."
Davis said Sunday's interaction, which happened late morning local time, was "uncharacteristic" of typical Chinese military behavior.
"There are intercepts that occur in international airspace regularly, and the vast majority of them are conducted in a safe manner," he said. "This was the exception, not the norm."
Davis said the J-10s and EP-3 were flying "wing to wing" as well, but didn't know if they did so before or after the intercept.
http://abcnews.go.com/International...s-navy-reconnaissance-plane/story?id=48817492
By Elizabeth McLaughlin ABC News
July 24, 2017, 12:39 PM ET
A U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane operating in international airspace during a routine mission over the East China Sea was intercepted by two Chinese J-10 fighter jets on Sunday, the Pentagon confirmed.
One of the J-10s flew underneath the U.S. EP-3 aircraft at a high rate of speed, slowed, and then pulled up, forcing the U.S. plane to "take evasive action to prevent the possibility of collision," Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said.
A U.S. official said the Chinese jet's actions were described as "unsafe."
Davis said Sunday's interaction, which happened late morning local time, was "uncharacteristic" of typical Chinese military behavior.
"There are intercepts that occur in international airspace regularly, and the vast majority of them are conducted in a safe manner," he said. "This was the exception, not the norm."
Davis said the J-10s and EP-3 were flying "wing to wing" as well, but didn't know if they did so before or after the intercept.
http://abcnews.go.com/International...s-navy-reconnaissance-plane/story?id=48817492
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/r...to-play-powerbroker-in-region/article/2629524
Russia to work with ousted Iraqi leader to play powerbroker in region
by Joel Gehrke | Jul 24, 2017, 2:48 PM
Russia and Iraq will "build up [their] cooperation and partnership" on military and economic issues in an effort to expand Soviet-era partnerships between the two countries, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared Monday.
"We will continue to develop and build up this cooperation and partnership, the foundations of which we laid during the second half of the 20th century," Lavrov said Monday during a meeting with Iraqi Vice President Nouri al-Maliki.
Lavrov identified counterterrorism efforts as the top priority for the relationship, but the statement was laden with clues that the Russians hope to supplant the United States as a top power broker in the country. Lavrov credited Iran with helping "to eradicate the terrorist threat," and the meeting suggests that Russia plans to expand Iran's influence by strengthening the influence of Shia Iraqis who subscribe to the variant of Islam dominant in Iran.
"This visit to Russia, which is not your first, will certainly help to advance us further on this road," Lavrov told Maliki.
Maliki is a former president of Iraq who was pressured to step aside by the Obama administration in 2014. Maliki was blamed by U.S. leaders for the Islamic State's rampage across northern Iraq, because his authoritarian leadership awakened sectarian religious tensions and alienated vast sections of Iraqi society from the central government. He promoted Shia Iraqis who partner closely with Iranian leaders, alienating Sunni Iraqis to the point that they initially regarded ISIS as an improvement over the "oppress[ion]" of the Iraqi government.
"The 18 percent Sunni minority felt they could not trust the government," retired U.S. Army General David Petraeus said in 2014. "They had a stake in the failure of the new Iraq rather than in its success."
Maliki stepped aside when the United States intervened to stop ISIS, but he has remained a power player in national politics. And he made clear that he hopes Russia will offset American influence in Iraq. Maliki was quoted as saying that he wants Russia to help thwart a "foreign political entity" — an apparent reference to the United States — from having too much influence over Iraq.
"Maybe Iraq is prone to new political developments in light of regional interferences," Maliki said Monday, per Rudaw, a Kurdish media outlet.
Lavrov promised to help, as he noted that the Russians and Iraqis have a history of partnership that dates back to the Soviet Union.
"At this difficult period of time, the Russian Federation is supporting the Iraqi government's efforts to rebuild the economy and improve the security forces' combat capability," Lavrov told Maliki. "Our companies are working more actively together with their Iraqi partners, and we are developing our military-technical cooperation, which supports you in your fight against the extremists. We will continue to develop and build up this cooperation and partnership, the foundations of which we laid during the second half of the 20th century."
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/r...to-play-powerbroker-in-region/article/2629524
Russia to work with ousted Iraqi leader to play powerbroker in region
by Joel Gehrke | Jul 24, 2017, 2:48 PM
Russia and Iraq will "build up [their] cooperation and partnership" on military and economic issues in an effort to expand Soviet-era partnerships between the two countries, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared Monday.
"We will continue to develop and build up this cooperation and partnership, the foundations of which we laid during the second half of the 20th century," Lavrov said Monday during a meeting with Iraqi Vice President Nouri al-Maliki.
Lavrov identified counterterrorism efforts as the top priority for the relationship, but the statement was laden with clues that the Russians hope to supplant the United States as a top power broker in the country. Lavrov credited Iran with helping "to eradicate the terrorist threat," and the meeting suggests that Russia plans to expand Iran's influence by strengthening the influence of Shia Iraqis who subscribe to the variant of Islam dominant in Iran.
"This visit to Russia, which is not your first, will certainly help to advance us further on this road," Lavrov told Maliki.
Maliki is a former president of Iraq who was pressured to step aside by the Obama administration in 2014. Maliki was blamed by U.S. leaders for the Islamic State's rampage across northern Iraq, because his authoritarian leadership awakened sectarian religious tensions and alienated vast sections of Iraqi society from the central government. He promoted Shia Iraqis who partner closely with Iranian leaders, alienating Sunni Iraqis to the point that they initially regarded ISIS as an improvement over the "oppress[ion]" of the Iraqi government.
"The 18 percent Sunni minority felt they could not trust the government," retired U.S. Army General David Petraeus said in 2014. "They had a stake in the failure of the new Iraq rather than in its success."
Maliki stepped aside when the United States intervened to stop ISIS, but he has remained a power player in national politics. And he made clear that he hopes Russia will offset American influence in Iraq. Maliki was quoted as saying that he wants Russia to help thwart a "foreign political entity" — an apparent reference to the United States — from having too much influence over Iraq.
"Maybe Iraq is prone to new political developments in light of regional interferences," Maliki said Monday, per Rudaw, a Kurdish media outlet.
Lavrov promised to help, as he noted that the Russians and Iraqis have a history of partnership that dates back to the Soviet Union.
"At this difficult period of time, the Russian Federation is supporting the Iraqi government's efforts to rebuild the economy and improve the security forces' combat capability," Lavrov told Maliki. "Our companies are working more actively together with their Iraqi partners, and we are developing our military-technical cooperation, which supports you in your fight against the extremists. We will continue to develop and build up this cooperation and partnership, the foundations of which we laid during the second half of the 20th century."
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-bl...n-the-brink-of-a-civil-war-as?rnd=1500840627#
Could Venezuela be on the brink of a civil war as bloody as Syria?
BY MAX BROOKS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 07/23/17 04:00 PM EDT
315 Comments
We Americans are really good at getting sucker-punched. From Pearl Harbor to Sputnik to 9/11 and the Syrian civil war, we constantly ask ourselves, “Hey, how’d that happen, and why didn’t we prepare for it?”
Well, a new fist is hurtling out of the not-too-distant future. It's the Venezuelan civil war.
Recently, a stolen police helicopter attacked the Venezuelan Supreme Court with grenades and automatic weapons. While no one was hurt, the incident should serve as a wake-up call for the entire Western Hemisphere, including the United States. The attack demonstrates a quantum escalation of the hunger-fueled conflict that has consumed the country for close to a year. Hunger is the key word. Hunger is the most basic of human suffering. Remember that rising food prices helped fuel the Arab Spring, which has left the world with a chaotic, fractured, refugee-hemorrhaging Middle East.
Is Venezuela in danger of becoming another Syria? Maybe. The helicopter pilot, Oscar Perez, posted a bare-faced declaration online describing himself as representative of a group of “nationalists, patriots, and institutionalists." The fact that he has been allowed to slip quietly back into the shadows illustrates how much of the population is willing to hide him. Even more distressing is the fact that his group even had access to a helicopter, a fact illustrating how much support they may have within Venezuela’s government institutions.
If Perez is indeed part of “a coalition of military, police and civil officials,” his attack could very well be the opening round of a genuine armed uprising. This is how countries collapse. It's how civil wars start. And civil wars rarely exist in a vacuum. What about Columbia, where the new and fragile peace has left a lot of former FARC rebels with no marketable job skills except war? What about Mexico which roils in a cauldron of poverty, corruption, and the bloodbath of a narco-insurgency? What about the rest of Latin America, with its long bloody history of depredation and oppression? Like the Middle East, how many volcanic uprisings are right now simmering unseen below a seemingly serene surface?
If we don’t want a Syrian disaster on our front door, if we don’t want millions of displaced individuals flowing across the America’s, we need to take notice and action now. We need to make the Venezuelan food crisis a top priority of our foreign policy. Solving this crisis must include international organizations like the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
Both were vocally critical of the Obama administration’s sanctions of several officials within President Nicolas Maduro’s government. Contrary to President Obama, President Trump could use these sanctions as a bargaining chip for humanitarian aid. Likewise, he could leverage the reopening of relations with Cuba (after suddenly resevering them last month) as a way to bring in Raoul Castro as moderator. Venezuela and Cuba already have a history of warm relations and both are wary of being seen as American pawns.
A multilateral agreement under the umbrella of CELAC, UNASUR or even the Organization of American States would be win-win for everyone. It would allow Maduro to reform his suffocating top-down government without looking like he was caving into U.S. “imperialism.” At the same time, Trump could brag about his unrivaled deal-making prowess. And while these leaders feed their egos, the people of Venezuela could finally feed their children.
If we fail to act, if we let Venezuela slip into a spiral of violence, we may face a humanitarian crisis that extends far beyond the small, teetering Caribbean state. The initial unrest in Tunisia exposed the weakness of numerous Middle Eastern nations. Are these weaknesses simmering in other countries south of our border? Are other hungry, angry populations ready to start burning down their establishments?
We in the U.S. will not be able to wall ourselves off from this potential firestorm. No fence or travel ban will protect us. Only direct action can keep our neighbors and ourselves safe from the bloodshed of a Latin Spring. Only by addressing the legitimate suffering of the Venezuelan people can we hope to avert another regional conflagration. The choice is clear: proactive involvement, or the risk of another denial-based sucker-punch.
Max Brooks (@MaxBrooksAuthor) is a nonresident fellow at The Modern War Institute at West Point and a senior nonresident fellow at The Atlantic Council. He is also the author of the New York Times Bestseller “World War Z.”
The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.
Posted for fair use.....
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-bl...n-the-brink-of-a-civil-war-as?rnd=1500840627#
Could Venezuela be on the brink of a civil war as bloody as Syria?
BY MAX BROOKS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 07/23/17 04:00 PM EDT
315 Comments
We Americans are really good at getting sucker-punched. From Pearl Harbor to Sputnik to 9/11 and the Syrian civil war, we constantly ask ourselves, “Hey, how’d that happen, and why didn’t we prepare for it?”
Well, a new fist is hurtling out of the not-too-distant future. It's the Venezuelan civil war.
Recently, a stolen police helicopter attacked the Venezuelan Supreme Court with grenades and automatic weapons. While no one was hurt, the incident should serve as a wake-up call for the entire Western Hemisphere, including the United States. The attack demonstrates a quantum escalation of the hunger-fueled conflict that has consumed the country for close to a year. Hunger is the key word. Hunger is the most basic of human suffering. Remember that rising food prices helped fuel the Arab Spring, which has left the world with a chaotic, fractured, refugee-hemorrhaging Middle East.
Is Venezuela in danger of becoming another Syria? Maybe. The helicopter pilot, Oscar Perez, posted a bare-faced declaration online describing himself as representative of a group of “nationalists, patriots, and institutionalists." The fact that he has been allowed to slip quietly back into the shadows illustrates how much of the population is willing to hide him. Even more distressing is the fact that his group even had access to a helicopter, a fact illustrating how much support they may have within Venezuela’s government institutions.
If Perez is indeed part of “a coalition of military, police and civil officials,” his attack could very well be the opening round of a genuine armed uprising. This is how countries collapse. It's how civil wars start. And civil wars rarely exist in a vacuum. What about Columbia, where the new and fragile peace has left a lot of former FARC rebels with no marketable job skills except war? What about Mexico which roils in a cauldron of poverty, corruption, and the bloodbath of a narco-insurgency? What about the rest of Latin America, with its long bloody history of depredation and oppression? Like the Middle East, how many volcanic uprisings are right now simmering unseen below a seemingly serene surface?
If we don’t want a Syrian disaster on our front door, if we don’t want millions of displaced individuals flowing across the America’s, we need to take notice and action now. We need to make the Venezuelan food crisis a top priority of our foreign policy. Solving this crisis must include international organizations like the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
Both were vocally critical of the Obama administration’s sanctions of several officials within President Nicolas Maduro’s government. Contrary to President Obama, President Trump could use these sanctions as a bargaining chip for humanitarian aid. Likewise, he could leverage the reopening of relations with Cuba (after suddenly resevering them last month) as a way to bring in Raoul Castro as moderator. Venezuela and Cuba already have a history of warm relations and both are wary of being seen as American pawns.
A multilateral agreement under the umbrella of CELAC, UNASUR or even the Organization of American States would be win-win for everyone. It would allow Maduro to reform his suffocating top-down government without looking like he was caving into U.S. “imperialism.” At the same time, Trump could brag about his unrivaled deal-making prowess. And while these leaders feed their egos, the people of Venezuela could finally feed their children.
If we fail to act, if we let Venezuela slip into a spiral of violence, we may face a humanitarian crisis that extends far beyond the small, teetering Caribbean state. The initial unrest in Tunisia exposed the weakness of numerous Middle Eastern nations. Are these weaknesses simmering in other countries south of our border? Are other hungry, angry populations ready to start burning down their establishments?
We in the U.S. will not be able to wall ourselves off from this potential firestorm. No fence or travel ban will protect us. Only direct action can keep our neighbors and ourselves safe from the bloodshed of a Latin Spring. Only by addressing the legitimate suffering of the Venezuelan people can we hope to avert another regional conflagration. The choice is clear: proactive involvement, or the risk of another denial-based sucker-punch.
Max Brooks (@MaxBrooksAuthor) is a nonresident fellow at The Modern War Institute at West Point and a senior nonresident fellow at The Atlantic Council. He is also the author of the New York Times Bestseller “World War Z.”
The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.
From two weeks ago....
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/arti...-security-crumbling-and-how-matters-here-1091
EXPERT COMMENTARY
Why Mexican Security is Crumbling – and How That Matters Here
JULY 12, 2017 | ERIC OLSON
Mexico was ranked the most-worsened country this year on the Fund for Peace's Fragile States Index (FSI), tying with Ethiopia for the bottom spot. Although Mexico has long faced violence, corruption, and organized crime, these problems all worsened during the past year, countering a decade-long trend of increasing stability there. The Cipher Brief’s Kaitlin Lavinder asked Eric Olson, the deputy director of the Wilson Center’s Latin American program and senior advisor to its Mexico Institute, what explains this drop in stability, and whether uncertainty over Trump Administration policy has anything to do with it.
The Cipher Brief: Why did Mexico worsen so drastically this year on the Fragile States Index?
Eric Olson: It’s a combination of things. It’s a serious uptick in violence tied to renewed conflicts between criminal organizations in the country. Separate, but related, Mexico had several major corruption scandals at the state level involving governors and former governors. That also showed the serious institutional weakness at the state and local levels. It’s not like that was unknown before, but really the extent of it was pretty shocking.
TCB: Could that be a positive sign – that these corruption scandals came to light?
Olson: That’s one way of thinking about it if one thought they were going to lead to major improvements, but what it revealed was the extensive nature of corruption at that level and that it was happening under everybody’s noses, and people were either aware and looked away or simply put their heads in the sand. The message could be spun in a positive way, but overall what people see is a confirmation of the weakness that exists particularly at the state and local levels. There are other instances of corruption that include federal forces as well, including in the presidency over the last two or three years. All those things together make people wary.
The third thing is the uncertainty in the U.S.-Mexico relationship that crept in during and after the 2016 U.S. election. Candidate, and now President, [Donald] Trump’s statements about Mexico were very unsettling. In some ways, what has contributed to making Mexico an economically stable and successful country has been its close ties to the U.S. – and that relationship has strengthened, deepened, and broadened in recent years. Then suddenly, that’s thrown into question with Trump’s demands to renegotiate the free trade relationship, and promises to build a wall that Mexico would be forced to pay for. So uncertainty about the future of the relationship was reintroduced and Mexico’s currency and economy took a significant hit as a result – the peso fell over 20 percent [after Trump was elected]. That actually is beginning to turn around now. People are feeling a little more confident. But no doubt that throughout most of 2016 it was an issue.
TCB: You mentioned a serious uptick in violence in Mexico over the past year – why?
Olson: It shouldn’t be that surprising – Mexico has had ups and downs in its homicide rate. But the height of homicides in 2011 had come down in a significant way, and so for homicides to spike again is deeply troubling and unsettling. You’d have to look at each individual case and place where homicides have spiked to understand the various explanations. Most have to do with renewed conflicts between criminal organizations, especially centering around the Sinaloa Cartel and its future.
One of the dramatic things that happened last year was the arrest, then escape, re-arrest and extradition of [Joaquín] “El Chapo” Guzmán to the United States. It’s quite interesting that homicides didn’t actually go up when he was arrested; it was after he escaped and then was re-arrested that homicides went up dramatically. The thinking there is that he maintained control of his criminal network during his initial arrest, but was losing control after his re-arrest and extradition, leading to renewed internal competition between factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of which is led by his own son, and another by the son of another leader of a criminal organization. The second factor is that in the midst of the instability within the Sinaloa Cartel, another major criminal organization – the Cartel de Jalisco Nuevo Generación – has started to challenge the Sinaloa organization for control of different areas, creating more violence.
The third element is that we see some shifts in the drug market in the United States. We see more and more demand for heroin. Roughly 80 percent of heroine supplied to the U.S. now comes from Mexico. We’ve seen a real uptick in methamphetamine trafficking with laboratories in the Sinaloa and Colima area. Colima is the smallest state by population in Mexico and yet last year had the highest homicide rate. What is that about? Part of it is that it includes the port city of Mazatlán, which is the largest commercial port. There’s a huge amount of precursor chemicals coming through Mazatlán and the port of Lázaro Cárdenas, and roads from these major port cities join up in Colima on the way to Guadalajara and north to the U.S. border converting Colima into a battleground. So the simple answer is that the increase in homicides is due, in part, to the shifting criminal landscape.
And then you have a place like Veracruz that’s experiencing an extreme uptick in violence right now, and that’s partly because there’s a vacuum of any kind of leadership there – criminal or political – because that’s one of the states where an apparently very corrupt governor [former Veracruz Governor Javier Duarte] cut deals with criminal organizations while also allegedly pillaging the state coffers. He fled but was eventually found in Guatemala, and Mexico is seeking his extradition.
TCB: You said part of Mexico’s stability comes from close ties with the United States but part of its instability also comes from those close ties – the drug demand going north and weapons sales going south – so how much responsibility does the U.S. have in helping stabilize Mexico by curbing its own internal drug demand?
Olson: The United States shares a lot of responsibility. Drug demand is one issue; but controlling or disrupting the illegal trafficking of firearms to Mexico is another huge issue. All of this revolves to some extent around illicit financing. The main market is in the United States. The U.S. generates all kinds of illicit money, and that’s being laundered through the U.S. financial and other systems, and the U.S. has a responsibility for that as well. There’s multiple ways in which the U.S. could do more at home that would definitely help Mexico.
But the focus tends to be the other way around. We tend to want to address the problem of illicit drugs in the region and are less convincing when it comes to the home front.
TCB: Do you think that’s the tendency of the Trump Administration, to view the issue as mostly emanating from Mexico?
Olson: It’s a little bit too early to say for sure. We can evaluate that better in about six months. But Secretary [of Homeland Security John] Kelly, former general and commander of SOUTHCOM [U.S. Southern Command], is well aware of the problems related to illicit drugs and drug trafficking. He often speaks about the U.S. needing to do more to reduce demand. They say the right things. I have yet to see an investment in those things in the United States. Secretary Kelly doesn’t have the authority to deal with problems related to drug consumption. His policy brief is really more at the border and with relation to migration and internal enforcement, not so much with illicit drugs.
TCB: How effective is U.S.-Mexico security cooperation, mainly through the Merida Initiative, the partnership between the U.S. and Mexico to fight organized crime and associated violence?
Olson: It’s a pretty small program compared to the amount of money the U.S. has been giving to Central America and Colombia. And it’s a pittance compared to other regions of the world. Its value is not so tied to the amount, the dollars and cents of it. The value is the level of collaboration and cooperation at the operational level and at the intelligence-sharing level, which is not really measured in dollars and cents as part of the Merida Initiative. That is why there was so much concern initially when President Trump said what he did about Mexicans, some negative things about the Mexican military, etc. because there was the worry that the aspect of trust and collaboration was going to be put at risk. It seems that it has not ultimately been put at risk – the U.S. and Mexican militaries continue to work in a collaborative way, and there’s still intelligence-sharing going on.
But he [Trump] said again today [July 7] that he still wants Mexico to pay for the wall, and for Mexicans, that’s kind of a nonstarter. They’ve learned to live with that rhetoric, let it roll off their backs. But if the U.S. and President Trump and the U.S. Congress insist that Mexico pays for this through some kind of taxation program, for example, it could put at risk the kind of security collaboration that is valued by both sides.
TCB: Were there any other signals from Trump’s meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto today [July 7] to show how this relationship is going to be moving forward?
Olson: It was a friendly meeting. The focus was really on NAFTA [the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement] and the feeling that the questions around NAFTA, the renegotiation of NAFTA, were progressing in a good way. So in a sense, that was all positive.
TCB: Do you have any final thoughts on Mexico’s current state of stability and how that impacts U.S. security?
Olson: The U.S. has always recognized that U.S. safety and security and stability rests in no small measure on the security and stability of Mexico. While I’m not sure I agree with the assessments of the Fragile States Index, what it does point to is Mexico has some very serious problems, in terms of capacity and issues around corruption, and that it’s urgent that the Mexicans deal with it, but also that the U.S. be positively engaged with Mexico on these issues.
Mexico has a presidential election a year from now, and if things continue the way they are, where people are frustrated, disappointed, unhappy, there could be election results that are not to the liking of the United States. It could result in a very anti-American election. That could further exacerbate the issues between the two countries.
MEXICO
INSTABILITY
DRUGS
BORDER SECURITY
THE AUTHOR IS ERIC OLSON
Eric Olson is Deputy Director of the Latin American Program and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. His research and writing has focused on security issues and the impacts of crime, organized crime, and violence on democratic governance. He has also written extensively about U.S. security assistance in Mexico and Central America. Prior to joining the Wilson Center, he was a Senior Specialist in the Department for... Read More
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/arti...-security-crumbling-and-how-matters-here-1091
EXPERT COMMENTARY
Why Mexican Security is Crumbling – and How That Matters Here
JULY 12, 2017 | ERIC OLSON
Mexico was ranked the most-worsened country this year on the Fund for Peace's Fragile States Index (FSI), tying with Ethiopia for the bottom spot. Although Mexico has long faced violence, corruption, and organized crime, these problems all worsened during the past year, countering a decade-long trend of increasing stability there. The Cipher Brief’s Kaitlin Lavinder asked Eric Olson, the deputy director of the Wilson Center’s Latin American program and senior advisor to its Mexico Institute, what explains this drop in stability, and whether uncertainty over Trump Administration policy has anything to do with it.
The Cipher Brief: Why did Mexico worsen so drastically this year on the Fragile States Index?
Eric Olson: It’s a combination of things. It’s a serious uptick in violence tied to renewed conflicts between criminal organizations in the country. Separate, but related, Mexico had several major corruption scandals at the state level involving governors and former governors. That also showed the serious institutional weakness at the state and local levels. It’s not like that was unknown before, but really the extent of it was pretty shocking.
TCB: Could that be a positive sign – that these corruption scandals came to light?
Olson: That’s one way of thinking about it if one thought they were going to lead to major improvements, but what it revealed was the extensive nature of corruption at that level and that it was happening under everybody’s noses, and people were either aware and looked away or simply put their heads in the sand. The message could be spun in a positive way, but overall what people see is a confirmation of the weakness that exists particularly at the state and local levels. There are other instances of corruption that include federal forces as well, including in the presidency over the last two or three years. All those things together make people wary.
The third thing is the uncertainty in the U.S.-Mexico relationship that crept in during and after the 2016 U.S. election. Candidate, and now President, [Donald] Trump’s statements about Mexico were very unsettling. In some ways, what has contributed to making Mexico an economically stable and successful country has been its close ties to the U.S. – and that relationship has strengthened, deepened, and broadened in recent years. Then suddenly, that’s thrown into question with Trump’s demands to renegotiate the free trade relationship, and promises to build a wall that Mexico would be forced to pay for. So uncertainty about the future of the relationship was reintroduced and Mexico’s currency and economy took a significant hit as a result – the peso fell over 20 percent [after Trump was elected]. That actually is beginning to turn around now. People are feeling a little more confident. But no doubt that throughout most of 2016 it was an issue.
TCB: You mentioned a serious uptick in violence in Mexico over the past year – why?
Olson: It shouldn’t be that surprising – Mexico has had ups and downs in its homicide rate. But the height of homicides in 2011 had come down in a significant way, and so for homicides to spike again is deeply troubling and unsettling. You’d have to look at each individual case and place where homicides have spiked to understand the various explanations. Most have to do with renewed conflicts between criminal organizations, especially centering around the Sinaloa Cartel and its future.
One of the dramatic things that happened last year was the arrest, then escape, re-arrest and extradition of [Joaquín] “El Chapo” Guzmán to the United States. It’s quite interesting that homicides didn’t actually go up when he was arrested; it was after he escaped and then was re-arrested that homicides went up dramatically. The thinking there is that he maintained control of his criminal network during his initial arrest, but was losing control after his re-arrest and extradition, leading to renewed internal competition between factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of which is led by his own son, and another by the son of another leader of a criminal organization. The second factor is that in the midst of the instability within the Sinaloa Cartel, another major criminal organization – the Cartel de Jalisco Nuevo Generación – has started to challenge the Sinaloa organization for control of different areas, creating more violence.
The third element is that we see some shifts in the drug market in the United States. We see more and more demand for heroin. Roughly 80 percent of heroine supplied to the U.S. now comes from Mexico. We’ve seen a real uptick in methamphetamine trafficking with laboratories in the Sinaloa and Colima area. Colima is the smallest state by population in Mexico and yet last year had the highest homicide rate. What is that about? Part of it is that it includes the port city of Mazatlán, which is the largest commercial port. There’s a huge amount of precursor chemicals coming through Mazatlán and the port of Lázaro Cárdenas, and roads from these major port cities join up in Colima on the way to Guadalajara and north to the U.S. border converting Colima into a battleground. So the simple answer is that the increase in homicides is due, in part, to the shifting criminal landscape.
And then you have a place like Veracruz that’s experiencing an extreme uptick in violence right now, and that’s partly because there’s a vacuum of any kind of leadership there – criminal or political – because that’s one of the states where an apparently very corrupt governor [former Veracruz Governor Javier Duarte] cut deals with criminal organizations while also allegedly pillaging the state coffers. He fled but was eventually found in Guatemala, and Mexico is seeking his extradition.
TCB: You said part of Mexico’s stability comes from close ties with the United States but part of its instability also comes from those close ties – the drug demand going north and weapons sales going south – so how much responsibility does the U.S. have in helping stabilize Mexico by curbing its own internal drug demand?
Olson: The United States shares a lot of responsibility. Drug demand is one issue; but controlling or disrupting the illegal trafficking of firearms to Mexico is another huge issue. All of this revolves to some extent around illicit financing. The main market is in the United States. The U.S. generates all kinds of illicit money, and that’s being laundered through the U.S. financial and other systems, and the U.S. has a responsibility for that as well. There’s multiple ways in which the U.S. could do more at home that would definitely help Mexico.
But the focus tends to be the other way around. We tend to want to address the problem of illicit drugs in the region and are less convincing when it comes to the home front.
TCB: Do you think that’s the tendency of the Trump Administration, to view the issue as mostly emanating from Mexico?
Olson: It’s a little bit too early to say for sure. We can evaluate that better in about six months. But Secretary [of Homeland Security John] Kelly, former general and commander of SOUTHCOM [U.S. Southern Command], is well aware of the problems related to illicit drugs and drug trafficking. He often speaks about the U.S. needing to do more to reduce demand. They say the right things. I have yet to see an investment in those things in the United States. Secretary Kelly doesn’t have the authority to deal with problems related to drug consumption. His policy brief is really more at the border and with relation to migration and internal enforcement, not so much with illicit drugs.
TCB: How effective is U.S.-Mexico security cooperation, mainly through the Merida Initiative, the partnership between the U.S. and Mexico to fight organized crime and associated violence?
Olson: It’s a pretty small program compared to the amount of money the U.S. has been giving to Central America and Colombia. And it’s a pittance compared to other regions of the world. Its value is not so tied to the amount, the dollars and cents of it. The value is the level of collaboration and cooperation at the operational level and at the intelligence-sharing level, which is not really measured in dollars and cents as part of the Merida Initiative. That is why there was so much concern initially when President Trump said what he did about Mexicans, some negative things about the Mexican military, etc. because there was the worry that the aspect of trust and collaboration was going to be put at risk. It seems that it has not ultimately been put at risk – the U.S. and Mexican militaries continue to work in a collaborative way, and there’s still intelligence-sharing going on.
But he [Trump] said again today [July 7] that he still wants Mexico to pay for the wall, and for Mexicans, that’s kind of a nonstarter. They’ve learned to live with that rhetoric, let it roll off their backs. But if the U.S. and President Trump and the U.S. Congress insist that Mexico pays for this through some kind of taxation program, for example, it could put at risk the kind of security collaboration that is valued by both sides.
TCB: Were there any other signals from Trump’s meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto today [July 7] to show how this relationship is going to be moving forward?
Olson: It was a friendly meeting. The focus was really on NAFTA [the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement] and the feeling that the questions around NAFTA, the renegotiation of NAFTA, were progressing in a good way. So in a sense, that was all positive.
TCB: Do you have any final thoughts on Mexico’s current state of stability and how that impacts U.S. security?
Olson: The U.S. has always recognized that U.S. safety and security and stability rests in no small measure on the security and stability of Mexico. While I’m not sure I agree with the assessments of the Fragile States Index, what it does point to is Mexico has some very serious problems, in terms of capacity and issues around corruption, and that it’s urgent that the Mexicans deal with it, but also that the U.S. be positively engaged with Mexico on these issues.
Mexico has a presidential election a year from now, and if things continue the way they are, where people are frustrated, disappointed, unhappy, there could be election results that are not to the liking of the United States. It could result in a very anti-American election. That could further exacerbate the issues between the two countries.
MEXICO
INSTABILITY
DRUGS
BORDER SECURITY
THE AUTHOR IS ERIC OLSON
Eric Olson is Deputy Director of the Latin American Program and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. His research and writing has focused on security issues and the impacts of crime, organized crime, and violence on democratic governance. He has also written extensively about U.S. security assistance in Mexico and Central America. Prior to joining the Wilson Center, he was a Senior Specialist in the Department for... Read More
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/arti...ations-forces-taking-fight-terror-africa-1091
U.S. Special Operations Forces: Taking the Fight to Terror in Africa
JULY 26, 2017 | KAITLIN LAVINDER
U.S. President Donald Trump’s “war on terror” – much like his predecessor’s – uses partners’ capabilities against terrorists in an effort to protect the country from potential attacks, while minimizing U.S casualties. In Africa, Trump’s continuation of this strategy has resulted in increased reliance on U.S. special operations forces.
The U.S. Special Operations Command Africa now conducts around 100 activities in 20 countries with 1,700 personnel at any given time, according to an October strategic planning guidance report from the command’s head, Brigadier General Donald Bolduc. That is nearly double the number of U.S. special forces operators in Africa since 2014.
Moreover, current plans call for the command’s staff to increase by about 100 from its current level of around 275 “over the next couple of years,” Bolduc told online publisher African Defense in September.
This year’s 10th annual Africa special operations forces-focused Flintlock exercise, sponsored by U.S. Africa Command in February and March, was the biggest it has ever been, with more than 2,000 military personnel from 24 African and Western nations participating.
After the exercise, U.S. President Donald Trump approved removing certain constraints that former President Barack Obama had put in place on special operations forces airstrikes and raids in Somalia against the al Shabaab terrorist group, which is linked to al Qaeda. Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, the commander of the Africa Command, told reporters at the Pentagon in March that the loosening would increase his troops’ flexibility and ability to prosecute targets quickly – although he noted no real authorities under the Trump policy change had yet been handed over.
“The threat hasn’t changed. The threat is still there, but I think it’s fair to say that our ability to strike al Shabaab targets in this particular instance will have an impact on their ability to continue what they’re trying to do,” he said.
Critics say this measure removes constraints that minimize civilian casualties.
“The Administration appears to believe that U.S. interests would be better served in these places by taking the gloves off and being more forceful and constraining the U.S. military less,” Stephen Biddle, a professor at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, told The Cipher Brief.
“They seem to think it was political correctness for the Obama Administration to have worried so much about civilian casualties, and unlike Obama they’re not politically correct; therefore, they’re not going to be as constrained,” he said.
Waldhauser said a high priority will be placed on preventing civilian casualties.
For their part, U.S. special forces operators have had a number of successes against al Shabaab in Somalia. In 2016, a U.S. airstrike killed 150 al Shabaab fighters at a militant graduation ceremony, and in 2014, an American airstrike killed then-al Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane.
But even with these and other successes across Africa – including U.S. and allied countries’ pursuit of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa – terrorism continues to proliferate. A June al-Shabaab attack in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region killed at least 70 people in one of the region’s deadliest attack in years. The militant group Boko Haram terrorizes Nigeria and surrounding countries, such as Chad and Niger. An attack in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri, along with coordinated attacks near Nigeria’s Lake Chad Basin Research Institute, in June killed at least 17 and left 34 wounded.
ISIS is also attempting to gain ground in Africa through established groups that affiliate with ISIS and then receive ISIS training or funding in return. “If you view ISIS in Iraq and Syria as core ISIS, I think a good way to characterize ISIS on the African continent is global ISIS,” Waldhauser said. It is the job of the Africa Command, he said, “to make sure that those groups stay internal to those countries or internal to those regions” and do not move into Europe or the United States.
“A lot of these groups, al Shabaab included, has the intention to do that,” he said, adding, “it’s a question of whether they have the capacity or capability to do that, and al Shabaab has not really demonstrated that.”
Although the U.S. wants to protect itself and its European allies from terror attacks from Africa, the problem is that the United States has “real, but limited, interests in a lot of places around the world, and especially in a lot of parts of sub-Saharan Africa,” Biddle told The Cipher Brief.
While the United States does not want African countries to become terrorist safe havens, “it’s not a big enough interest that we’re willing to send 100,000 troops to any of these countries to stabilize their real estate,” Biddle said, which is why the Administration is using more special operators who can both aid operations and train and advise African militaries.
The Pentagon has allocated around $250 million over two years to help train the armies and security forces of North, Central, and West African countries. However, “many of those countries keen to engage with the U.S. military have appalling records of poor governance, corruption, and human rights abuses,” the head of business intelligence for Africa at the Risk Advisory Group, John Siko, told The Cipher Brief.
Moreover, said Siko, “the gaps between their [U.S. special operations forces’] professionalism and extensive resources and those of the militaries they are training are often vast. … Unless Washington has the patience, money, and political willpower to keep special operators in [a] sort of hybrid role for decades, this is a situation best avoided.”
Still, Army General Tony Thomas, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, said Trump made clear his priority on counterterrorism missions using the military’s elite forces on a February visit to the command’s headquarters in Tampa, FL.
However, without an equal focus on diplomacy – most high-level Africa roles at the State Department have yet to be filled, and Trump has vowed to slash State’s budget by around 30 percent – it is unclear whether a mostly military strategy will be successful.
Kaitlin Lavinder is a national security reporter at The Cipher Brief. Follow her on Twitter @KaitLavinder.
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Posted for fair use.....
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/arti...ations-forces-taking-fight-terror-africa-1091
U.S. Special Operations Forces: Taking the Fight to Terror in Africa
JULY 26, 2017 | KAITLIN LAVINDER
U.S. President Donald Trump’s “war on terror” – much like his predecessor’s – uses partners’ capabilities against terrorists in an effort to protect the country from potential attacks, while minimizing U.S casualties. In Africa, Trump’s continuation of this strategy has resulted in increased reliance on U.S. special operations forces.
The U.S. Special Operations Command Africa now conducts around 100 activities in 20 countries with 1,700 personnel at any given time, according to an October strategic planning guidance report from the command’s head, Brigadier General Donald Bolduc. That is nearly double the number of U.S. special forces operators in Africa since 2014.
Moreover, current plans call for the command’s staff to increase by about 100 from its current level of around 275 “over the next couple of years,” Bolduc told online publisher African Defense in September.
This year’s 10th annual Africa special operations forces-focused Flintlock exercise, sponsored by U.S. Africa Command in February and March, was the biggest it has ever been, with more than 2,000 military personnel from 24 African and Western nations participating.
After the exercise, U.S. President Donald Trump approved removing certain constraints that former President Barack Obama had put in place on special operations forces airstrikes and raids in Somalia against the al Shabaab terrorist group, which is linked to al Qaeda. Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, the commander of the Africa Command, told reporters at the Pentagon in March that the loosening would increase his troops’ flexibility and ability to prosecute targets quickly – although he noted no real authorities under the Trump policy change had yet been handed over.
“The threat hasn’t changed. The threat is still there, but I think it’s fair to say that our ability to strike al Shabaab targets in this particular instance will have an impact on their ability to continue what they’re trying to do,” he said.
Critics say this measure removes constraints that minimize civilian casualties.
“The Administration appears to believe that U.S. interests would be better served in these places by taking the gloves off and being more forceful and constraining the U.S. military less,” Stephen Biddle, a professor at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, told The Cipher Brief.
“They seem to think it was political correctness for the Obama Administration to have worried so much about civilian casualties, and unlike Obama they’re not politically correct; therefore, they’re not going to be as constrained,” he said.
Waldhauser said a high priority will be placed on preventing civilian casualties.
For their part, U.S. special forces operators have had a number of successes against al Shabaab in Somalia. In 2016, a U.S. airstrike killed 150 al Shabaab fighters at a militant graduation ceremony, and in 2014, an American airstrike killed then-al Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane.
But even with these and other successes across Africa – including U.S. and allied countries’ pursuit of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa – terrorism continues to proliferate. A June al-Shabaab attack in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region killed at least 70 people in one of the region’s deadliest attack in years. The militant group Boko Haram terrorizes Nigeria and surrounding countries, such as Chad and Niger. An attack in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri, along with coordinated attacks near Nigeria’s Lake Chad Basin Research Institute, in June killed at least 17 and left 34 wounded.
ISIS is also attempting to gain ground in Africa through established groups that affiliate with ISIS and then receive ISIS training or funding in return. “If you view ISIS in Iraq and Syria as core ISIS, I think a good way to characterize ISIS on the African continent is global ISIS,” Waldhauser said. It is the job of the Africa Command, he said, “to make sure that those groups stay internal to those countries or internal to those regions” and do not move into Europe or the United States.
“A lot of these groups, al Shabaab included, has the intention to do that,” he said, adding, “it’s a question of whether they have the capacity or capability to do that, and al Shabaab has not really demonstrated that.”
Although the U.S. wants to protect itself and its European allies from terror attacks from Africa, the problem is that the United States has “real, but limited, interests in a lot of places around the world, and especially in a lot of parts of sub-Saharan Africa,” Biddle told The Cipher Brief.
While the United States does not want African countries to become terrorist safe havens, “it’s not a big enough interest that we’re willing to send 100,000 troops to any of these countries to stabilize their real estate,” Biddle said, which is why the Administration is using more special operators who can both aid operations and train and advise African militaries.
The Pentagon has allocated around $250 million over two years to help train the armies and security forces of North, Central, and West African countries. However, “many of those countries keen to engage with the U.S. military have appalling records of poor governance, corruption, and human rights abuses,” the head of business intelligence for Africa at the Risk Advisory Group, John Siko, told The Cipher Brief.
Moreover, said Siko, “the gaps between their [U.S. special operations forces’] professionalism and extensive resources and those of the militaries they are training are often vast. … Unless Washington has the patience, money, and political willpower to keep special operators in [a] sort of hybrid role for decades, this is a situation best avoided.”
Still, Army General Tony Thomas, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, said Trump made clear his priority on counterterrorism missions using the military’s elite forces on a February visit to the command’s headquarters in Tampa, FL.
However, without an equal focus on diplomacy – most high-level Africa roles at the State Department have yet to be filled, and Trump has vowed to slash State’s budget by around 30 percent – it is unclear whether a mostly military strategy will be successful.
Kaitlin Lavinder is a national security reporter at The Cipher Brief. Follow her on Twitter @KaitLavinder.
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PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
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https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/asia/border-dispute-china-wont-back-india-cant-back-down-1095
Border Dispute: China Won’t Back Off, India Can’t Back Down
JULY 25, 2017 | WILL EDWARDS
After six weeks of tension between China and India over a Chinese road building project on contested territory, neither side is prepared to back down. Known as the Doklam Plateau, this small area high up in the Himalayas where Bhutan, India, and China share a vaguely defined border, is now the center of a potential conflict with much larger geopolitical consequences.
A spokesman for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Colonel Wu Qian, told reporters on Monday that China would not withdraw or end the road building project, saying "Shaking a mountain is easy but shaking the People's Liberation Army is hard."
Wu went on to say that the precondition for talks to resolve the issue is for India to remove the 300 troops it has moved to the border, only 150 meters away from an equally sized contingent of Chinese troops. Wu said, "We strongly urge India to take practical steps to correct its mistake, cease provocations, and meet China halfway in jointly safeguarding the border region's peace and tranquility."
Such a precondition is a bitter pill for India to swallow. Locally, the Chinese road could have serious strategic implications for India’s defense of its home territory due to a geographic feature that leaves India vulnerable. Allowing the Chinese road project to continue could provide Beijing with an avenue for its troops to strike the “Chicken Neck,” a narrow strip of land connecting India’s northeastern states to the rest of the country that could be severed in the event of conflict. More broadly, backing down could have an impact on India’s regional standing as Delhi and Beijing vie for regional supremacy.
The road project could also allow China to conduct the same “salami slicing” seen in the South China Sea. Bit by bit, China could take pieces of Indian territory. To prevent this, India is reportedly reinforcing its position. According to on-the-ground reporting from the South China Morning Post, “New bunkers are being built, the ground is being mined to pre-empt Chinese attack, machine-gun nests are being placed at strategic points, and soldiers are performing battle drills at least twice a day,” though restraint is paramount, “We are under clear orders not to exacerbate the tensions,” said an Indian soldier.
This most recent build-up is nothing new. Over the past several years, both sides have expanded the capabilities of their border forces and maintain mechanized and air assets that can mobilize troops and supplies quickly in the event of conflict. For its part, India has switched from a purely defensive force structure to one with limited offensive striking ability in order to deter China.
The dispute has further implications as well. Historically, China and India’s relationship has been adversarial. They fought a war along a different part of their border in 1962 and have maintained a heavily militarized border ever since. Today, China and India compete for regional power, using their economic and military influence to strengthen bonds with smaller Asian nations.
The mixture of border tensions and greater geopolitical forces presents a situation where neither side can easily back down. But the great stakes involved also means neither side is spoiling for a fight. Michael Kugelman, the Deputy Director of the Wilson Center’s Asia Program, told The Cipher Brief, “A hot war between India and China could squander all the gains from their extensive economic diplomacy, and that would work against each country’s interests in a big way.”
To diffuse tensions, the two sides have quietly been discussing a resolution. Citing Indian officials, Reuters reported on Monday that “India's ambassador to Beijing is leading the effort to find a way for both sides to back down without loss of face.”
An upcoming BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) security dialogue held in Beijing on July 27-28 may also provide a high-level avenue for resolution. However, China has refrained from disclosing if the Doklam Plateau will be a topic of discussion, and it may stress its position that India must first withdraw its troops before talks can commence.
If the dispute continues, there is another opportunity for high-level discussions in the near future. A summit of BRICS leaders in Xiamen, China is scheduled for September. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have the opportunity to discuss Doklam and other contentious issues in the bilateral relationship.
While tough rhetoric from Beijing and Delhi has dominated the public discussion, there appears a strong commitment to high-level dialogue and a desire to avoid escalating to armed conflict. Even without shots fired, there can still be a winner and loser in terms of regional clout and economic gains as two great nations maneuver for geopolitical position. Whether tensions peter out or the two sides come to an agreement, historical animosity and the geopolitical stakes point to future flare-ups.
Will Edwards is an Asia-Pacific and defense analyst at The Cipher Brief. Follow him on Twitter @_wedwards.
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Border Dispute: China Won’t Back Off, India Can’t Back Down
JULY 25, 2017 | WILL EDWARDS
After six weeks of tension between China and India over a Chinese road building project on contested territory, neither side is prepared to back down. Known as the Doklam Plateau, this small area high up in the Himalayas where Bhutan, India, and China share a vaguely defined border, is now the center of a potential conflict with much larger geopolitical consequences.
A spokesman for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Colonel Wu Qian, told reporters on Monday that China would not withdraw or end the road building project, saying "Shaking a mountain is easy but shaking the People's Liberation Army is hard."
Wu went on to say that the precondition for talks to resolve the issue is for India to remove the 300 troops it has moved to the border, only 150 meters away from an equally sized contingent of Chinese troops. Wu said, "We strongly urge India to take practical steps to correct its mistake, cease provocations, and meet China halfway in jointly safeguarding the border region's peace and tranquility."
Such a precondition is a bitter pill for India to swallow. Locally, the Chinese road could have serious strategic implications for India’s defense of its home territory due to a geographic feature that leaves India vulnerable. Allowing the Chinese road project to continue could provide Beijing with an avenue for its troops to strike the “Chicken Neck,” a narrow strip of land connecting India’s northeastern states to the rest of the country that could be severed in the event of conflict. More broadly, backing down could have an impact on India’s regional standing as Delhi and Beijing vie for regional supremacy.
The road project could also allow China to conduct the same “salami slicing” seen in the South China Sea. Bit by bit, China could take pieces of Indian territory. To prevent this, India is reportedly reinforcing its position. According to on-the-ground reporting from the South China Morning Post, “New bunkers are being built, the ground is being mined to pre-empt Chinese attack, machine-gun nests are being placed at strategic points, and soldiers are performing battle drills at least twice a day,” though restraint is paramount, “We are under clear orders not to exacerbate the tensions,” said an Indian soldier.
This most recent build-up is nothing new. Over the past several years, both sides have expanded the capabilities of their border forces and maintain mechanized and air assets that can mobilize troops and supplies quickly in the event of conflict. For its part, India has switched from a purely defensive force structure to one with limited offensive striking ability in order to deter China.
The dispute has further implications as well. Historically, China and India’s relationship has been adversarial. They fought a war along a different part of their border in 1962 and have maintained a heavily militarized border ever since. Today, China and India compete for regional power, using their economic and military influence to strengthen bonds with smaller Asian nations.
The mixture of border tensions and greater geopolitical forces presents a situation where neither side can easily back down. But the great stakes involved also means neither side is spoiling for a fight. Michael Kugelman, the Deputy Director of the Wilson Center’s Asia Program, told The Cipher Brief, “A hot war between India and China could squander all the gains from their extensive economic diplomacy, and that would work against each country’s interests in a big way.”
To diffuse tensions, the two sides have quietly been discussing a resolution. Citing Indian officials, Reuters reported on Monday that “India's ambassador to Beijing is leading the effort to find a way for both sides to back down without loss of face.”
An upcoming BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) security dialogue held in Beijing on July 27-28 may also provide a high-level avenue for resolution. However, China has refrained from disclosing if the Doklam Plateau will be a topic of discussion, and it may stress its position that India must first withdraw its troops before talks can commence.
If the dispute continues, there is another opportunity for high-level discussions in the near future. A summit of BRICS leaders in Xiamen, China is scheduled for September. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have the opportunity to discuss Doklam and other contentious issues in the bilateral relationship.
While tough rhetoric from Beijing and Delhi has dominated the public discussion, there appears a strong commitment to high-level dialogue and a desire to avoid escalating to armed conflict. Even without shots fired, there can still be a winner and loser in terms of regional clout and economic gains as two great nations maneuver for geopolitical position. Whether tensions peter out or the two sides come to an agreement, historical animosity and the geopolitical stakes point to future flare-ups.
Will Edwards is an Asia-Pacific and defense analyst at The Cipher Brief. Follow him on Twitter @_wedwards.
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http://www.realcleardefense.com/art..._districts_from_afghan_government_111893.html
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2017/07/taliban-seizes-3-districts-from-afghan-government.php
Taliban Seizes 3 Districts From Afghan Government
By Bill Roggio
July 25, 2017
The Afghan Taliban has overrun three districts previously held by the Afghan government in the provinces of Paktia, Farah and Ghor over the past several days. The Taliban is demonstrating that it can sustain operations in all theaters of Afghanistan. The three districts are located in three different regions of the country.
The district of Jani Khel in Paktia, a known stronghold of the Haqqani Network – the powerful Taliban subgroup that is based in eastern Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s tribal areas – fell to the Taliban earlier today after several days of heavy fighting, according to Afghan officials and the Taliban. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that the district headquarters buildings, the police headquarters and all security checkpoints are under his group’s control. Fighting is underway at a nearby military base.
Jani Khel was effectively under Taliban control. At the end of March, the group claimed that all but six percent of the district, including the district center, was under Afghan government control.
The districts of Taywara in Ghor in central Afghanistan, and Kohistan (or Lolash) in Faryab in the northwest fell to the Taliban on July 23 after several days of fighting. TOLONews confirmed that the two districts are now Taliban controlled and “government forces have not yet launched military operations to re-capture these districts.”
The loss of the three districts shows that the Taliban is capable of conducting operations in all regions of the country. Even as the three districts fell, the Taliban is on the offensive in all of the other regions. Afghan security forces, which are sustaining record highs in casualties and desertions, is largely on the defensive in most areas of the country.
The state of play of Afghan districts is often difficult to determine. Often, some districts switch hands multiple times over a short period of time. For instance, Nawa district in Helmand province has gone back and forth between the Taliban and the Afghan government four times over the past year. The Afghan government retook it just last week, but the Taliban are fighting to regain control.
In some cases, such as with Jani Khel or all of the districts in Uruzgan province, the Taliban controls all of the district except for the district center, which hosts the government facilities and police headquarters.
Estimates issued by the US military and the Taliban are not that far apart. The US military estimated in the spring that the Taliban now controls or contests 40 percent of Afghanistan’s districts, while the Taliban in late March claimed the number is closer to 50 percent. [See FDD’s Long War Journal reports, Taliban controls or contests 40 percent of Afghan districts: SIGAR and Afghan Taliban lists ‘Percent of Country under the control of Mujahideen’.]
Afghan forces have ceded control of some rural districts to the Taliban, excusing the districts as strategically unimportant. The Taliban has instead used these districts as bases to attack Afghan forces in more populous districts.
Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
This article originally appeared at The Long War Journal.
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/art..._districts_from_afghan_government_111893.html
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2017/07/taliban-seizes-3-districts-from-afghan-government.php
Taliban Seizes 3 Districts From Afghan Government
By Bill Roggio
July 25, 2017
The Afghan Taliban has overrun three districts previously held by the Afghan government in the provinces of Paktia, Farah and Ghor over the past several days. The Taliban is demonstrating that it can sustain operations in all theaters of Afghanistan. The three districts are located in three different regions of the country.
The district of Jani Khel in Paktia, a known stronghold of the Haqqani Network – the powerful Taliban subgroup that is based in eastern Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s tribal areas – fell to the Taliban earlier today after several days of heavy fighting, according to Afghan officials and the Taliban. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that the district headquarters buildings, the police headquarters and all security checkpoints are under his group’s control. Fighting is underway at a nearby military base.
Jani Khel was effectively under Taliban control. At the end of March, the group claimed that all but six percent of the district, including the district center, was under Afghan government control.
The districts of Taywara in Ghor in central Afghanistan, and Kohistan (or Lolash) in Faryab in the northwest fell to the Taliban on July 23 after several days of fighting. TOLONews confirmed that the two districts are now Taliban controlled and “government forces have not yet launched military operations to re-capture these districts.”
The loss of the three districts shows that the Taliban is capable of conducting operations in all regions of the country. Even as the three districts fell, the Taliban is on the offensive in all of the other regions. Afghan security forces, which are sustaining record highs in casualties and desertions, is largely on the defensive in most areas of the country.
The state of play of Afghan districts is often difficult to determine. Often, some districts switch hands multiple times over a short period of time. For instance, Nawa district in Helmand province has gone back and forth between the Taliban and the Afghan government four times over the past year. The Afghan government retook it just last week, but the Taliban are fighting to regain control.
In some cases, such as with Jani Khel or all of the districts in Uruzgan province, the Taliban controls all of the district except for the district center, which hosts the government facilities and police headquarters.
Estimates issued by the US military and the Taliban are not that far apart. The US military estimated in the spring that the Taliban now controls or contests 40 percent of Afghanistan’s districts, while the Taliban in late March claimed the number is closer to 50 percent. [See FDD’s Long War Journal reports, Taliban controls or contests 40 percent of Afghan districts: SIGAR and Afghan Taliban lists ‘Percent of Country under the control of Mujahideen’.]
Afghan forces have ceded control of some rural districts to the Taliban, excusing the districts as strategically unimportant. The Taliban has instead used these districts as bases to attack Afghan forces in more populous districts.
Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
This article originally appeared at The Long War Journal.
For links see article source.....
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http://www.longwarjournal.org/archi...urnalSiteWide+(FDD's+Long+War+Journal+Update)
Yemeni Houthis release video of missile launch on Saudi oil refinery
BY CALEB WEISS | July 24th, 2017 | weiss.caleb2@gmail.com | @Weissenberg7
On Saturday, the Yemeni Houthi insurgent group (officially known as Ansar Allah) claimed it fired a ‘Burkan-2’ ballistic missile at a Saudi Arabian oil refinery in the coastal town of Yanbu.
The rebel group reported on its website today that the missile launch was the “culmination of a series of military operations” undertaken on Saudi forces. Most of these operations were reported in Saudi’s southern regions of Asir, Jizan, and Najran. In the initial statement of the missile launch, the Houthis said that this is a new phase in the conflict with Saudi Arabia and that more refineries will be hit unless “the brutal aggression in Yemen stops.”
Saudia Arabia has not confirmed a ballistic missile launch into its territory on Saturday. Instead, Saudi authorities reported that a fire, started by hot weather, hit a power transformer near the entrance to the oil refinery. It is unclear what damage was done to the refinery.
The Burkan-2 ballistic missile, which is akin to a Scud, is a relatively new missile design for the Yemeni rebel group. The Burkan-1 was introduced last year with a reported range to hit Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, approximately 800km away. Yanbu, however, sits 300km north of Jeddah. This indicates a longer range for the Burkan-2 missile.
In March, Saudi officials reported that state defenses shot down four ballistic missiles coming from Yemen. Two months later, the Houthis reported its forces launched a ballistic missile at Riyadh prior to the arrival of US President Donald Trump. Saudi later said it shot down the missile in its southern regions. In January, another ballistic missile was reported fired at a Saudi base on the Red Sea island of Zuqar. Several similar incidents also occurred throughout 2016.
Caleb Weiss is an intern at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a contributor to The Long War Journal.
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archi...urnalSiteWide+(FDD's+Long+War+Journal+Update)
Yemeni Houthis release video of missile launch on Saudi oil refinery
BY CALEB WEISS | July 24th, 2017 | weiss.caleb2@gmail.com | @Weissenberg7
On Saturday, the Yemeni Houthi insurgent group (officially known as Ansar Allah) claimed it fired a ‘Burkan-2’ ballistic missile at a Saudi Arabian oil refinery in the coastal town of Yanbu.
The rebel group reported on its website today that the missile launch was the “culmination of a series of military operations” undertaken on Saudi forces. Most of these operations were reported in Saudi’s southern regions of Asir, Jizan, and Najran. In the initial statement of the missile launch, the Houthis said that this is a new phase in the conflict with Saudi Arabia and that more refineries will be hit unless “the brutal aggression in Yemen stops.”
Saudia Arabia has not confirmed a ballistic missile launch into its territory on Saturday. Instead, Saudi authorities reported that a fire, started by hot weather, hit a power transformer near the entrance to the oil refinery. It is unclear what damage was done to the refinery.
The Burkan-2 ballistic missile, which is akin to a Scud, is a relatively new missile design for the Yemeni rebel group. The Burkan-1 was introduced last year with a reported range to hit Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, approximately 800km away. Yanbu, however, sits 300km north of Jeddah. This indicates a longer range for the Burkan-2 missile.
In March, Saudi officials reported that state defenses shot down four ballistic missiles coming from Yemen. Two months later, the Houthis reported its forces launched a ballistic missile at Riyadh prior to the arrival of US President Donald Trump. Saudi later said it shot down the missile in its southern regions. In January, another ballistic missile was reported fired at a Saudi base on the Red Sea island of Zuqar. Several similar incidents also occurred throughout 2016.
Caleb Weiss is an intern at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a contributor to The Long War Journal.
For links see article source.....
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https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/growth-offensive-strike-capabilities-northeast-asia/
The growth of offensive strike capabilities in Northeast Asia
24 Jul 2017|Rod Lyon
Too often, current tensions in Northeast Asia are seen through one of two dominant lenses: either the growing strategic competition between China and the US—‘destined for war’?—or the sharper and more immediate concerns posed by North Korea. But I want to focus here on a different point: namely, the specific effect that both the North Korean situation and the relentless modernisation of China’s military forces are having in spurring the growth of offensive strike capabilities in Japan and South Korea.
South Korea has recently been working on building its own ballistic-missile capabilities. It test-fired an 800-kilometre-range missile—a Hyunmoo-2B—on 6 April, and again on 23 June, albeit not to the missile’s nominal full range. Officials say the missile will be ‘ready to use after two additional tests’. South Korea apparently intends to deploy its own indigenous capabilities at least partially to offset the growing North Korean ballistic-missile arsenal. But it also seems to want to threaten Pyongyang—and in particular the North Korean leadership—as a deterrent to any North Korean attack on the South.
Meanwhile, some in Japan have begun to show new interest in strike capabilities. Back in March, a policy research group in the Liberal Democratic Party recommended that Japan arm itself with long-range offensive weapons. The group, headed by former defence minister Itsunori Onodera, argued that the country faces a new level of threat from North Korea, making the acquisition of those capabilities a matter of national urgency. Bringing such a proposal to fruition in Japan—a country which has shied away from deploying bomber aircraft—requires the successful clearing of many hurdles. Still, the broader discussion has clearly begun.
What, I hear you ask, do the Americans think of all that? Well, the evidence suggests a growing tolerance in Washington over recent years for its forward-based allies having independent offensive strike options. The Obama administration approved the extension in reach of South Korea’s ballistic missiles—from 300 to 800 kilometres—back in 2012. And in 2015, Jakub Grygiel (from Johns Hopkins University) used an article in the journal Parameters (PDF) to argue the broader case in favour of tolerance:
The desire of some US allies to rearm presents an opportunity to shore up a system of deterrence challenged by ambitious and disruptive powers. Given the nature of the threat (a limited war scenario) and the security environment of the region (A2/AD capabilities of the revisionists), frontline US allies should be armed with offensive arsenals capable of targeting our common rivals.
Itsunori Onodera visited Washington in May to argue in support of a recalibration of roles in the US–Japan security alliance—namely, a greater sharing of the ‘spear’ role between the partners, instead of the current division of responsibilities with the US as spear-carrier and Japan as shield-bearer. Onodera specifically proposed that Japan have better ‘counterstrike’ capabilities, clearly hoping to deflect concerns about possible pre-emptive attacks on North Korea. James Schoff, a former defence official now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, suggested that both Japan’s worries and potential regional concerns about Japanese rearmament might be met by ‘a measured investment in strike capabilities within the existing alliance framework’.
Japan’s inherent sensitivity to American and regional concerns means it will probably make only slow progress in acquiring ‘prompt-strike’ offensive capabilities—those intended to be used in situations that demand urgent action. Even the US finds itself constrained in that arena, because the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty bans the US and Russia from building, testing and deploying ground-launched ballistic (and slower-flying cruise) missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. (Indeed, some voices in Washington are now openly calling for the US to supply its forward-based allies with such weapons as a calculated response to alleged Russian violations of the treaty.) Still, if the US is looking for conventional-strike options in Northeast Asia, it already has plenty of those in its own kitbag. Aircraft carriers and B-2 and B-1 bombers seem to have been the instruments of choice recently.
Australia has long enjoyed Washington’s confidence over its deployment of offensive strike capabilities—it was America who sold us the F-111s, after all. But that previously made us something of an anomaly among US allies in Asia. As tensions grow in Northeast Asia, US allies there are increasingly arguing for a shift in roles and responsibilities in their own security arrangements. On the upside, the growth in offensive strike capabilities among US allies better reflects a more multipolar Asia. And, overall, it ought to strengthen deterrence of regional adversaries. On the downside, though, it’s another sign that the ‘tethering’ role which US alliances have long played in Asia is starting to weaken.
AUTHOR
Rod Lyon is senior fellow at ASPI. Image courtesy of the Department of Defense.
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/growth-offensive-strike-capabilities-northeast-asia/
The growth of offensive strike capabilities in Northeast Asia
24 Jul 2017|Rod Lyon
Too often, current tensions in Northeast Asia are seen through one of two dominant lenses: either the growing strategic competition between China and the US—‘destined for war’?—or the sharper and more immediate concerns posed by North Korea. But I want to focus here on a different point: namely, the specific effect that both the North Korean situation and the relentless modernisation of China’s military forces are having in spurring the growth of offensive strike capabilities in Japan and South Korea.
South Korea has recently been working on building its own ballistic-missile capabilities. It test-fired an 800-kilometre-range missile—a Hyunmoo-2B—on 6 April, and again on 23 June, albeit not to the missile’s nominal full range. Officials say the missile will be ‘ready to use after two additional tests’. South Korea apparently intends to deploy its own indigenous capabilities at least partially to offset the growing North Korean ballistic-missile arsenal. But it also seems to want to threaten Pyongyang—and in particular the North Korean leadership—as a deterrent to any North Korean attack on the South.
Meanwhile, some in Japan have begun to show new interest in strike capabilities. Back in March, a policy research group in the Liberal Democratic Party recommended that Japan arm itself with long-range offensive weapons. The group, headed by former defence minister Itsunori Onodera, argued that the country faces a new level of threat from North Korea, making the acquisition of those capabilities a matter of national urgency. Bringing such a proposal to fruition in Japan—a country which has shied away from deploying bomber aircraft—requires the successful clearing of many hurdles. Still, the broader discussion has clearly begun.
What, I hear you ask, do the Americans think of all that? Well, the evidence suggests a growing tolerance in Washington over recent years for its forward-based allies having independent offensive strike options. The Obama administration approved the extension in reach of South Korea’s ballistic missiles—from 300 to 800 kilometres—back in 2012. And in 2015, Jakub Grygiel (from Johns Hopkins University) used an article in the journal Parameters (PDF) to argue the broader case in favour of tolerance:
The desire of some US allies to rearm presents an opportunity to shore up a system of deterrence challenged by ambitious and disruptive powers. Given the nature of the threat (a limited war scenario) and the security environment of the region (A2/AD capabilities of the revisionists), frontline US allies should be armed with offensive arsenals capable of targeting our common rivals.
Itsunori Onodera visited Washington in May to argue in support of a recalibration of roles in the US–Japan security alliance—namely, a greater sharing of the ‘spear’ role between the partners, instead of the current division of responsibilities with the US as spear-carrier and Japan as shield-bearer. Onodera specifically proposed that Japan have better ‘counterstrike’ capabilities, clearly hoping to deflect concerns about possible pre-emptive attacks on North Korea. James Schoff, a former defence official now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, suggested that both Japan’s worries and potential regional concerns about Japanese rearmament might be met by ‘a measured investment in strike capabilities within the existing alliance framework’.
Japan’s inherent sensitivity to American and regional concerns means it will probably make only slow progress in acquiring ‘prompt-strike’ offensive capabilities—those intended to be used in situations that demand urgent action. Even the US finds itself constrained in that arena, because the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty bans the US and Russia from building, testing and deploying ground-launched ballistic (and slower-flying cruise) missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. (Indeed, some voices in Washington are now openly calling for the US to supply its forward-based allies with such weapons as a calculated response to alleged Russian violations of the treaty.) Still, if the US is looking for conventional-strike options in Northeast Asia, it already has plenty of those in its own kitbag. Aircraft carriers and B-2 and B-1 bombers seem to have been the instruments of choice recently.
Australia has long enjoyed Washington’s confidence over its deployment of offensive strike capabilities—it was America who sold us the F-111s, after all. But that previously made us something of an anomaly among US allies in Asia. As tensions grow in Northeast Asia, US allies there are increasingly arguing for a shift in roles and responsibilities in their own security arrangements. On the upside, the growth in offensive strike capabilities among US allies better reflects a more multipolar Asia. And, overall, it ought to strengthen deterrence of regional adversaries. On the downside, though, it’s another sign that the ‘tethering’ role which US alliances have long played in Asia is starting to weaken.
AUTHOR
Rod Lyon is senior fellow at ASPI. Image courtesy of the Department of Defense.
Was also discussed on John Batchelor's Show last night...
For links see article source.....
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http://www.realcleardefense.com/art...udy_of_us_defense_industrial_base_111874.html
Trump Executive Order Directs Major Study of U.S. Defense Industrial Base
By Sandra Erwin
July 24, 2017
President Trump has directed the Pentagon to work with other agencies on a deep-dive analysis of the defense industrial base. The White House called it a “groundbreaking” effort to look at U.S. manufacturing capabilities from a broad national security perspective.
Trump’s executive order issued Friday is titled “Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States.” Its release was timed a day before the president will attend the commissioning of the U.S. Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford on Saturday. The Pentagon for years has sounded alarms about gaps and “weak links” in the shipbuilding industrial base as many suppliers have gone out of business or moved operations overseas.
The executive order is a natural product of the Trump administration’s “America first” ethos, said Peter Navarro, deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. This will be a “broad assessment,” he said Friday at a White House news conference.
The United States has seen many domestic manufacturing capabilities weaken or disappear outright, and that could be detrimental to national security, states the executive order. The ability of the United States to “maintain readiness, and to surge in response to an emergency, directly relates to the capacity, capabilities, and resiliency of our manufacturing and defense industrial base and supply chains.”
The Pentagon has in the past conduced its own studies of the defense industrial base — an annual report of industrial capabilities is mandated by Congress — but this will be the first time it will have to work with other agencies and look at the nation’s manufacturing and supply sources far more comprehensively.
The secretary of defense will lead the study but must coordinate with the secretaries of commerce, labor, energy, and homeland security. The defense secretary also must consult with the secretaries of the interior and health and human services, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, the director of national intelligence, the assistant to the president for national security affairs, the assistant to the president for economic policy, the director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, and the heads of other agencies the secretary of defense deems appropriate, according to the executive order.
The agencies have 270 days to provide to the president an unclassified report, with a classified annex if needed, Navarro said.
Navarro described the review as “one of the most significant presidential actions on the state of America’s industrial base since Eisenhower” and the “first ever whole-of-government assessment into the health of the defense industrial base.”
This executive order, he said, is a recognition that the nation has yet to assess the impact that 60,000 closed factories and the loss of more than 5 million manufacturing jobs has had on the military and other sectors of the national security apparatus.
“We see ‘single points of failure’ in the supplier base,” where only one company is able to provide critical pieces of equipment, said Navarro. There is, for instance, just one vendor in the United States than can repair propellers for Navy submarines. “Certain types of semiconductors and circuit boards have become endangered species,” he said. And the nation has lost domestic manufacturing capability to make flat panel displays for aircraft and has almost no domestic sources of so-called rare earth minerals essential for manufacturing microelectronics.
The study also asks for an analysis of the U.S. manufacturing workforce, particularly skilled workers needed to build ships, aircraft and ground military vehicles.
“Workforce skills are important to national defense,” the executive order says. It calls for “strategic and swift action in creating education and workforce development programs and policies that support job growth in manufacturing and the defense industrial base.”
The executive order “recognizes that every element — manufacturing, workforce, energy, a resilient supply chain, international trade — is needed to ensure national security,” said Navarro. “President Trump understands the United States can’t be a military power without a prosperous economy and vibrant manufacturing and defense industrial base.”
This review of the industrial base is part of the administration’s broader plan to rebuild the military and also examine how gaps in defense-focused manufacturing affect other areas including intelligence, energy and homeland security, said Alexander Gray, deputy director of the National Trade Council for the Defense Industrial Base.
“The ability to manufacture, the ability to obtain essential components and raw materials is absolutely critical,” Gray told reporters.
Navarro acknowledged that, regardless of what the study concludes, the government depends largely on a market-driven private sector for products and services, and that economic motivations drive their decisions. “There’s no envisioning of forcing the private sector to do anything,” he said. “We’re simply trying to evaluate the capabilities. We are looking ahead, trying to anticipate future needs as part of the broader building of our military,” he said. “This is long overdue.” And the idea that it will be an interagency review is significant, he insisted. “This shouldn’t be underestimated.”
Defense industry watchers have long known that the health of the American industrial base has deteriorated over time. The industry goes through boom-and-bust cycles based on how much money the Pentagon spends. It saw a long period of growth after 9/11 that ended in 2010 after the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. Politics also has been a factor in the shrinkage of the industry. Widespread layoffs and closings followed deep cuts in U.S. defense spending after the budget sequester in 2013. This cycle started after the 2010 midterm elections, when the Tea Party movement in the Republican Party called for a reduction in government spending and lower taxes, which led to the Budget Control Act and strict caps to military budgets.
The Defense Department for a long time has sought for ways to “manage” the defense industrial base to ensure it has sufficient suppliers and competition in the market, but has relatively few tools to do so. With every defense spending downturn, Pentagon contractors have merged, consolidating the market into a handful of monopolies and diminishing competition. The Defense and Justice Departments can seize on anti-trust laws to stop corporate mergers, but have no levers to pull if a company wants to exit the market.
Some of the gaps in U.S. manufacturing that the Trump administration worries about have been the result of global trends. Microelectronics offers a stark example. Once dominated by domestic sources, microelectronics manufacturing has migrated to Asia and is focused on high volume production driven by demand for consumer electronics.
During the recent downturn, defense industry analysts have warned the Pentagon to not naïvely assume that companies will make decisions based on national security concerns rather than profits and shareholder value. They will be quick to get out of an industry that is not making money.
If the Trump administration decided that a specific industry needed to be nurtured domestically, it would have to subsidize it like a public utility.
The defense sector, further, has become much smaller and less consequential to the national economy than at any time in recent decades. Today, only a handful of Pentagon contractors crack the Fortune 100 list.
In shipyard-heavy areas where Navy ships are built, the shrinkage of the supplier base has been quite noticeable. During the construction of the USS Ford, many contracts were not competitively awarded because in each instance there was only one qualified vendor. The same issue is seen in the procurement of Coast Guard cutters.
The ups and downs in the defense industry have been studied in detail by the Center for a New American Security and other think tanks. In a report two years ago CNAS estimated that the defense sector in the past two to three decades went from 40 or 50 major players of size down to a half a dozen. Only one prime contractor builds aircraft carriers, two build Navy submarines, and two firms manufacture tactical aircraft.
Even though the defense industry has shrunk, the military has been able to tap into commercial suppliers that are now leading the technology innovation train, noted a CNAS report. “There will be only one or two vendors that will be qualified to build major categories of weapon systems, but in other areas — like information technology, communications and robotics — there is robust competition.”
Sandra Erwin is a national security and defense reporter for RealClearDefense. She can be reached at serwin@realcleardefense.com. Follow Sandra on Twitter @Sandra_I_Erwin.
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/art...udy_of_us_defense_industrial_base_111874.html
Trump Executive Order Directs Major Study of U.S. Defense Industrial Base
By Sandra Erwin
July 24, 2017
President Trump has directed the Pentagon to work with other agencies on a deep-dive analysis of the defense industrial base. The White House called it a “groundbreaking” effort to look at U.S. manufacturing capabilities from a broad national security perspective.
Trump’s executive order issued Friday is titled “Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States.” Its release was timed a day before the president will attend the commissioning of the U.S. Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford on Saturday. The Pentagon for years has sounded alarms about gaps and “weak links” in the shipbuilding industrial base as many suppliers have gone out of business or moved operations overseas.
The executive order is a natural product of the Trump administration’s “America first” ethos, said Peter Navarro, deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. This will be a “broad assessment,” he said Friday at a White House news conference.
The United States has seen many domestic manufacturing capabilities weaken or disappear outright, and that could be detrimental to national security, states the executive order. The ability of the United States to “maintain readiness, and to surge in response to an emergency, directly relates to the capacity, capabilities, and resiliency of our manufacturing and defense industrial base and supply chains.”
The Pentagon has in the past conduced its own studies of the defense industrial base — an annual report of industrial capabilities is mandated by Congress — but this will be the first time it will have to work with other agencies and look at the nation’s manufacturing and supply sources far more comprehensively.
The secretary of defense will lead the study but must coordinate with the secretaries of commerce, labor, energy, and homeland security. The defense secretary also must consult with the secretaries of the interior and health and human services, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, the director of national intelligence, the assistant to the president for national security affairs, the assistant to the president for economic policy, the director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, and the heads of other agencies the secretary of defense deems appropriate, according to the executive order.
The agencies have 270 days to provide to the president an unclassified report, with a classified annex if needed, Navarro said.
Navarro described the review as “one of the most significant presidential actions on the state of America’s industrial base since Eisenhower” and the “first ever whole-of-government assessment into the health of the defense industrial base.”
This executive order, he said, is a recognition that the nation has yet to assess the impact that 60,000 closed factories and the loss of more than 5 million manufacturing jobs has had on the military and other sectors of the national security apparatus.
“We see ‘single points of failure’ in the supplier base,” where only one company is able to provide critical pieces of equipment, said Navarro. There is, for instance, just one vendor in the United States than can repair propellers for Navy submarines. “Certain types of semiconductors and circuit boards have become endangered species,” he said. And the nation has lost domestic manufacturing capability to make flat panel displays for aircraft and has almost no domestic sources of so-called rare earth minerals essential for manufacturing microelectronics.
The study also asks for an analysis of the U.S. manufacturing workforce, particularly skilled workers needed to build ships, aircraft and ground military vehicles.
“Workforce skills are important to national defense,” the executive order says. It calls for “strategic and swift action in creating education and workforce development programs and policies that support job growth in manufacturing and the defense industrial base.”
The executive order “recognizes that every element — manufacturing, workforce, energy, a resilient supply chain, international trade — is needed to ensure national security,” said Navarro. “President Trump understands the United States can’t be a military power without a prosperous economy and vibrant manufacturing and defense industrial base.”
This review of the industrial base is part of the administration’s broader plan to rebuild the military and also examine how gaps in defense-focused manufacturing affect other areas including intelligence, energy and homeland security, said Alexander Gray, deputy director of the National Trade Council for the Defense Industrial Base.
“The ability to manufacture, the ability to obtain essential components and raw materials is absolutely critical,” Gray told reporters.
Navarro acknowledged that, regardless of what the study concludes, the government depends largely on a market-driven private sector for products and services, and that economic motivations drive their decisions. “There’s no envisioning of forcing the private sector to do anything,” he said. “We’re simply trying to evaluate the capabilities. We are looking ahead, trying to anticipate future needs as part of the broader building of our military,” he said. “This is long overdue.” And the idea that it will be an interagency review is significant, he insisted. “This shouldn’t be underestimated.”
Defense industry watchers have long known that the health of the American industrial base has deteriorated over time. The industry goes through boom-and-bust cycles based on how much money the Pentagon spends. It saw a long period of growth after 9/11 that ended in 2010 after the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. Politics also has been a factor in the shrinkage of the industry. Widespread layoffs and closings followed deep cuts in U.S. defense spending after the budget sequester in 2013. This cycle started after the 2010 midterm elections, when the Tea Party movement in the Republican Party called for a reduction in government spending and lower taxes, which led to the Budget Control Act and strict caps to military budgets.
The Defense Department for a long time has sought for ways to “manage” the defense industrial base to ensure it has sufficient suppliers and competition in the market, but has relatively few tools to do so. With every defense spending downturn, Pentagon contractors have merged, consolidating the market into a handful of monopolies and diminishing competition. The Defense and Justice Departments can seize on anti-trust laws to stop corporate mergers, but have no levers to pull if a company wants to exit the market.
Some of the gaps in U.S. manufacturing that the Trump administration worries about have been the result of global trends. Microelectronics offers a stark example. Once dominated by domestic sources, microelectronics manufacturing has migrated to Asia and is focused on high volume production driven by demand for consumer electronics.
During the recent downturn, defense industry analysts have warned the Pentagon to not naïvely assume that companies will make decisions based on national security concerns rather than profits and shareholder value. They will be quick to get out of an industry that is not making money.
If the Trump administration decided that a specific industry needed to be nurtured domestically, it would have to subsidize it like a public utility.
The defense sector, further, has become much smaller and less consequential to the national economy than at any time in recent decades. Today, only a handful of Pentagon contractors crack the Fortune 100 list.
In shipyard-heavy areas where Navy ships are built, the shrinkage of the supplier base has been quite noticeable. During the construction of the USS Ford, many contracts were not competitively awarded because in each instance there was only one qualified vendor. The same issue is seen in the procurement of Coast Guard cutters.
The ups and downs in the defense industry have been studied in detail by the Center for a New American Security and other think tanks. In a report two years ago CNAS estimated that the defense sector in the past two to three decades went from 40 or 50 major players of size down to a half a dozen. Only one prime contractor builds aircraft carriers, two build Navy submarines, and two firms manufacture tactical aircraft.
Even though the defense industry has shrunk, the military has been able to tap into commercial suppliers that are now leading the technology innovation train, noted a CNAS report. “There will be only one or two vendors that will be qualified to build major categories of weapon systems, but in other areas — like information technology, communications and robotics — there is robust competition.”
Sandra Erwin is a national security and defense reporter for RealClearDefense. She can be reached at serwin@realcleardefense.com. Follow Sandra on Twitter @Sandra_I_Erwin.
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/sale-cheap-armed-drones
For sale, cheap: Armed drones
By Jennifer S Hunt
26 July 2017
12:36 AEDT
Once the domain of only a handful of states, weaponised drones are now part of the military arsenal of no less than a dozen countries. That number is set to expand after China announced it would begin to sell and export its most powerful drone, the CH-5 Rainbow, that's modelled on the US MQ 9 Reaper.
China has previously sold armed UAVs to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. The commercially produced CH-5 Rainbows will most likely be headed to states in the Middle East and Africa that are unable to purchase such technology from the United States due to the US Arms Export Control Act and technology transfer restrictions. While the US announced in 2015 that it would be selling weaponisation kits to key NATO allies, US policy dictates that sales are to 'improve the capability of a ... key democratic partner of the United States in ensuring peace and stability around the world', and there are guidelines to avoid 'altering the basic military balance in the region'.
China labours under no such restrictions. Nor is China a signatory to the Missile Technology Control Regime, a voluntary 1987 arms control agreement that applies to the proliferation of airborne technologies that can delivery payloads of 500kg and travel more than 300km. Long-range drones presumably fall under the remit of this agreement that requires member states to apply a 'strong presumption of denial' to their sale.
For Beijing, armed drone exports are just good business, and in more ways than one. China is currently the third largest arms supplier in the world by value, behind the US and Russia. SIPRI reports detail that Chinese exports of major arms increased by 74% between 2007-2011 and 2012-2016. Unmanned aerial vehicles like armed drones are an increasingly important component. As the latest Pentagon report details, such transfers are not only financially advantageous. They are also used to support broader foreign policy goals such as 'securing access to natural resources and export markets, promoting political influence among host country elites, and building support in international forums'.
For its customers, China's arsenal is more accessible and more affordable than that of the US. The Rainbow, for instance, comes in at roughly half the price of its American model. The lower price tag comes with less range and endurance due to a much less powerful engine. This is a common weakness in Chinese aviation which China has reportedly attempted to rectify through industrial espionage - in 2016, a Chinese national 'technology spy' was jailed in the US for trying to obtain an MQ9 engine. Despite these limitations, the Rainbow still packs a highly lethal punch, carrying up to 16 missiles as well as advanced surveillance capabilities.
Demand for weaponised drones is increasing. For the US and other allies, the technology has long been valued for its targeting precision that keeps civilian casualties and economic costs low. As part surveillance machine, drones are responsive to changing conditions, such as the entrance of non-combatants into a blast zone. Drone operations generally pose less risk to civilians and less collateral damage than a traditional strike. This in part explains their popularity with military advisors, politicians and the public.
The proliferation of these weapons, however, presents challenges. A 2014 Foreign Affairs article by Sarah Kreps and Micah Zenko argued that armed drones could increase the possibility of 'military conflicts in disputed areas where the slightest provocation could lead to strife'. These risks only increase when armed drones are used by an increasing number of states, particularly in the same conflict theatre.
An arms race in drones is probably in no one’s interest, except perhaps those with a sales quota to fill.
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/sale-cheap-armed-drones
For sale, cheap: Armed drones
By Jennifer S Hunt
26 July 2017
12:36 AEDT
Once the domain of only a handful of states, weaponised drones are now part of the military arsenal of no less than a dozen countries. That number is set to expand after China announced it would begin to sell and export its most powerful drone, the CH-5 Rainbow, that's modelled on the US MQ 9 Reaper.
China has previously sold armed UAVs to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. The commercially produced CH-5 Rainbows will most likely be headed to states in the Middle East and Africa that are unable to purchase such technology from the United States due to the US Arms Export Control Act and technology transfer restrictions. While the US announced in 2015 that it would be selling weaponisation kits to key NATO allies, US policy dictates that sales are to 'improve the capability of a ... key democratic partner of the United States in ensuring peace and stability around the world', and there are guidelines to avoid 'altering the basic military balance in the region'.
China labours under no such restrictions. Nor is China a signatory to the Missile Technology Control Regime, a voluntary 1987 arms control agreement that applies to the proliferation of airborne technologies that can delivery payloads of 500kg and travel more than 300km. Long-range drones presumably fall under the remit of this agreement that requires member states to apply a 'strong presumption of denial' to their sale.
For Beijing, armed drone exports are just good business, and in more ways than one. China is currently the third largest arms supplier in the world by value, behind the US and Russia. SIPRI reports detail that Chinese exports of major arms increased by 74% between 2007-2011 and 2012-2016. Unmanned aerial vehicles like armed drones are an increasingly important component. As the latest Pentagon report details, such transfers are not only financially advantageous. They are also used to support broader foreign policy goals such as 'securing access to natural resources and export markets, promoting political influence among host country elites, and building support in international forums'.
For its customers, China's arsenal is more accessible and more affordable than that of the US. The Rainbow, for instance, comes in at roughly half the price of its American model. The lower price tag comes with less range and endurance due to a much less powerful engine. This is a common weakness in Chinese aviation which China has reportedly attempted to rectify through industrial espionage - in 2016, a Chinese national 'technology spy' was jailed in the US for trying to obtain an MQ9 engine. Despite these limitations, the Rainbow still packs a highly lethal punch, carrying up to 16 missiles as well as advanced surveillance capabilities.
Demand for weaponised drones is increasing. For the US and other allies, the technology has long been valued for its targeting precision that keeps civilian casualties and economic costs low. As part surveillance machine, drones are responsive to changing conditions, such as the entrance of non-combatants into a blast zone. Drone operations generally pose less risk to civilians and less collateral damage than a traditional strike. This in part explains their popularity with military advisors, politicians and the public.
The proliferation of these weapons, however, presents challenges. A 2014 Foreign Affairs article by Sarah Kreps and Micah Zenko argued that armed drones could increase the possibility of 'military conflicts in disputed areas where the slightest provocation could lead to strife'. These risks only increase when armed drones are used by an increasing number of states, particularly in the same conflict theatre.
An arms race in drones is probably in no one’s interest, except perhaps those with a sales quota to fill.
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.voanews.com/a/venzuelans-begin-nationwide-strike-against-referendum/3959517.html
US Sanctions Officials in Caracas Over Maduro’s Election Plan
Last Updated: July 26, 2017 8:26 PM
VOA News
The United States announced new sanctions Wednesday against 13 individuals connected to the Venezuelan government and state oil company in an effort designed to dissuade President Nicolas Maduro from implementing a controversial constitutional assembly.
A senior official of President Donald Trump’s administration said the individuals targeted include high-ranking current and former officials connected to the Maduro regime, including two Cabinet ministers, the national elections director, the vice president of finance for state-run oil company PDVSA, and the country’s army and police chiefs, among others.
In a statement accompanying the sanctions announcement, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said further sanctions are possible after the election Maduro has called for Sunday.
“Anyone elected to the National Constituent Assembly should know that their role in undermining democratic processes and institutions in Venezuela could expose them to potential U.S. sanctions,” he said.
Opposition forces in Venezuela launched a two-day national strike Wednesday aimed at pressuring Maduro to cancel the upcoming vote. A protest march Friday in the capital, Caracas, will follow the strike.
An opposition member taking part in the protest action, Carlos Jimenez, told VOA that the elections Sunday will do nothing to solve Venezuela’s national crisis. People need food, he said, and improvements are desperately needed in the country’s hospitals.
Maduro said he called for a constitutional assembly to restore order in Venezuela, which has been engulfed by violent clashes between protesters and security forces almost every day since April. More than 100 people have been killed and thousands injured.
Opposition leaders say Maduro intends to assume more authoritarian powers once a constitutional assembly acceptable to him is chosen.
Leopoldo López, an opposition leader, called on Venezuelans Wednesday to continue peaceful street protests, and encouraged the military to ignore government orders to clamp down on activists.
As for the constitutional assembly, López said, “We must stop it with peaceful struggle and organization and deep commitment … to fight for democracy [and] peace.”
Maduro’s opponents took part in a 24-hour work stoppage last Wednesday, in which protesters built roadblocks from tree limbs, wires, trash and furniture.
Maduro has continued to forge ahead with his plans despite the intense opposition. He has followed through with a vow to arrest any new Supreme Court judges appointed by the opposition-dominated National Assembly, with three judges detained by intelligence forces since Saturday.
The protests were sparked by growing anger over Venezuela’s crumbling economy. Once rich with oil, the nation’s revenues have tumbled following the sharp drop in global energy prices; corruption by government officials also is seen as a factor in the economic decline.
Food stocks across the country have dwindled or disappeared, forcing many Venezuelans to cross into neighboring Brazil and Colombia to buy food.
Maduro blames his country’s woes on the United States. He has warned the Organization of American States not to intervene in Venezuela, saying that would surely bring on civil war.
VOA Spanish Service correspondent Alvaro Algarra contributed to this report from Caracas.
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.voanews.com/a/venzuelans-begin-nationwide-strike-against-referendum/3959517.html
US Sanctions Officials in Caracas Over Maduro’s Election Plan
Last Updated: July 26, 2017 8:26 PM
VOA News
The United States announced new sanctions Wednesday against 13 individuals connected to the Venezuelan government and state oil company in an effort designed to dissuade President Nicolas Maduro from implementing a controversial constitutional assembly.
A senior official of President Donald Trump’s administration said the individuals targeted include high-ranking current and former officials connected to the Maduro regime, including two Cabinet ministers, the national elections director, the vice president of finance for state-run oil company PDVSA, and the country’s army and police chiefs, among others.
In a statement accompanying the sanctions announcement, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said further sanctions are possible after the election Maduro has called for Sunday.
“Anyone elected to the National Constituent Assembly should know that their role in undermining democratic processes and institutions in Venezuela could expose them to potential U.S. sanctions,” he said.
Opposition forces in Venezuela launched a two-day national strike Wednesday aimed at pressuring Maduro to cancel the upcoming vote. A protest march Friday in the capital, Caracas, will follow the strike.
An opposition member taking part in the protest action, Carlos Jimenez, told VOA that the elections Sunday will do nothing to solve Venezuela’s national crisis. People need food, he said, and improvements are desperately needed in the country’s hospitals.
Maduro said he called for a constitutional assembly to restore order in Venezuela, which has been engulfed by violent clashes between protesters and security forces almost every day since April. More than 100 people have been killed and thousands injured.
Opposition leaders say Maduro intends to assume more authoritarian powers once a constitutional assembly acceptable to him is chosen.
Leopoldo López, an opposition leader, called on Venezuelans Wednesday to continue peaceful street protests, and encouraged the military to ignore government orders to clamp down on activists.
As for the constitutional assembly, López said, “We must stop it with peaceful struggle and organization and deep commitment … to fight for democracy [and] peace.”
Maduro’s opponents took part in a 24-hour work stoppage last Wednesday, in which protesters built roadblocks from tree limbs, wires, trash and furniture.
Maduro has continued to forge ahead with his plans despite the intense opposition. He has followed through with a vow to arrest any new Supreme Court judges appointed by the opposition-dominated National Assembly, with three judges detained by intelligence forces since Saturday.
The protests were sparked by growing anger over Venezuela’s crumbling economy. Once rich with oil, the nation’s revenues have tumbled following the sharp drop in global energy prices; corruption by government officials also is seen as a factor in the economic decline.
Food stocks across the country have dwindled or disappeared, forcing many Venezuelans to cross into neighboring Brazil and Colombia to buy food.
Maduro blames his country’s woes on the United States. He has warned the Organization of American States not to intervene in Venezuela, saying that would surely bring on civil war.
VOA Spanish Service correspondent Alvaro Algarra contributed to this report from Caracas.
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2017/07/26/a_different_kind_of_reset_in_russia_112469.html
A Different Kind of Reset in Russia
By George Friedman
July 26, 2017
The U.S. Congress is close to passing a resolution increasing sanctions on Russia, along with Iran and North Korea, and it’s likely that President Donald Trump will approve it. The bill passed the House of Representatives with overwhelming and bipartisan support, revised primarily to give some leeway to energy companies involved in joint ventures with Russia. The bill takes authority away from the president to suspend sanctions except in specific cases. Since any rapprochement with Russia would have to include a suspension of sanctions, this effectively takes a great deal of control over U.S.-Russian relations out of the hands of the president and shifts it to Congress. This is not unprecedented; Congress did something similar over Iran during Barack Obama’s presidency.
The new sanctions primarily tighten existing ones and extend them to joint energy ventures. It should be remembered that sanctions on Russia were put in place in 2014 in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in Ukraine. At the time, there were demands that the West take some sort of military action in Ukraine to block Russia. Sanctions were adopted as a more modest alternative. In some sense they were merely a gesture, sanctioning individuals and particular companies rather than Russia as a whole. The view in the West was that this signaled the West’s will. What it signaled to Russia was a lack of will. Neither side budged, and the sanctions went from interim step to permanent reality. What this new sanctions bill does, as far as the United States is concerned, is cement them into place, addressing the most sensitive pressure point in Russia: its energy industry.
The Russians did not see Ukraine as an isolated affair. They saw the various color revolutions in the former Soviet Union as an orchestrated attempt by the West, and particularly the United States, to surround Russia with hostile governments. They saw the U.S. government acting through nongovernmental organizations to stage political movements under the cover of democratization, with the goal of undermining Russian national security. For Moscow, Ukraine was where the most important U.S. and European intrusion into Russia’s sphere of influence was taking place. The Russians alleged that these NGOs were rigging elections and the political systems in target countries.
The Russians didn’t capitulate to the sanctions – doing so would have only emboldened the United States. Instead, they decided to do what they accused the West of doing in their sphere: They attacked Western political processes. The Russians lacked the ability to organize pro-Russian NGOs of any substance in the West. They chose to respond in a very different way, using social media, hacking and more conventional misinformation campaigns. The goal, as in all such campaigns, was to influence the target political system, or failing that, to destabilize it.
The Russians would of course deny this, just as the West would deny that it was using NGOs for strategic purposes. Nevertheless, when you step back and see how the Russians regarded the West’s behavior in Ukraine, and consider that they would have to respond to that and the sanctions, the destabilization and disinformation campaign was the logical outcome.
Sowing Chaos
This sort of campaign has deep roots in Soviet history under the rubric of agitation and propaganda, or agitprop. The Soviets would send agents to recruit notable figures who would then set in motion organizations consisting of what Lenin called “useful idiots” – people who actually believed the propaganda. Through this they hoped to shape the political discourse – and with luck, governments – in the direction they wanted. Failing that, they hoped to create tension and even chaos in some countries.
Vladimir Putin read the primarily U.S. support of human rights and democratic forces as the American version of agitprop. He had to respond, but his response was not traditional. It involved agitation on the internet, theft and forgery of electronic documents, and the quiet recruitment of operatives. We should remember that one of the Soviet Union’s cutest tricks was to create a framework that made it appear that someone wanting nothing to do with them was actually working for them, leaving the victim discredited.
Was Trump or any of his staff linked to this operation? I don’t know, but I do know that it is both possible that some were, and possible that the Russians have made it appear that they were. Western destabilization campaigns built on NGOs, whose members are oblivious to the strategic purpose they are serving, completely and sincerely focused on their moral quest. Russian operations create a vast realm of uncertainty as to what the truth is. On the internet, they created a world of confusion and enveloped the political system with a similar uncertainty.
It is difficult to imagine that they had control over Trump, because if they had sufficient information to control him, they would have protected him from any hint of connection to Russia. There are too many trails leading from the Russians to Trump to believe they had him. Phone calls and meetings would not have taken place, and contact with his staff would not have existed. But perhaps the Russians are getting clumsy, and perhaps they were seeking to discredit an American president. At the very least they hoped to generate a movement in the United States that saw Russia as an ally, and end American pressure on them. They didn’t care who was elected, so long as that person was crippled from the start – Clinton through hacked emails, Trump through random contacts by members of his staff with the Russians. In agitprop, real influence is desirable, but sometimes it’s enough to create mistrust within the target country. What matters for Russia is whether the outcome helps it achieve its foreign policy goals.
The Reset Button
It is possible the Russians wanted Trump to become president, anticipating he would usher in a softer stance on Russia. Or it may be that they wanted to destabilize the U.S. by making it appear that they were instrumental in making him president. In this maze of mirrors, who can tell? But whatever they were doing, it had an obvious end. First, the Russians wanted the sanctions lifted to eliminate some small part of their economic problems. Second, they wanted the U.S. to stop supporting color revolutions in the former Soviet Union and not even fantasize about staging one in Russia. Finally, they wanted the United States and the West to recognize a Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union, or at least most of it.
They managed to create distrust. But with the passage of this bill, there is the first indication that they have failed not only in permanently destabilizing the United States but also in achieving their foreign policy goals. Instead, they generated a massive systemic backlash, with the House voting overwhelmingly for the bill and Trump having no choice but to sign it. The Democrats supported it because it took power over U.S.-Russia relations away from the president and gave Congress a degree of control. The Republicans voted for it because they could not appear to be soft on the Russians. The president will sign it because all the investigations of Russian-generated chaos raised the question of his complicity with Russia, and vetoing would be politically untenable.
The bill leaves Russia in a worse position than before. The sanctions extend themselves to Russia’s most vulnerable point: They make American participation in Russian energy projects – and in finance – more difficult. As important, because congressional approval is required to remove them, they are mostly locked in place. The U.S. has not eliminated the NGOs on Russia’s periphery, and it has certainly conceded nothing to the Russians concerning a sphere of influence.
Most important, the bill brought everyone together on the one thing the Russians didn’t want: suspicion of and hostility toward Russia. It isn’t fair to say this gambit has blown up in Putin’s face, but it has evaporated major support in the U.S. for a rapprochement with Russia. The group in the Democratic Party that supports entente with other nations excepts Russia. The faction in the Republican Party that wants an understanding with Russia has its hands tied and lives in an air of suspicion. Russia, having played its hand, must now return to reconsider the economic situation in its country, a far grimmer reality than manipulating the world.
Those who believe in vast conspiracies miss the truth, which is that manipulating and controlling millions of people is difficult. People are unruly, and even if they don’t see through you, they tend to go in unexpected directions. Agitprop is better at destabilizing the target than in creating a stable client state or ally. The endless mirrors of the spy novel tend to confuse the spies as much as the targets. In the end, no one knows exactly what is going on, and frequently the engineers of manipulation forget their original point. Whatever the intent of all the propaganda on the internet, all the hacks and all the meetings, the Russians are back where they started, except that getting out is harder now than before. Their effort will leave a long-lasting scar on American society and tarnish its president, but the republic will survive.
Now it is the Russians’ move. Whether they see these developments as a failure is unclear. Whether they hold Putin responsible is similarly uncertain. And whether anyone in the U.S. wants to touch the third rail that Russia has become is doubtful. The Germans have expressed concern with the U.S. sanctions, but they are embattled with Britain to the west, Poland to the east and the United States all over. The next play might be Germany and Russia aligning, but that is a huge step for Germany with very unclear benefits. In the meantime, Russia must consider the frost coming from outside and especially from within.
Reprinted with permission from Geopolitical Futures.
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2017/07/26/a_different_kind_of_reset_in_russia_112469.html
A Different Kind of Reset in Russia
By George Friedman
July 26, 2017
The U.S. Congress is close to passing a resolution increasing sanctions on Russia, along with Iran and North Korea, and it’s likely that President Donald Trump will approve it. The bill passed the House of Representatives with overwhelming and bipartisan support, revised primarily to give some leeway to energy companies involved in joint ventures with Russia. The bill takes authority away from the president to suspend sanctions except in specific cases. Since any rapprochement with Russia would have to include a suspension of sanctions, this effectively takes a great deal of control over U.S.-Russian relations out of the hands of the president and shifts it to Congress. This is not unprecedented; Congress did something similar over Iran during Barack Obama’s presidency.
The new sanctions primarily tighten existing ones and extend them to joint energy ventures. It should be remembered that sanctions on Russia were put in place in 2014 in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in Ukraine. At the time, there were demands that the West take some sort of military action in Ukraine to block Russia. Sanctions were adopted as a more modest alternative. In some sense they were merely a gesture, sanctioning individuals and particular companies rather than Russia as a whole. The view in the West was that this signaled the West’s will. What it signaled to Russia was a lack of will. Neither side budged, and the sanctions went from interim step to permanent reality. What this new sanctions bill does, as far as the United States is concerned, is cement them into place, addressing the most sensitive pressure point in Russia: its energy industry.
The Russians did not see Ukraine as an isolated affair. They saw the various color revolutions in the former Soviet Union as an orchestrated attempt by the West, and particularly the United States, to surround Russia with hostile governments. They saw the U.S. government acting through nongovernmental organizations to stage political movements under the cover of democratization, with the goal of undermining Russian national security. For Moscow, Ukraine was where the most important U.S. and European intrusion into Russia’s sphere of influence was taking place. The Russians alleged that these NGOs were rigging elections and the political systems in target countries.
The Russians didn’t capitulate to the sanctions – doing so would have only emboldened the United States. Instead, they decided to do what they accused the West of doing in their sphere: They attacked Western political processes. The Russians lacked the ability to organize pro-Russian NGOs of any substance in the West. They chose to respond in a very different way, using social media, hacking and more conventional misinformation campaigns. The goal, as in all such campaigns, was to influence the target political system, or failing that, to destabilize it.
The Russians would of course deny this, just as the West would deny that it was using NGOs for strategic purposes. Nevertheless, when you step back and see how the Russians regarded the West’s behavior in Ukraine, and consider that they would have to respond to that and the sanctions, the destabilization and disinformation campaign was the logical outcome.
Sowing Chaos
This sort of campaign has deep roots in Soviet history under the rubric of agitation and propaganda, or agitprop. The Soviets would send agents to recruit notable figures who would then set in motion organizations consisting of what Lenin called “useful idiots” – people who actually believed the propaganda. Through this they hoped to shape the political discourse – and with luck, governments – in the direction they wanted. Failing that, they hoped to create tension and even chaos in some countries.
Vladimir Putin read the primarily U.S. support of human rights and democratic forces as the American version of agitprop. He had to respond, but his response was not traditional. It involved agitation on the internet, theft and forgery of electronic documents, and the quiet recruitment of operatives. We should remember that one of the Soviet Union’s cutest tricks was to create a framework that made it appear that someone wanting nothing to do with them was actually working for them, leaving the victim discredited.
Was Trump or any of his staff linked to this operation? I don’t know, but I do know that it is both possible that some were, and possible that the Russians have made it appear that they were. Western destabilization campaigns built on NGOs, whose members are oblivious to the strategic purpose they are serving, completely and sincerely focused on their moral quest. Russian operations create a vast realm of uncertainty as to what the truth is. On the internet, they created a world of confusion and enveloped the political system with a similar uncertainty.
It is difficult to imagine that they had control over Trump, because if they had sufficient information to control him, they would have protected him from any hint of connection to Russia. There are too many trails leading from the Russians to Trump to believe they had him. Phone calls and meetings would not have taken place, and contact with his staff would not have existed. But perhaps the Russians are getting clumsy, and perhaps they were seeking to discredit an American president. At the very least they hoped to generate a movement in the United States that saw Russia as an ally, and end American pressure on them. They didn’t care who was elected, so long as that person was crippled from the start – Clinton through hacked emails, Trump through random contacts by members of his staff with the Russians. In agitprop, real influence is desirable, but sometimes it’s enough to create mistrust within the target country. What matters for Russia is whether the outcome helps it achieve its foreign policy goals.
The Reset Button
It is possible the Russians wanted Trump to become president, anticipating he would usher in a softer stance on Russia. Or it may be that they wanted to destabilize the U.S. by making it appear that they were instrumental in making him president. In this maze of mirrors, who can tell? But whatever they were doing, it had an obvious end. First, the Russians wanted the sanctions lifted to eliminate some small part of their economic problems. Second, they wanted the U.S. to stop supporting color revolutions in the former Soviet Union and not even fantasize about staging one in Russia. Finally, they wanted the United States and the West to recognize a Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union, or at least most of it.
They managed to create distrust. But with the passage of this bill, there is the first indication that they have failed not only in permanently destabilizing the United States but also in achieving their foreign policy goals. Instead, they generated a massive systemic backlash, with the House voting overwhelmingly for the bill and Trump having no choice but to sign it. The Democrats supported it because it took power over U.S.-Russia relations away from the president and gave Congress a degree of control. The Republicans voted for it because they could not appear to be soft on the Russians. The president will sign it because all the investigations of Russian-generated chaos raised the question of his complicity with Russia, and vetoing would be politically untenable.
The bill leaves Russia in a worse position than before. The sanctions extend themselves to Russia’s most vulnerable point: They make American participation in Russian energy projects – and in finance – more difficult. As important, because congressional approval is required to remove them, they are mostly locked in place. The U.S. has not eliminated the NGOs on Russia’s periphery, and it has certainly conceded nothing to the Russians concerning a sphere of influence.
Most important, the bill brought everyone together on the one thing the Russians didn’t want: suspicion of and hostility toward Russia. It isn’t fair to say this gambit has blown up in Putin’s face, but it has evaporated major support in the U.S. for a rapprochement with Russia. The group in the Democratic Party that supports entente with other nations excepts Russia. The faction in the Republican Party that wants an understanding with Russia has its hands tied and lives in an air of suspicion. Russia, having played its hand, must now return to reconsider the economic situation in its country, a far grimmer reality than manipulating the world.
Those who believe in vast conspiracies miss the truth, which is that manipulating and controlling millions of people is difficult. People are unruly, and even if they don’t see through you, they tend to go in unexpected directions. Agitprop is better at destabilizing the target than in creating a stable client state or ally. The endless mirrors of the spy novel tend to confuse the spies as much as the targets. In the end, no one knows exactly what is going on, and frequently the engineers of manipulation forget their original point. Whatever the intent of all the propaganda on the internet, all the hacks and all the meetings, the Russians are back where they started, except that getting out is harder now than before. Their effort will leave a long-lasting scar on American society and tarnish its president, but the republic will survive.
Now it is the Russians’ move. Whether they see these developments as a failure is unclear. Whether they hold Putin responsible is similarly uncertain. And whether anyone in the U.S. wants to touch the third rail that Russia has become is doubtful. The Germans have expressed concern with the U.S. sanctions, but they are embattled with Britain to the west, Poland to the east and the United States all over. The next play might be Germany and Russia aligning, but that is a huge step for Germany with very unclear benefits. In the meantime, Russia must consider the frost coming from outside and especially from within.
Reprinted with permission from Geopolitical Futures.
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http://www.longwarjournal.org/archi...lties-in-taliban-assault-on-southern-base.php
Afghan forces sustain heavy casualties in Taliban assault on southern base
BY BILL ROGGIO | July 26, 2017 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio
The Afghan National Army sustained more than 50 percent casualties as the Taliban assaulted a military base in Khakrez, a contested district in the southern province of Kandahar. The Taliban has been hitting Afghan military bases in northern Kandahar hard since the end of the spring in an effort to regain control of areas lost during the US surge between 2009 and 2011.
The Taliban attacked the base overnight and killed 26 Afghan soldiers and wounded 13 more, the Ministry of Defense confirmed, according to TOLONews. Additionally, eight more soldiers are reported as missing and presumably captured by the Taliban. Fifty-seven of the 82 soldiers stationed at the base were killed, wounded or captured during the fighting.
Afghan officials claim the base is still under the control of the military. The Taliban, in a statement released on its official website, Voice of Jihad, claimed it “overran” the base and killed 70 soldiers and captured six more. Additionally, it claimed to destroy four armored vehicles and three pickup trucks, and captured another armored vehicle as well as weapons and ammunition.
The Taliban has attacked several bases in contested districts in northern Kandahar since the beginning of May in an effort to weaken and drive out Afghan forces from the area. Scores of Afghan troops have been killed in the fighting. [See FDD’s Long War Journal report, Taliban attacks another base in Kandahar.]
The Taliban is successfully utilizing safe havens in the remote areas of Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan, Ghazni, and Zabul to sustain its recent offensives in northern Kandahar. US and Afghan officials have downplayed the Taliban’s control of these remote areas and have described the far-flung districts as “not important” and “less vital areas.”
The Taliban disagrees, stating the remote districts under its control are the lifeblood of its insurgency. “The Mujahideen have opened up operational lines between Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan provinces and can throw its brunt at a time and place of its choosing,” the group stated after its fighters took control of Sangin in neighboring Helmand province in March. [See Taliban controls or contests 40 percent of Afghan districts: SIGAR and Capturing Sangin an ‘important victory,’ Taliban says.]
The Taliban is making inroads into Kandahar province. As of March 26, the Taliban claimed to control four of Kandahar’s 18 districts (Ghorak, Miyanashin, Registan, and Shorabak) and heavily contest five more (Arghastan, Khakrez, Maruf, Maiwand, and Shahwalikot). FDD’s Long War Journal assesses the Taliban’s claims of control to be credible. Of the remaining nine districts, the Taliban says it does “not control any specific area” but “only carryout [sic] guerilla attacks.” If the Taliban was exaggerating its control in Kandahar, it likely would claim to control or contest at least some areas of districts such as Panjwai and Zhari. Taliban founder and its first emir, Mullah Omar, founded the Taliban in Panjwai, and Zhari is considered the spiritual home of the group.
Kandahar is a strategic province for the Taliban and is considered to be the birthplace of the group. The province borders Baluchistan, the Pakistani province that serves as the group’s safe haven as well as a prime recruitment center. Kandahar is also a key to the production and distribution of opium, a major source of the Taliban’s income.
Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archi...lties-in-taliban-assault-on-southern-base.php
Afghan forces sustain heavy casualties in Taliban assault on southern base
BY BILL ROGGIO | July 26, 2017 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio
The Afghan National Army sustained more than 50 percent casualties as the Taliban assaulted a military base in Khakrez, a contested district in the southern province of Kandahar. The Taliban has been hitting Afghan military bases in northern Kandahar hard since the end of the spring in an effort to regain control of areas lost during the US surge between 2009 and 2011.
The Taliban attacked the base overnight and killed 26 Afghan soldiers and wounded 13 more, the Ministry of Defense confirmed, according to TOLONews. Additionally, eight more soldiers are reported as missing and presumably captured by the Taliban. Fifty-seven of the 82 soldiers stationed at the base were killed, wounded or captured during the fighting.
Afghan officials claim the base is still under the control of the military. The Taliban, in a statement released on its official website, Voice of Jihad, claimed it “overran” the base and killed 70 soldiers and captured six more. Additionally, it claimed to destroy four armored vehicles and three pickup trucks, and captured another armored vehicle as well as weapons and ammunition.
The Taliban has attacked several bases in contested districts in northern Kandahar since the beginning of May in an effort to weaken and drive out Afghan forces from the area. Scores of Afghan troops have been killed in the fighting. [See FDD’s Long War Journal report, Taliban attacks another base in Kandahar.]
The Taliban is successfully utilizing safe havens in the remote areas of Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan, Ghazni, and Zabul to sustain its recent offensives in northern Kandahar. US and Afghan officials have downplayed the Taliban’s control of these remote areas and have described the far-flung districts as “not important” and “less vital areas.”
The Taliban disagrees, stating the remote districts under its control are the lifeblood of its insurgency. “The Mujahideen have opened up operational lines between Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan provinces and can throw its brunt at a time and place of its choosing,” the group stated after its fighters took control of Sangin in neighboring Helmand province in March. [See Taliban controls or contests 40 percent of Afghan districts: SIGAR and Capturing Sangin an ‘important victory,’ Taliban says.]
The Taliban is making inroads into Kandahar province. As of March 26, the Taliban claimed to control four of Kandahar’s 18 districts (Ghorak, Miyanashin, Registan, and Shorabak) and heavily contest five more (Arghastan, Khakrez, Maruf, Maiwand, and Shahwalikot). FDD’s Long War Journal assesses the Taliban’s claims of control to be credible. Of the remaining nine districts, the Taliban says it does “not control any specific area” but “only carryout [sic] guerilla attacks.” If the Taliban was exaggerating its control in Kandahar, it likely would claim to control or contest at least some areas of districts such as Panjwai and Zhari. Taliban founder and its first emir, Mullah Omar, founded the Taliban in Panjwai, and Zhari is considered the spiritual home of the group.
Kandahar is a strategic province for the Taliban and is considered to be the birthplace of the group. The province borders Baluchistan, the Pakistani province that serves as the group’s safe haven as well as a prime recruitment center. Kandahar is also a key to the production and distribution of opium, a major source of the Taliban’s income.
Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/ten-lessons-north-koreas-nuclear-program/
Ten lessons from North Korea’s nuclear program
27 Jul 2017|Richard N. Haass
North Korea has produced a number of nuclear warheads and is developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering them around the world. Many governments are debating how to prevent or slow further advances in North Korea’s capacity and what should be done if such efforts fail.
These are obviously important questions, but they are not the only ones. It also is important to understand how North Korea has succeeded in advancing its nuclear and missile programs as far as it has, despite decades of international efforts. It may be too late to affect North Korea’s trajectory decisively; but it is not too late to learn from the experience. What follows are 10 lessons that we ignore at our peril.
First, a government that possesses basic scientific know-how and modern manufacturing capability, and is determined to develop a number of rudimentary nuclear weapons, will most likely succeed, sooner or later. Much of the relevant information is widely available.
Second, help from the outside can be discouraged and limited but not shut down. Black markets exist anytime there is a profit to be made. Certain governments will facilitate such markets, despite their obligation not to do so.
Third, there are limits to what economic sanctions can be expected to accomplish. Although sanctions may increase the cost of producing nuclear weapons, history suggests that governments are willing to pay a significant price if they place a high enough value on having them. There is also evidence that some or all of the sanctions will eventually disappear, as other governments come to accept the reality of a country’s nuclear status and choose to focus on other objectives. That is what happened in the case of India.
Fourth, governments are not always willing to put global considerations (in this case, opposition to nuclear proliferation) ahead of what they see as their immediate strategic interests. China opposes proliferation, but not as much as it wants to maintain a divided Korean peninsula and ensure that North Korea remains a stable buffer state on its borders. This limits any economic pressure China is prepared to place on North Korea over its nuclear efforts. The United States opposed Pakistan’s development of nuclear weapons, but was slow to act, owing to its desire in the 1980s for Pakistani support in fighting the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan.
Fifth, some three-quarters of a century since they were first and last used, and a quarter-century after the Cold War’s end, nuclear weapons are judged to have value. This calculation is based on security more than prestige.
Decades ago, Israel made such a calculation in the face of Arab threats to eliminate the Jewish state. More recently, Ukraine, Libya, and Iraq all gave up their nuclear weapons programs either voluntarily or under pressure. Subsequently, Ukraine was invaded by Russia, Iraq by the US, and Libya by the US and several of its European partners. Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya were ousted.
North Korea has avoided such a fate, and the third generation of the Kim family rules with an iron fist. It is doubtful that the lesson is lost on Kim Jong-un.
Sixth, the Non-Proliferation Treaty—the 1970 accord that underpins global efforts to discourage the spread of nuclear weapons beyond the five countries (the US, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France) that are recognised as legitimate nuclear weapons states for an unspecified but limited period of time—is inadequate. The NPT is a voluntary agreement. Countries are not obliged to sign it, and they may withdraw from it, with no penalty, if they change their minds. Inspections meant to confirm compliance are conducted largely on the basis of information provided by host governments, which have been known not to reveal all.
Seventh, new diplomatic efforts, like the recent ban on all nuclear weapons organised by the United Nations General Assembly, will have no discernable effect. Such pacts are the modern-day equivalent of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, which outlawed war.
Eighth, there is a major gap in the international system. There is a clear norm against the spread of nuclear weapons, but there is no consensus or treaty on what, if anything, is to be done once a country develops or acquires nuclear weapons. The legally and diplomatically controversial options of preventive strikes (against a gathering threat) and preemptive strikes (against an imminent threat) make them easier to propose than to implement.
Ninth, the alternatives for dealing with nuclear proliferation do not improve with the passage of time. In the early 1990s, the US considered using military force to nip the North Korean program in the bud, but held off for fear of triggering a second Korean War. That remains the case today, when any force used would need to be much larger in scope and uncertain to succeed.
Finally, not every problem can be solved. Some can only be managed. It is much too soon, for example, to conclude that Iran will not one day develop nuclear weapons. The 2015 accord delayed that risk, but by no means eliminated it. It remains to be seen what can be done vis-à-vis North Korea. Managing such challenges may not be satisfying, but often it is the most that can be hoped for.
AUTHOR
Richard N. Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author, most recently, of A world in disarray: American foreign policy and the crisis of the old order. This article is presented in partnership with Project Syndicate © 2017. Image courtesy of .
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/ten-lessons-north-koreas-nuclear-program/
Ten lessons from North Korea’s nuclear program
27 Jul 2017|Richard N. Haass
North Korea has produced a number of nuclear warheads and is developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering them around the world. Many governments are debating how to prevent or slow further advances in North Korea’s capacity and what should be done if such efforts fail.
These are obviously important questions, but they are not the only ones. It also is important to understand how North Korea has succeeded in advancing its nuclear and missile programs as far as it has, despite decades of international efforts. It may be too late to affect North Korea’s trajectory decisively; but it is not too late to learn from the experience. What follows are 10 lessons that we ignore at our peril.
First, a government that possesses basic scientific know-how and modern manufacturing capability, and is determined to develop a number of rudimentary nuclear weapons, will most likely succeed, sooner or later. Much of the relevant information is widely available.
Second, help from the outside can be discouraged and limited but not shut down. Black markets exist anytime there is a profit to be made. Certain governments will facilitate such markets, despite their obligation not to do so.
Third, there are limits to what economic sanctions can be expected to accomplish. Although sanctions may increase the cost of producing nuclear weapons, history suggests that governments are willing to pay a significant price if they place a high enough value on having them. There is also evidence that some or all of the sanctions will eventually disappear, as other governments come to accept the reality of a country’s nuclear status and choose to focus on other objectives. That is what happened in the case of India.
Fourth, governments are not always willing to put global considerations (in this case, opposition to nuclear proliferation) ahead of what they see as their immediate strategic interests. China opposes proliferation, but not as much as it wants to maintain a divided Korean peninsula and ensure that North Korea remains a stable buffer state on its borders. This limits any economic pressure China is prepared to place on North Korea over its nuclear efforts. The United States opposed Pakistan’s development of nuclear weapons, but was slow to act, owing to its desire in the 1980s for Pakistani support in fighting the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan.
Fifth, some three-quarters of a century since they were first and last used, and a quarter-century after the Cold War’s end, nuclear weapons are judged to have value. This calculation is based on security more than prestige.
Decades ago, Israel made such a calculation in the face of Arab threats to eliminate the Jewish state. More recently, Ukraine, Libya, and Iraq all gave up their nuclear weapons programs either voluntarily or under pressure. Subsequently, Ukraine was invaded by Russia, Iraq by the US, and Libya by the US and several of its European partners. Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya were ousted.
North Korea has avoided such a fate, and the third generation of the Kim family rules with an iron fist. It is doubtful that the lesson is lost on Kim Jong-un.
Sixth, the Non-Proliferation Treaty—the 1970 accord that underpins global efforts to discourage the spread of nuclear weapons beyond the five countries (the US, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France) that are recognised as legitimate nuclear weapons states for an unspecified but limited period of time—is inadequate. The NPT is a voluntary agreement. Countries are not obliged to sign it, and they may withdraw from it, with no penalty, if they change their minds. Inspections meant to confirm compliance are conducted largely on the basis of information provided by host governments, which have been known not to reveal all.
Seventh, new diplomatic efforts, like the recent ban on all nuclear weapons organised by the United Nations General Assembly, will have no discernable effect. Such pacts are the modern-day equivalent of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, which outlawed war.
Eighth, there is a major gap in the international system. There is a clear norm against the spread of nuclear weapons, but there is no consensus or treaty on what, if anything, is to be done once a country develops or acquires nuclear weapons. The legally and diplomatically controversial options of preventive strikes (against a gathering threat) and preemptive strikes (against an imminent threat) make them easier to propose than to implement.
Ninth, the alternatives for dealing with nuclear proliferation do not improve with the passage of time. In the early 1990s, the US considered using military force to nip the North Korean program in the bud, but held off for fear of triggering a second Korean War. That remains the case today, when any force used would need to be much larger in scope and uncertain to succeed.
Finally, not every problem can be solved. Some can only be managed. It is much too soon, for example, to conclude that Iran will not one day develop nuclear weapons. The 2015 accord delayed that risk, but by no means eliminated it. It remains to be seen what can be done vis-à-vis North Korea. Managing such challenges may not be satisfying, but often it is the most that can be hoped for.
AUTHOR
Richard N. Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author, most recently, of A world in disarray: American foreign policy and the crisis of the old order. This article is presented in partnership with Project Syndicate © 2017. Image courtesy of .
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.hoover.org/research/middle-east-terrorism-forever
Issue 43
The Middle East: Terrorism Forever?
by Bing West
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Image credit: Poster Collection, US3425, Hoover Institution Archives.
The short response is yes. Crime forever? Also, yes. Turbulence, terror, pestilence, famine, love, procreation, taxes, families, sunsets, rain, shine, etc.—all are components of the human condition. There is no arc toward perfection in human nature.
The jihadists will remain our mortal enemy; no negotiations or deterrence theories will alter their murderous intent. Unlike in the case of the Vietnam War, there is no strong, unified domestic political opposition to waging a low-level war against terrorists. The mainstream press acknowledges that the jihadists are abhorrent. We are at war against Islamist terrorists. As Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has repeatedly said, the goal should be their annihilation.
Our martial resources for achieving that goal, however, should be modest and no time horizon should be set. Promises or assurances pointing toward to a “political endgame” should be avoided. We should pace ourselves and run a steady course. Gradually the jihadist disease within the Islam religion will run its course and be rejected or at least largely contained. That will take decades, given the despotic or chaotic nature of far too many Arab governments. In essence, our Mideast strategy is to remain a pivotal player, not to “win” the war against jihadist terrorists by maintaining a large military force and heavy diplomatic/political influence in Arab capitals, as we did in South Korea.
Our military strategy in Iraq and Syria appears sensible. We are shrewdly employing our relative advantages—extraordinary overhead surveillance, sound logistics, precision firepower, and experienced advisers and fire control teams. At the same time, we are largely avoiding American casualties.
Under President Obama, our diplomatic strategy focused upon reaching an accord—a détente—with Iran. Our traditional Sunni de facto allies—Jordan, Egypt, and the Gulf States—were spurned. Indeed, they were told to “share the neighborhood” with a Shiite Iranian theocracy intent upon regional sedition and upheaval. President Trump has pivoted back to our Sunni friends.
Granted, the political aftermath in Iraq will be messy. Iran is emerging with more influence than the U.S., and the Sunnis in Iraq will continue to be mistreated. In Syria, the Assad regime will persist, and Russian and Iran will consolidate power inside the Assad/Alawite enclave. Gradually, all overt territorial holdings of the Islamic State—cities like Raqqa—will be seized. The Sunni eastern sector of Syria will be an impoverished, violence-wracked ward of some Arab and Kurdish martial coalition, aided in the background by the U.S. The de facto Kurdistan, partially in Iraq and partially in Syria, will remain at odds with Turkey and Iraq. In none of these cases will America take the lead as the key decision-maker.
We can sustain interminable “skirmishing” in the Middle East due to geography and military prowess. Most of the countries consist of open terrain, deserts and plains devoid of vegetation. Most of the populations live in villages or urban centers, with vehicles essential for transportation. Our CIA has not been given the public credit it deserves for establishing vast networks of informers. Combining open terrain with information about the transit of terrorists ensures systematic destruction by our drones loitering overhead. Taking the next step of bringing forward small artillery bases with our advisers and fire control teams several hundred meters behind the frontlines has resulted in the gradual but inevitable destruction of the Islamic State in Mesopotamia. We should not extend this second step to other states like Yemen, Somalia, Chad, and Libya. However, we obviously should undertake air strikes and ground raids whenever our commanders perceive targets of opportunity.
Amongst all the boiling cauldrons in the Middle East, remote and medieval Afghanistan presents the most vexing challenge. Our goal is not to permit an overt terrorist sanctuary or safe haven. That is an elastic concept. Put bluntly, our baseline objective is not to permit the Taliban to seize major cities or to drive us from Kabul, as we were driven from the roof of our embassy in Saigon in 1975. Unlike in Mesopotamia, the terrain works against us. The vast mountain ranges and the “Green Zone” along the major rivers provide shelter for the hardy Taliban who walk and hide in small groups to coordinate attacks.
The challenge we face is complex. Afghans have a scant concept of nationalism. Tribal identity is pervasive, with the Pashtuns comprising the Taliban core and with most Afghan soldiers belonging to other tribes. The central government lacks cohesion, with no charismatic leaders. The opium/heroin trade provides half of GDP, with corruption affecting all levels from the farmer to the ministries in Kabul. Pakistan is determined to continue with its policy of providing the Taliban both shelter and aid. President Trump, as our commander-in-chief, has made clear his impatience and exasperation with this civil war that sputters on and on.
The Taliban are so inextricably entangled with other Islamists that a political compromise seems no more possible than it was with the North Vietnamese during the Nixon/Kissinger years. Under current conditions, a political settlement would be a fig leaf, unlikely to provide even a “decent interval” before a bloody and total collapse. Thus it is likely we will commit several thousand more troops, using roughly the model now employed in Iraq and Syria. It will not, due to the terrain and other factors mentioned above, be as effective.
America’s major challenge is not with violence and terrorism in the Middle East. Conditions there are not critical to our future. Some problems you don’t solve. You mitigate them and apply resources and strategies to avoid catastrophe.
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.hoover.org/research/middle-east-terrorism-forever
Issue 43
The Middle East: Terrorism Forever?
by Bing West
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Image credit: Poster Collection, US3425, Hoover Institution Archives.
The short response is yes. Crime forever? Also, yes. Turbulence, terror, pestilence, famine, love, procreation, taxes, families, sunsets, rain, shine, etc.—all are components of the human condition. There is no arc toward perfection in human nature.
The jihadists will remain our mortal enemy; no negotiations or deterrence theories will alter their murderous intent. Unlike in the case of the Vietnam War, there is no strong, unified domestic political opposition to waging a low-level war against terrorists. The mainstream press acknowledges that the jihadists are abhorrent. We are at war against Islamist terrorists. As Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has repeatedly said, the goal should be their annihilation.
Our martial resources for achieving that goal, however, should be modest and no time horizon should be set. Promises or assurances pointing toward to a “political endgame” should be avoided. We should pace ourselves and run a steady course. Gradually the jihadist disease within the Islam religion will run its course and be rejected or at least largely contained. That will take decades, given the despotic or chaotic nature of far too many Arab governments. In essence, our Mideast strategy is to remain a pivotal player, not to “win” the war against jihadist terrorists by maintaining a large military force and heavy diplomatic/political influence in Arab capitals, as we did in South Korea.
Our military strategy in Iraq and Syria appears sensible. We are shrewdly employing our relative advantages—extraordinary overhead surveillance, sound logistics, precision firepower, and experienced advisers and fire control teams. At the same time, we are largely avoiding American casualties.
Under President Obama, our diplomatic strategy focused upon reaching an accord—a détente—with Iran. Our traditional Sunni de facto allies—Jordan, Egypt, and the Gulf States—were spurned. Indeed, they were told to “share the neighborhood” with a Shiite Iranian theocracy intent upon regional sedition and upheaval. President Trump has pivoted back to our Sunni friends.
Granted, the political aftermath in Iraq will be messy. Iran is emerging with more influence than the U.S., and the Sunnis in Iraq will continue to be mistreated. In Syria, the Assad regime will persist, and Russian and Iran will consolidate power inside the Assad/Alawite enclave. Gradually, all overt territorial holdings of the Islamic State—cities like Raqqa—will be seized. The Sunni eastern sector of Syria will be an impoverished, violence-wracked ward of some Arab and Kurdish martial coalition, aided in the background by the U.S. The de facto Kurdistan, partially in Iraq and partially in Syria, will remain at odds with Turkey and Iraq. In none of these cases will America take the lead as the key decision-maker.
We can sustain interminable “skirmishing” in the Middle East due to geography and military prowess. Most of the countries consist of open terrain, deserts and plains devoid of vegetation. Most of the populations live in villages or urban centers, with vehicles essential for transportation. Our CIA has not been given the public credit it deserves for establishing vast networks of informers. Combining open terrain with information about the transit of terrorists ensures systematic destruction by our drones loitering overhead. Taking the next step of bringing forward small artillery bases with our advisers and fire control teams several hundred meters behind the frontlines has resulted in the gradual but inevitable destruction of the Islamic State in Mesopotamia. We should not extend this second step to other states like Yemen, Somalia, Chad, and Libya. However, we obviously should undertake air strikes and ground raids whenever our commanders perceive targets of opportunity.
Amongst all the boiling cauldrons in the Middle East, remote and medieval Afghanistan presents the most vexing challenge. Our goal is not to permit an overt terrorist sanctuary or safe haven. That is an elastic concept. Put bluntly, our baseline objective is not to permit the Taliban to seize major cities or to drive us from Kabul, as we were driven from the roof of our embassy in Saigon in 1975. Unlike in Mesopotamia, the terrain works against us. The vast mountain ranges and the “Green Zone” along the major rivers provide shelter for the hardy Taliban who walk and hide in small groups to coordinate attacks.
The challenge we face is complex. Afghans have a scant concept of nationalism. Tribal identity is pervasive, with the Pashtuns comprising the Taliban core and with most Afghan soldiers belonging to other tribes. The central government lacks cohesion, with no charismatic leaders. The opium/heroin trade provides half of GDP, with corruption affecting all levels from the farmer to the ministries in Kabul. Pakistan is determined to continue with its policy of providing the Taliban both shelter and aid. President Trump, as our commander-in-chief, has made clear his impatience and exasperation with this civil war that sputters on and on.
The Taliban are so inextricably entangled with other Islamists that a political compromise seems no more possible than it was with the North Vietnamese during the Nixon/Kissinger years. Under current conditions, a political settlement would be a fig leaf, unlikely to provide even a “decent interval” before a bloody and total collapse. Thus it is likely we will commit several thousand more troops, using roughly the model now employed in Iraq and Syria. It will not, due to the terrain and other factors mentioned above, be as effective.
America’s major challenge is not with violence and terrorism in the Middle East. Conditions there are not critical to our future. Some problems you don’t solve. You mitigate them and apply resources and strategies to avoid catastrophe.
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ng-in-the-gulf-crisis/?utm_term=.25f4d5c1db66
WorldViews Analysis
The strange role North Korea is playing in the Persian Gulf crisis
By Adam Taylor July 26 at 6:30 PM
In the ongoing diplomatic crisis in the Persian Gulf between Qatar and a Saudi-led bloc, an unusual role is being played by a country thousands of miles away: North Korea.
In recent days, both sides of the dispute have been accused of having an illicit economic relationship with the isolated nation — a touchy subject in Washington, given Pyongyang's advancing nuclear weapons program and antagonism toward the United States.
Last week, reports detailing an alleged arms deal worth $100 million between North Korea and a company in the United Arab Emirates resurfaced online. Then on Tuesday, UAE rival Qatar was accused of having a “dangerous” relationship with North Korea in an op-ed published in the Hill newspaper.
[North Korea could cross ICBM threshold next year, U.S. officials warn in new assessment]
There's at least some truth to both allegations. Details of the sale of North Korean weapons to an Emirati company were revealed in a 2015 leak of UAE government emails first reported by the New York Times; the emails showed that Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United States, was summoned to a meeting with the State Department because of the deal.
It's true, too, that Qatar is believed to be among a number of nations that use North Korean migrant workers. There are an estimated 3,000 such workers in the country, many helping to build facilities for the 2022 World Cup.
But both reports also fit into an ongoing propaganda war in the Persian Gulf. The UAE link to North Korea resurfaced thanks to the Washington-based Gulf Affairs Institute — a think tank ran by Saudi dissident Ali al-Ahmed — and was promoted by a number of Qatar-leaning publications. Meanwhile, the Hill op-ed was written by Salman Al-Ansari of the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee, a Saudi lobbying group.
[Sen. Bob Corker explains decision to possibly strip North Korea from Russia sanctions bill]
With the Trump administration seemingly split on how to deal with the crisis, extensive efforts are being made to influence the opinion of U.S. lawmakers and the general public.
“I think that a key objective of the media campaign, for all parties, is to win over hearts and minds in the Beltway echo chamber, which is why we are seeing the proliferation of stories guaranteed to resonate strongest among decision-makers,” said Kristian Ulrichsen, a Persian Gulf expert at the U.S.-based Baker Institute for Public Policy, pointing to a recent documentary about alleged Qatari links to al-Qaeda.
Right now, North Korea is an especially volatile issue. Earlier this week, The Washington Post reported that U.S. officials expect Pyongyang to be able to build a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile as early as next year — a possibility that some consider a direct threat to the mainland United States.
[Not so isolated: North Korea’s elite uses Gmail, Facebook and iTunes]
The link between the conflict in the gulf and North Korean weapons isn't completely arbitrary, expert say. “These articles need to be placed within the context of the information war, but at the same time, this point regarding is extremely serious,” said Theodore Karasik, a senior adviser with Washington-based Gulf State Analytics.
The Trump administration has pushed countries to restrict their economic relationship with North Korea in line with sanctions. While particular attention has been paid to China, North Korea's most significant trading partner, lower-profile relationships have also been targeted. In a recent announcement of sanctions on Sudan, the State Department explicitly mentioned North Korea and suggested that the African nation was not fully committed to implementing United Nations sanctions on the country — an apparent reference to defense trade agreements made between Khartoum and Pyongyang.
Andrea Berger, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, says that it is possible that the UAE or Qatar could face a similar U.S. response if the issue catches steam. “The U.S. could fire warning shots by sanctioning additional individuals or companies in the region acting in breach of U.S. or U.N. sanctions on North Korea,” Berger said. “Behind the scenes, Washington may also threaten more substantial and visible penalties if those warnings are not swiftly heeded.”
If the United States wants to be consistent in doing so, however, it may have to look outside the lens of the Qatar. The strongest economic relationship for North Korea among the Arab states of the Persian Gulf states is most likely Kuwait, a country that has tried to stay out of the dispute and is an important U.S. ally in the region.
While Washington has long looked the other way, two interlocking crises half the world away may force the Trump administration to reconsider.
More on WorldViews
UAE touts film linking rival Qatar to 9/11 attacks
The U.S. extended sanctions on Sudan — but North Korea might be the real target
4 Comments
Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University. Follow @mradamtaylor
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ng-in-the-gulf-crisis/?utm_term=.25f4d5c1db66
WorldViews Analysis
The strange role North Korea is playing in the Persian Gulf crisis
By Adam Taylor July 26 at 6:30 PM
In the ongoing diplomatic crisis in the Persian Gulf between Qatar and a Saudi-led bloc, an unusual role is being played by a country thousands of miles away: North Korea.
In recent days, both sides of the dispute have been accused of having an illicit economic relationship with the isolated nation — a touchy subject in Washington, given Pyongyang's advancing nuclear weapons program and antagonism toward the United States.
Last week, reports detailing an alleged arms deal worth $100 million between North Korea and a company in the United Arab Emirates resurfaced online. Then on Tuesday, UAE rival Qatar was accused of having a “dangerous” relationship with North Korea in an op-ed published in the Hill newspaper.
[North Korea could cross ICBM threshold next year, U.S. officials warn in new assessment]
There's at least some truth to both allegations. Details of the sale of North Korean weapons to an Emirati company were revealed in a 2015 leak of UAE government emails first reported by the New York Times; the emails showed that Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United States, was summoned to a meeting with the State Department because of the deal.
It's true, too, that Qatar is believed to be among a number of nations that use North Korean migrant workers. There are an estimated 3,000 such workers in the country, many helping to build facilities for the 2022 World Cup.
But both reports also fit into an ongoing propaganda war in the Persian Gulf. The UAE link to North Korea resurfaced thanks to the Washington-based Gulf Affairs Institute — a think tank ran by Saudi dissident Ali al-Ahmed — and was promoted by a number of Qatar-leaning publications. Meanwhile, the Hill op-ed was written by Salman Al-Ansari of the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee, a Saudi lobbying group.
[Sen. Bob Corker explains decision to possibly strip North Korea from Russia sanctions bill]
With the Trump administration seemingly split on how to deal with the crisis, extensive efforts are being made to influence the opinion of U.S. lawmakers and the general public.
“I think that a key objective of the media campaign, for all parties, is to win over hearts and minds in the Beltway echo chamber, which is why we are seeing the proliferation of stories guaranteed to resonate strongest among decision-makers,” said Kristian Ulrichsen, a Persian Gulf expert at the U.S.-based Baker Institute for Public Policy, pointing to a recent documentary about alleged Qatari links to al-Qaeda.
Right now, North Korea is an especially volatile issue. Earlier this week, The Washington Post reported that U.S. officials expect Pyongyang to be able to build a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile as early as next year — a possibility that some consider a direct threat to the mainland United States.
[Not so isolated: North Korea’s elite uses Gmail, Facebook and iTunes]
The link between the conflict in the gulf and North Korean weapons isn't completely arbitrary, expert say. “These articles need to be placed within the context of the information war, but at the same time, this point regarding is extremely serious,” said Theodore Karasik, a senior adviser with Washington-based Gulf State Analytics.
The Trump administration has pushed countries to restrict their economic relationship with North Korea in line with sanctions. While particular attention has been paid to China, North Korea's most significant trading partner, lower-profile relationships have also been targeted. In a recent announcement of sanctions on Sudan, the State Department explicitly mentioned North Korea and suggested that the African nation was not fully committed to implementing United Nations sanctions on the country — an apparent reference to defense trade agreements made between Khartoum and Pyongyang.
Andrea Berger, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, says that it is possible that the UAE or Qatar could face a similar U.S. response if the issue catches steam. “The U.S. could fire warning shots by sanctioning additional individuals or companies in the region acting in breach of U.S. or U.N. sanctions on North Korea,” Berger said. “Behind the scenes, Washington may also threaten more substantial and visible penalties if those warnings are not swiftly heeded.”
If the United States wants to be consistent in doing so, however, it may have to look outside the lens of the Qatar. The strongest economic relationship for North Korea among the Arab states of the Persian Gulf states is most likely Kuwait, a country that has tried to stay out of the dispute and is an important U.S. ally in the region.
While Washington has long looked the other way, two interlocking crises half the world away may force the Trump administration to reconsider.
More on WorldViews
UAE touts film linking rival Qatar to 9/11 attacks
The U.S. extended sanctions on Sudan — but North Korea might be the real target
4 Comments
Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University. Follow @mradamtaylor
TammyinWI
Talk is cheap
Senate sends Russia sanctions to Trump's desk (*fair use)
(CNN) — The Senate on Thursday passed sweeping legislation slapping new sanctions on Russia and rebuking President Donald Trump in a bill that now will head to the President's desk.
The bill, which gives Congress new powers to block Trump from easing sanctions against Moscow, passed the Senate 98-2. It passed the House on Tuesday 419-3.
The measure is one of the first major bipartisan pieces of legislation passed during Trump's presidency, and it effectively ties the hands of the President when it comes to easing Russia sanctions.
The bill also includes new sanctions on Iran and North Korea, and was a product of lengthy negotiations between the House and Senate that devolved into finger-pointing between the two parties and chambers several times before an agreement was finalized.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that the President would review the sanctions bill. She did not say whether Trump would sign or veto the measure.
"We'll review that and let you know what we do," she told reporters Thursday night outside the White House.
RELATED: Deal reached to send Russia sanctions bill to Trump's desk
Lawmakers who spearheaded the sanctions deal, however, were highly skeptical that Trump would actually veto a bill that passed with overwhelming veto-proof majorities in both chambers.
"I had a conversation with the President just in the last few days, I've talked to (Secretary of State Rex) Tillerson Tuesday night. I don't think that's real," said Senate foreign relations committee Chairman Bob Corker. "I just can't imagine -- you look at the vote count."
Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, said there was no question Congress would override a veto.
"This bill gives the President a strong hand. Vetoing the bill is a weaker hand," Cardin told CNN. "If he vetoes the bill, it shows presidential weakness toward Russia."
While the sanctions bill is clearly headed to Trump's desk -- once the White House formally receives it he will have 10 days to sign or veto the measure -- its fate was murky just a day earlier.
Corker and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy were fighting over the North Korean sanctions, after McCarthy added it to the bill before the House passed it, against Corker's wishes.
Corker had threatened to strip out the North Korean portion, but that would have likely pushed the bill beyond the August congressional recess, which both Democrats and Republicans hoped to avoid.
Democrats and some Republicans said the bill needed to pass now amid concerns the White House was considering returning two Russian compounds in New York and Maryland seized by the Obama administration in December in response to election interference.
Corker and McCarthy agreed to pass the bill with the House's North Korean sanctions included, and in exchange, the House agreed to take up any future North Korean sanctions bills that go through the Senate.
Corker and other senators want to include congressional review over North Korean sanctions, similar to the provision in the current bill that gives Congress veto power over easing Russia sanctions.
Before the fight over North Korea, the sanctions bill languished in the House for weeks amid multiple procedural disputes, which prompted Democrats accusing Republicans of stalling on behalf of the White House.
The final bill did include several tweaks made to the Russia sanctions to address concerns from energy and other US companies, as well as European countries.
But several European countries still have concerns, particularly over a natural gas pipeline between Germany and Russia.
Russia has also threatened to retaliate, and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday called the new sanctions "illegal under international law."
video at link:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/27/politics/russian-sanctions-passes-senate/index.html
(CNN) — The Senate on Thursday passed sweeping legislation slapping new sanctions on Russia and rebuking President Donald Trump in a bill that now will head to the President's desk.
The bill, which gives Congress new powers to block Trump from easing sanctions against Moscow, passed the Senate 98-2. It passed the House on Tuesday 419-3.
The measure is one of the first major bipartisan pieces of legislation passed during Trump's presidency, and it effectively ties the hands of the President when it comes to easing Russia sanctions.
The bill also includes new sanctions on Iran and North Korea, and was a product of lengthy negotiations between the House and Senate that devolved into finger-pointing between the two parties and chambers several times before an agreement was finalized.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that the President would review the sanctions bill. She did not say whether Trump would sign or veto the measure.
"We'll review that and let you know what we do," she told reporters Thursday night outside the White House.
RELATED: Deal reached to send Russia sanctions bill to Trump's desk
Lawmakers who spearheaded the sanctions deal, however, were highly skeptical that Trump would actually veto a bill that passed with overwhelming veto-proof majorities in both chambers.
"I had a conversation with the President just in the last few days, I've talked to (Secretary of State Rex) Tillerson Tuesday night. I don't think that's real," said Senate foreign relations committee Chairman Bob Corker. "I just can't imagine -- you look at the vote count."
Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, said there was no question Congress would override a veto.
"This bill gives the President a strong hand. Vetoing the bill is a weaker hand," Cardin told CNN. "If he vetoes the bill, it shows presidential weakness toward Russia."
While the sanctions bill is clearly headed to Trump's desk -- once the White House formally receives it he will have 10 days to sign or veto the measure -- its fate was murky just a day earlier.
Corker and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy were fighting over the North Korean sanctions, after McCarthy added it to the bill before the House passed it, against Corker's wishes.
Corker had threatened to strip out the North Korean portion, but that would have likely pushed the bill beyond the August congressional recess, which both Democrats and Republicans hoped to avoid.
Democrats and some Republicans said the bill needed to pass now amid concerns the White House was considering returning two Russian compounds in New York and Maryland seized by the Obama administration in December in response to election interference.
Corker and McCarthy agreed to pass the bill with the House's North Korean sanctions included, and in exchange, the House agreed to take up any future North Korean sanctions bills that go through the Senate.
Corker and other senators want to include congressional review over North Korean sanctions, similar to the provision in the current bill that gives Congress veto power over easing Russia sanctions.
Before the fight over North Korea, the sanctions bill languished in the House for weeks amid multiple procedural disputes, which prompted Democrats accusing Republicans of stalling on behalf of the White House.
The final bill did include several tweaks made to the Russia sanctions to address concerns from energy and other US companies, as well as European countries.
But several European countries still have concerns, particularly over a natural gas pipeline between Germany and Russia.
Russia has also threatened to retaliate, and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday called the new sanctions "illegal under international law."
video at link:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/27/politics/russian-sanctions-passes-senate/index.html