WAR 07-31-2021-to-08-06-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(481) 07-10-2021-to-07-16-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(482) 07-17-2021-to-07-23-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(483)
07-24-2021-to-07-30-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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Israeli-operated ship attacked near Oman amid Iran tensions: reports of casualties now confirmed

• jward
• Yesterday at 4:40 AM

_______________________________________

Posted for fair use.....

Three men charged with trying to buy guns in US to bring to Mexico for cartel

A trio of men are facing federal charges for their roles on behalf of the Cartel del...

www.lmtonline.com

Three men charged with trying to buy guns in US to bring to Mexico for cartel
Zach Davis, LMTonline.com / Laredo Morning Times
July 30, 2021Updated: July 30, 2021 4:24 p.m.

A trio of men are facing federal charges for their roles on behalf of the Cartel del Noreste, according to U.S. Attorney Jennifer B. Lowery on Thursday.

Luis Ramos, 43, made his initial appearance in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Christoper A. Dos Santos Thursday.

Ramos was taken into custody Tuesday. The Rio Bravo native was charged along with Mexican national Manuel Perez-Ortiz, 39, and Rio Bravo’s Arturo Mata Jr., 55.

The men are making their appearances in a Laredo court. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Day is the prosecutor.

The men were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to export firearms to Mexico. They face up to 20 years in prison for the money laundering conspiracy as well as a maximum $500,000 fine or twice the value of the property involved in the transaction.

The men also face three money laundering counts including international money laundering, which carry the same penalty. And conspiracy to export firearms charge carries a possible five-year sentence and a maximum $250,000 fine.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office stated they will be in federal court again Aug. 12. A five-count indictment was returned on May 18.

The men are charged with allegedly buying half a million worth of high-powered weapons in May of 2020. These include machine guns, grenades, military-style rifles and rocket-propelled launchers. The indictment states the weapons were to be bought in the U.S. and smuggled into Mexico, and those associated with the CDN were to use them to battle rival cartels and assist in drug smuggling activities, the charges state.

Perez-Ortiz was allegedly sent to Laredo for the purchase.

In June of 2020, Ramos and Mata allegedly drover Perez-Ortiz to meetings to discuss the exchange, and Mata provided counter-surveillance, according to the indictment.

Ramos and Perez-Ortiz were arrested on June 19, 2020 and $500,000 was seized.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that the investigation was done by the Blue Indigo task force and part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force as part of an investigation called Operation Noreste.

OCDETF is the largest anti-crime task force in the country and states it is tasked to disrupt and dismantle the most significant drug trafficking and transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States through prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency task forces that leverage the authorities and expertise of federal, state and local law enforcement.

The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Laredo Police Department conducted the investigation with the assistance of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Marshals Service and — along with the Bllue Indigo task force — Border Patrol.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Is Colombia’s Military Deployment Playing into FARC Dissidents’ Hands?

Colombia’s announcement of a large-scale military deployment to Norte de Santander, one of its most complex criminal hotspots, has thrust a relatively small-scale criminal actor, the 33rd Front, to national relevance.

insightcrime.org

Is Colombia’s Military Deployment Playing into FARC Dissidents’ Hands?
COLOMBIA/29 JUL 2021 BY CHRIS DALBY AND SANTIAGO RODRÍGUEZ

Colombia is sending thousands of troops to a border region with Venezuela, where two high-profile attacks were recently carried out by a FARC dissident cell. Still, the ultimate consequences of this deployment remain to be seen.

On July 24, Colombia announced that 14,000 troops would be deployed to Norte de Santander, a northern department bordering Venezuela, to dismantle the 33rd Front and capture its leader, Javier Alonso Veloza García, alias “Jhon Mechas” or "Jhon Milicias."

The 33rd Front is part of a fragmented network of groups formerly belonging to the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC), known as the ex-FARC Mafia. It has taken responsibility for two notable attacks against Colombian authorities in recent months.

On June 15, a van carrying 30 kilograms of explosives blew up inside the headquarters of the Colombian Army's 30th Brigade in Cúcuta, the capital of Norte de Santander. The attack injured 34 soldiers and two civilians.

On June 25, shots were fired at a helicopter carrying Colombia's President Iván Duque and several ministers when it tried to land in Cúcuta. The helicopter was hit several times, but no one was harmed.

SEE ALSO: ELN Car Bomb in Bogotá Takes Fight to Colombia's Cities

Colombia's attorney general, Francisco Barbosa, blamed the attacks on the 33rd Front, who promptly admitted to it in a video of their own.

This led the government to order the deployment of the 14,000 troops and to announce a reward of 600 million Colombian pesos ($150,000) for the 33rd Front's leader, Javier Alonso Veloza García, alias “Jhon Mechas” or "Jhon Milicias."

InSight Crime Analysis
This military deployment places the 33rd Front as a new security priority in Colombia. But despite two high-profile attacks, this group does not appear to be a national threat, raising questions as to whether the size of the response is justified.

First, the 33rd Front did not act in a vacuum. While the 33rd Front was a known element among dissident FARC groups, these two attacks marked a significant escalation in its status among Colombia’s criminal threats. The group has long supported attempts by seasoned FARC commander Miguel Botache Santillana, alias "Gentil Duarte," to reunite fragmented fronts into a single fighting force. According to Colombian military intelligence cited by El Tiempo, its leader, John Mechas, joined the FARC in 1996 and worked his way up to command the 33rd Front in 2016.

As aforementioned, the 33rd Front is part of a coalition of former FARC groups led by Duarte. In May 2020, the 33rd Front released a video publicly recognizing Duarte’s leadership. According to army intelligence sources, while the 33rd Front is believed to number around 200 men, Duarte may have up to 3,000 men under his control in Colombia and Venezuela. And while authorities have repeatedly tried to capture Duarte, he remains at large.

According to investigators within an international organization present in Norte de Santander, who requested to stay anonymous for security reasons, the 33rd Front has acted directly under orders from Duarte in the past. On several occasions, John Mechas and the 33rd Front have fought off and killed members of the Segunda Marquetalia, a rival faction of FARC dissidents, InSight Crime learned.

There is no information indicating whether Duarte personally ordered either the attack on the presidential helicopter or on the 30th Brigade.

SEE ALSO: Chronicle of a Threat Foretold: the ex-FARC Mafia

Second, the 33rd Front has an easy getaway route into Venezuela. Open hostility between Bogotá and Caracas has allowed numerous Colombian criminal groups to use Venezuela as a refuge. The 33rd Front has been known to operate out of the state of Zulia inside Venezuela.

In 2021, clashes between former FARC groups and Venezuelan forces have escalated drastically. But Mechas and the 33rd Front could still go to ground where Colombian troops cannot enter. President Duque did not help matters on July 26 by asking the United States to list Venezuela as a state sponsor of terrorism for sheltering former FARC guerrillas.

Third, there is legitimate concern about what this deployment can truly achieve. While the new force will reinforce existing police and military missions in Norte de Santander, it has clearly set its sights on the 33rd Front. But identifying the whereabouts of John Mechas and his troops in a region rife with criminal threats and with a hard border the Colombian Army cannot cross will prove difficult.

 

[To-late]

It makes no sense to me why the cartel would try and buy guns in the USA just to take them to Mexico.
Mexico is a wide open country. They should be able to have guns brought in from anywhere without the hassle the USA puts on gun buying.
the cartels have LOTS OF MONEY. They could have a container ship full if they wanted.

 

[Housecarl]

It makes no sense to me why the cartel would try and buy guns in the USA just to take them to Mexico.
Mexico is a wide open country. They should be able to have guns brought in from anywhere without the hassle the USA puts on gun buying.
the cartels have LOTS OF MONEY. They could have a container ship full if they wanted.

IMHO either these guys were low hanging fruit the Feds set up or they were "entrepreneurs" who figured on making a buck off of small orders from individual cartel members or smaller cartel groups.

 

[jward]

First Live-Fire Test Of The Navy's New Long-Range Anti-Radiation Missile Was A Success
The Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range is moving closer towards deployment as a formidable and versatile air-to-surface weapon.
By Brett Tingley August 2, 2021

USN


The U.S. Navy recently announced its first live-fire test of the new AGM-88G Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range, or AARGM-ER. A Naval Air Systems Command press release states that the missile was launched from an F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and met all of the objectives set for this test. The new AARGM-ER is intended to give the service’s carrier air wings the ability to more safely operate in areas containing integrated defense networks, but its capabilities could make it a formidable all-around air-to-surface weapon featuring advanced guidance technologies.
The test took place on July 19, 2021 off the coast of the Point Mugu Sea Test Range, according to Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). Captain Alex Dutko, program manager for NAVAIR’s Direct and Time Sensitive Strike Weapon (PMA-242), said the test represents “a major step to providing our fleet with the most advanced weapon system to defeat evolving surface-to-air threats.” The test reportedly validated overall systems integration and the missile’s propulsion system, and confirmed some of the simulations run on the missile prior to the live-fire test.

Joseph Trevithick
A mock-up of the AARGM-E
NAVAIR stated that this is only the first in a planned series of tests to confirm other objectives. A PMA-242 program co-lead stated that the missile, which is designed to provide an “advanced capability to detect and engage enemy air defense systems,” is now expected to meet Low Rate Initial Production this summer.

Northrop Grumman, the prime contractor for the AGM-88G, issued its own press release saying that the live-fire test took place three months earlier than expected and demonstrated the “long-range capability of the new missile design.” The AARGM-ER is a derivative of the AGM-88E AARGM, which already offered “expanded target set, counter-shutdown capability, advanced signals processing for improved detection and locating, geographic specificity providing aircrew the opportunity to define missile-impact zones and impact-avoidance zones, and a weapon impact-assessment broadcast capability providing for battle damage assessment cueing” compared to earlier variants of the AGM-88, according to the Navy.
“While this event serves as a validation of this hard work, it more importantly gets us one-step closer to making our fleet more lethal,” said Felipe Jauregui, Anti-Radiation Missile Technical Project Office at Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division in China Lake, California. “Our engineering and test teams have worked tirelessly with their counterparts across the enterprise and government teams.”

The AARGM-ER and earlier AGM-88 variants are in a class of weapons known as anti-radiation missiles, which are designed to seek out and home in on radiofrequency emissions. Most of these missiles are intended for air-to-surface use against ground-based radar systems, although there have been air-to-air variants and air-to-surface anti-radiation missiles, as well. These missiles are typically used in the early stages of conflicts to suppress and destroy enemy air defenses ahead of incoming strike aircraft and missiles.

To accomplish this, AARGM-ER contains a multi-mode guidance package containing a GPS-assisted inertial navigation system, as well as a millimeter-wave radar that can locate targets even if they stop emitting radiofrequency or other signals or even begin to move. The missile’s guidance and datalink package also have the capability to network with off-board sources, meaning a launching aircraft can fire the weapon without even having acquired a target’s emissions, instead relying on other platforms' data to target and prosecute an attack. The anti-radiation missile can also reportedly relay data in its final moments to confirm whether or not it successfully struck its intended target.

USN

The Navy has been tight-lipped about the AARGM-ER’s exact specifications, but according to information released by its designer, the AARGM has a range of nearly 80 miles and can reach a top speed of Mach 2 during its terminal phase. The Extended Range version is reported to be faster and, as its name implies, has a longer range than its Hight-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) predecessor. It also features a much sleeker overall design that incorporates a new rocket motor and moves all of the control surfaces to the tail.

USN

The entire package of capabilities, especially its onboard radar seeker, as well as its new warhead, could give the AARGM-ER an improved general air-to-ground capability, in addition to its ability to perform specifically in the anti-radiation role. This, in turn, could give the Navy and other operators a highly capable and precise air-launched weapon for engaging targets on the ground at standoff ranges.

USAF/A1C Dwane R. Young

U.S. Navy Airman, assigned to Electronic Attack Squadron 140 at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington, load an AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile on a EA-18G Growler


The AARGM-ER is currently being integrated on the Navy’s F/A-18E/F and EA-18G aircraft, and eventually deployed aboard each of the F-35 variants in the future. Flight tests with a captive carry prototype missile began in June 2020, while a “separation test vehicle” was tested in May 2021.
The U.S. Air Force, meanwhile, is developing a derivative of the missile as part of its Stand-in Attack Weapon (SiAW) program, which you can read more about here. This weapon will feature a different warhead and fuze than Navy versions and "provide strike capability to defeat rapidly relocatable targets that create the Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) environment,” according to USAF budget documents.

Joseph Trevithick

A model depicting a containerized launch system for the AARGM-ER


A ground-launched derivative of the AARGM-ER, now dubbed the Advanced Reactive Strike Missile (AReS), which will be able to strike targets on land and at sea, is also in development. This missile could make use of launcher that fits inside a standard shipping container that Northrop Grumman had unveiled in 2018 as part of a proposal for a land-based version of the AARGM-ER, which The War Zone was first to report on.
With the successful completion of this live-fire test, the AARGM-EM missile continues to move closer to deployment.
Contact the author: Brett@TheDrive.com


Posted for fair use

First Live-Fire Test Of The Navy's New Long-Range Anti-Radiation Missile Was A Success

The Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range is moving closer towards deployment as a formidable and versatile air-to-surface weapon.

www.thedrive.com

 

[Housecarl]

“It Failed Miserably” – What If the US Lost a War and Nobody Noticed?

• Sicario
• Today at 9:38 AM

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Posted for fair use.....

Op-ed | Peace in the Era of Weaponized Space

Op-ed | Peace in the Era of Weaponized Space

spacenews.com

Op-ed | Peace in the Era of Weaponized Space
by Brian G. Chow and Brandon W. Kelley — July 28, 2021

We are on the verge of a new era in space security: the age of diverse and highly capable dual-use space systems that can serve both peaceful and anti-satellite (ASAT) purposes. These new systems, such as spacecraft capable of undertaking rendezvous and proximity operations (RPOs), ground-based lasers capable of interacting with space objects, and actions in cyberspace, cannot feasibly be banned; nor should they be, as they promise immense civil and commercial benefits. Instead, we must find ways to maintain peace despite their presence.

“Beijing actively seeks space superiority through space and space attack systems. One notable object is the Shijian-17, a Chinese satellite with a robotic arm. Space-based robotic arm technology could be used in a future system for grappling other satellites.” — U.S. Army Gen. James Dickinson, testifying April 20 before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Credit: DoD photo by EJ Hersom
The steps currently being taken by the United States to mitigate counterspace threats are necessary but they will not alone be sufficient — the next generation of ASAT weapons will pose a much greater threat than current systems, and require tailored responses. We stand, as we did in the 1950s and 1960s, at the brink of poorly understood but potentially catastrophic risks. The solution now is the same as it was then: first, to exploit the United States’ democratic advantage in untapped intellectual capital; and second, to harness the power of dissent and rigorous contestation to improve predictions, strategic planning, and cost-effective readiness. To that end, the U.S. Department of Defense should establish an open and permanent forum for submission of ideas by all concerned parties, both inside and outside government, and facilitate on-the-record debate regarding their validity and desirability.

Three next-generation ASATs likely to mature during the 2020s — namely rendezvous spacecraft, ground-based lasers, and cyberattacks — illustrate the urgent need for collaboration, critical interrogation of assumptions, and (re-) examination of a wide range of old and new ideas. All three ASAT types can be developed and deployed under the guise of peaceful applications. Each of these threat vectors will, as they advance, enable counterspace operations with substantially greater strategic and operational impact than is currently achievable.

Moreover, all three next-gen ASATs can be used while producing little space debris — a feature clearly important to China, as evidenced by its pivot to non-debris-producing ASAT tests following major international backlash to its 2007 test of a direct-ascent ASAT, namely a ground-launched ballistic missile that generated thousands of pieces of long-lasting space junk when it collided with China’s Fengyun-1C weather satellite.

THE DUAL UTILITY OF SATELLITE-SERVICING SPACECRAFT
Rendezvous spacecraft provide an excellent case study in the challenges plaguing the status quo. These spacecraft are inherently dual-use: if a satellite can remove space debris from orbit or grapple a friendly satellite for servicing (e.g., for repair, refueling, or in situ upgrades), then it can likely also grapple an adversary’s satellite to change its orbit or disable it. Since 2018, at least 11 high-level space officials and organizations (including former Vice President Mike Pence, Gen. John Hyten, and Gen. John Raymond) have expressed concerns that such RPO spacecraft could be used to threaten our critical satellites from close range. Gen. James Dickinson, the commander of U.S. Space Command, is one of the latest voices to join this authoritative group, testifying on April 20 before the Senate Armed Services Committee that:
“Beijing actively seeks space superiority through space and space attack systems. One notable object is the Shijian-17, a Chinese satellite with a robotic arm. Space-based robotic arm technology could be used in a future system for grappling other satellites.”

It is good news that U.S. government awareness of the rendezvous threat is growing. However, the signs that it is on the horizon have been there for years (China testing began in 2008, if not earlier) and a decade or more is far too long a lag in threat recognition. Worse yet, noticing a serious threat is merely the first step in a chain of traditionally time-consuming moves — e.g., selecting a solution, developing a concept of operations, programming the acquisition, and deploying the measures — to ready our deterrence and defenses. To adequately deal with emerging threat vectors, the U.S. must greatly expedite these processes.

In addition, the solutions required for many next-gen ASATs must be carefully tailored and crosscutting. Three facets of the rendezvous threat illustrate this particularly well.
First, in 2018, the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space attempted to establish voluntary “measures for the safe conduct of proximity space operations,” but they were promptly blocked by Russia. This highlights that discussions in decision-by-consensus international forums cannot be relied upon to solve the rendezvous threat unless reinforced by external action. China and Russia have a strong incentive to block any such rules — namely, that they could undercut China and Russia’s ability to hold our critical satellites at risk by positioning rendezvous attackers arbitrarily close to them. There are, however, means by which the U.S. could incentivize agreement and compliance: for example, the U.S. could attach economic incentives (e.g. conditioning market access), or push for the use of lawful countermeasures to enforce international legal obligations such as the Outer Space Treaty’s Article IX requirement of “due regard.” But identifying and implementing the ideal solution will not be easy: this exemplifies an issue on which a range of experts should propose alternatives, debate one another, and synthesize the results.

Second, replacing legacy constellations comprised of small numbers of large and expensive satellites with new proliferated constellations of many small, inexpensive satellites has gathered many proponents as a means of reducing vulnerability. Doing so is indeed necessary, but it cannot adequately counter the rendezvous threat. This is because for certain critical and vulnerable satellites in higher orbits — e.g., SBIRS early missile warning satellites, and AEHF satellites for communications in nuclear-disrupted environment — proliferated constellations are technically infeasible, prohibitively costly, or both. Additionally, as noted by Christopher Scolese, Director of the National Reconnaissance Office, there will be “some number of large [and vulnerable] satellites to address questions that only they can.” Thus, these legacy systems and their similar follow-ons are likely to remain vulnerable well into the 2030s, requiring timely warning and defense mechanisms to keep them safe.

Even GPS is likely to be vulnerable by the late 2020s. Thus far, GPS has been broadly resilient to ASAT attack due to various countermeasures and its redundant design. The GPS constellation consists of about three dozen satellites, each orbiting twice daily, only four of which need to be over a given area at once to sustain service. For this reason, degradation is gradual, not catastrophic: even destroying six satellites at once would only deny service to a localized area for about 95 minutes per day. If, however, one could disable most of the constellation, the result would be near-total loss of GPS services worldwide. While this is largely infeasible with current ASATs, by the late 2020s China may have enough RPO-capable small spacecraft to preposition near every GPS satellite, allowing at-will disablement of the entire constellation. These threats underscore the need to carefully examine each next-generation ASAT individually, in order to identify in advance any unique characteristics which might upend prior assumptions. Doing so is the only way to avoid strategic surprise, and would reveal which threats do (and don’t) deserve priority and how solutions should be designed.

Third, the forum would facilitate serious and open debate regarding what capabilities the U.S. should procure and field, and how to do so in time (likely but a few short years). Most counters to the rendezvous threat, for example, will likely require bodyguard spacecraft to implement. This is feasible: both the U.S. government (e.g. DARPA) and the private sector (e.g. Northrop Grumman) have demonstrated increasingly sophisticated RPO capabilities, including the ability to autonomously dock with a target in GEO and make such spacecraft far smaller and cheaper (e.g. via DARPA’s Blackjack program). Despite these advances, however, the U.S. has yet to develop spacecraft for active defense, much less deploy them, and its handful of RPO-capable spacecraft are 10 times as heavy — and, probably, costly — as those under development by Russia and China. The U.S. must quickly develop and deploy bodyguards comparable in quantity and cost to the potential rendezvous ASATs it faces, or it risks adversaries being able to overwhelm our defenses.

LASERS AND CYBERATTACKS
Nor is the need for such a forum limited to rendezvous spacecraft. Two other emergent ASAT threats reveal similar requirements and lack of preparation: ground-based lasers (GBLs) and cyberattacks. As U.S. intelligence agencies including the Defense Intelligence Agency have noted, GBLs will almost certainly become much more capable over the next decade, moving from dazzling or harming sensors to damaging external structures on satellites in LEO. This fundamentally changes the nature of the threat, and requires new solutions — yet, to date, there has been little discussion of such solutions.

Cybersecurity, too, requires swift action and innovative thinking. Many commercial and civilian space systems remain vulnerable. As the U.S. plans to continue increasing military integration with commercial systems, security standards must be improved. Additionally, there is little basis for confidence that military space systems, and particularly their ground segments, are truly cyber-secure now, or that they will remain so going forward.

At the same time, potential adversaries’ cyber capabilities and doctrine are advancing quickly. China’s rapid progress in emerging technology fields could also be a game-changer. One example is Chinese development of quantum communications satellite technology which, as evidenced by the launch of its Micius satellite in 2016, leads all other countries; the result could be that they can hack our space systems but hamstring U.S. response via quantum cryptography.

WHAT’S NEEDED TO KEEP PEACE
As these cases highlight, navigating the era of weaponized space will require a meeting of the minds. For this reason, the Biden administration should establish an institutional mechanism through which a range of ideas can be solicited, exchanged, and directly challenged and defended to filter the signal from the noise.

There is precedent for this. On his first day in office, President Obama signed the Memorandum on Open Government, which stated that “executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking.” The ensuing Open Government Directive reaffirmed that “the three principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration form the cornerstone of an open government,” and led DoD to quickly establish its Open Government Plan (OGP).

The Biden administration should direct DoD to build on its OGP by adding an Initiative on Public Collaboration for Peace and Prosperity in Space. The first project should be a series of workshops in which relevant experts from the Pentagon and its partners (e.g., contractors and Federally Funded R&D Centers) collaborate with outside experts to assess, compare, and synthesize different proposals to counter specific, individual ASAT threats emerging in the 2020s and 2030s.

As a democracy, the U.S. naturally generates a diversity of ideas. We can either keep them in silos, as we do now, or we can exchange these ideas and subject them to rigorous cross-examination and potential cross-pollination. Standing now at the brink of a new era of weaponized space, our choice should be clear.
Brian Chow is an independent policy analyst with over 160 publications. He can be reached at brianchow.sp@gmail.com. Brandon Kelley is the Director of Debate at Georgetown University, and a graduate student in the Security Studies Program. He can be reached at bwk9@georgetown.edu.
This article originally appeared in the July 2021 issue of SpaceNews magazine.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Searching for the Next War: What Happens When Contractors Leave Afghanistan?

As U.S. troops withdraw, many contract employees – most of them from poor countries, including Nepal – are leaving Afghanistan and fanning out around the world.

thediplomat.com

Searching for the Next War: What Happens When Contractors Leave Afghanistan?

As U.S. troops withdraw, many contract employees – most of them from poor countries, including Nepal – are leaving Afghanistan and fanning out around the world.

By Noah Coburn and Peter Gill

August 05, 2021

Gyanendra Shrestha* spent most of the past 13 years in Afghanistan, helping the United States fight its longest war. A month and a half ago, he was laid off from his job guarding a gate at Bagram Airbase, in preparation for the U.S. troop withdrawal. His employer, the defense contracting company AC First, sent him home to Sindhuli District, in Nepal’s Himalayan foothills. Speaking with The Diplomat by phone, Shrestha says that some of his former colleagues in private security contracting are now finding work in other war zones and he, too, is considering whether to venture abroad again.

The U.S. war effort in Afghanistan has relied heavily on so-called Third Country Nationals (TCNs) like Shrestha — workers from poor countries in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and beyond — who work for contracting companies that serve the military, Department of State, and USAID. Often invisible in media presentations of the war, TCNs perform work ranging from guarding convoys to cooking meals on bases, and from building installations to defusing mines. Many do work nearly identical to that of U.S. soldiers. Now, as U.S. troops withdraw, many TCNs are leaving Afghanistan — and fanning out around the world.

“Some of the guys from my company are trying to get jobs with contractors in Iraq now,” says Shrestha. Other TCNs are looking for work with the militaries of Gulf countries reliant on contracted private security, or in oil refineries in West Africa, or in casinos in China, or with shadowy firms in Syria.

Recent reports suggest that private security contractors from Latin America were unwittingly recruited to assist in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. Listening to Shrestha discuss the various recruiting firms that these contractors are now working with, it is easy to see how contractors, many of whom have been thoroughly trained with U.S. tax dollars, could end up inadvertently participating in such activities.

In Afghanistan, TCNs often risked their lives for far less pay than their American counterparts at contracting companies, and are often exploited by their employers. Post-Afghanistan, as these vulnerable workers are pulled into even less transparent conflicts, it has become more likely that they will be injured, killed, or exploited.

A Nepali Army veteran, Shrestha first embarked for Afghanistan in May 2008 at the age of 37 because his paltry military pension was insufficient to support his family. He says he paid an underground labor agent 250,000 Nepali rupees (nearly $5,000 in today’s dollars) to arrange a job, traveling first to Delhi and then to Kabul on an Afghan tourist visa. But upon arrival, Shrestha learned that the job had not, in fact, been arranged. He spent the next nine months waiting in a boarding house and living illegally without a visa, gradually using up his own meager funds, before getting a job on Bagram Airbase.

Shrestha in many ways was lucky. We interviewed other TCN contractors who paid bribes to secure contracts or visas that never materialized. Some thought they were going to comfortable jobs in Gulf countries, only to wind up on bases in Afghanistan or Iraq, deeply in debt and unable to leave. An entire network of human labor firms in countries like Jordan and India has been feeding migrant workers from poor countries into the United States’ conflicts. In some cases these firms are little more than traffickers, and several workers have been kidnapped and held in Afghanistan until their families and friends paid ransom.

When Shrestha first arrived on Bagram — a huge military installation that was built by the Russians in the 1970s — he worked for a Turkish subcontractor of Northrup Grumman, the U.S. defense company. Shrestha earned $600 per month as an escort for Afghan laborers on the base. For the first year, he says he lived inside a tent, as there was insufficient housing available for TCNs like him on the base. The Taliban fired small rockets onto the base on a near-daily basis, which worried him, but the pay was better than what he could have earned in Nepal. “Of course, we have to take risks to earn money,” he says.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of TCNs to the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. Although the Defense Department is notoriously bad at keeping records on its contractors, official data indicate that just after the height of the Obama administration’s troop surge, in 2012, there were 86,100 U.S. soldiers and 36,826 TCN contractors working for the DoD in Afghanistan. Today, there are 6,399 TCNs working for the United States in Afghanistan, compared to just a few hundred troops. Additional TCNs work for the Department of State and USAID.

TCNs earn far less than their U.S. counterparts, even while taking greater risks. Bases like Bagram are typically surrounded by three layers of security: the outermost layer is composed of Afghan security forces, the next layer is handled by TCN contractors, and the innermost (and thus safest layer) is composed of U.S. contractors and soldiers.

A U.S. military veteran who later worked for a contracting firm in charge of security for the U.S. embassy in Kabul in the mid-2010s, who asked not to be named, says he earned more than four times his Nepali colleagues and received more benefits and leave time – an inequality that left him feeling uneasy. He said that Nepali guards were assigned the dangerous task of completing initial vehicle checks before Americans came out to complete additional checks, and that Americans sometimes referred to the Nepalis as “our flak jackets” and “bait” for suicide bombers. What is more, he said the Nepalis’ guard sheds were inferior to the blast-resistant structure he spent most of his working day inside.

“They were shit, bro,” says the American of the guard sheds. “They were held together with metal bands, and they weren’t even, like, arc-welded, they were spot-welded, sometimes. There was zero way those things would hold up in a blast — which they didn’t.” He noted that several of his Nepali colleagues sitting in those structures were severely injured during an enemy attack.

TCNs are not protected by laws against discrimination or workplace safety that are commonplace in the United States. One of the few protections they do have is the Defense Base Act, a U.S. law that requires contracting and subcontracting companies to buy workers’ compensation insurance for all employees, covering injuries, disabilities, and deaths. If a worker is killed or injured while working on a U.S. government contract, they are entitled to certain rights and compensation. Few TCN workers know this, however, and if they are denied these resources, their only recourse is appealing directly to the U.S. Department of Labor – something almost impossible for a Nepali based in Afghanistan to do.

“[Contracting companies] think that they can get away with not compensating injured or killed workers and save yet another amount of money that goes into their profits,” says Matt Handley, an American lawyer who has represented many Nepali and other TCN workers to win compensation.

Ultimately, we don’t know exactly how many TCN contractors have been killed or injured during the United States’ wars. For such data, the U.S. government relies on a database kept by the Department of Labor, but contractors and contracting companies have a significant incentive not to report incidents.

***

Many TCNs like Shrestha are already looking for the next war. Speaking by phone from a hotel in Dubai, Kamal Manandhar* explains that he recently left Bagram, where he worked for Fluor Corporation, and is now hoping to go to Iraq.

“There are 12 of us Nepalis here, and four of us have applied for jobs with Vectrus [a defense contractor] in Iraq.” Manandhar said he heard the starting salary is $9,000 per year. If he can get one of the jobs, he plans to go. But he concedes, “No one wants to leave their family and go to a war zone. I’d rather be at home having a good time with my family. But I come here because it’s a compulsion.”

As the United States increased its reliance on contractors from one contractor for every 100 soldiers in the first Gulf war to a ratio in Afghanistan where there were often more contractors than soldiers, other countries have followed suit. There are reports of Russia hiring more contractors; many Gulf countries now rely on them to fill the ranks of their militaries and it is more and more common for private companies to build out their own militias. The end of U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan is not the end of the conflict, and may actually be an inflection point as many of these contractors move on to less transparent war zones.

Over the past 20 years, conflicts have become more likely to blend commercial and political aims, and more likely to pull in contractors from poor countries like Nepal, while providing them with fewer protections. What will change with the end of U.S. involvement is access for journalists and academics who have studied these practices. This will make the shadowy world that Shrestha works in more difficult to understand and exploitation more likely.

*Names of contractors were changed upon their request.

Authors
Guest Author
Noah Coburn
Noah Coburn teaches political anthropology at Bennington College and has been conducting research in Afghanistan since 2005. His most recent book, “Under Contract: The Invisible Workers of America’s Global Wars,” focuses on the plights of tens of thousands of Nepalis and others who contracted for the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

Guest Author
Peter Gill
Peter Gill is a Nepal-based journalist.
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[Housecarl]

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A Tale of 2 Navies: India and China’s Current Carrier and Escort Procurement

By 2030, how many carriers and escort ships will China and India each have on hand?

thediplomat.com

A Tale of 2 Navies: India and China’s Current Carrier and Escort Procurement

By 2030, how many carriers and escort ships will China and India each have on hand?

By Rick Joe

August 04, 2021

This is part two of a three-part series reviewing Indian and Chinese carrier procurement. Part one can be found here.

IAC-2 and 003

The Indian Navy’s procurement of its first indigenously built aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant (or IAC-1), was always intended to be followed by a second indigenous carrier, sometimes called INS Vishal (or IAC-2). A three-carrier fleet including INS Vikramaditya, INS Vikrant, and INS Vishal was proposed to allow the Indian Navy to station one carrier on each of its western and eastern seaboard, with a third carrier to cycle through maintenance. However, no decision to buy a third carrier has yet been made, as of this writing in August 2021, nor has a definitive design and configuration been publicly declared.

Initial planning for IAC-2 began in the early 2010s, and in the intervening decade, a number of design considerations and subsystems have been floated. The size of the IAC-2 has been suggested to displace 65,000 tons at full; the desired aircraft launch method has been floated as using electromagnetic catapults (through the purchase of the U.S. EMALS system); and propulsion had initially considered nuclear power but subsequently considered conventional propulsion in an integrated electric arrangement. Various foreign ship designers may have been consulted in the IN’s work on IAC-2, and there have even been some media reports suggesting that India was seeking to use the design of the British Queen Elizabeth-class carrier as the basis of IAC-2.

However, none of these competing characteristics have yet been confirmed as traits of the eventual final INS Vishal, because the Indian Navy has yet to decide whether it wants to buy a third aircraft carrier in the foreseeable future. Given the scale of financial, industry, and manpower investment involved in operating an aircraft carrier, procurement of such vessels is not done on a whim, and for the Indian Navy, alternative naval procurement such as submarines and nuclear submarines might prove to be higher on the list of priorities.

Therefore, a third Indian aircraft carrier is not expected to emerge in the immediate future, and it is unknown what such an aircraft carrier will look like if or when it arrives. IAC-2 could conceivably be a 65,000 ton CATOBAR ship with integrated electric propulsion, which would be a significantly more capable carrier than IAC-1, INS Vikrant. However, such a larger and more complex ship would also present corresponding risks of delay. Less ambitious designs, such as an enlarged STOBAR ship following from the design of INS Vikrant, might prove to be a more conservative but attractive ship. But ultimately, without a clear procurement decision from the IN, it is impossible at this point to determine what IAC-2 may look like.

In the unlikely event that the IN made a snap decision in 2021 to start fabrication on a conservative IAC-2 design as soon as possible, the lengthy 13-14 years taken for INS Vikrant to proceed from laying down to commissioning suggests it is very unlikely that a third Indian carrier will enter service before the early 2030s.

By contrast, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)’s pursuit of its third aircraft carrier and second indigenous carrier, the conventionally powered CATOBAR carrier, 003, has been somewhat brisker, with a minimal pause between its second aircraft carrier and first indigenous carrier CV-17 Shandong. I have covered the history of carrier 003 in prior articles, and the current understanding of 003 has not significantly changed from those pieces. A conventionally powered CATOBAR carrier was credibly rumored in PLA watching circles as early as the early 2010s, at the time spoken of with a displacement of around 80,000 tons full. Rumors continued to escalate and coalesce, with consensus that the carrier would be designated 003, that it would be equipped with EM catapults, and that its construction would be at Jiangnan Changxing shipyard in Shanghai.

Initial pictures of carrier hull modules emerged at that very shipyard in mid-2018. From there, close tracking of the ship’s progression by civilian photographers and satellite imagery has confirmed various milestones of construction: Hull modules were moved from their fabrication area to drydock likely in May 2020, with module integration and flight deck installation occurring over the following year, completing the overall outline of the flight deck and reaching near structural completion around mid-June 2021. Installation of its island occurred on July 1, 2021, providing a view close to the ship’s final complete profile on the centennial anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.

Progressive multi-source imagery of carrier 003 also allowed a number of other predictions and dimensions to be confirmed. The ship’s waterline beam was estimated to be approximately 40 meters, with an overall flight deck length approaching 320 meters, a maximal flight deck width of between 78 to 80 meters, a continuous main flight deck width about 72 to 74 meters, and an island deck footprint length of about 40 meters, all of which corresponds to past rumors of the ship displacing some 80,000-85,000 tons full. The end result is a ship significantly larger in overall size and flight deck than CV-16/CV-17 while enjoying a smaller island. Imagery of the 003’s internal propulsion arrangement and the presence of a large exhaust on its island also confirm its propulsion as conventional in nature, which was never truly in doubt.

Progression and completion of the flight deck also confirmed the carrier would be equipped with three catapults, two on the bow and one on the waist. While the type of catapults cannot be ascertained at this time based off imagery alone, the long-term consistent rumors of 003 using EM catapults necessarily means at this stage that it is most accurate to project the catapults will be EM in nature rather than steam, until proven otherwise. After all, the other predictions of the ship’s characteristics have since proven true.

Based on current progress, carrier 003 might be launched between late 2021 to early 2022, followed by two to three years of fitting out and sea trials, before entry into service around 2025, though these remain subject to change as new developments are confirmed.

Therefore, based on current projections of carrier procurement, by the end of 2030 and going into the early 2030s, the IN will almost certainly remain with two carriers in service (INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant), while the PLAN will have at least three carriers in service (CV-16 Liaoning, CV-17 Shandong, and carrier 003, likely to be designated CV-18). At this stage it is unknown when the PLAN will procure further carriers after the presently under construction 003. Rumors have suggested additional 003 pattern carriers will be procured before the PLAN proceeds with a nuclear-powered carrier, but it is unknown when work on those ships may begin or how many will be built. Depending on the scale of production, the PLAN could end up with anywhere between a fleet of three (minimum) to six (maximum) carriers in service by 2030.

Comparing the Escort Forces

Every aircraft carrier requires a surface combatant escort, usually composed of destroyers and frigates. The escort capability of a navy depends on the total number and appropriate capability of such destroyers and frigates in a navy’s overall order of battle. A greater number of appropriately capable surface combatants provides flexibility to further augment their carrier’s escort force, or to create additional surface groups to conduct additional taskings during peacetime and wartime. Anti-air warfare (AAW) and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) are the most important taskings of a carrier’s escorts, though escorts often retain a credible anti-surface (ASuW) capability as well. AAW is arguably the most important mission of escorts, and within most navies, the ships capable of performing higher-end AAW tasks are often identifiable by the presence of a modern phased array radar (PAR) system as well as a vertical launching system (VLS) capable of launching surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) with at least an area air defense range (at least 40 kilometers).

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

At time of writing, the Indian Navy fields eight destroyers in service, composed of three Kolkata-class (7,500 tons full), three Delhi-class (6,200 tons), and two Rajput-class (5,000 tons) destroyers. Four Visakhapatnam-class destroyers (iterative improvements of the Kolkata class) are intended to be commissioned by 2025, with the first of these aiming to enter service later this year. Of these destroyers, only the Kolkata class and Visakhapatnam class are equipped with a modern PAR and a VLS area air defense SAM, in the form of the Israeli MF-STAR AESA and a complement of 32 VLS launched Israeli-Indian Barak 8 SAMs with a current range of 100 kilometers.

The IN also fields 13 frigates in service, composed of three Shivalik-class (6,800 tons), six Talwar-class (4,000 tons), three Brahmaputra-class (3,800 tons), and one Godavari-class (3,800 tons). None of the IN’s current in-service frigates are equipped with a contemporary PAR system or a VLS launched SAM of at least medium range (40 kilometers), as the most capable AAW system aboard these ships is the Russian Fregat radar and Shtil-1 arm launched SAM system in the Shivalik and Talwar classes.

However, the IN is procuring seven Nilgiri-class frigates (significant improvements of the Shivalik class) with the same MF-STAR and Barak 8 system as the Kolkata and Visakhapatnam destroyers. The first of this new class may enter service in 2022, with a goal for all seven to be commissioned by 2025. A further four improved Talwar-class frigates will also be purchased from Russia, which will replace the arm launched Shtil-1 with a VLS equivalent. It is worth noting that the Shivalik- and Nilgiri-class frigates displace 6,800 tons at full, and are only a few hundred tons lighter than various destroyer classes around the world as well as the IN’s own Kolkata and Visakhapatnam class destroyers – though the Shivalik-class frigate’s impressive displacement does not correspond to modern and capable AAW capability.

To summarize the Indian Navy’s escorts, the current fleet of escorts is composed of 21 ships – eight destroyers and 13 frigates – of which only the three Kolkata-class destroyers field high-end AAW capabilities that include both a modern PAR and VLS-launched area air defense SAMs. In fact, of the remaining 18 in-service ships, none of those are equipped with a VLS area air defense SAM or a modern PAR. This fleet of 21 escorts will grow to 36 ships, including 12 destroyers and 24 frigates, by the end of 2025, if production goes to plan and if none of the older ships are retired. Of these 36 ships, the seven Kolkata- and Visakhapatnam-class destroyers and the seven Nilgiri-class large frigates will boast a high-end AAW capability, marking 14 high-end AAW-capable multirole destroyers and large frigates. The four new Talwar-class frigates will also augment the fleet by featuring at least a VLS launched medium-range SAM capability.

As for the Chinese navy, as of the time of writing, the PLAN fields 36 destroyers in service, composed of 19 052Ds (7,000 tons full), six 052Cs (7,000 tons), two 051Cs (7,000 tons), two 052Bs (6,800 tons), one 051B (7,000 tons), four Sovremenny-class (8,000 tons), and two 052s (5,000 tons). An additional six 052Ds are in the water in fitting out, all of which are likely to enter service by the beginning of 2023. Of these destroyer classes, the 052Ds and 052Cs are equipped with a modern PAR and VLS-launched area air defense SAM capability by virtue of their Type 346/A family AESAs and HQ-9 long range SAMs (with the 052D being capable of launching additional smaller and larger SAMs as they are developed, thanks to its universal VLS). Additionally, the two 051Cs, one 051B, and two overhauled Sovremenny-class destroyers offer VLS-launched area air defense SAMs but lack modern PARs.

However, beyond destroyers, the PLAN also fields a larger category of surface combatant, the 055 class. This ship class displaces 13,000 tons full, significantly larger than almost all destroyer classes in the world today save for a few, and due to its size, armament, and sensors, it has been described as a cruiser by some overseas commentators and government agencies, though the PLAN refers it to as a large destroyer. Regardless of designation, it goes without saying that the 055 would be a key component of any carrier escort force, and this has been confirmed by recent PLAN carrier exercises featuring an escort flotilla led by an 055. At present, three 055s are in service, with a further five in the water likely to all enter service by 2023. The 055 more than fulfills the criteria of meeting the high end AAW threshold, with qualitative capabilities and quantitative magazine size significantly greater than that of the PLAN’s next most capable surface combatant, the 052D.

In terms of frigates, the PLAN fields 30 frigates in service, all of which are 054As (4,000 tons full). Additional 054As are currently under construction, and are likely to start to enter service from late 2022, perhaps averaging two hulls per year. All of these ships lack a modern PAR, but are equipped with a VLS that features area air defense SAMs in the form of HQ-16s.

To summarize the PLAN’s escorts, the current fleet of escorts is composed of 69 ships – three large destroyers, 36 destroyers, and 30 frigates. Of these escorts, 28 ships feature at least a high-end AAW capability equipped with both PAR and VLS-launched area air defense SAMs, made up of the three 055s large destroyers, 19 052Ds, and six 052Cs. Another 35 of those 69 ships – 30 054A frigates and five destroyers (two 051Cs, one 051B, and two Sovremenny class) – also offer VLS-launched area air defense SAMs but lack modern PARs. Six of these 69 ships feature neither VLS area air defense SAMs nor modern PARs.

This overall fleet of 69 escorts, assuming older ships are not retired, will grow to at least 80 escorts by the end of 2023, consisting of eight large destroyers, 42 destroyers, and over 30 frigates. Of these ships, there will be eight 055s, 25 052Ds, six 052Cs, totaling 39 high-end AAW and capable multirole large destroyers and destroyers. Additional 054A frigate production will likely grow the fleet of 35 ships that are equipped with VLS area air defense SAMs but lack modern PARs.

Reflection of Escorts

Needless to say, the above classification of escorts is not meant to be exhaustive, and is not a detailed comparison of their respective AAW subsystems. Pursuing such an effort would necessitate comparisons of VLS counts, assessment of VLS capability and flexibility, and assessment of individual missile capability, estimates of radar performance, as well as guesses about combat management systems and networking, among other things.

These comparisons also do not examine each ship’s ASW capabilities, though even here some trends could be noted. For example, most Indian destroyers and frigates in service have two helicopter hangars, while most Chinese destroyers and frigates have a single helicopter hangar (though the 055 fields two); all Chinese 052D and 055 destroyers and the last 14 of the 30 054A frigates are equipped with a towed linear sonar and variable depth sonar capability. Similarly, it is important to note that Indian surface ships on average are equipped with heavier anti-ship missiles than their Chinese counterparts, with Indian destroyers and frigates almost all equipped with the supersonic heavyweight Brahmos. More recent Chinese destroyers like 052C, 052D, 055, or refitted destroyers like 051B and the Sovremenny class feature heavier missiles like YJ-62, YJ-18, or YJ-12 whereas Chinese frigates are equipped with the lighter YJ-83 family.

Overall, the disparity of the two navy’s surface escort fleets is a reflection of national economic size, shipbuilding capability, and the availability of domestic suppliers for key subsystems like propulsion, sensors, combat management systems, and weapons. These are similar to the factors described in part 1, which reflected on the ability of each nation to effectively build, fit out, and operate new indigenous carrier projects on time.

Indeed, the length of time between launch and commissioning make for indicative viewing. Recent Indian surface combatants like the Kolkata class required six to eight years, and the Shivalik class required seven years on average. Current ongoing IN combatants have sought to improve this somewhat, with the Visakhapatnam class aiming for five to six years, and the Nilgiri class aiming for an even more ambitious three years between launch and commissioning. By contrast, recent Chinese combatants like 052D required have required three to four years, with recent ships only needing two years. The 055s so far have needed two to three years, and 054As require as short as one to two years.

This series will conclude with part 3 next month, reviewing the respective airwing prospects of each navy’s carriers, as well as the role of aircraft carriers in each navy’s evolving naval strategies.

 

[Housecarl]

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A Millennial’s Retort: ICBMs are Essential

Noah Mayhew’s article titled,

www.realcleardefense.com

A Millennial’s Retort: ICBMs are Essential

By Bryn Woollacott
August 04, 2021

Noah Mayhew’s article titled, "A millennial's view: ICBMs are ridiculous," includes three misleading claims about intercontinental ballistic missiles: they are dangerous, they are redundant, and their cost is “ludicrous.” In this article full of misstatements and simplifications, Mr. Mayhew claims to speak for his generation, saying, "my generation is tired of seeing billions directed to dangerous, destabilizing weapons rather than to investments in our future." The weight of speaking for a generation must be great, but thankfully Mr. Mayhew is not saddled with it. I would like to offer another perspective from a different millennial: ICBMs are a wise investment in our future and should be modernized.

First, while Mr. Mayhew focuses on the "war-fighting" aspects of ICBMs for maximum scare value, the reality is that the primary day-to-day purpose of our ICBMs is to act as a visible and obvious deterrent to war. Their inherent virtue is the fact that you can count them. If you look hard enough, you can find them, and ultimately there's no mystery about what exactly they can do. The mere existence of our ICBMs presents our adversaries with a serious problem. They must decide three things: can they confidently take out hundreds of American ICBM silos spread across five states; can they evade or survive the other two legs of our nuclear triad and the rest of our military; and given all that can they still achieve the objective you sought in the first place. This is an exceedingly high bar with an extremely low chance of success. Thus, a potential adversary is dissuaded from even considering an attempted strike on the American homeland.


ICBMs are also an exceptionally reliable deterrence tool. ICBMs maintain a day-to-day posture of open-ocean targeting, and the process to adjust this is subject to multiple layers of rigorous, controlled procedures that ensure clearly communicated Presidential intent. If needed, ICBMs provide an assured response option that the President can leverage to ensure that an adversary is deterred from crossing the line. This isn’t a hair trigger, knee jerk, “pull the lever Gronk!” situation—the President is allowed time to consider options. Of the multiple options available, the ground-based leg offers the greatest responsiveness due to its readiness, reliability, and resilient communications network.

Second, our nuclear triad is designed to be redundant. Each leg of the triad reinforces the other two with unique characteristics, thus strengthening overall nuclear deterrence. Requirements from U.S. Strategic Command have informed the ongoing nuclear triad modernization, which has been structured to meet them with less capacity where possible such as replacing fourteen Ohio-class submarines with twelve Columbia-class submarines. Eliminating ICBMs while expecting to maintain deterrence at the current level would place an unacceptable burden on the other two legs of the triad. This would require either more intensive deployments for our submarine leg, placing the bomber leg on alert, increasing procurement of these platforms, or some combination of these undesirable options—all of which would cost extra money.

Third, speaking of money, modernizing our ICBMs is eminently affordable. The cost to keep our Minuteman III missiles (MMIII) operational doubled in the last fiscal year, and the cost to life-extend MMIII again is $38 billion (with a B!) higher than the cost to replace it with the Ground-based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD). For $264 billion spread out over 50 years, GBSD will ensure our continued deterrence posture through the 2070s.

The fact is that MMIII lacks capabilities that enable it to face future threats, and some of its parts are so old that contractors simply don’t know how to make them anymore. This aging system that was designed in the 1950s, fielded in the 1970s, has already been life-extended multiple times, and the window to decide to do a somewhat meaningful life extension closed years ago. On May 5 of this year, an MMIII test launch was aborted due to an unspecified error, a concerning event that also happened three years ago. When it comes to nuclear deterrence, we simply cannot accept Mr. Mayhew’s policy of intentional atrophy. We needed GBSD yesterday.

Timing is key when looking at arguments against keeping the ICBM leg of the nuclear triad, and this moment in the MMIII to GBSD transition is particularly noteworthy. Years of hand-wringing have resulted in a solid, if time-sensitive, plans to modernize and upgrade the ICBM silos, launch facilities, and missiles over the next eighteen years without a gap. Those who listen to the military experts know for a fact that there is no margin for error or delay in order to accomplish this, and so the burden is on policymakers to ensure the program is not derailed. This is the shiny opportunity that the disarmament community has been waiting for—a no-fail nuclear program still in the cradle that they can kill before it matures.

While we are debating whether to intentionally reduce our own nuclear deterrent, our adversaries are increasing their capabilities. Despite the recent extension of the New START Treaty, Russia has continued to rapidly expand its nuclear arsenal with novel strategic and non-strategic systems, including ICBMs that are designed to evade any potential defenses, while also developing next-generation missile technologies. China is actively fielding new nuclear weapons, including the recent construction of two new ICBM sites with a combined 250 silos that will host missiles armed with multiple nuclear warheads. It now boasts a nuclear triad of its own. North Korea is pursuing more advanced intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, is expanding its ICBM program, and late last year revealed its largest-ever ICBM. Iran is making historic investments in its missile and space launch capabilities that could shorten an eventual pathway to intercontinental systems.

How can we expect to deter the likes of China, Russia, and North Korea—which all base the majority of their strategic nuclear deterrent on ICBMs—if we give ours up for free?

Unilaterally reducing America's nuclear deterrent by going from a triad to a dyad would be extremely dangerous. Choosing to eliminate our ground-based leg of the triad would send the signal that in the face of a massive nuclear buildup, we accept weakness—with no hope of reciprocal action by others. This would create entirely new threats that we would be less equipped to deter, generating new opportunities for our competitors to undermine the interests of America, our allies, and our partners.

Our generation certainly has a lot to be concerned about. Millennials have been raised in a world characterized by aspirations for global peace, undercut by decades of reckoning with terrorism, and now confronted with a return to great power competition; but instead of one nuclear-armed threat, we must reckon with multiple. We will only meet this challenge and adapt our nuclear strategy by seeing the world as it is and grappling with these threats to America and our way of life. When we do that, we should conclude that now is the moment to demonstrate resolve, commit to modernize our entire nuclear deterrent and continue to enjoy the security provided by our ICBMs.


Bryn Woollacott is an Assistant Program Manager at Systems Planning and Analysis, and previously served at the U.S. Department of Defense and Office of Management and Budget. The views expressed do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis or the U.S. Government.

 

[Housecarl]

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How an International Order Died: Lessons from the Interwar Era - War on the Rocks

In the late 1920s, a group of German officers stood side by side at a range, practicing their marksmanship by firing at target dummies dressed in Polish

warontherocks.com

How an International Order Died: Lessons from the Interwar Era

Ian Ona Johnson

August 5, 2021
Commentary

In the late 1920s, a group of German officers stood side by side at a range, practicing their marksmanship by firing at target dummies dressed in Polish and Czech military uniforms. Standing next to them, and firing at the same targets, were Red Army officers. They were taking a training course together at one of the four joint German-Soviet military bases that were established on Soviet territory beginning in 1925. The German military used the bases to develop and test new technologies of war, train a new generation of military officers, and develop innovative tactics away from the prying eyes of the British and French inspection teams then in Germany. For their communist counterparts, German help meant modernizing and professionalizing the Soviet military.


Such military cooperation was at the heart of nearly 20 years of intermittent collaboration between German and Soviet leaders during the period between World War I and World War II. The partnership was built upon a shared interest in destroying the existing international order, and it would culminate in the return of Europe to war. That moment would arrive before dawn on Sept. 1, 1939, as the German air force unleashed terror bombing against more than 150 towns and cities across the western portion of Poland. Without a declaration of war, 50 divisions of the reborn German army soon crossed the Polish frontier. Sixteen days later, as Poland battled for its life, the Polish ambassador was summoned to the Kremlin in Moscow, where he was informed, “The Soviet government intends to ‘liberate’ the Polish people from the unfortunate war.” A few hours later, 600,000 Red Army soldiers crossed the Polish frontier from the east.




Policymakers and analysts should study the collapse of the interwar order because that era was the most recent period of true multipolarity in the international system. With the return of multipolarity, the interregnum between World War I and World War II is increasingly relevant as a source of historical analogies. In addition, the question of deterring revisionist states — particularly through non-nuclear means — is a major concern of American security and defense policy today. Examining how and why deterrence failed to maintain the status quo in Europe in 1939 — despite the seeming superiority of British, French, and Polish forces — offers useful lessons about the nature of conventional deterrence and the prospects for conflict in the increasingly dynamic contemporary world.


The Post-World War I International Order


Shifts in global order tend to become apparent only at their end. Contemporaries, and many historians, place considerable blame for World War II on the statesmen present at Munich in 1938. In fact, the deterioration of the order established at Versailles had begun almost immediately in 1919, and was largely complete by 1936. By that juncture, Germany, the Soviet Union, and other regional powers had undermined the foundations of the status quo, with the aim of establishing their own versions of regional and global order in its stead.


To understand how German and Soviet leaders destroyed the interwar international order, it is necessary to see what constituted that order. Its most ambitious components were the product of America’s role in final victory in World War I, which provided President Woodrow Wilson with the leverage to demand a new international system. He aimed to replace the power politics he deemed responsible for the outbreak of the war with what would become known as “liberal internationalism.”


The core elements of the new order Wilson demanded included collective security, a decrease in armaments, free trade, recognition of the equality of sovereign states, and the promotion of self-determination. All of these measures were contested in practice among the victors of World War I, particularly after the precipitous American military withdrawal and diplomatic disengagement from Europe. In broad strokes, however, Wilson’s principles shaped the peace settlement: The League of Nations charter, which was a major part of the Treaty of Versailles produced at the Paris Peace Conference, included a mandate to “promote international co-operation and to achieve international peace and security.” While Germany was disarmed as part of the dictated terms of peace, the Allies made clear that they envisioned this as only the first step toward a general disarmament of Europe that would include the victors too. In addition, the principle of self-determination, extended primarily in Eastern Europe, led to the creation of new, sovereign nation-states, most importantly Poland and Czechoslovakia.


German and Soviet Opposition to the Interwar Order


Factions in both Germany and the Soviet state — which had been established as a result of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution — were united in opposing almost all elements of the new order, a fact that became apparent almost immediately. The German military initiated quiet diplomacy with the Bolshevik leadership in Moscow even before the Treaty of Versailles had been finalized. German violations of that treaty, in the form of secret rearmament measures and resistance to reparations, began essentially as soon as it was ratified. In 1922, with the enthusiastic assent of Leon Trotsky — then head of the Red Army — the German military began relocating banned military-industrial production to secret facilities in the Soviet Union. The aim was clear and fundamentally revisionist — in the words of German Gen. Hans von Seeckt, head of the Army Command from 1920 to 1926, “Poland must and will be wiped off the map.”


In 1926, a journalist at the Manchester Guardian revealed some of the details of the German military’s covert rearmament measures in the Soviet Union, of which the civilian government in Berlin was only partially aware. During the public furor that followed in the German parliament, representatives on the right tried to shout down anyone speaking against rearmament. Others gestured toward the American ambassador, who was observing the proceedings from the diplomatic box, and shouted, “Why reveal these things to our enemies?!” The result was a vote of no confidence in the sitting chancellor, but that ushered in a government only further to the political right. It would oversee an expansion of the covert work conducted in Russia. As a result, by the end of 1932 — before Adolf Hitler came to power — then-Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher had already begun to expand the German army to 21 divisions, well beyond the limits set by the Versailles Treaty. And Germany had kept pace technologically with its rivals in critical areas, including tanks, aircraft, military radios, and chemical weapons.


British and French Reluctance to Defend the Order


Defending the international order in the face of this challenge was made much more difficult by doubts among British and French policymakers regarding its value. British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald went so far as to call the Treaty of Versailles “a blot on the peace of the world” in 1933. Tensions between national interests and international commitments confounded British and French leaders. Clear contradictions in the application of self-determination — both within Europe and across European empires — further undermined claims to high principle. And the unwillingness of the French and British publics to support significant military forces in peacetime made punishing minor violations of the Versailles Treaty difficult, even for far-sighted statesmen like Sir Robert Vansittart, the permanent undersecretary at the U.K. Foreign Office.


Limited by these handicaps, the ways in which British and French policymakers did attempt to defend the status quo in Europe were problematic. They were well aware that the order’s biggest problem was that the League of Nations and the Paris Peace Conference treaties did not include or satisfy six of the world’s eight largest economies: the United States, China, Germany, the Soviet Union, Italy, and Japan. To remedy that, leaders in Great Britain and France hoped to draw the United States into engagement with the European financial and security system in a variety of ways, but they met with limited success. They also hoped to incorporate Germany into the order through trade and the gradual amelioration of its reparations payments. The Soviet Union was seen initially as a certain adversary, but that attitude mellowed in London and Paris over time.


As it turned out, these approaches to Germany and the Soviet Union rested on a series of false assumptions and misunderstandings. Both Stanley Baldwin and MacDonald, who were members of the Conservative and Labour parties respectively and served as prime ministers of Great Britain in alternating periods from 1924 to 1937, believed in the logic of engagement. They assumed that reintegrating Germany into the global trade system and incorporating it into institutions like the League of Nations would further liberalize its society and strengthen representative government in the country.


Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

To a degree, that project seemed to be working through the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. But at the same time, while they publicly supported such efforts, the Weimar Republic’s leading politicians simultaneously sought drastic revision of Germany’s place in the international order — including through the redrawing of borders across Central Europe. Even the great Weimar statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Gustav Stresemann favored territorial revision and privately encouraged illegal German rearmament. As a result, between 1922 and 1932, German violations of Versailles continuously grew in scope and scale, while German political leaders still seemed rhetorically committed to partnership with the enforcers of the treaty. Consequently, the British response to secret German rearmament measures was one of confusion. London pushed for French disarmament, which was seen by many in Britain as the legitimate source of German security fears. But this only further emboldened German proponents of rearmament and the revision of the country’s borders by force.


British and French attempts to “liberalize” the Soviet political system through commerce and integration proceeded more cautiously, a consequence of ideological suspicions. But soon after the October Revolution, the Soviet Union resumed foreign trade on a large scale, and in 1934 it was invited to join the League of Nations. Throughout this period, foreign statesmen believed that trade and integration into international institutions would moderate the Soviet regime. Even the Soviet Union’s German military partners — most of whom were hardly sympathetic to liberalism — incorrectly believed that economic engagement would bring about political change in Moscow. In 1922, Seeckt proposed expanding trade with Russia to “undermine the very idea of the Soviet system by making sound alternatives available.” The opposite occurred. Soviet leader Josef Stalin eliminated the relatively market-friendly New Economic Policy in 1928 and embarked on an extraordinarily violent program of collectivization to produce grain for export. The aim was to generate revenue that would pay for machine tools and military equipment.


Attempts to integrate Germany and the Soviet Union into the international trade system failed to change the political aspirations of key decision-makers in those countries and, in the process, helped to strengthen their future capacities for waging war. By the mid-1930s, the increasing strength of revisionist states in Europe and Asia made clear the incompatibility of their interests with the existing order. When Hitler openly announced rearmament in March 1935 — thus challenging the Treaty of Versailles publicly — Italy, France, and Great Britain attempted to use the League of Nations to contain Germany. Known as the Stresa Front, their coalition fell apart within weeks. In an attempt to salvage containment, the French government acquiesced to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, long desired by dictator Benito Mussolini. This blatant violation of the League of Nations charter threw that body into chaos, revealing its impotence. More generally, the entire process made a mockery of the principles of collective security, and the broader ideals that had supposedly been enshrined in the League’s founding document. Unwilling to defend the European order in 1935, the British and French governments “paddled in a puree of words” while doing nothing as Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland and annexed Austria. Negotiations in London in 1935, and at Munich in 1938, aimed to defer conflict as long as possible, but did little to resolve the growing challenge from Germany.


The Final Collapse


By the summer of 1939, there was little left of the old order. Hopes for Europe-wide disarmament were clearly gone and the League of Nations was effectively defunct. But the end of the old order did not inevitably mean the end of peace. At the beginning of August 1939, the French and British militaries were well along in their own rearmament programs, rapidly catching up with Germany. Together, they could mobilize more men than Germany and, considered jointly with their empires, had significantly larger economic capacity for war. Germany lacked the resources to sustain a long war, and was short on oil, iron, coal, and even food. On the face of it, even with the repeated failures to enforce the treaties, rules, and norms established at the Paris Peace Conference, Europe might have remained at peace. The preponderance of military power, at least according to traditional measures, seemed to be in the hands of Great Britain, France, and their partners.


Why then did war break out in 1939? As John Mearsheimer has argued, conventional deterrence often breaks down when policymakers in one state think that changes in the material balance of power offer them the prospect of a quick and decisive victory. Hitler believed exactly that. In November 1937, Hitler told his military leadership that Germany must initiate the next war soon, as Germany had a lead in the development of weapons, and delaying war meant “the danger of their obsolescence.” Hitler’s confidante Albert Speer also recounted how the Nazi leader believed war needed to come sooner rather than later, citing Germany’s “proportional superiority” in weapons technology, which would “constantly diminish” from 1940 onward. In Hitler’s mind, new technologies of war, deployed in innovative ways, offered a key to victory. They made the traditional balance of power, in terms of raw manpower and gross domestic product, irrelevant. It was this perception, along with uncertainty about British and French willingness to defend the existing order after 15 years of permitting German rearmament, that led to the breakdown of conventional deterrence. Hitler believed he could deter British intervention and achieve a rapid victory against Poland in 1939. Germany’s fleeting lead in the arms race, the perceived weaknesses of his rivals, and his partnerships with Italy, Japan, and the Soviet Union all suggested another bloodless victory. But to Hitler’s surprise, Great Britain and France honored their pledges to Poland, and Europe found itself at war once again.


Lessons for Today?


The collapse of the interwar international order, and the failure of conventional deterrence at its end, resulted in a new war more terrible than any before in human history. What are the key lessons of that disaster? The most obvious is that states opposed to an existing international order may work together despite historical enmity or ideological hostility. Though the Soviet Union and Germany had vastly different visions of their preferred order, they collaborated because their opposition to the status quo was greater than their concerns about each other.


The Western democracies also failed the admittedly tough challenge of defending the existing order, lacking the necessary resolve, unity, and strength. Weak resolve resulted partly from a sense of hypocrisy — British and French leaders themselves undermined the stability of the post-World War I order by violating its precepts of self-determination, collective security, and disarmament. As Lloyd George, who had been British prime minister at the time of the Paris Peace Conference, bemoaned in 1935, Great Britain and France were “in no position morally to enforce those parts of the treaty which they themselves have flagrantly and defiantly broken.” Much of the political spectrum in London agreed.


The unclear resolve of likely adversaries, willing revisionist partners, and revolutionary technological change combined to convince Hitler he could win a new war. There is a risk that similar factors could embolden revisionist leaders today or in the near future. Changes in technology, some argue, represent a new “revolution in military affairs,” which could challenge the existing hierarchy of military power. The rise of autonomous weapons may dent American military predominance, as the expensive capital equipment that constitutes American conventional strength becomes increasingly vulnerable to cheaper autonomous systems. Questions also abound about whether offensive cyber warfare capabilities and anti-satellite technology might have similar effects. Simultaneously, there is growing uncertainty about the willingness and ability of the United States and its partners to defend the order established after World War II. Collectively, these factors may weaken conventional deterrence and suggest opportunities to potential revisionist powers like Russia and China, particularly if they believe that working in concert will deter American intervention.


During the interwar period, British and French leaders ended up encouraging revisionist powers by failing to maintain military forces capable of deterring them. It can be difficult for great powers, particularly democracies, to arm appropriately and quickly when new threats present themselves. French defeat in 1940 marked the end of a 20-year program by German military leaders, which only appeared from Paris to be an existential threat in 1936. Complacency in moments of deteriorating global order and uncertain technological change can mean the collapse of deterrence and, in some cases, disastrous defeat. Embracing imaginative, cutting-edge technology and doctrine in the face of enormous political and financial incentives to maintain legacy systems is one of the greatest challenges to maintaining military predominance. Failing to do so may open a “technological window,” where a revisionist power perceives an opportunity to win a limited war. Perhaps the lessons of the interwar period — rightly understood — may offer some guidance in avoiding such a catastrophe.





Ian Ona Johnson is the P.J. Moran Family Assistant Professor of Military History at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Faustian Bargain: The Soviet-German Partnership and the Origins of the Second World War (Oxford, June 2021).

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......The author assumes that the Japanese at this point will trust even a reinforced US "umbrella" to keep them dry.....Never mind at some point all of this threatening and bluster is going to get a response beyond diplomatic cables and news conference missives.....Besides, with the Ohio SSBNs already in the Pacific, putting other more vulnerable land based nuclear systems into the region (the decision loop for launching out of Japan is as bad or worse than it was for Pershing in the old FRG) that don't add to the Trident's capabilities is a lot of money better spent on something else.....HC

Posted for fair use.....

China’s Nuclear Threat Against Japan: Hybrid Warfare and the End of Minimum Deterrence

A video recently released by Chinese media directly threatens Japan with a nuclear first strike. The video states,

www.realcleardefense.com

China’s Nuclear Threat Against Japan: Hybrid Warfare and the End of Minimum Deterrence


By Adam Cabot
August 06, 2021

A video recently released by Chinese media directly threatens Japan with a nuclear first strike. The video states, "When we liberate Taiwan, if Japan dares to intervene by force, even if it only deploys one soldier, one plane and one ship, we will not only return reciprocal fire but also start a full-scale war against Japan. We will use nuclear bombs first”. This is a serious threat against a non-nuclear state coming from a power with a long declared ‘no first use’ nuclear policy. This clearly signals a departure from a strategy of minimum deterrence.


With the level of control possessed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it would be difficult to argue that the producers of the video went rogue with these threats. According to reports, the video was reposted by a CCP channel, making it likely that the video was intended as a coercive measure. To threaten the use of nuclear weapons in order to achieve a strategic foreign policy objective such as the invasion or "liberation" of a sovereign state is to use the nuclear arsenal potentially as a component of a Hybrid Warfare strategy. This use of nuclear coercion doesn’t align itself with a minimum deterrence strategy that aims to deter military aggression. A state employing a minimum deterrence strategy will generally possess just enough deliverable and survivable nuclear weapons to ensure a successful retaliatory strike.



Hybrid Warfare is defined as "a continuation of foreign policy, utilizing a combination of unconventional hard power and/or subversive instruments to achieve strategic objectives." In the case of China’s Hybrid Warfare campaign against Taiwan, it has made nuclear threats against Japan as a warning against allied intervention. It has consistently conducted incursions into Taiwan's air defense identification zone using fighters and bombers. It has executed numerous cyber-attacks against Taiwan. It has released propaganda threatening Taiwan, and President Xi Jinping has pledged to “reunify” Taiwan with China and “smash” any attempts at formal independence. These measures aim to weaken Taiwan's resistance and alliances, making it easier for the CCP to fulfill its objective of annexing the island.


The ancient Chinese strategist and philosopher Sun Tzu states, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”. China’s display and threats of military power in addition to its propaganda and cyber-attacks aim to demonstrate to Taiwan and its allies that its "reunification" is a fait accompli and that the CCP will use any means, including nuclear weapons, to achieve this. The ultimate Chinese goals of this strategy, in line with Sun Tzu’s supreme art of war, are for the Taiwanese populace to realize that resistance is futile and willingly "reunify" with mainland China without a fight, and for Taiwan's allies to realize that the protection of Taiwan is not worth the cost.


What makes China’s nuclear threat dangerous is not only the intent but the capability. China has deployed nuclear DF-21 medium-range ballistic missiles and nuclear DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missiles that have the range to strike any target in Japan. The use of these missiles against Japan would leave the Chinese arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles such as the silo-based DF-5, road-mobile DF-31, and newer DF-41 to be held in reserve in case the United States launches a strike in retaliation for an attack on its ally. China knows that these are calculations that must be made by the U.S., Japan and its allies in defense of Taiwan. So what can be done to counter the CCP's use of nuclear coercion as a component of Hybrid Warfare and its departure from a minimum deterrence strategy?


The first action should be to disregard China's 'no first use' nuclear policy. This is a clear fallacy and must be recognized as such. China is modernizing its nuclear structure and using it to coerce. A ‘no first use’ policy, which China has allegedly committed to, only allows the use of nuclear weapons in retaliation for a nuclear strike. The U.S. and its allies need to disregard China’s ‘no first use’ claims in order to clearly establish strategies to counter nuclear coercion and deter possible Chinese use of nuclear weapons.


As the only power with the real capability to combat China in relation to Taiwan, it’s critical that the U.S. sends clear signals to deter China and reassure allies. The CCP must have no doubt that any use of nuclear weapons on a U.S. ally under the extended deterrence umbrella will be met with a retaliatory nuclear strike. This signaling can include public diplomatic reassurance to allies, deterrence flights of B-2 and B-52 nuclear-capable strategic bombers, the continuation of exercises such as Talisman-Sabre with Australia and the Malabar naval exercise with Quad partners, Japan, India and Australia, and the continuation of ‘freedom of navigation’ operations in the vicinity of disputed islands in the South China Sea.


The U.S. should consider all options, including negotiations with Japan to deploy land-based nuclear medium or intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Japanese territory. The offer of U.S. controlled missiles will act to prevent Japan from deciding to build its own nuclear weapon capability in response to the Chinese threat, thus preventing further nuclear proliferation. The U.S. should also recommence negotiations with Japan regarding the deployment of an Aegis Ashore or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system within Japanese territory to complement the naval units already equipped with Aegis. These tangible deployment options will reinforce signaling to mitigate Chinese miscalculation.


In 2014 Russian President, Vladimir Putin executed a Hybrid Warfare strategy against Ukraine to annex Crimea and unleash an ongoing war in the Donbas region. This has led to thousands of deaths and the downing of a civilian airliner. Putin wasn’t effectively deterred from this action. If China isn’t effectively deterred in its Hybrid Warfare strategy to take control of Taiwan, the consequences at best could be the annexation of Taiwan and the end of the U.S. alliance system. At worst, the consequences could be millions of deaths as a result of a nuclear strike. President Xi needs to understand without a doubt that any use of nuclear weapons or the invasion of Taiwan will have costs outweighing the benefits. The first action taken by the U.S. and its allies must be the recognition that China has moved on from its minimum deterrence strategy.



Adam Cabot has a Master's in International Relations and is currently researching nuclear strategy.