WAR 08-07-2021-to-08-13-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

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

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

(484) 07-31-2021-to-08-06-2021__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
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LEBANON FIRES ROCKETS INTO ISRAEL

• danielboon
• Wednesday at 6:12 AM
• BRKG - LEBANON FIRES ROCKETS INTO ISRAEL

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The Winds of War Blow in Korea and The Far East

ALERT - The Winds of War Blow in Korea and The Far East

‎The biggest mobilization of the last 40 years: All U.S. Navy fleets on combat readiness!‎ The largest mobilization of the last 40 years(!) began with the U.S. Navy putting the Fleets on combat readiness. In a move described as "unprecedented" the US Navy is proceeding with a global...

www.timebomb2000.com

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First Afghan Provincial Capital Falls to Taliban

• Techwreck
• Yesterday at 9:10 AM

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How US intelligence has helped cartels kill thousands in Mexico

"When you work with or in Mexico you have to be very careful with the information you are sharing," a former DEA official told Insider.

www.businessinsider.com

How US intelligence has helped cartels kill thousands in Mexico
Luis Chaparro
19 hours ago

• Drug-related violence has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in Mexico over the past two decades.
• Criminal groups drive that violence, but US and Mexican authorities have helped make some of it possible.
• "When you work with or in Mexico you have to be very careful with the information you are sharing," a former DEA official said.

10 Things in Politics: The latest in politics & the economy

Chihuahua, Mexico — Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Mexico during the "war on drugs," and while turf battles between drug cartels may drive much of the violence, US authorities have helped make some of that bloodshed possible.

The new Netflix feature series "Somos," based on a revealing article by journalist Ginger Thompson, seeks to illuminate the US's role in the massacre in Allende, a town in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila.

Thompson's 2017 article details how in 2011 the Zetas cartel "swept through" Allende and nearby towns "like a flash flood, demolishing homes and businesses and kidnapping and killing dozens, possibly hundreds, of men, women, and children."

The massacre unfolded after the DEA told Mexican authorities of a secret operation to spy on several cellphones belonging to Zetas leaders. Mexican authorities leaked details of the operation to the Zetas, who ordered the killings of everyone suspected of being informants, their families, and anyone who might be close to them.

Among the many victims were locals who had nothing to do with the cartel or with US or Mexican authorities. "They just happened to be in the way," Thompson wrote in 2017.

"I started this story because I was aware that there are many tragedies like the one in Allende, but this one in particular could show a direct link to the US," Thompson told Insider.

For Thompson this was an opportunity to "at least have policymakers thinking" about the consequences of their decisions, but she's not confident the series will lead to better policies.

"I think the story of Allende has sort of been heard in Washington. There are investigations happening as a result of that story. The Mexican government has heard and talked about what happened in Allende as a result of 'Somos,' but we'd be kidding ourselves if we think this will solve the problem," she said.

For members of the Coahuila state police, the Netflix series stirred some obscure memories but was mostly a reminder of what hasn't happened.

"After learning what happened in Allende and watching the series on Netflix the feeling I have is that nothing has changed. Organized crime keeps on top of the game and collud[ing] with most Mexican authorities," a state police intelligence agent told Insider, speaking anonymously since they were not authorized to speak with the media.

Although collaboration between drug cartels and Mexican officials is nothing new, what "Somos" and Thompson's article shed light on is the responsibility the US bears for the murders.

"Unlike most places in Mexico that have been ravaged by the drug war, what happened in Allende didn't have its origins in Mexico. It began in the United States, when the Drug Enforcement Administration scored an unexpected coup," Thompson wrote in the 2017 article.

Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the DEA, said that the Allende massacre could have been avoided.

"When you work with or in Mexico you have to be very careful with the information you are sharing. You could end up with a horrific situation like what happened in Allende," said Vigil, who worked in Mexico for almost 20 years.

"I think the DEA made a huge mistake by sharing information, but they've learned from that mistake. Now the ones that have to learn from this are the Mexican government," Vigil told Insider.

US authorities could be linked to another massacre like the one in Allende, especially after Mexico's recent reform of its National Security Law, Vigil said.

"This new law is requiring all foreign agents to report any interaction with Mexico. This means that all of the sensitive information is going to be shared with unknown Mexican officials and could jeopardize not only operations but many lives," he said.

The US and Mexican governments need to work together better, Thompson said, but it is unclear if they can or what would come of it.

"It is hard to know how reliable both governments are on this subject, but what is clear is that this fight is one for both countries. It is both governments' responsibility," she said.

Mexico's defense secretary, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, was in charge of the military garrison in Allende when the massacre took place but has deflected responsibility for failing to stop the killings.

"On March 1, 2011, I officially was assigned to be responsible for this military garrison, but I arrived a few days later and our military responsibilities during those years were not operative but administrative," Sandoval said in July.

Thompson said she is hopeful the series would find a new and broader audience for the story of what happened in Allende, although she is not sure if a news story or a Netflix series could stop such a massacre from happening again.

"I do think the series captures the essence of what happened there, and if we can get the message out there it would be amazing," Thompson said. "I really hope it won't happen again, but I think it is happening now. People are still disappearing. The drug war is still going on. People are still dying."

 

[Housecarl]

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Colombia govt says Bogota attack foiled

Colombian Defence Minister Diego Molano says authorities have foiled a plan to carry out an attack in the capital Bogota.

thewest.com.au

Crime
Colombia govt says Bogota attack foiled
Luis Jaime AcostaAAP
Thu, 5 August 2021 2:00PM

Colombian police have confiscated 67kg of explosives from former rebels who planned to carry out an attack in the capital Bogota, the government says.

Defence Minister Diego Molano said the attack was planned by leaders of dissident former members of the demobilised Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) who reject a 2016 peace deal with the government.

"Intelligence detected the plan to bring the explosive pentolite to Bogota to commit a terrorist attack in the city," Molano said during an address shared over social media.
Hernan Dario Velasquez, also known as El Paisa, ordered the attack, he said.

El Paisa is a member of the so-called Segunda Marquetalia group of former FARC, which is led by Ivan Marquez and whose leaders are hiding in Venezuela, according to security sources.

The dissidents were also planning to commit acts of vandalism and attacks against Colombia's military and police during upcoming protests, Molano said.

Two people were captured during the operation to seize the explosives, one of whom is a former FARC combatant, Colombia's police chief general Jorge Vargas said.

"El Paisa gave criminal instructions from Venezuela to commit attacks in the city of Bogota," Vargas said, reiterating that Colombia's government will offer up to 3 billion pesos ($A1 million) for information leading to the dissident's arrest.

On Wednesday Colombia re-issued three Interpol Red Notices for Marquez's capture and requested his extradition from Venezuela.

 

[Housecarl]

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The China-US Arms Trade Arms Race

For all its military technology advances, China remains far behind the U.S. in arms exports. The example of Nigeria helps explain why.

thediplomat.com

The China-US Arms Trade Arms Race
For all its military technology advances, China remains far behind the U.S. in arms exports. The example of Nigeria helps explain why.

By Jacob Parakilas
August 06, 2021

China has chipped away at the United States’ qualitative military edge in many respects over the last few decades, building up competitive or asymmetric capabilities at a substantial clip. But for all its progress in modernizing its own military, it has not yet reached parity with the U.S. – or Russia or Europe – in terms of selling its domestically-produced arms to foreign customers.

Arms sales are not a straightforward stand-in for geopolitical influence, of course. But they are not a simple commercial exchange, either. There are legal, ethical, and strategic considerations to the sale of weapons, which do not apply to other forms of trade. And most modern weapons require ongoing support, which ties provider and client states together and can be used as leverage to deepen other aspects of a political or strategic alliance.

Take, as an example, Nigeria, the largest (by population) and richest country in Africa. Nigeria is a useful case for understanding the dynamics of the global arms trade in part because it is not formally aligned with either the United States or China, but both countries maintain close ties there, and both have made sales of high-end equipment there in recent years.

Despite its wealth, Nigeria faces numerous overlapping security problems, including Islamist insurgency, banditry, piracy, mass kidnapping, and an unravelling social and political contract between the federal government and its subsidiary regions. Given the demands on the military – and the attrition it has faced – it is unsurprising that Nigeria has been in the market for a variety of new arms, even if the fundamental solution to those problems will require much more than that.

Even leaving aside the – admittedly profound – questions of training, morale, and tactics, the military’s Cold War-era legacy systems have significant limitations. One particularly important shortcoming, for a country primarily fighting irregular opponents amongst its own population, is a lack of precision, which makes civilian casualties a more frequent occurrence. That, in turn, makes the fundamental job of counterinsurgency – preventing the civilian populace from siding with the insurgents – far more difficult than it already is.

As the Nigerian military updates its flagship systems, it has been drawing from the catalogs of both Chinese and Western suppliers. The Air Force is replacing its old Chengdu J-7s with much newer JF-17 Thunder multirole fighters; a joint product of China and Pakistan, but simultaneously introducing Embraer Super Tucanos designed in Brazil and produced in the United States. The Navy’s principal surface combatants are an odd mixture: one German-designed frigate, a pair of ex-U.S. Coast Guard cutters, and a pair of new Chinese-made Type 056 corvettes.

Part of this is down to political considerations. The United States explicitly, if inconsistently, links arms sales to fealty to human rights norms – an area where the Nigerian military has a generally poor record. The Super Tucano sale, for example, was originally agreed and then put on hold by the Obama administration after the Nigerian Air Force bombed a refugee camp. The Trump administration restarted the deal, and while the Biden administration did not prevent the first six aircraft from being delivered, the Senate has put a hold on a proposed sale of secondhand AH-1 Super Cobra attack helicopters.

There are some advantages in pursuing a mixed approach to military procurement. Even states that produce the full spectrum of exportable military hardware – a rarified category that China entered only recently – do not necessarily produce the right hardware solution for every strategic or tactical problem. For example, the U.S., which has enjoyed air superiority in every conflict it has fought for more than half a century, produces a far sparser range of ground-based anti-aircraft weapons than does Russia or China. So a country facing a particular set of strategic circumstances might find that the best possible mix of equipment comes from a nationally diversified mix of suppliers.

On the other hand, a mixture of systems from different national suppliers might require far more effort to work together. Chinese-made precision-guided weapons can’t simply be mounted on U.S. helicopters, for example; and U.S.-caliber ammunition can’t be fired from Russian guns. Those high-end systems also require maintenance, spare parts, upgrades, crew training, and repairs. And as those systems become more complex, and particularly as they become more computerized and networked, the amount of leverage that the supplier can exert increases.

Iran, for example, has managed to keep its pre-revolutionary U.S.-built fighter, transport, and helicopter fleets flying and fighting through extremely creative sourcing and local industrial work. But a country that buys F-35s and then switches its affiliation away from the U.S. might find them completely inoperable in short order, thanks to a combination of extreme technical complexity and their need for software updates, which present exploitable vulnerabilities.

China’s advantage in this cutthroat world is that its weapons are offered at a lower price point than those of the U.S.. This is a key factor for developing countries like Nigeria. Their disadvantage is that the majority of their equipment – especially the newer, higher-end systems – are not yet combat-proven; and are pressured at the low end by the availability of large quantities of secondhand but still highly functional U.S.-made gear.

Beijing seems willing to sell, and eager to add military hardware to its infrastructural and commercial investments in the developing world. But even if its defense industry has the advantage on value for money and willingness to sell regardless of human rights issues, the example of Nigeria shows that China remains some ways away from matching its arms export ambitions to the pace of its domestic military modernization.

AUTHORS

CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR
Jacob Parakilas
Jacob Parakilas is an author, consultant, and analyst working on U.S. foreign policy and international security.
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Biden admin's Nuclear Posture Review 'will change little' at NNSA, weapons exec predicts

Aug. 7—ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Challenges and needs within the nuclear-weapons complex will likely endure whatever alterations the Biden administration's evaluation of atomic policy, prospects and capabilities brings, the National Nuclear Security Administration's head of defense programs predicted...

news.yahoo.com

Biden admin's Nuclear Posture Review 'will change little' at NNSA, weapons exec predicts

Colin Demarest, Aiken Standard, S.C.
Sat, August 7, 2021, 4:52 PM·2 min read

Aug. 7—ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Challenges and needs within the nuclear-weapons complex will likely endure whatever alterations the Biden administration's evaluation of atomic policy, prospects and capabilities brings, the National Nuclear Security Administration's head of defense programs predicted this week.

"I recognize that changes to the current program of record could result from this review," Dr. Charles Verdon, the deputy administrator for defense programs, said Tuesday. "However, it is my assessment — I repeat, my assessment — that as long as the U.S. requires the maintenance of a safe, secure and effective nuclear stockpile, what I discuss today, particularly regarding the continuing development of the science, the modernization of the stockpile, and the supporting infrastructure, will change little."

Verdon's speculation comes as the Pentagon undertakes what's formally known as a Nuclear Posture Review — a chance to refresh and realign — and as the Biden team is perpetually squeezed from rival nuclear-weapons denominations.

While lawmakers such as Reps. Joe Wilson of South Carolina and Mike Rogers of Alabama have pressed Biden to significantly invest in the nation's nuclear arsenal and backbone infrastructure, other lawmakers such as Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Jeff Merkley of Oregon have urged the president to "to reduce the role of U.S. nuclear weapons in our national security strategy" and to "forego development of new nuclear weapons."

Biden's fiscal year 2022 spending blueprint for NNSA weapons work — roughly $15.5 billion — was described by the Nuclear Weapons Council as "minimally sufficient." Wilson, a Republican, criticized the suggested allocation as "bare-bones" and "dangerous."

The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, produced under President Donald Trump, underlined that "nuclear weapons have and will continue to play a critical role" in national defense for the foreseeable future.

The guiding document also warned that the nuclear-weapons complex is in desperate need of a face-lift; chronic underfunding, it states, means "significant and sustained investments will be required over the coming decade to ensure that (NNSA) will be able to" execute and satisfy its so-called government customers.

Verdon on Tuesday said "challenges abound" when it comes to modernization of the broader nuclear outfit. Roughly one-third of NNSA facilities date back to the early Cold War era; more than half of its facilities are beyond their 40-year life expectancy.

"Will there be bumps in the road? Of course there will be," Verdon said. "But I do have confidence that the NNSA complex will be able to meet those and address those challenges in a timely manner, as we have a track record for doing that."

Verdon leads the team that directs what's known as the stockpile stewardship program: maintaining the security and reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons.

 

[Housecarl]

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EXCLUSIVE: Mexican Politician Allegedly Behind Sinaloa Cartel's Appearance in Border State Unmasked

The mayor of a city in the Mexican border state of Nuevo Leon is the alleged political figure behind the arrival of Sinaloa Cartel enforcers.

www.breitbart.com

EXCLUSIVE: Mexican Politician Allegedly Behind Sinaloa Cartel’s Appearance in Border State Unmasked

ILDEFONSO ORTIZ, BRANDON DARBY and GERALD TONY ARANDA
7 Aug 2021 275 Comments

The mayor of a rural city in the Mexican border state of Nuevo Leon is the alleged key political figure behind the arrival of Sinaloa Cartel enforcers. The cartel members arrived in the region recently in an apparent attempt to take control of drug trafficking routes and regional distribution.

In June, a cell of gunmen from the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS) surfaced in the rural city of Montemorelos, Nuevo Leon. Those gunmen clashed with authorities and strung banners announcing their arrival, Breitbart Texas reported exclusively. The rural city of Montemorelos is located just south of the Monterrey Metropolitan area.

According to the cartel banner and to information shared with Breitbart Texas by U.S. law enforcement sources operating in Mexico, the CDS cell is led by an unidentified commander known by the nicknames El Gato or Felino. Authorities in Mexico also seized weapons and tactical gear with patches and hats with Sinaloa Cartel insignias and logos.

The U.S. law enforcement sources revealed to Breitbart Texas that Montemorelos police officers and politicians drew their attention in late February after state authorities arrested three local cops in connection with charges related to extortions, drug distribution, and assault — including the use of a paddle to torture their victims. One of the victims who was tortured was a political rival of Mayor Luis Fernando “El Dragón” Garza Guerrero.

Intelligence information shared with Breitbart Texas by the U.S. law enforcement sources revealed that the politician who is known as El Dragón is connected to the Sinaloa Cartel through a local drug trafficker known as The Stripper. The nickname is not tied to any criminal activity but it is a catchy slogan that the politician has used throughout his career. The politician also had links with the late Dannes Elizondo, a convicted drug trafficker who lived in McAllen, Texas. Elizondo, a U.S. citizen, used to run large cocaine shipments from Nuevo Leon to Houston for various criminal organizations. He also reportedly had links with the Beltran Leyva Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel. A group of unknown gunmen killed Elizondo in 2018 in the ritzy suburb of San Pedro, Nuevo Leon.

The politician known as El Dragón hails from the MORENA Party and came into office in 2018. He quickly became the topic of much local controversy after being linked to numerous acts of local corruption and hiring organized crime figures into his inner circle. He is a known political ally of Mauricio Fernández Garza, the former mayor of San Pedro, who hails from the National Action Party (PAN) — the wealthiest suburb in the Monterrey metropolitan area.

Even though they were from rival parties, the political allies exchanged political favors and support. One of those favors was the hiring of Antonio Lucas Martínez, as the public security secretary of Montemorelos. Lucas Martinez had the same position in San Pedro but had to resign after he was linked to organized crime, including the forced disappearance of a teenager by his then police officers. The forced disappearance and the alleged collection of bribes by Lucas Martinez have since been covered up by state authorities.

Antonio Lucas Martínez and Luis Fernando “El Dragón” Garza Guerrero
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.

Gerald “Tony” Aranda is an international journalist with more than 20 years of experience working in high-risk areas for print and broadcast news outlets investigating organized crime, corruption, and drug trafficking in the U.S. and Mexico. In 2016, Gerald took up the pseudonym of “Tony” when he joined Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project. Since then, he has come out of the shadows and become a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.

 

[Housecarl]

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Applying Machiavellian Discourses to the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

After 20 years of war without victory in both Afghanistan and Iraq, it is time to derive key lessons from both conflicts to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Niccolò Machiavelli, who

www.realcleardefense.com

Applying Machiavellian Discourses to the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
.
By Scott Savitz
August 07, 2021

After 20 years of war without victory in both Afghanistan and Iraq, it is time to derive key lessons from both conflicts to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Niccolò Machiavelli, whose insights on statecraft have endured for five centuries, is a valuable guide in analyzing those lessons.

Although he has often been misperceived as malevolent, Machiavelli's writings provide potent reminders of how analysis of historical events can inform responses to contemporary challenges. Machiavelli's best-known work is The Prince, but his perceptive comments on political and military affairs are not confined to that slim volume. In particular, his book Discourses on Livyoffers a range of sage political advice, frequently referencing Titus Livy's books on the history of early Rome and other ancient sources. Many of these discourses are highly applicable to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and with the benefit of hindsight, they could have improved the way they were conducted.

For example, Machiavelli highlighted the danger of believing the promises of exiles who offer to help an outside power take over their native countries since these individuals inevitably have their own agendas. Their characterization of the situation within their country may be tinged by their own hopes of return, as well as by their hunger to overthrow the existing government. This observation was exemplified by the Bush administration's interactions with Iraqi exiles prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, such as Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi and the informant code-named "Curveball."

They and other exiles not only peddled lies about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs and contacts with terrorists but also told American interlocutors that invading forces would be greeted as liberators. This worked, in part, because members of the Bush administration may have wanted to believe what they were being told, but their failure to adequately question the accuracy and motives of Iraqi exiles helped them justify the ill-fated invasion of Iraq.

In a key passage of the Discourses, Machiavelli warned leaders against using an inadequate number of forces in a situation that puts the state at risk; in another, he recommended the use of massive, overwhelming force to ensure that wars are short. The long durations and failures of both wars may be, at least in part, a testament to the relatively small numbers of forces conducting each at any given time.

The scale of the U.S. invasion of Iraq was deliberately limited at the outset, despite the protests of then Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki that many more personnel were needed, and despite Secretary of State Colin Powell's doctrine not to go to war without overwhelming force. The improvised invasion of Afghanistan was unavoidably small at the beginning but was not scaled up to reflect the vast, challenging terrain and a substantial population that had to be secured. Even at the peak of U.S. strength in both countries, there was roughly one American for every 200 Iraqis and one for every 300 Afghans, too few to counter their respective insurgencies, even with allied help.

Machiavelli also described the challenges of creating a free state in a place that has long been steeped in corruption and the need to install a strong central government to counter that culture of corruption. Separately, he advised that when reforming a state, at least some of the trappings of the prior government should be retained to make the reforms more palatable. The decision to rapidly dissolve Iraqi government entities in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. invasion ran counter to both of these points: it angered those who had lost their jobs and made reconstitution of a new Iraqi government—let alone a strong one—far harder than it needed to be.

Like Sun Tzu, Machiavelli enjoined commanders to acquire a detailed knowledge of geography, together with an understanding of how it influences military operations. The nature of Afghanistan's military geography may have been underappreciated by the U.S. political leaders who declared victory in late 2001. They had apparently overlooked the long history of nations thinking that they had conquered Afghanistan, only to find themselves defeated by its physical and human geography. The same rugged mountains and fiercely independent communities that had defied Alexander the Great, Victorian Britain, the Soviet Union, and many other invaders remained intractable to U.S. and allied forces. The complexity of Iraq's human geography also may have eluded leaders at multiple levels, being caricatured as a simple divide among Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs and Sunni Kurds. The tribal, factional and ideological divides within these communities and the existence and vulnerability of numerous smaller minorities were largely ignored.

The U.S. is not the first to encounter many of the issues that it faced in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Machiavelli’s Discourses are replete with examples of similar situations, from ancient times through the Renaissance. His analysis and the lessons he derived from these examples remain pertinent to warfare and statecraft in the 21st century. As the U.S. strives to learn lessons from its recent wars, it may be valuable to contextualize these conflicts as part of recurring patterns of human affairs. Studying Machiavelli and others who have thought deeply about history might help the U.S. avoid future calamities by imbibing insights from its own experiences and the wider historical pageant.

Scott Savitz is a senior engineer at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.

 

[jward]

Suspected jihadists kill 40 villagers in Mali, 12 troops in Burkina





Issued on: 09/08/2021 - 11:56

Jihadist violence has caused hundreds of thousands of Malians to flee their homes OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT AFP


3 min
Bamako (AFP)

Suspected jihadists massacred more than 40 civilians in northern Mali and killed 12 troops in an ambush in neighbouring Burkina Faso, officials said Monday, highlighting the security crisis gripping the two fragile states.
More than 40 people were killed on Sunday when "terrorists" invaded the villages of Karou, Ouatagouna and Daoutegeft near Mali's border with Niger, a military officer told AFP.
"The terrorists went into the villages and massacred everyone," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A local official, who also asked not to be identified for security reasons, said that "20 civilians were massacred in Karou. Fourteen civilians were killed in Ouatagouna, and other civilians were killed in the hamlet of Daoutegeft."
The assailants arrived on motorbike, taking the villagers by surprise, he said.
An official at a fourth village said his locality had also come under attack.

An army unit has been sent to provide help, a military officer said, but a source in a Malian NGO said communications with the area were poor after jihadists had attacked telecoms sites.
Mali, a landlocked and impoverished state in the heart of the West Africa's Sahel region, has been battling a jihadist insurgency since 2012.
The crisis began with unrest in the north of the country that spread to Mali's ethnically volatile centre and then to neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.

Armed groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group are steering the campaign today.
Thousands of civilians and troops have died and hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes.
Mali has suffered two coups since August last year, and on July 20 military leader Colonel Assimi Goita survived an attempted assassination at a mosque in Bamako.

Malian strongman Assimi Goita has led two coups in the last year MALIK KONATE AFP/File

Alioune Tine, an independent experts on human rights in the Sahel who reports to the United Nations, last week warned that a "critical threshold" had been breached in the country's security situation.
At the end of an 11-day visit, he highlighted "the failure of the institutions of state" as well as "relentless attacks on civilian populations" by jihadists, and said the armed forces themselves had committed violence against civilians.

- Burkina attack -
In Burkina Faso, meanwhile, 12 troops were killed and eight were wounded on Sunday in an ambush near the border with Mali, the government said.
"Members of the ground forces and the rapid intervention force GARSI were ambushed" in the northwest Boucle du Mouhoun region, Communications Minister Ousseni Tamboura said on Monday.
The attack occurred near the village of Dounkoun in Toeni district.
President Roch Marc Christian Kabore said in a tweet that "we continue to wage without concession the war the obscurantist and barbaric forces have imposed on our country."

Countries where jihadists are active Jonathan WALTER AFP

A security source told AFP that the ambush happened around 3 pm (1500 GMT), adding vehicles had been destroyed or captured.
The attack was "revenge for the death of two jihadist leaders who were active in the same Boucle du Mouhoun region, who were neutralised (Saturday) by the armed forces," the source added.
He named the two leaders as Sidibe Ousmane, also known "Mouslim" and spiritual leader Bande Amadou, the source said.
They were killed by a special army unit following exchanges of fire between Diamasso and Bouni, in Kossi province, the government said Sunday in a statement.

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Suspected jihadists kill 40 villagers in Mali, 12 troops in Burkina - France 24

Suspected jihadists kill 40 villagers in Mali, 12 troops in Burkina

www.france24.com

 

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Believe It or Not: U.S. Nuclear Declaratory Policy and Calculated Ambiguity - War on the Rocks

I am told people complain that I am given to drawing fine distinctions. I am. High policy depends upon fine distinctions: and, if people find they cannot

warontherocks.com

BELIEVE IT OR NOT: U.S. NUCLEAR DECLARATORY POLICY AND CALCULATED AMBIGUITY
MATTHEW COSTLOW
AUGUST 9, 2021
COMMENTARY

Nuclear weapons are typically seen as the state’s bluntest instruments available, seemingly indiscriminate in their power. Yet nuclear declaratory policy is precision-crafted with each word carefully chosen for its effects on opponents and allies alike. Though he governed in the pre-nuclear age, former U.K. Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour, to whom these words above are credited, understood the power and complexity of policy. But senior government officials cannot simply craft national policy with “fine distinctions” and let it be. They should express it in both words and deeds so that adversaries and allies will not only receive the message, but understand it and hopefully find it credible.

Words in the age of nuclear weapons have taken on even greater importance as the consequences for misperceptions can change — perhaps even end — civilization. Paradoxically though, clarity is not always preferable. U.S. nuclear strategists have long recognized there is a place for ambiguity in declaratory policy — stating one’s intentions and “red lines” clearly enough to deter attacks, but not so explicitly as to restrict freedom of action or encourage adversary aggression just short of the “red lines.” The current U.S. policy of “calculated ambiguity” states that America will only consider nuclear employment under “extreme circumstances” when its “vital interests,” or those of its allies and partners, are threatened. This leaves it to America’s adversaries to wrestle with whether the United States would consider their actions “extreme” or threatening “vital interests.” Most of the long-running debate on U.S. nuclear declaratory policy centers on the question of the value of this purposeful ambiguity, and in what circumstances it should apply, for deterring attack and assuring allies and partners.

The Obama administration twice reportedly considered adopting a new, more restrictive, nuclear declaratory policy. However, it twice rejected the move as unwise because the security environment had not improved enough and because allies such as Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany fiercely objected. More recently, then-candidate for president, Joe Biden, wrote that he wants to revisit this issue at least once more, likely in a forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review. Given the potential consequences of a changed U.S. nuclear declaratory policy — whether it is shifting adversaries’ threat perceptions, alliance dynamics, or domestic weapons procurement — it is well worth exploring whether change is desirable.

America’s current policy of “calculated ambiguity” is worth keeping because it contributes to deterring a growing range of strategic non-nuclear threats (chemical, biological, and conventional), provides U.S. leadership freedom of action in a crisis or conflict, and assures allies and partners. However, influential politicians such as House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, plus a host of non-government analysts, are proposing changes to U.S. nuclear declaratory policy now because the Biden administration is in the early stages of formulating U.S. nuclear policy. As nuclear modernization programs advance through Congress, the likelihood of restricting or outright eliminating them falls. They hope that if the Biden administration adopts new declaratory policy, that may provide enough impetus to achieve their visions of a reduced U.S. nuclear arsenal. These alternative policies — including nuclear “no first use,” “sole purpose,” and an “existential threat policy” — miss the mark because they seek to restrict U.S. deterrence options through declarations that opponents are unlikely to believe, and allies and partners believe are to their detriment. Instead, U.S. officials should articulate a strong defense of the current nuclear declaratory policy of calculated ambiguity because its flexibility is its strength, and a true necessity in a dynamic security environment.

Calculated Ambiguity: The Deterrent Benefits
The current U.S. policy of calculated ambiguity seeks to signal U.S. intent clearly enough to highlight “red lines,” or situations in which the United States may consider employing nuclear weapons. Yet, it also refrains from telegraphing the type and size of an attack an opponent should expect, should it choose not to be deterred. In essence, it leaves open the possibility of a U.S. nuclear first employment to defend its vital interests, or those of its allies and partners in extreme circumstances. Without using the words “calculated ambiguity,” official U.S. policy states:

The United States would only consider the employment of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States, its allies, and partners. Extreme circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks. Significant non-nuclear strategic attacks include, but are not limited to, attacks on the U.S., allied, or partner civilian population or infrastructure, and attacks on U.S. or allied nuclear forces, their command and control, or warning and attack assessment capabilities.

Except for the sentence identifying what could constitute a strategic non-nuclear attack, the Trump administration’s declaratory formula is essentially a word-for-word copy of the Obama administration’s policy.

Regrettably, U.S. defense officials have rarely discussed publicly the deterrence and assurance benefits of the U.S. policy of calculated ambiguity. When they have, they mostly frame their thoughts by discussing why they would disagree with a possible shift to an alternative policy like nuclear no first use. However, as I discuss in my latest report, there are a number of benefits to retaining a policy of calculated ambiguity.

First, the policy of calculated ambiguity provides a potentially vital deterrent threat before the outbreak of major conflict. By keeping the option open of employing nuclear weapons first, U.S. leaders can make a last-ditch deterrent threat to prevent a major crisis from escalating or a conflict from growing more costly. There is, of course, no guarantee such a threat would work. But alternative policies like sole purpose and nuclear no first use essentially eliminate the possibility of U.S. officials even being able to try in certain dire circumstances. When a crisis or conflict has reached a level of severity where leaders are considering nuclear employment, that is not the time they should be denied what could be their least bad option, threatening nuclear first use to stave off an even worse outcome.

U.S. nuclear declaratory policy requires an adversary to gamble twice. First, they gamble that the United States will not respond to an attack with its nuclear forces, and second, that the attack will achieve its goals in the face of a U.S. conventional response. These gambles, enabled by a policy of calculated ambiguity, can aid deterrence by increasing an adversary’s uncertainty regarding the type and consequences of a U.S. response.

Second, the policy of calculated ambiguity provides U.S. officials with a range of options for crises and conflict that, by their nature, will require U.S. flexibility. They are neither forced to threaten or carry out nuclear first use, nor are they constrained to only consider conventional responses. U.S. officials can keep the threat of nuclear first use implicit or make it more explicit depending on what type of signal they want to send to an adversary. Should they wish to signal their resolve or deter particular behavior, they can clarify U.S. nuclear policy either privately or publicly as the United States did during the Gulf War in 1991 to some effect. Despite the concerns of some like nuclear scholar Scott Sagan, leaving open the possibility of nuclear first use does not commit a U.S. president to employ nuclear weapons first in order to reinforce some vague notion that America keeps its word. When America’s word on the subject of nuclear employment is intentionally vague and non-committal, there is little reason to fear an overriding impulse to unnecessarily employ nuclear weapons. Again, keeping U.S. options open, even extreme ones, during a crisis or conflict allows greater freedom of action to pursue de-escalatory outcomes in addition to providing more chances for nuclear deterrence to “work.”

Third, the current policy of calculated ambiguity allows U.S. officials to consider all options, including nuclear first use, for deterrence in the face of a growing set of non-nuclear threats. The policies of sole purpose or nuclear no-first-use, on the other hand, would (depending on how they are formulated) exclude the possibility of the United States even issuing a nuclear first-use-deterrent threat. Nor would they allow a U.S. nuclear response to strategic non-nuclear attacks on itself, or its allies and partners. U.S. allies and partners, given their geographic location near or neighboring Russia, China, and North Korea, are at the highest risk of suffering large scale chemical or biological attacks — threats that certainly do not appear to be declining.

The United States itself will likely want to at least keep open the option of threatening or employing nuclear weapons first, not only to defend allies and partners, but also to deter or respond to attacks on critical U.S. targets. For example, a Russian conventional cruise missile attack on the U.S. homeland could destroy U.S. nuclear submarines in port (with potentially hundreds of nuclear warheads onboard), disable power plants, or damage terrestrial radars and sensors. Likewise, non-nuclear anti-satellite capabilities Russia and China are developing could target U.S. nuclear command, control, and communications.

Put simply, a U.S. nuclear no-first-use or sole purpose policy, depending on how it is crafted, will not allow the United States to make explicit nuclear threats to deter some of the potentially most-damaging non-nuclear attacks, much less conduct a nuclear response. In effect, these policies could essentially signal, whether intentionally or not, that U.S. policy values withholding even the deterrent threat of nuclear employment over sustaining massive casualties from strategic non-nuclear attack, perhaps up to the point of defeat. Critics may respond that withholding the threat of nuclear employment makes the U.S. commitment to defeating the adversary with conventional means that much more credible. However, like a boxer who ties one of his hands behind his back, it may demonstrate he is committed to only using his other hand, but he will inevitably take a greater beating in the end.

Yes, the United States may eventually win such a contest with its superior conventional forces, but this result is not guaranteed and may come at too high a cost. Given this possibility, why eliminate a valuable deterrent threat, especially when the threat of a U.S. nuclear response can help tip the balance towards preventing a conflict in the first place?

Why Change Policies Now?
Those who wish to make cuts to the U.S. nuclear arsenal see President Biden’s Interim National Security Guidance’s pledge to “take steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy” as a golden opportunity to advance their preferred policies. As the Obama administration demonstrated, however, a reduction in the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security strategy does not, in fact, require a change in declaratory policy. Rather, the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review cited an improved security environment, increasingly capable conventional weapons, and more regional missile defenses as factors that allowed a reduction in reliance on nuclear weapons, without a significant change to declaratory policy.

Twice the Obama administration reportedly considered replacing current U.S. policy with a sole purpose or nuclear no-first-use policy. Though we do not know the exact formulation officials were considering, it likely would have stated that the sole purpose of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is to deter, and if necessary respond to, nuclear attacks on itself, its allies, or its partners. Then-candidate for president Joe Biden wrote that he supported such a change, but the Obama administration ultimately decided against it, based on a worsening security environment and the objections of allies. Multiple senior Obama administration defense officials remain opposed to adopting such a policy.

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

Yet there is pressure from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to pursue bold initiatives that they hope will lead to U.S. nuclear reductions. Thus, Sen. Warren and Rep. Smith introduced a one-sentence bill that would make it the policy of the United States “to not use nuclear weapons first.” Others care less about what the policy is called, whether no-first-use or sole purpose, as long as it results in U.S. nuclear weapons reductions and further restrictions on their employment.

The Biden administration may consider replacing the current policy of calculated ambiguity with one of three different types of alternative policies: sole purpose, no first use, or existential threat.

Sole Purpose: Avoiding the Subject
Advocates of sole purpose or nuclear no-first-use policies acknowledge that, depending on how they are written, they can effectively mean the same thing. For example, Ankit Panda and Vipin Narang acknowledge that Biden’s formulation: “the sole purpose of the U.S. nuclear arsenal should be deterring – and, if necessary, retaliating against – nuclear attack” is substantively the same as a nuclear no-first-use policy. Indeed, other analysts believe they are “equivalent” policies, or different ways of saying the same thing. The Evans-Kawaguchi report even goes so far as to acknowledge that nuclear no-first-use pledges, both past and current, are widely doubted as credible, so states should adopt “a different formulation of essentially the same idea,” that is sole purpose, to avoid being associated with a policy that others have not found credible.

Panda and Narang, on the other hand, prefer a different, more streamlined sole purpose formulation: “The sole purpose of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is to deter nuclear attacks against the United States and its allies.” This phrasing is meant to reassure allies by keeping silent on the issue of “use” (whether first or in response), but they claim there is still room for first use implied within the policy, but it is unclear under what circumstances.

Yet, the United States keeps the option open of employing nuclear weapons first to deter massive conventional, chemical, or biological attacks as well as a number of other strategic non-nuclear attacks. It is precisely these sorts of attacks that allies and partners are greatly worried about, and which U.S. officials could likely not even threaten nuclear employment against for deterrence purposes under their preferred policy. A policy that essentially forbids even threatening nuclear employment in defense of an ally unless it is under imminent threat of attack by nuclear weapons is hardly reassuring. When allies inquire about U.S. nuclear policy, they are not asking U.S. officials to wax eloquent on the purpose of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, they are asking how it would apply in real world situations, (i.e., “use”), exactly the kind of conversation the sole purpose policy is meant to avoid.

Panda and Narang also fail to establish exactly why the United States should switch its nuclear declaratory policy from calculated ambiguity to their version of sole purpose. They rightly acknowledge that adversaries will not believe U.S. statements in either case so there is no benefit there, and given allied pushback on the Obama administration’s attempts to adopt a sole purpose policy there appears to be little benefit in terms of alliances. In fact, they devote only about a sentence-worth of words to the purported benefits of their new policy, saying that it could “meaningfully de-emphasize the role of nuclear weapons in American security strategy” and that it “assures the world — adversaries and allies alike — that the United States would only ever use nuclear weapons in the most extreme of circumstances.” However, current U.S. nuclear declaratory policy already explicitly identifies “extreme circumstances” as the only time the United States would consider employing nuclear weapons. A sole purpose policy’s lack of clear benefits, combined with the likely adverse allied reactions and the growth of strategic non-nuclear threats, makes it both unnecessary and unwise.

No First Use: A More Radical Alternative
While a sole purpose policy actively avoids discussing the possible employment of nuclear weapons, a no-first-use policy opts to emphasize the subject. Ultimately, the end goal is the same: restricting the scenarios in which the United States could threaten to employ, or actually employ, nuclear weapons. But, according to most proponents, like Daryl Kimball, they believe the no-first-use policy’s explicit restrictions are part of its value as a signal to potential adversaries that they need not fear a U.S. preemptive nuclear strike, thus theoretically reducing the possibility of nuclear use in a conflict.

Advocates of nuclear no-first-use (and sole purpose) policies generally articulate six inter-related benefits that the United States might gain from adopting these policies: reduced risk of adversary nuclear first use due to fear of U.S. preemption; a general reduction in bilateral and multilateral tensions; advances in nuclear nonproliferation and perceived commitment to disarmament; foreclosure of an unthinkable and escalatory option; encouragement to keep a conflict at the conventional level; and the creation of the conditions necessary for nuclear weapon reductions whether unilaterally or with others.

To test whether the United States is likely to reap these benefits if it adopted one of these policies, I examined four cases where states adopted a no-first-use policy to see if they benefited in the expected ways: the Soviet nuclear no-first-use policy (1982–1993), the Chinese nuclear no-first-use policy (1964–present), the Indian nuclear no-first-use policy (2003–present), and the Soviet chemical weapon no-first-use policy (1928–present). Remarkably, in each of the cases, the six benefits listed above were almost entirely absent. Simply put, no-first-use policies have a perfect record of failure.

Why? The greatest obstacle to a nuclear no-first-use policy producing the purported benefits for crisis stability or arms race stability is that the other side should believe it, even under the most stressful circumstances. But the examples above indicate that the primary target audience of a state’s no-first-use policy has never believed it fully, whether it was the Soviet Union during the Cold War, or China and India today.

What is even more remarkable is that China and India have, at least until recently, what should be the quintessential nuclear arsenals to project a credible nuclear no-first-use policy. Specifically, they have much smaller nuclear arsenal sizes than Russia and the United States, the weapons are generally de-alerted, and it’s possible that the warheads are separated from the missiles themselves in some systems. If it is possible to create a believable no-first-use policy, then China and India are the ideal test cases. And yet, there is reportedly widespread disbelief among officials and analysts in both countries about each side’s commitment to their respective nuclear no-first-use policies. Recent U.S. defense officials have also claimed they do not believe China’s nuclear no-first-use policy, and the Department of Defense more generally has had long-standing doubts, even before China began its massive current buildup of nuclear weapons.

In short, if a nuclear no-first-use policy does not provide the purported benefits in the best-case scenario, it is even less likely to produce those benefits for the United States.

Existential Threat Policy: The (Somewhat) New Kid on the Block
There exists yet a third camp in the debate over U.S. nuclear declaratory policy that recognizes the potential need to threaten or employ nuclear weapons first to deter or respond to strategic non-nuclear threats, while also signaling a further restriction in the circumstances in which the United States might consider employing nuclear weapons. The “existential threat policy” has the backing of some respected analysts and is worth examining as an alternative to the current policy of calculated ambiguity.
According to George Perkovich and Pranay Vaddi, an existential threat policy would make it U.S. policy to only consider employing nuclear weapons, “when no viable alternative exists to stop an existential attack against the United States, its allies, or partners.” Or, in the words of James Acton:

because of the possibility of escalation, it [the United States] considers that any use of nuclear weapons against itself, its allies, or its partners would constitute an existential threat. But, because existential threats are not limited to nuclear use, this declaratory policy would allow the United States to employ nuclear weapons to defend allies from the most extreme nonnuclear threats.

As its proponents acknowledge, a great deal hangs on the word “existential” and at what point a threat transitions from “severe” to “existential.” Therein, however, lies the weakness of the existential threat policy. For smaller U.S. allies and partners neighboring revisionist powers like China and Russia, even relatively small conventional incursions can be considered “existential threats.” Or, in the example of Seoul, South Korea, massive conventional attacks on the city combined perhaps with chemical and biological weapons use would undoubtedly permanently affect the sovereign political entity of South Korea. But with a potentially sustained and very bloody U.S. response to defend its ally, South Korea could remain a functioning political unit on the world stage. But in those moments when Seoul is under siege and millions of people are fleeing, South Korean and U.S. leaders cannot be absolutely certain that North Korea has war aims that represent an existential threat. Put simply, the United States and its allies may not agree on the severity of an emerging threat during a crisis or conflict and whether it warrants a threat of nuclear first use. But the growing speed and destructiveness of strategic non-nuclear weapons makes an existential threat policy untenable because by the time the United States and an ally agree that a threat has become existential, it may be too late for the threat of U.S. nuclear employment to have the potential deterrent effect.

In addition, an existential threat policy is arguably more vague, detrimentally so, than the current policy of considering nuclear employment only under “extreme circumstances.” Perkovich and Vaddi do not deny that raising the threshold at which the United States would consider employing nuclear weapons may tempt Russia and China to engage in aggression right up to, but not crossing, the “existential threat” line. Their proposed solution is to essentially increase U.S. conventional forces to strengthen deterrence below the nuclear threshold, which the United States is already doing under its current declaratory policy. Thus, it is unclear what net security benefit the United States would gain from adopting an existential threat policy given likely allied reactions and potential adversary responses.

What to Do?
As the Biden administration considers whether the United States should retain the longstanding policy of calculated ambiguity or replace it with some form of sole purpose, no-first-use, or existential threat policies, it should keep in mind that the Obama administration faced much the same situation. It also entered office seeking to reduce the role of nuclear weapons, but found that threats around the world had not diminished in size or severity enough to justify a precedent-breaking change in U.S. nuclear policy. Allies also expressed their opposition to the policy. While it will certainly anger more progressive members of his caucus, though likely not enough to change any votes, Biden should consider following the Obama playbook in two respects.
First, strengthened homeland and regional missile defenses may help reduce U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons by providing supplemental deterrence by denial, lessening the burden on nuclear weapons and their deterrence by threat of punishment. Improved missile defenses can also reduce the risk of inadvertent nuclear escalation by providing U.S. leaders the option of absorbing what appears to be an incoming attack before responding. Second, additional options for long-range precision strike conventional weapons can improve deterrence of regional threats, perhaps lessening the chances of an ally finding itself on the brink of defeat and thus requiring U.S. nuclear threats. These developments may offer an avenue for the Biden administration to achieve its goal of reducing U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons without a change in declaratory policy.

But, potential adversaries also have a vote in just how much nuclear and strategic non-nuclear capabilities grow in salience. The security environment in which the United States and its allies and partners operate is certainly no better, and in some respects much worse, than in 2010 and 2016 when the Obama administration considered and rejected changing nuclear declaratory policy. As Toby Dalton has noted, even after thorough consultations with allies, well-intentioned U.S. nuclear signals can cause adverse allied reactions that make the original action a net loss.

Though the impulse for the Biden administration to differentiate itself from its predecessors will be strong, U.S. nuclear policy should not be the focus for radical breaks from the past. The Obama administration, to its credit, did not confuse its long-term hopes for nuclear disarmament with the short-term reality of rising nuclear and strategic non-nuclear threats, and the subsequent need to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The Trump administration agreed with the threat characterizations, continued the Obama nuclear modernization program, and did not change U.S. nuclear declaratory policy — it only sought to prudently clarify the policy.

Calculated ambiguity is best positioned among all the other alternative policies to provide U.S. and allied leaders the freedom of action necessary to respond to a growing range of threats. This freedom of action reinforces deterrence against America’s adversaries. Nuclear declaratory policy is far too consequential to become a vehicle for merely signaling U.S. good intentions on nonproliferation and disarmament — a job far more appropriate for U.S. arms control proposals and dialogue. Instead, U.S. officials should clearly articulate why U.S. nuclear declaratory policy is important not only for its deterrence and assurance effects, but also for the range of policy options it can provide that have the best chance of achieving U.S. political and military goals. The tension between when to clarify and when to be ambiguous about U.S. intentions will remain, but preemptively removing the ability to make particular deterrent threats continues to be unwise. The policy of calculated ambiguity may remove the “fine distinctions” that Lord Balfour treasured, but for the purposes of deterring nuclear and non-nuclear threats, it is a “high policy” worth keeping.

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Matthew R. Costlow is a senior analyst at the National Institute for Public Policy and the author most recently of A Net Assessment of “No First Use” and “Sole Purpose” Nuclear Policies.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

Air Force ICBM Chief Wants US-China Military Dialogue - Breaking Defense

"I think the challenge [to establishing nuclear dialogue] is going to be on the Chinese side," said Maj. Gen. Michael Lutton.

breakingdefense.com

• AIR WARFARE, CHINA, GLOBAL, NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Air Force ICBM Chief Wants US-China Military Dialogue
"I think the challenge [to establishing nuclear dialogue] is going to be on the Chinese side," said Maj. Gen. Michael Lutton.

By THERESA HITCHENS
on August 10, 2021 at 12:52 PM

WASHINGTON: Dialogue between Chinese and American military leaders on nuclear weapons would be in the US interest and would serve to shore up “strategic stability,” according to Maj. Gen. Michael Lutton, commander of the 20th Air Force responsible for the US ICBM force.

“A dialogue allows us to communicate our national security or diplomatic objectives, and then to understand Chinese national security diplomatic objectives,” he told the Mitchell Institute today.

Noting the longstanding exchange of information between Russia and the United States under a rolling series of nuclear arms agreements, including the current New START Treaty, Lutton explained that this pathway to improving understanding between Beijing and Washington on nuclear thinking doesn’t currently exist.

“I think militarily, it’s beneficial from a strategic stability perspective to begin that dialogue,” he said.

Lutton, who previously served as deputy director for Nuclear and Homeland Defense Operations of the Joint Staff, noted that he traveled to China as a one-star and had an opportunity to talk to experts at the Chinese equivalent of the US National War College. Due to the “very complex decision making process for their national security apparatus” and an allergy to transparency, he said, figuring out how to get the People’s Liberation Army to the table will not be an easy task for US diplomats.

“I think the challenge is going to be on the Chinese side,” Lutton said.

For example, he said, during discussions at the time it became clear that the Chinese were “confounded” by the US willingness to sign treaties.

“They wanted to know why the US had so many treaties in the Indo-Pacific area of responsibility,” he said, “because, at least in these officer’s minds, treaties were an indication of weakness — you know, great nations don’t have treaties.”

Nor do the Chinese have the same understanding of the value of norms of behavior that the US military has, he added.

“Notwithstanding, I think we should still try and work with the Chinese,” he went on. “We’ll see if the Chinese want to work with us. That’s clearly up to our diplomats and our most senior military leaders to approach them, but it makes sense to do that to me. I think it is beneficial to work with the Chinese.”

Lutton said that in his mind the US plans to modernize its nuclear triad actually helps to push that dialogue.

“And interestingly enough, I believe, modernization is a critical part of that,” he said. “Modernization is a critical part of counterproliferation, and modernization is a critical part of nuclear nonproliferation.”

With regard to the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), the Air Force-led program to replace the current fleet of aging Minuteman III ICBMs, first introduced in 1963, Lutton stressed that the modernization effort was much wider than just building a new ICBM. It also includes upgrading test facilities, modernizing launch ranges and revamping training for operators.

It also involves “activities that I need to do for Minuteman III sustainment,” he added.

 

[jward]

Mysterious Late Night, High-Altitude Airspace Closure Appears Alongside Nellis Range Complex
The odd altitude reservation could be used to bridge the R-2508 range complex with the Nevada Test and Training Range or for something else entirely.
By Tyler Rogoway August 11, 2021

A somewhat bizarre airspace restriction will go into place above one of the busiest flight corridors in the western United States on Thursday, August 12th, from 11 pm to 3 am Pacific time. The box-like altitude reservation (ALTRV), a high-altitude chunk of airspace from 45,000 to 60,000 feet, sits nestled between military operating areas (MOAs) that are part of the R-2508 range complex that surrounds Edwards AFB and Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake to the west and the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) to the east. This box of sky sits above an alley-like corridor that streams of airliners travel through coming and going from Las Vegas and other major population centers in America's Southwest.

The airspace restriction was first noticed by our friend @thenewarea51, who keeps a close eye on radio communications and aircraft movements. The altitudes involved are curious as even the lower end of the block can only be accessed by a limited number of aircraft—mainly high-end business jets, fighters, and RQ-4 and U-2 high-altitude surveillance aircraft. Normal airliner traffic passing through this area would usually be under 45,000 feet almost by default.

Interesting stationary altitude reservation over the airspace corridor going to/from Las Vegas starting Thursday night 11pm PST - 3am PST Aug 12th. This reservation will allow aircraft or ?‍ to transit between the Nevada ranges and the China Lake area from 45,000ft - 60,000ft pic.twitter.com/eEwfDxLsYL
— Thenewarea51 (@thenewarea51) August 11, 2021​

It's not like we haven't seen strange airspace restrictions go up in this area of the U.S. before. Maybe most interesting are the high-altitude corridors set aside for something transitioning between the NTTR and the Pacific, which have come and gone. These were indicative of a secretive high-altitude drone or other test aircraft accessing the expanses of the Pacific for operational use or the SoCal range complex for testing. But those are clearly about going somewhere, this one, at least at first glance, is more like a holding box sandwiched between two of the most highly prized military training areas in the United States. Although, because of this, it could be used as a far shorter 'bridge' itself. In fact, it connects the R-2508 complex and the NTTR at their closest points.

USAF

A very low-res image posted by Edwards AFB in the past shows the proximity of the R-2508 complex (lower left cluster) and the NTTR (middle right cluster). The ALTRV does seem to connect the two together at their closest point.

So there is always the possibility that this temporary airspace reservation could act as a small bridge between the MOAs around China Lake and the NTTR, supporting the movement of aircraft flying from one base, such as NAWS China Lake or Edwards AFB, into the NTTR and vice-versa. It would seem odd to do such a thing for normal manned combat aircraft, though. So this could be especially useful for transiting unmanned systems or other clandestine aircraft between the two range complexes. It's worth noting that the NTTR houses Area 51 and Tonopah Test Range Airport, among other special aviation testing locales.


Mysterious High-Altitude Flight Corridor Was Opened Up Between Area 51 And The Pacific By Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone

The Russians Just Did A Fly-By Of Area 51 By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

F-117 Stealth Jets Flew Directly Over Los Angeles On Another Mission Off The California Coast (Updated) By Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

Air Force Combines Wargames To Make The Mother Of All Airpower Testing Events By Jamie Hunter Posted in The War Zone

F-22 And F-35 Datalinks Finally Talk Freely With Each Other Thanks To A U-2 Flying Translator By Joseph Trevithick and Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone


We have heard in the past that similar boxes of airspace in that same area have been set up for Red Flag exercise operations. Supposedly, aggressors would use them to hold before infiltrating towards the 'blue team' from a unique vector. This is likely something of a 'wild card' training tactic that helps challenge players to expect the unexpected. Yet from what we know, there isn't a Red Flag ongoing at this time, with the last one just wrapping up on August 6th. That doesn't mean the ranges won't be used for very high-end training and testing events, and those evolutions could include similar surprise aggressor tactics. Even the Air Force's most cutting-edge integrated testing events, such as Black and Orange Flags, have been combined on some occasions and use large force employment (LFE) wargame-like scenarios to maximize realism as new systems and tactics are pressed to their limit. You can read all about that in these past features of ours.

Finally, it could also be an ideal spot for a high-altitude platform to orbit while linking aircraft flying in each range complex together via a communications gateway or supporting those activities with onboard surveillance systems.
So, we really have no idea what the restriction will be used for in the witching hour on Thursday night, but whatever it is should be comfortable cruising above 45,000 feet.
Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com

Posted for fair use

Mysterious High-Altitude Airspace Closure Appears Alongside Nellis Range Complex

The odd altitude reservation could be used to bridge two huge range complexes together for the movement of secret aircraft, among other possibilities.

www.thedrive.com

 

[jward]

US Strategic Command
@US_Stratcom
6m

STRATCOM commander Adm. Richard opened his speech this am at #smdsymposium with this: Every operational plan in the DoD and capability rests on assumption that strategic deterrence will hold. If doesn’t hold, none of our other plans or capabilities is going to work as designed.


“For the first time in history, the nation is facing two strategic, nuclear-capable peers at the same time, who must be deterred differently … I don’t have the luxury of deterring one adversary at a time … We have to deter all, all of the time.” –Adm. Richard at #SMDSymposium

This nation has not had to seriously consider the implications of competition through crisis & possible conflict with a #nuclear adversary in 30 years. We are not about to enter uncharted waters; we are already there. –Adm. Richard at #SMDSymposium

Adm. Charles Richard, #USSTRATCOM Commander, describes #China’s military growth at #SMDSymposium:



Tune in tomorrow to hear Adm. Richard, #USSTRATCOM Commander, at the Space & Missile Defense Symposium 2021, discuss the challenges to #strategicdeterrence, the need to implement #integrateddeterrence & the threats the world faces. #SMDSymposium Watch: https://smdsymposium.org






Watch: https://smdsymposium.org

 

[jward]

Tracking Missile Threats

August 12, 2021

One does not need to be a rocket scientist to understand the profound way that rockets, missiles, and other strategic weapons have shaped international security. Yet, the influence of these weapon systems on deterrence, assurance, and stability continues to evolve and grow more complex. For international security professionals, journalists, and the interested public, tracking this changing landscape can be a challenge. To help navigate the wide world of missilery, the CSIS Missile Defense Project recently released a newly upgraded website to track and explain both missile threats and missile defenses alike.


In the 1990s and early 2000s, much of the world’s attention fixated on ballistic missile threats of states like North Korea. In recent years the proliferation of more advanced missiles has accelerated. In both tests and hostile acts, Iran has demonstrated capabilities to strike military targets at range accurately. North Korea has unveiled at least a dozen new missile types, from antiship missiles to intercontinental ballistic missiles. China has fielded advanced weaponry such as hypersonic glide vehicles and rocket-powered drones. Russia is rapidly modernizing its nuclear forces, experimenting with exotic weapons like nuclear-powered cruise missiles and autonomous undersea nuclear delivery vehicles. Each development adds yet another layer of complexity to the military threats facing the United States and its allies.


U.S. partners and allies, too, are expanding their offensive capabilities. South Korea has, for example, developed a sophisticated strike complex of advanced ballistic and cruise missiles. Japan has also begun to acquire long-range strike systems and has joined the club of nations pursuing hypersonic weaponry. Israel and Turkey have started to deploy and export advanced uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), which are already having a significant impact on conflicts worldwide, from Libya to Yemen to the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. These real-world conflicts illustrate that precision-strike is no longer the sole domain of superpowers, and that nations are scrambling to counter these threats.


Indeed, the international demand for air and missile defenses is on the rise. The number of countries acquiring U.S. defense systems like Patriot, THAAD, and Aegis increases each year. For example, Switzerland recently became the 18th country to acquire the Patriot, and Saudi Arabia became the third nation to field THAAD units. Numerous other indigenous missile defense programs in Europe, India, Israel, China, Russia, South Korea, and others are also shaping the global missile defense scene. Turkey’s acquisition of Russia’s S-400, for example, has had major geopolitical implications, muddling Ankara’s security relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United States.


To promote a better understanding of this strategic landscape, CSIS operates the website MissileThreat. CSIS.org. The CSIS Missile Defense Project launched Missile Threat in 2015 to provide an open, reliable, and accessible source of information, curated news, and analysis on the proliferation of missiles and the defense systems designed to counter them. Missile Threat contains informational pages on over 150 missile systems around the world and entries on more than 30 air and missile defense systems. The new site released last week represents the product of a comprehensive, yearlong upgrade to improve the experience of Missile Threat’s many visitors. These enhancements include newly updated missile maps, updated profiles of countless missile pages, defense budget trackers, and search function improvements.


Beyond “missilepedia,” Missile Threat features numerous other databases, interactives, and analytical products. These include a chronology of North Korea missile and nuclear tests and missile activity in Yemen, as well as dozens of maps, data visualizations, and explanatory videos. Visitors can also find regularly updated trackers of U.S. missile defense budgets throughout the authorization and appropriation process. The site also provides researchers with a convenient library of historical policy, strategy, and budget documents.


The CSIS Missile Defense Project seeks to inform policy and budget decisions by providing resources and forums for high-quality discussion and analysis. Open, dependable resources like Missile Threat are a cornerstone of that effort, and our team looks forward to maintaining this unique resource for years to come.


Ian Williams is the deputy director of the CSIS Missile Defense Project and the managing editor of MissileThreat.CSIS.org.


Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).


© 2021 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.

Tracking Missile Threats

To help navigate the wide world of missilery, the CSIS Missile Defense Project recently released a newly upgraded website to track and explain both missile threats and missile defenses alike.

www.csis.org

Missile Threat

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

Posted for fair use.....

Topping-off National Missile Defenses for Tac Nuke Reductions?

www.armscontrolwonk.com

Topping-off National Missile Defenses for Tac Nuke Reductions?

by Michael Krepon | August 12, 2021 | No Comments
Lyrics of the week:
[way too politically incorrect for this space]

– “Under My Thumb” by The Rolling Stones, retort by Shemekia Copeland

Decades have passed since the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was negotiated (1972), the Soviet Union dissolved (1991), George W. Bush announced U.S. withdrawal from the treaty (2001), North Korea flight tested a missile capable of spanning the Pacific Ocean (2017), and China began to deploy intercontinental-range missiles in significant number (2021).

And yet during this entire time, the fundamentals of what missile defenses can and cannot do haven’t appreciably changed.
Effective national missile defenses for a country as big as the United States remains an impossible task against a powerful adversary determined to get through — no matter how much money the Congress appropriates for this purpose. Theater missile defenses deployed far from U.S. shores are a better investment, as they have greater military and political utility.

Not being able to succeed against worst cases doesn’t mean it’s worthless to try against lesser cases. Limited national missile defenses could have some chance of success against some horrific contingencies. To remain completely defenseless is morally indefensible in the event of, say, a profoundly unwise decision by a desperate outlier to launch ocean-spanning missiles. The odds of this happening are low, since outliers prefer to live to a ripe old age and to remain in power. Because of these odds, national missile defense deployments need not be overbuilt. This, in turn, offers the additional benefit that Moscow and Beijing do not need to overreact to a modest U.S. insurance policy.

Upgrades of theater missile defenses show more promise than upgrades of national missile defenses. These upgrades are valuable because they demonstrate Washington’s commitment to help protect friends and allies. They also backstop U.S. nonproliferation policies. All of the countries most concerned about North Korean and Iranian missile and nuclear programs rely on U.S. support. If they perceive that support to be flagging, some of these countries might be more inclined to possess their own nuclear weapons.

Regrettably, upgrades of national missile defenses are also necessary because what was hurriedly deployed after Bush quit the ABM Treaty doesn’t work well, if at all, even against unsophisticated missile threats. Quantitative and qualitative upgrades need close scrutiny, however. The number of interceptors matter because building out national missile defense deployments will have the expected result: Russia and China will deploy more nuclear warheads atop missiles to defeat more U.S. national missile defenses.

Effective national missile defenses against a peer or near-peer competitor have always been beyond reach, beginning with the problem of radar blackout due to nuclear detonations. National missile defenses that cannot cope with “old fashioned” ballistic missiles and penetration aids face additional challenges with the advent of stealthy, long-range cruise missiles. Next up are “hypervelocity/glide vehicles.”

During the Reagan administration, Paul Nitze argued without effective rebuttal that an added increment of national missile defense wasn’t worth the expense unless it was cost-effective at the margin. In other words, if offensive upgrades are easier, more effective, and less costly than added increments of national missile defense, it is unwise to spend money building out national defenses.

Nitze was right then, and he’s right now. The best defense against a peer competitor is a strong offense. The best defense against outliers like North Korea or Iran is a strong offense, supplemented by increasingly capable theater missile defenses and minimal national missile defenses.

Topping-off national missile defenses that are bound to fail against major rivals could serve three useful purposes. First, this would remove one (but only one) of the Kremlin’s concerns over disadvantage, opening up possibilities for agreements that reduce nuclear danger. Second, topping-off would remove one (but only one) of the reasons Beijing has to increase further its deployments of ocean-spanning missiles. Third, limitations on national missile defenses would allow the Pentagon to spend money on programs with greater military and political utility. Every conventional military upgrade the Pentagon seeks is more cost-effective at the margin than build-outs of national ballistic missile defenses.

Nonetheless, some in the United States continue to insist on spending large sums for “layered” national missile defenses, while some in Russia continue to express concern about U.S. missile defense upgrades. This conjunction opens up the possibility for deal making.

In the past, U.S. Presidents have traded top-offs on national missile defenses for a freeze and then deep reductions in strategic offensive arms. Can the Biden administration trade the same horse a third time for deeper reductions?

There are many reasons why a third trade seems unlikely. Previous trades were rooted in a treaty that no longer exists. Besides, Washington and Moscow are both justifiably wary of Beijing’s strategic modernization plans. Draw downs are harder when a major power is ramping up. There are probably several reasons for Beijing’s build up. One might be to strengthen its hand in trilateral talks.

Previous deals linking offenses and defenses were formal and verifiable. If Moscow insists on treaties and formality, new offensive-defensive deals won’t happen in the years ahead. Treaty ratification requires super-majorities in the U.S. Senate, without which treaty withdrawals happen and new treaties do not enter into force. The promise that treaties once provided for long-term stability and predictability in strategic offensive forces has faded.

This isn’t the end of the story, however. Linkages between missile defenses and strategic offenses still exist. They are no less real when they are informal. Major powers will continue to seek assurance, stability, and predictability. If formalized offensive-defensive tradeoffs are not possible, they might still be consummated by means of parallel restraints. Restraints can take the form of executive, tacit, or informal agreements. These agreements might not be as good as treaties, but they are better than arms buildups and arms racing.

Continued U.S. restraint on national missile defenses could reinforce limits on strategic offensive forces set by the “New” Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty extended earlier this year by Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin. Marginal mutual reductions from these limits might be conceivable if limitations on national missile defenses remain in place — but, again, the Chinese build up doesn’t help matters.

If classic trades involving national missile defenses and strategic offensive arms are unlikely, are other trades conceivable? An imaginative approach would be required. What does Russia possess in wretched excess that has as little military utility as national missile defenses, but that nonetheless worries U.S. deterrence strategists? In professional sports, teams trade players with overpriced, long-term contracts. Can nuclear-armed rivals agree to parallel constraints on legacy programs with significant sunk costs that do not provide sound return on continued over-investment?

Parallel constraints topping-off national missile defenses alongside verifiable limits, reductions, and dismantlement of Russian tactical nuclear warheads would be highly irregular. And yet, parallel restraints along these lines have a strange, intriguing symmetry. U.S. deterrence strategists are as bent out of shape about Russian tac nukes as Russian deterrence strategists are fixated on U.S. missile defenses. The military utility of U.S. national missile defenses and Russian tac nukes does not extend beyond very limited contingencies.

The U.S. Army concluded during George H.W. Bush’s extraordinary presidency that tactical nuclear weapons weren’t useful for fighting ground wars. Mushroom clouds get in the way. They impair mobility and are not good for seizing and holding ground. Their use invites uncontrolled escalation, and they are a security nightmare to keep safely near the forward edge of battle. It appears that Beijing has reached the same conclusions.

The Russian Army ought to be smart enough to figure out what the U.S. Army has learned and what the Chinese Army appears to practice. Then again, Russian deterrence strategists might continue to see value in weapons that worry their U.S. counterparts so much. The same thought, as well as other rationales, has sustained U.S. national missile defense advocates in the face of brutally difficult technological and operational challenges.

Alas, informal or tacit agreements topping-off U.S. national missile defense deployments alongside verifiable reductions in Russian tactical nuclear weapons would be very hard to accomplish. To begin with, limitations on U.S. national missile defenses can be verified easily; not so for reductions in Russian tactical nuclear weapons. These might usefully be explored in the context of broader, mutual transparency measures for warhead dismantlement, but this would take time.

In the meantime, those in the United States who strenuously insist on limitations and reductions in Russian tactical nuclear weapons would be determined to build out national missile defenses. These goals mesh only if one’s definition of success is the failure of arms control — in which case Russian tac nukes would remain unconstrained and U.S. national missile defenses would remain ineffective.

The Biden administration has yet to share with us its definition of success in the strategic stability talks. We do know, however, that success requires making sound choices. Biden’s decisions on national and theater missile defenses will be made on national security interest-based grounds. The Kremlin doesn’t get a veto. The same will be true for Moscow’s decisions with regard to its requirements for tactical nuclear weapons. There are sound reasons for parallel restraint, but these decisions won’t be sealed by trade or by treaty; they’ll reflect national security calculations.

Parallel restraint is probably the best we can expect in the near term. Restraint is inherently impermanent, but treaties are also impermanent — even those intended to have indefinite duration like the ABM Treaty and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Whether restraints are informal or treaty-based, their longevity will depend on how much national leaders value freedom of action and whether there are perceived advantages in foregoing restraint. The likelihood of parallel restraint regarding national missile defenses and tac nukes could increase if these concerns rank high enough in Moscow and Washington’s respective priorities in the strategic stability talks.

And yet during this entire time, the fundamentals of what missile defenses can and cannot do haven’t appreciably changed. Effective national missile defenses for a country as big as the United States remains an impossible task against a powerful adversary determined to get through — no matter how much money the Congress appropriates for this purpose. Theater missile defenses deployed far from U.S. shores are a better investment, as they have greater military and political utility.

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

Not being able to succeed against worst cases doesn’t mean it’s worthless to try against lesser cases. Limited national missile defenses could have some chance of success against some horrific contingencies. To remain completely defenseless is morally indefensible in the event of, say, a profoundly unwise decision by a desperate outlier to launch ocean-spanning missiles. The odds of this happening are low, since outliers prefer to live to a ripe old age and to remain in power. Because of these odds, national missile defense deployments need not be overbuilt. This, in turn, offers the additional benefit that Moscow and Beijing do not need to overreact to a modest U.S. insurance policy.

Upgrades of theater missile defenses show more promise than upgrades of national missile defenses. These upgrades are valuable because they demonstrate Washington’s commitment to help protect friends and allies. They also backstop U.S. nonproliferation policies. All of the countries most concerned about North Korean and Iranian missile and nuclear programs rely on U.S. support. If they perceive that support to be flagging, some of these countries might be more inclined to possess their own nuclear weapons.

Regrettably, upgrades of national missile defenses are also necessary because what was hurriedly deployed after Bush quit the ABM Treaty doesn’t work well, if at all, even against unsophisticated missile threats. Quantitative and qualitative upgrades need close scrutiny, however. The number of interceptors matter because building out national missile defense deployments will have the expected result: Russia and China will deploy more nuclear warheads atop missiles to defeat more U.S. national missile defenses.

Effective national missile defenses against a peer or near-peer competitor have always been beyond reach, beginning with the problem of radar blackout due to nuclear detonations. National missile defenses that cannot cope with “old fashioned” ballistic missiles and penetration aids face additional challenges with the advent of stealthy, long-range cruise missiles. Next up are “hypervelocity/glide vehicles.”

During the Reagan administration, Paul Nitze argued without effective rebuttal that an added increment of national missile defense wasn’t worth the expense unless it was cost-effective at the margin. In other words, if offensive upgrades are easier, more effective, and less costly than added increments of national missile defense, it is unwise to spend money building out national defenses.

Nitze was right then, and he’s right now. The best defense against a peer competitor is a strong offense. The best defense against outliers like North Korea or Iran is a strong offense, supplemented by increasingly capable theater missile defenses and minimal national missile defenses.

Topping-off national missile defenses that are bound to fail against major rivals could serve three useful purposes. First, this would remove one (but only one) of the Kremlin’s concerns over disadvantage, opening up possibilities for agreements that reduce nuclear danger. Second, topping-off would remove one (but only one) of the reasons Beijing has to increase further its deployments of ocean-spanning missiles. Third, limitations on national missile defenses would allow the Pentagon to spend money on programs with greater military and political utility. Every conventional military upgrade the Pentagon seeks is more cost-effective at the margin than build-outs of national ballistic missile defenses.

Nonetheless, some in the United States continue to insist on spending large sums for “layered” national missile defenses, while some in Russia continue to express concern about U.S. missile defense upgrades. This conjunction opens up the possibility for deal making.

In the past, U.S. Presidents have traded top-offs on national missile defenses for a freeze and then deep reductions in strategic offensive arms. Can the Biden administration trade the same horse a third time for deeper reductions?
There are many reasons why a third trade is hard to achieve. Previous trades were rooted in a treaty that no longer exists. Besides, Washington and Moscow are both justifiably wary of Beijing’s strategic modernization plans. Draw-downs are harder when a major power is ramping up. There are probably several reasons for Beijing’s build up. One might be to strengthen its hand in trilateral talks.

Previous deals linking offenses and defenses were formal and verifiable. If Moscow insists on treaties and formality, new offensive-defensive deals won’t happen in the years ahead. Treaty ratification requires super-majorities in the U.S. Senate, without which treaty withdrawals happen and new treaties do not enter into force. The promise that treaties once provided for long-term stability and predictability in strategic offensive forces has faded.

This isn’t the end of the story, however. Linkages between missile defenses and strategic offenses still exist. They are no less real when they are informal. Major powers will continue to seek assurance, stability, and predictability. If formalized offensive-defensive tradeoffs are not possible, they might still be consummated by means of parallel restraints. Restraints can take the form of executive, tacit, or informal agreements. These agreements might not be as good as treaties, but they are better than arms buildups and arms racing.

Continued U.S. restraint on national missile defenses could reinforce limits on strategic offensive forces set by the “New” Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty extended earlier this year by Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin. Marginal mutual reductions from these limits might be conceivable if limitations on national missile defenses remain in place — but, again, the Chinese build up doesn’t help matters.

If classic trades involving national missile defenses and strategic offensive arms are unlikely, can we conceive of other imaginative tradeoffs? What does Russia possess in wretched excess that has as little military utility as national missile defenses, but that nonetheless worries U.S. deterrence strategists? In professional sports, teams trade players with overpriced, long-term contracts. Can nuclear-armed rivals agree to parallel constraints on legacy programs with significant sunk costs that do not provide sound return on continued over-investment?

Parallel constraints topping-off national missile defenses alongside verifiable limits, reductions, and dismantlement of Russian tactical nuclear warheads would be highly irregular. And yet, parallel restraints along these lines have a strange, intriguing symmetry. U.S. deterrence strategists are as bent out of shape about Russian tac nukes as Russian deterrence strategists are fixated on U.S. missile defenses. The military utility of U.S. national missile defenses and Russian tac nukes does not extend beyond very limited contingencies.

The U.S. Army concluded during George H.W. Bush’s extraordinary presidency that tactical nuclear weapons weren’t useful for fighting ground wars. Mushroom clouds get in the way. They impair mobility and are not good for seizing and holding ground. Their use invites uncontrolled escalation, and they are a security nightmare to keep safely near the forward edge of battle. It appears that Beijing has reached the same conclusions.

The Russian Army ought to be smart enough to figure out what the U.S. Army has learned and what the Chinese Army appears to practice. Then again, Russian deterrence strategists might continue to see value in weapons that worry their U.S. counterparts so much. The same thought, as well as other rationales, has sustained U.S. national missile defense advocates in the face of brutally difficult technological and operational challenges.

Alas, informal or tacit agreements topping-off U.S. national missile defense deployments alongside verifiable reductions in Russian tactical nuclear weapons would be very hard to accomplish. To begin with, limitations on U.S. national missile defenses can be verified easily; not so for reductions in Russian tactical nuclear weapons. These might usefully be explored in the context of broader, mutual transparency measures for warhead dismantlement, but this would take time.

In the meantime, those in the United States who strenuously insist on limitations and reductions in Russian tactical nuclear weapons are determined to build out national missile defenses. These goals mesh only if one’s definition of success is the failure of arms control — in which case Russian tac nukes would remain unconstrained while U.S. national missile defenses would remain ineffective.

The Biden administration has yet to share with us its definition of success in the strategic stability talks. We do know, however, that success requires making sound choices. The Kremlin doesn’t get a veto on Biden’s decisions on national and theater missile defenses. Nor does Washington have a veto on Moscow’s perceived requirements for tactical nuclear weapons. There are sound reasons for parallel restraint, but these decisions won’t be sealed by trade or by treaty; they’ll reflect national security calculations.

Parallel restraint is probably the best we can expect in the near term. Restraint is inherently impermanent, but treaties are also impermanent — even those intended to have indefinite duration like the ABM Treaty and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Whether restraints are informal or treaty-based, their longevity will depend on how much national leaders value freedom of action and whether there are perceived advantages in foregoing restraint. The likelihood of parallel restraint regarding national missile defenses and tac nukes could increase if these concerns rank high enough in Moscow and Washington’s respective priorities in the strategic stability talks.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

China’s Silos: New Intelligence, Old Problems - War on the Rocks

In recent weeks, analysts have discovered over 200 new intercontinental ballistic missile silos in the deserts of western China. Surprisingly, those

warontherocks.com

China’s Silos: New Intelligence, Old Problems

James Cameron

August 12, 2021
Commentary

In recent weeks, analysts have discovered over 200 new intercontinental ballistic missile silos in the deserts of western China. Surprisingly, those behind the breakthrough weren’t intelligence professionals from the CIA or National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. Instead, they were researchers from the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and the Federation of American Scientists with access to Google Earth and private satellite imagery. Nuclear analysts can now marshal open source intelligence methods to reveal secrets that were previously the preserve of government intelligence agencies.


While the disclosure of missile silos in China by non-governmental analysts suggests a revolution in open source intelligence, the response to the revelations indicates that the debates and politics surrounding arms control are not so different from those of the Cold War. Some argue that the missile silos indicate a significant change in Beijing’s nuclear posture, setting the stage for a more hawkish U.S. approach to China. Others believe that China is reinforcing the credibility of its established assured-retaliatory capability, meaning there is more room for engagement with Beijing on managing the nuclear competition. Moreover, information gaps on China’s nuclear doctrine and weapons systems combined with a broad spectrum of possible interpretations of the available data mean that analysts are likely to remain divided on Beijing’s intentions and capabilities.



Such analytical divisions on China’s nuclear strategy run the risk of fueling partisan polarization on U.S. policy toward Beijing. In order to mitigate this, analysts should be transparent regarding the gaps in their knowledge on China’s nuclear posture, the types of evidence that would make them revise their assessments, and the first-order assumptions that underpin their views. Just like in the Cold War, partisan politics will intrude on analytical debates surrounding nuclear developments in China and Russia. While analysts should be aware of the politics involved, they should strive to keep focused on sharing what they know and don’t know about global nuclear developments.


Unclear Intentions


Cold War history shows the difficulty of assessing an adversary’s nuclear intentions. This problem endures in the new age of open source intelligence.


Declassified U.S. national intelligence estimates indicate that Washington’s intelligence community labored under a paucity of information regarding Soviet intentions. U.S. intelligence analysts had limited insight into the Soviet leadership’s private views and had to rely on public statements for much of their information. While analysts were able to make educated guesses regarding the ultimate objective of developments in Soviet nuclear forces, they admitted that it remained “an elusive question.”


A similar lack of clarity bedevils analysts trying to decipher Chinese nuclear intentions today. Like the Soviet Union during the late Cold War, Beijing publicly adheres to a no-first-use policy, under which it pledges to employ nuclear weapons only in retaliation against a nuclear attack on China. Yet senior U.S. officials have cast doubt on the integrity of that policy, citing the general opacity of the Chinese leadership on this question and lack of detail regarding how Beijing interprets its no-first-use pledge.


In an adversarial relationship, trust in the benign intentions of the other is likely to be in short supply. As Austin Long argued in War on the Rocks, such suspicions will increase if there is a mismatch between the political leadership’s public statements and new military capabilities or exercises practicing nuclear first use. In the words of U.S. Strategic Command Commander Adm. Chas Richard, “the Soviet Union [also] had a no first use policy [and] I don’t think we took great comfort in that either.”


Capability Gray Areas


Without definitive direct evidence regarding intentions, analysts often try to infer these from assessment of adversary capabilities. Yet, despite the vast improvement in open source intelligence in recent years, capability gray areas will remain a problem for the foreseeable future.


Problems with assessing adversary nuclear capabilities are not new. During the Cold War, debate raged over whether the large Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile force could conduct a successful first strike against America’s Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile fields. Possession of such a capability, it was argued, would constitute confirmation that the Soviet Union was developing a strategy to fight and win a nuclear war.


Yet assessments of the Soviet ability to mount such an attack hinged on measurements that were extremely hard for even the U.S. intelligence community to estimate accurately. One key metric was the accuracy of Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile warheads. During the 1970s, based on their assessment of Soviet warhead accuracies, U.S. analysts concluded that the Soviet Union would possess a significant first-strike capability against America’s intercontinental ballistic missile force by the early 1980s.


Post-Cold War research based on declassified Soviet sources suggests that these estimates were overly pessimistic: Soviet forces did not reach accuracies necessary for a successful first strike against Minuteman missile fields until the end of the Cold War. However, at the time, there were plausible cases to make on both sides of a fundamental question regarding the capabilities of Soviet forces because warhead accuracy was impossible to measure with the necessary precision.


Similar gaps continue to bedevil open source intelligence analysis today. There are limits as to how much analysts can know about the new Chinese silo fields from available overhead imagery. Most importantly, they are currently unable to confirm that all of these silos will have intercontinental ballistic missiles deployed in them. This key piece of information would help clarify if China is aiming to significantly expand the number of nuclear warheads with which it could strike the United States in a way indicative of a major change in its nuclear posture.


Nuclear policy experts Jeffrey Lewis and James Acton argue that a large number of new silos does not necessarily signify a big increase in deliverable Chinese warheads and a change in Beijing’s basic nuclear strategy. They explain that China does not currently possess the number of warheads sufficient to arm all of the silos, while the silos’ arrangement suggests that Beijing may be constructing an elaborate “shell game” scheme to hide a smaller arsenal of missiles in a large number of holes. Since the United States would not know which silos contain missiles and which are empty, it would have to strike all of them simultaneously, using up warheads and increasing the chance that some of the Chinese missiles would survive. In this view, China is probably increasing the credibility of its existing ability to absorb a U.S. first strike and then retaliate.


Others disagree. They argue that the new silos indicate China is moving beyond this minimum retaliatory posture. The U.S. Department of State has described Beijing’s nuclear buildup as “rapid” and accused China of “sharply deviat[ing] from its decades-old strategy based on minimum deterrence.” An anonymous State Department spokesperson cast doubt on the shell game theory, alleging that Beijing is expanding its ability to produce fissile material, which could be used to build new warheads for a larger intercontinental ballistic missile force. The State Department has also said that China is improving its capability to launch nuclear weapons on the basis of evidence an attack is underway rather than wait for an adversary’s warheads to detonate on its territory before responding as in the past. Other commentators such as Georgetown University’s Matthew Kroenig have gone further still, arguing that Beijing is “engaging in a massive nuclear-arms buildup as part of its broader strategy to challenge the U.S.-led rules-based international system.”


Such a dispute is simply unresolvable on the basis of current publicly available evidence. As Lewis notes with admirable honesty, “We just don’t know” the truth. The answer to this question has significant implications for assessments of Chinese capabilities and intentions, but as with the Soviet warhead accuracy in the 1970s, there is insufficient evidence to prove either case definitively.


Limiting the Danger of Polarization


The lack of clarity surrounding China’s nuclear intentions and capabilities, combined with the increased risks that Beijing’s arsenal will pose to the United States, could polarize the debate on China’s nuclear forces to the detriment of U.S. policy. Small differences in interpretations of Chinese nuclear doctrine or force posture, all plausible given the available evidence, could lead to radically different U.S. policy prescriptions. These could range from engagement with Beijing on arms control through to an unmitigated arms race.


This is exactly what happened during the Cold War. Big names in the nuclear-strategic community, such as former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze and Harvard Sovietologist Richard Pipes, believed the Soviet Union was preparing nuclear forces able to coerce the United States in peacetime or even fight and win a nuclear war.


Against them were ranged other senior figures, including Soviet expert Raymond L. Garthoff and Jimmy Carter’s Strategic Arms Limitation Talks chief negotiator Paul Warnke. They rejected Nitze and Pipes’ view of Soviet forces, seeing them as primarily an instrument of stable deterrence, or believed such a war-winning posture was simply impossible to achieve. Both sides based their arguments on plausible readings of the open Soviet literature and available evidence on Moscow’s capabilities but reached divergent conclusions regarding Soviet aims and how Washington should respond. Exchanges between these two groups were fierce, often helping to widen rather than bridge the differences between them.


A similar response to new developments in Chinese nuclear forces could be more dangerous today, especially if the debate becomes a partisan issue. Although views on the nuclear balance with the Soviet Union diverged, during the Cold War it was generally possible to find a middle ground on nuclear questions. However, foreign policy has become increasingly polarized along partisan lines since the end of the Cold War. Such polarization between Republicans and Democrats on China’s nuclear arsenal, with one party exclusively associated with a more hawkish or dovish position, could complicate U.S. policy in a number of ways. This dynamic might include big shifts in America’s position when the presidency changes hands or increased difficulty in concluding arms control treaties that require a two-thirds majority in the Senate to secure its advice and consent to ratification. While both parties have taken a tougher line on China recently, divergences in the analytical community indicate that the risk of future partisan polarization is real.


Analytical Best Practices


It is beyond the power of nuclear analysts to prevent the partisan polarization of U.S. views on China’s nuclear strategy. However, they can do their part to limit the risk that their assessments could fuel any such trend by sticking to best practices already exhibited by a number of analysts.


First, they should be transparent regarding the gaps in their knowledge on China’s nuclear posture and clear about where the dividing line between hard facts and conjecture lies. Analysts are fairly certain that Beijing is building more than 200 new silos in western China, but beyond that there is very little to go on. Shell game advocates have outlined the evidence that supports their theory but have also been open regarding the hypothetical nature of their claims. Both sides should do this in order to keep the debate as evidence-grounded as possible.


Second, analysts should be precise regarding the kinds of evidence that would lead them to modify their views. For example, Acton is clear that his assessment regarding the shell game is based in part on China’s limited supply of fissile material to fabricate new nuclear weapons that could fill all of those silos. Consequently, he has indicated that concrete evidence that China was increasing its production would lead him to reassess. This kind of transparency regarding standards of falsifiability of contending hypotheses will facilitate an open debate based on clear standards.


Finally, analysts should be open regarding their first-order assumptions. Cold War-era debates on Soviet nuclear forces were intense in part because participants diverged on basic issues regarding the utility of nuclear superiority and whether the Soviet Union was a revisionist power. Such differences are clear today. Kroenig has written extensively on the importance of nuclear superiority for U.S. strategy, while Lewis is on record as more skeptical. Analysts should be open about their views on such fundamental questions so that observers can understand the broader framework that informs their judgments.


None of these recommendations are a silver bullet that will overcome sincere differences of opinion over China’s nuclear policy. However, acknowledging the limits of one’s knowledge of Beijing’s nuclear capabilities and intentions, identifying the falsifiability criteria for one’s assertions, and clarifying the theoretical lenses through which one analyzes China’s nuclear policy would help diminish the chances that the debate becomes increasingly polarized in a way that would be detrimental to U.S. policy in the longer term.





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James Cameron is a postdoctoral fellow with the Oslo Nuclear Project in the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo. He is the author of The Double Game: The Demise of America’s First Missile Defense System and the Rise of Strategic Arms Limitation (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently writing a long history of arms control from the late 19th century to the present day. Follow him on Twitter at @cameronjjj.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

The Militant Drone Playbook - War on the Rocks

Since January, militants in Iraq and Syria have attempted or executed nearly a dozen weaponized drone attacks against American targets. Most of these

warontherocks.com

The Militant Drone Playbook

Austin C. Doctor and James Igoe Walsh

August 12, 2021

Commentary

Since January, militants in Iraq and Syria have attempted or executed nearly a dozen weaponized drone attacks against American targets. Most of these involved midsize fixed-wing craft crashing into their targets and detonating, while some involved smaller quadcopter-style drones dropping lightweight munitions, often a 40 mm grenade. None of these attacks have resulted in fatalities or critical damage, but they did prompt the Biden administration to order retaliatory airstrikes against the militant groups behind them.

For years, defense and security leaders have called attention to militants’ increasingly adept use of drones. Earlier this year, U.S. Central Command Gen. Kenneth McKenzie referred to the proliferation of small drones as the “most concerning tactical development” in Iraq since the emergence of improvised explosive devices. But while it is clear that militant drone operations pose a threat, there has been less consensus on the nature and scope of that threat.

Our research leads us to conclude that, while drones give militant groups a new and effective means of tactical disruption, insurgents have been unable or unwilling to use drones for strategic bombing. In coming years weaponized militant drone operations will likely increase, but there is reason to believe that the logic shaping the use of these systems will remain the same. In other words, militants are unlikely to use drone technology to target their opponents’ military centers of gravity or to engage in widespread attacks on civilian targets. As a result, policymakers, soldiers, and security officials should prepare for militant drone operations to expand in degree but not in form. This means developing better counter-drone technologies while still relying on traditional elements of counter-militant strategy.

Pages from the Playbook
The first recorded successful armed drone attack by militants occurred in 2006, when Hizballah struck an Israeli warship with a fixed-wing drone rigged with explosives. Since then, weaponized drone activity has increased significantly — 99 percent of observed attacks have occurred after 2015 — and been dominated by a handful of militant actors in the Middle East. Recent research records 440 drone attacks conducted by militants through 2020. Over 98 percent of recorded attacks have occurred in the Middle East, with two groups, the Islamic State and Houthi rebels in Yemen, responsible for over 80 percent of these.

Our research identifies two prominent patterns in militants’ tactical application of weaponized drones. Together, these indicate that militant groups find drones especially useful for disrupting opponent command and logistics and delaying the movement of military personnel and materiel.

First, militants often use drones for theater air attacks. In some cases, drones are used to support ground operations, providing militants with a combined arms capability. The best-known example of this is the Islamic State’s modifying commercial drones — or engineering its own — to deploy small munitions in Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State routinely and effectively used its makeshift drone arsenal to disrupt enemy fighting positions and troop movements in a number of campaigns, including the Battle of Mosul. In other cases, militants with access to fixed-wing drones have used these as the leading component in a one-two punch of indirect fire — flying below radar to damage enemy air defense systems or military positions in order to open the field for more destructive strikes from missile or rocket systems.

Second, it is common for militants to use armed drones to damage logistic hubs, arms depots, critical infrastructure, and command headquarters behind front lines. Strikes against civilian airports, air bases, factories, and other forms of critical infrastructure disrupt the movement and command of opposing forces. The Houthis, one of the only militant groups possessing military-grade drones, have used this tactic to great effect. From April 2018 to October 2019, the Houthis executed 115 drone attacks. Of these, 62 were conducted against civilian airports or critical infrastructure. Only 27 were conducted against military bases or enemy troops. (The remaining attacks were reported as intercepted or as striking unknown targets.)

A number of militant groups also use unarmed drones strictly for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations. While it rarely grabs the headlines, drone-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance offers significant value to militants for relatively little cost or risk. For example, the Islamic State’s affiliate in West Africa has reportedly used drones to surveil the locations and movement of counter-insurgent forces in northeast Nigeria. Similarly, the Taliban have used drones extensively for years to monitor U.S. and Afghan troop movements.

However, militant groups have rarely used drones for more strategic aims, such as targeting opponents’ civilian populations or undermining their capacity to govern or raise military forces. Even the Houthi forces, who have an unmatched capacity to use long-range drones to strike major cities such as Riyadh, do so only sparingly. And the Islamic State, which regularly commissioned suicide and terrorist attacks in cities that remained under government control, only occasionally used drones to target civilians.

Why is this the case? Sustained strikes that do widespread structural damage would be logistically difficult for militant groups, while terrorist attacks, though logistically feasible, have political drawbacks.

Targeting the enemy’s center of military and political gravity is a challenge for militant groups. Doing so effectively would mean sustaining strikes over time and against multiple targets. This would require fixed-wing systems with greater flight range and payload capacity. It would also necessitate the establishment and defense of drone bases, which would be vulnerable to attack since they could be easily located and targeted. This would require a substantial investment of militant troops, and might prove infeasible unless militants could also invest in air defense systems. A drone fleet would require a reliable logistical supply chain, which would be susceptible to disruption. This highlights how even the most capable militant organizations remain fundamentally different from their state opponents, who have the links to the outside world, reliable sources of income, and territorial depth to sustain strategic strikes.

More surprising, perhaps, is that, with a handful of exceptions, militants have not used drones for terror attacks either. This is true even for groups that have shown a willingness to systematically target noncombatants, such as the Taliban or Boko Haram. Drones would seem particularly well-suited to such a task, since smaller drones could attack many targets and their novelty as a terrorist weapon would amplify their psychological effects. Militants’ calculations about using drones for terrorism appear more political than logistical. Militants engage in terrorism to convince their opponent and civilians that they are ruthless and highly resolved. Terrorist attacks via drone, which lower the risks to perpetrators of being caught or killed, do not signal strong resolve, and instead suggest that the militants are unwilling to put much skin in the game.

Looking Ahead
Thinking about the future of militant drone use requires understanding both the strengths and limitations of drone technology as well as militants’ political goals and military capabilities. As drone systems become more common in civilian and military environments, militants’ ability to acquire or develop drones will increase. Indeed, more armed groups will likely adopt these systems in coming years. While militant drone use has been highly concentrated in the Middle East, militant groups in other regions of the world (e.g., East and West Africa and Central Asia) will likely soon incorporate weaponized drones into their tactical operations. This is especially likely for groups with operational connections to transnational movements such as the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. Other factors may create greater opportunity for their use as well. The anticipated increase of urban warfare is particularly worrisome, as urban terrain is especially well suited to small drone use.

While we expect the use of armed drones by militant groups to increase and expand, the pattern of militant drone use is unlikely to change soon. Even with larger drones, targeting an adversary’s center of gravity will still require militants to control and defend territory and access global supply chains, areas where state opponents tend to have large advantages. And militants may find that alternative airborne weapons systems — rockets and missiles, for instance — remain better suited to the task of producing destructive effects against strategic targets. Therefore, we believe that militants will continue to view drones as a useful adjunct to their existing military repertoires, using them to assist in targeting forces on the battlefield, to harass command and logistic hubs, and to disrupt the supply and movement of adversaries’ soldiers and materiel.

What can state actors do to counter this threat? On the one hand, our analysis offers good news — in the near future, most militants are unlikely to be capable or willing to develop fleets of drones to pursue strategic objectives. The bad news, at least for state militaries, is primarily on or near the battlefield. It has proved difficult to develop military systems that can reliably intercept smaller drones. The development of counter-drone technology is and should remain a priority. But even improved counter-drone technology will only help mitigate the threat, and militants will be quick to adapt. This means that, even in an era of drone warfare, traditional elements of counter-militant strategy will remain essential: rooting out the deeper militant drone threat means disrupting supply chains, targeting sources of revenue, finding and engaging combat and support units, and cutting militant forces off from any territorial safe havens.


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Austin C. Doctor is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and a member of the executive committee of the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education (NCITE) Center, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence. He earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Georgia. He writes on militant organizations, terrorism, armed conflict, and political instability. You can find him on Twitter @austincdoctor.
James Igoe Walsh is professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He holds a Ph.D. in international relations from American University. His research interests include technology and conflict, human rights violations, and forced displacement and return. His book, Combat Drones and Support for the Use of Force, is available from the University of Michigan Press. His work has been supported by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Minerva Research Initiative and Army Research Office. You can find him on Twitter @jamesigoewalsh.
Image: U.S. Army (Photo by Becki Bryant)

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Why America Loses Wars - Geopolitical Futures

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is moving to its inevitable conclusion. The Taliban, the radical Islamists the U.S. was fighting, are taking back

geopoliticalfutures.com

Why America Loses Wars
By
George Friedman
-
August 10, 2021
Open as PDF

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is moving to its inevitable conclusion. The Taliban, the radical Islamists the U.S. was fighting, are taking back control of the country, one city at a time. Put differently, the United States has lost the war it fought for the past 20 years. There are those who want to continue to fight, but I doubt that another 20 years will bring victory considering that the definition of success is vague and wildly ambitious. The goal was to transform an ancient and complex society from what it was to into what we wanted it to be. Defeating a country comprising warring factions and imposing peace and a new culture was beyond Washington’s reach.

This is not the first war the U.S. has lost since World War II, and given the overwhelming military power of the United States, it must be explained. To explain it, we must begin with World War II, in which the United States was confronted with a conflict initiated by Japan and Germany. The United States responded by defining war as eliminating the enemy’s military and shattering the enemies’ society by destroying their industrial plants and cities. Victory required the enemy’s defeat and a social and moral transformation of the defeated.

World War II taught the United States a number of lessons. The first was that the decision on timing was made by U.S. enemies. Pearl Harbor and Hitlers’ declaration of war made the decision on Washington’s behalf at a time that suited them. It took away the advantage of initiative, beyond nibbling at the edges of the war. Second, Washington learned that in fighting an enemy you must use overwhelming force and that it was essential to shatter not only the military but also the morale of the nation as a whole. The U.S. would do that by applying overwhelming force on the enemy’s military and society.

Victory transformed the U.S. Its power was vast and intersected much of the world. The U.S. had failed to see this prior to World War II. It now was obsessed with it. It created a vast military-industrial complex, seeing it as the critical element of national security. So it had greater friction than before, and more power than before. But it had taken another lesson from World War II. Defeating the enemy’s military was not enough. As with Germany and Japan, war could only end with a moral and cultural capitulation by the enemy nation and a transformation to liberal democracy.

After World War II, America’s main adversary was the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a moral nightmare. Soviet power was daunting, and a global moral challenge faced the United States. Realpolitik and a moral struggle combined, and the U.S. and Soviet Union fought to transform nations into partisans of the moral project of either liberal democracy or Marxism-Leninism. Over time, this lapsed into massive cynicism on both sides, but at the core, the moral and grand strategies blended, and the real struggle was for the hearts and minds of the populace, shaped by covert and overt war.

Korea was the first war of moral absolutism but was shaped by very conventional war. It was in Vietnam that the new strategy was tested. Vietnam had been occupied by the French, who were defeated in their war against the communists. It ended with the division of the country between communists and anti-communists who posed as liberal democrats to salve the American soul but were simply ambitious men dedicated to holding power, using anti-communism to draw the Americans into protecting them. As a war, it was divided between endless combat on the ground and an air campaign designed to break North Vietnamese morale, much as the U.S. had broken the Germans and Japanese. But the war went beyond that. The goal was to create a government that morally rejected communism and embraced liberal democracy. So long as the communists continued to fight, the U.S. would lose. Its military capability did not reduce the communist north and their southern fighters to the state of the Wehrmacht in 1945. The regime the U.S. tried to invent and protect had no moral interest in liberal democracy.

The problem in Vietnam was the incongruity of its strategic and moral aspects. The strategy called for the defeat of the enemy army and a transformation of Vietnamese society. Somewhere in there was the automatic opposition to the spread of communism, but absent from that was an evaluation of whether this was the right place to fight world communism and whether we had the military force to compel moral change. Communism was spreading elsewhere, so why choose Vietnam as the place to fight?

The U.S. had a military reason to fight the Japanese in the Pacific. But in Vietnam, the military reason, the political reason, the moral principles constantly churned. U.S. strategy was to attrite the North Vietnamese military, cause their public to grow war-weary and impose U.S. will. The U.S. took the attrition and generated its own war-weariness after seven years of fighting. The U.S. lost Vietnam, but from its perspective, the world went on. For all the death and destruction, the war didn’t change much. It was the wrong war fought in the wrong place with the wrong strategy and goals. The lesson of World War II is to control how and where war is waged. In Vietnam, the enemy decided where the war began. By opposing any communist intrusion anywhere, the U.S. allowed the enemy to choose the time and place for Washington to roll out its prepackaged strategy.

Islamic extremism was a moral challenge to America, but before that, it was also a useful ally against the Soviets. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, the U.S. supported and praised the resistance. The U.S. figured Soviet enemies in Afghanistan shared at least empathy with the United States. Each served the interests of the other, and the Soviets were defeated. Then came 9/11, which was the extremist declaration of war against the U.S. The U.S. ideal of controlling war initiation was lost, in the same way it was lost in Vietnam. Something had to be done. As in Vietnam, the U.S. was sucked in almost unknowingly. It needed to destroy al-Qaida. Having hurt but not destroyed it, it felt compelled to stay engaged. To stay engaged, a degree of offensive warfare had to be undertaken until it became necessary to create a new regime that shared liberal democratic values. In other words, another ancient society would be transformed but without World War II levels of devastation. The strategic and moral collided. Strategically, Afghanistan was vast, and no amount of force could control more than a fraction of the country. Morally, the Afghans had their own political order that didn’t value liberal democracy any more than it valued Marxism.

The wars against the Soviet Union and against the Taliban had a common theme. The U.S. was offended by their moral values and formulated a national strategy based on it. At some point, the national strategy overreached as the moral ambition exceeded strategic possibilities. Not wanting to admit failure, the war went on to exhaustion.

World War II was a moral exercise. It brought the U.S. era upon the world. The moral dimension of that war became a necessary dimension of future wars, which became more frequent as the U.S. became a global power. The moral dimension was easily visible: devise not only a clear strategy for waging war but also a measure of when the war was failing. And above all, know when the strategy isn’t working and avoid being trapped by falling back on the moral to avoid making hard decisions.

The world has grown used to U.S. military intervention. It condemns it and is then comforted by its condemnations. But losing wars after years of struggle – or staying in wars you are losing for moral reasons or to hide the reality – makes no sense. The U.S. has to control where and how it goes to war. Its notion of victory includes the moral transformation of ancient people who do not think they are immoral. A moral principle on terrain well known, and weapons suited for it, works. A moral principle on unfamiliar terrain and inappropriate weapons is less effective.

George Friedman
George Friedman, Author at Geopolitical Futures
George Friedman is an internationally recognized geopolitical forecaster and strategist on international affairs and the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures.
Dr. Friedman is also a New York Times bestselling author. His most recent book, THE STORM BEFORE THE CALM: America’s Discord, the Coming Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond, published February 25, 2020 describes how “the United States periodically reaches a point of crisis in which it appears to be at war with itself, yet after an extended period it reinvents itself, in a form both faithful to its founding and radically different from what it had been.” The decade 2020-2030 is such a period which will bring dramatic upheaval and reshaping of American government, foreign policy, economics, and culture.
His most popular book, The Next 100 Years, is kept alive by the prescience of its predictions. Other best-selling books include Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe, The Next Decade, America’s Secret War, The Future of War and The Intelligence Edge. His books have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Dr. Friedman has briefed numerous military and government organizations in the United States and overseas and appears regularly as an expert on international affairs, foreign policy and intelligence in major media. For almost 20 years before resigning in May 2015, Dr. Friedman was CEO and then chairman of Stratfor, a company he founded in 1996. Friedman received his bachelor’s degree from the City College of the City University of New York and holds a doctorate in government from Cornell University.

 

[jward]

Conventional-Nuclear Integration: Avoiding Misconceptions and Mistakes - War on the Rocks
Gregory Giles

17-22 minutes


What if a nuclear-armed adversary believed that U.S. conventional forces were so vulnerable that using just a handful of nuclear weapons against them would be enough to win a regional conflict? If the Department of Defense did nothing to reduce that vulnerability, wouldn’t it be inviting that sort of attack? Alternatively, what if certain U.S. conventional military operations against a nuclear-armed opponent carried a high risk of triggering nuclear use by that enemy? How should the Pentagon mitigate that risk while still achieving U.S. objectives in a regional war? These questions lie at the heart of conventional-nuclear integration, a controversial subject that Biden administration officials should consider carefully as they undertake a new Nuclear Posture Review.

Within nuclear specialist communities, there will be disagreements about those questions, and these issues are at risk of being misunderstood, distorted, and politicized. To ensure that stakeholders have a serious, rigorous debate going into the review, and to produce sound policy coming out of it, it is necessary to avoid misconceptions and mistakes about the integration of conventional and nuclear planning.

The Pentagon has not publicly offered a definition of such integration. Internally, department officials and military leaders think about the concept in several related ways. Integrating conventional and nuclear planning is actually a subset of the military’s broader pursuit of integration across land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. In that context, the Defense Department thinks about the concept as ensuring that U.S. conventional forces can not only survive but also continue to fight during a limited nuclear attack in a regional conflict. The Pentagon combines this focus on conventional force resiliency with ensuring that credible options exist for a limited U.S. nuclear response, should the president call for them. Additionally, the concept is designed to raise awareness of how certain kinds of U.S. conventional military operations might inadvertently increase an adversary’s incentives to resort to nuclear use. Defense Department experts also consider how to deter, counter, and defeat the integration of conventional and nuclear forces by adversaries.
The current policy debate about these issues has been misleading and incomplete. To rectify that problem, and to enhance the strategic value of the Nuclear Posture Review, it is important to be clear about how conventional-nuclear integration could help reduce the U.S. military’s vulnerabilities while also helping to advance various goals of the Biden administration.

What Some Analysts Fail to Grasp About Conventional-Nuclear Integration
Precisely because there is no publicly available Defense Department definition of conventional-nuclear integration, nuclear deterrence skeptics have interpreted the concept in ways that support their views about the role nuclear weapons should play in American national security strategy. Those analysts have failed to understand a series of important points related to what convention-nuclear integration is, the challenges it addresses, and what benefits it offers to the U.S. military.

‘Sole Purpose’ Should Not Be the ‘Sole Driver’
As vice president, and again during the 2020 election campaign, President Joe Biden proposed that the United States adopt a nuclear declaratory policy of “sole purpose,” which would involve stating that the only role for American nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear use and, if necessary, respond to it. Some have suggested that a “sole purpose” policy should drive the integration of U.S. conventional and nuclear planning. That approach would risk hollowing out America’s nuclear deterrent by focusing too much on conventional forces. It would undermine the central purpose of conventional-nuclear integration, which is to reduce an adversary’s incentives to initiate nuclear use by demonstrating that the U.S. military has a balanced and integrated menu of credible nuclear and non-nuclear response options. To achieve that, the administration should pay equal attention to, and ensure consistent pacing among, all aspects of the concept — conventional, nuclear, and integration. The Defense Department should retrain conventional forces to operate on a nuclear battlefield, ensure that combatant commanders with geographic areas of responsibility are prepared to conduct limited nuclear strikes if called upon, and achieve greater planning and operational cohesion between these force elements so that no seams are left for adversaries to exploit.

Conventional-Nuclear Integration Will Not Lower the U.S. Threshold for Using Nuclear Weapons
Making sure U.S. conventional forces are not paralyzed by an adversary’s limited nuclear use does not diminish America’s natural reluctance to use nuclear weapons. In fact, having more resilient U.S. conventional forces reduces an adversary’s incentive to initiate a nuclear attack on them in the first place. U.S. readiness to conduct limited nuclear strikes in a regional conflict also reminds an adversary it will face substantial penalties for crossing the nuclear threshold. By helping to deny adversaries a clear path to victory, more closely integrated U.S. conventional and nuclear planning will bolster deterrence of regional aggression. If the U.S. military conducts such planning in a more holistic way, it will also better position itself to identify and mitigate situations in which its conventional operations might inadvertently lead to nuclear escalation by an adversary.

Integrating Conventional and Nuclear Planning Is Not Cold War Thinking
The Pentomic Division and the Davy Crockett short-range nuclear rocket were early attempts by the U.S. military to integrate conventional and nuclear weapons. No one in the U.S. government is advocating a return to such Cold War experiments and excesses. To link such anachronisms to contemporary planning and thinking, and to imply a rediscovered U.S. enthusiasm for nuclear warfighting, is wrong and misleading. Indeed, senior military leaders have repudiated this connection explicitly. Lt. Gen. Richard Clark, while serving as the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, noted that today’s conventional-nuclear integration “is different than a Cold War mentality where we had nuclear artillery, we had short-range [nuclear] rockets, where we had [nuclear] weapons that would allow us to fight tactically in a conflict.” Clark added that:

Today, really what we’re trying to prepare ourselves to do is to respond with whatever force is necessary in a nuclear environment … really the ultimate goal here is to deter. We want to raise that threshold of use of nuclear weapons, whether strategic or non-strategic … to the highest level possible.

The current wave of Pentagon interest in conventional-nuclear integration began during the Obama-Biden administration. It surfaced in the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review as a concern that adversaries could try to escalate their way out of failed conventional aggression. Acknowledging these roots helps frame the debate for how the Biden-Harris administration can derive the most benefit from integrating conventional and nuclear planning.
The Need Is Not Based on an Inaccurate Reading of Adversary Strategy
While academics and analysts should debate the issue, America’s civilian and military officials — who have access to the most sensitive intelligence — have made clear that the threat of limited nuclear use by adversaries is real. As Clark also emphasized last year:

If you look at Russia, for example, they look at our [conventional] precision weapons, the speed and accuracy of those precision weapons and their inability to really contend with them. So they developed a strategy and a doctrine that perhaps they could use non-strategic nuclear weapons in a regional conflict to set us back on our heels, so that they could actually gain that advantage and escalate that conflict to win ultimately. It’s something again that we have not focused on but that we are starting to look at and the threat that Russia poses is driving us to do that. I think they believe that there’s a potential advantage for them [in] a limited nuclear conflict and it is very clear in their doctrine and in the capability, the non-strategic nuclear weapons that they have amassed over the years. It is evident that that’s in their planning, in their strategy, and their thought process.

American officials — who have the solemn responsibility to protect their nation and its allies — should continue to take steps to address that threat, including through appropriate integration of conventional and nuclear planning.
The U.S. Military Shouldn’t Be Discouraged From Reducing Its Vulnerability to Limited Nuclear Attacks
After decades of neglect, recent gains in joint force nuclear education, training, and doctrine development have been hard-won, but there is still much work to do to make U.S. conventional-nuclear integration an operational reality. The notion that the military could reduce its vulnerabilities in this area without setting stretch goals and exacting requirements for the services and combatant commands is unrealistic and only invites complacency. Worse, such half-hearted support for joint force integration of conventional and nuclear planning will sustain adversary interest in lowering the nuclear threshold.
Conventional-Nuclear Integration Should Not Be Politicized

Arms control advocates should resist efforts to politicize conventional-nuclear integration as a rationale to cut programs they oppose for other reasons. This politicization will discredit the concept and jeopardize the military’s ability to operationalize it over the longer term. In particular, delaying modernization of the B61-12 — the nuclear gravity bomb that has been at the heart of NATO nuclear burden-sharing for decades — under the pretext of trying to “figure out” conventional-nuclear integration will sow division and doubt within the alliance. That would be a mistake at a time when NATO solidarity is most needed to deter Russia — and it would also undermine extended deterrence, which is a top goal of the Biden administration.

 

[jward]

continued. . .


The U.S. Military Should Change Mindsets
Limited nuclear use in a regional conflict could look attractive to an adversary, in part, because the U.S. military has left itself vulnerable to it. The Defense Department had de-emphasized education, training, doctrine, planning, and exercises related to surviving and operating on a nuclear battlefield in the belief that it alone would set the terms of future conflict, and could do so in ways that played to its advantages in precision conventional weaponry.
Planning by combatant commands and attitudes at all ranks aligned with these views. As the Defense Science Board noted in 2016, “Expertise in the Combatant Commands to assess and plan for U.S. conventional force operations in an adversary generated, limited nuclear environment is lacking.” This reflected a prevailing attitude that, if an enemy introduced nuclear weapons into a regional conflict, the fight would become Strategic Command’s problem. The board also found that, “General knowledge in the military regarding nuclear weapons and the environments they generate, outside of some in the strategic force cadres in the Air Force and Navy and a small group of specialists in the Army, does not exist.”

To reverse these deficiencies and reduce U.S. vulnerability to limited nuclear attacks, the Defense Department should change mindsets. Commanders with a geographic responsibility facing nuclear-armed adversaries should give greater emphasis to nuclear planning and assessment. Heavily relying on others, such as Strategic Command, to do this inhibits conventional-nuclear integration and reinforces the perception that “nuclear” warfare is someone else’s responsibility, not a routine part of geographic combatant command planning. That approach creates a seam that American adversaries might exploit — a geographic combatant command’s inattentiveness to planning and training for limited nuclear response options potentially leaves the president short-handed, which is what U.S. adversaries prefer.
The good news is that these attitudes are changing. Senior military commanders have become sensitized to the risks of limited nuclear use by adversaries, and the services are moving forward with new education, training, exercises, and concept development related to conventional-nuclear integration. Moreover, additional resources now exist within the Pentagon to help commanders with a geographic focus build up nuclear expertise within their staffs. But, the emerging mindset should be broadened and deepened. That will only happen when commanders set the tone and when top leadership holds all ranks accountable for meeting exacting conventional-nuclear integration requirements.

How Does Conventional-Nuclear Integration Align with and Further Biden Administration Priorities?
As the administration embarks on preparing the Nuclear Posture Review, it is unclear what approach it will adopt toward conventional-nuclear integration and whether administration officials might oppose it. That lack of clarity is common in the early months of a new administration. But, there are in fact several reasons why conventional-nuclear integration aligns with the major priorities the president articulated in the Interim National Security Strategic Guidance.
Conventional-Nuclear Integration Is Compatible with Reducing U.S. Reliance on Nuclear Weapons and More Constrained Declaratory Policy
Integrating conventional and nuclear planning is entirely consistent with the Biden administration’s goal of reducing reliance on nuclear weapons because it entails close scrutiny of the interaction between nuclear and non-nuclear forces. A broader array of alternatives to the use of nuclear weapons is likely to be the result.
Pentagon officials who think about conventional-nuclear integration are not considering how to increase U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons. They are not looking for new nuclear missions — they are responding to U.S. adversaries who are increasing their reliance on nuclear weapons to overcome conventional force deficiencies. The Trump-Pence administration undertook modest steps, such as downsizing the yield on some warheads carried by ballistic missile submarines, in order to show adversaries that the U.S. military had credible responses to any limited nuclear use they might attempt. This has not resulted in new U.S. nuclear weapons or missions, and American allies have accepted this posture as a necessary adjustment to ensure the credibility of extended deterrence.

It’s Integral to Rebuilding Alliances
American allies, particularly in Eastern Europe and Northeast Asia, are increasingly concerned about nuclear-backed coercion or aggression by Russia, China, and North Korea. The Biden administration’s forthcoming strategic review will likely feature close collaboration with allies to elicit their views and offer reassurances in this regard. Reaffirming, if not elevating, the U.S. commitment to counter such coercion by improving the military’s ability to stand up to threats of limited nuclear use will go far in reassuring allies. Indeed, engaging allies on conventional-nuclear integration — thereby making combined forces more resilient to limited nuclear threats — is a tangible and sensible expression of American security guarantees.
It’s Not a ‘Big-Ticket Item’

Conventional-nuclear integration is not a weapon system to be purchased. That is welcome news for a defense budget already under stress. The military will attain the necessary integration incrementally. To be sure, there are costs associated with increasing the resiliency of the joint force against limited nuclear use in a regional conflict, but they are manageable. For instance, the military estimates that making mission-critical hardware resistant to the effects of nuclear weapons, collectively referred to as hardening, adds 1 to 3 percent to its cost — if such hardening is designed into the system from the get-go. Retrofitting after the fact costs significantly more, so the services can realize savings if they prioritize nuclear survivability. During the Obama administration, the Defense Science Board strongly recommended that, “All major acquisitions be born with a nuclear survivability requirement derived from projected threat scenarios relevant to the range of missions expected for the system.” It is up to the Biden administration to see this through.
The military’s normal operating costs already cover the principal means of achieving the education, training, planning, and exercising needed for conventional-nuclear integration. Conventional forces have to re-learn what it’s like to operate under threat of nuclear attack, and the services are already moving in that direction. That comes with a new emphasis on integrating non-nuclear and nuclear forces, not necessarily additional costs.

Toward a Successful Nuclear Posture Review
The success of the Biden administration’s strategic review will depend, in part, on the degree to which myths are dispelled, threats are addressed, and goals are aligned. Conventional-nuclear integration has much to contribute in those regards — it offers the administration an affordable and responsible path to reducing U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons, deterring nuclear use in regional conflicts, and bolstering U.S. alliances. It’s time for a more-informed and better-balanced debate about U.S. nuclear strategy and the contribution of conventional-nuclear integration to it.

Gregory Giles is a senior director with Science Applications International Corporation. For the past three decades, he has been advising U.S. government clients on issues related to deterrence, nonproliferation, and the Middle East. The views expressed in this paper represent the personal views of the author and are not necessarily the views of Science Applications International Corporation, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Department of Defense, or the Department of the Air Force.
Image: U.S. Air Force (Photo by Airman 1st Class Josh Strickland)

Posted for fair use

Conventional-Nuclear Integration: Avoiding Misconceptions and Mistakes - War on the Rocks

What if a nuclear-armed adversary believed that U.S. conventional forces were so vulnerable that using just a handful of nuclear weapons against them

warontherocks.com

 

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Kuleba: Russia's intention to deploy nuclear weapons in Crimea poses global threat

Russia's intention to deploy nuclear weapons in occupied Crimea poses a global threat, and Ukraine will use every opportunity to restrain the Kremlin's activity in this area. — Ukrinform.

www.ukrinform.net

Kuleba: Russia's intention to deploy nuclear weapons in Crimea poses global threat
13.08.2021 12:48



Russia's intention to deploy nuclear weapons in occupied Crimea poses a global threat, and Ukraine will use every opportunity to restrain the Kremlin's activity in this area.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba made a corresponding statement at an online briefing on Friday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

Kuleba noted that Ukraine had long informed international partners about nuclear activities taking place in the occupied Crimea and would continue to do so, in particular with a view to taking countermeasures.

Read also: Concern in Ukraine as Russia intends to deploy nuclear arms in Crimea

"The issue of nuclear weapons is not a local or even a regional issue, it is a global issue, a global threat. Therefore, we will use all opportunities, including the influence of other nuclear powers on the Russian Federation, to curb such activity," Kuleba said.