WAR 08-19-2017-to-08-25-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

Sorry folks it's been a "long day"...such that I needed to break into the medicinal brandy....

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(282) 07-29-2017-to-08-04-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...8-04-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(283) 08-05-2017-to-08-11-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...8-11-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(284) 08-12-2017-to-08-18-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...8-18-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...the-truth-about-qatar/?utm_term=.7f62d8441d9c

Global Opinions

The truth about Qatar

By Gary Wasserman
August 18

Gary Wasserman’s book on his time in Qatar, “The Doha Experiment: Arab Kingdom, Catholic College, Jewish Teacher,” will be published this fall.

The Qatar I lived in for eight years is unrecognizable from the television ads running in Washington. In these Saudi-sponsored spots, Trump administration officials denounce Qatar’s aid to terrorists while fires burn in the background. This is a harsh and largely unfair judgment of the peaceful, globalist city-state I knew.

Qatar is a wealthy, militarily weak mini-state in an unusually dangerous neighborhood, and yet it has prudently pursued a foreign policy designed to avoid making enemies — of being “friends to everybody.” This has clearly included quiet support for groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and likely radical jihadists that many would label terrorists. But it has also meant hosting the enormous Al Udeid Air Base, the regional headquarters of the U.S. Central Command housing more than 10,000 Americans in comfort and safety. And the U.S. military was welcomed in Qatar after being pressured to leave Saudi Arabia. Even now, the U.S. military does not express alarm about its hosts’ alleged ties to terrorists.

Qatar itself has pursued liberal globalization with a vengeance, a pursuit that meshes with Western values far more than with its fundamentalist neighbors. Leaving aside its vast investments in Western economies, Qatar’s public policies have aimed to make it a respected global citizen.

In foreign policy, Qatar has stressed humanitarian aid, including $100 million to American victims of Hurricane Katrina; it has offered its service as a mediator in regional conflicts from Eritrea to Gaza; it has provided refuge for exiles and dissidents espousing a wide range of opinions in politics and religion. American officials have often welcomed the presence of antagonists in Doha where they can be readily monitored.

Even on the ever-toxic topic of Israel, Qatar invited Israeli leader Shimon Peres to speak in Doha, encouraged a Georgetown University-organized student trip to Israel, welcomed Israeli athletes and, before being pressured by its neighbors to close it in 2009, hosted an Israeli trade mission in Doha.

Domestically, Qatar has embraced U.S. higher education by inviting six American universities — Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon, Weill Cornell Medicine, Texas A&M, Virginia Commonwealth and Georgetown — to locate overseas branches in the multibillion-dollar campus called Education City. These schools operate with their own faculty and administrators, with complete academic freedom, and under their own university standards. And despite the fact that most students are not citizens of Qatar, these universities are fully and generously financed by their host.

Qatar is a country where women drive their own cars, attend co-educational classes and serve at high levels of the government as well as the broader society. Increasingly, Qatari women are better educated and better prepared for their professions than their male counterparts.

Qatar created, subsidized and protected the media network Al Jazeera, the most widely watched news channel in the Arab world. It is trusted because Qatar has allowed it unprecedented freedom for the region to report the news of the world, including airtime for dissidents, for Israelis and for critics of autocratic regimes. Its role in the Arab Spring made it the go-to source for honest coverage of the demonstrations and uprisings. Not surprisingly, shutting down Al Jazeera has been a key demand of the Arab states now aligned against Qatar.

In his far-from-uncritical study, “Qatar: A Modern History,” Professor Allen J. Fromherz described Qatar as “a forum for independent thought in the Middle East.” While criticism of the ruling family is not tolerated, there is an environment of open debate as well as of religious tolerance. Qatar, for one, has not followed its Sunni neighbors in raising the level of sectarian hostility between Sunnis and Shiites.

This impulse to become a forum for pressing international issues has sometimes made Qatar resemble a Quaker meeting on steroids. The annual Doha Interfaith Conference has brought together Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders about a dozen times; UCLA’s Enriching the Middle East’s Economic Future Conference has met annually in Doha for the last decade; Qatar hosted the U.N. Climate Change Conference in 2012; and my own school, Georgetown University, hosts hundreds of high school students from around the world at a Model United Nations every year. Qatar has spent billions of dollars on the recently opened Sidra Medical Center for world-class research devoted to women’s and children’s health issues.

Unlike the ruling family in Saudi Arabia constrained by its alliance with Wahhabi clerics, Qatari rulers have determinedly pushed their traditional society toward globalization and westernization. If allowed, they will continue to do so.

1 Comments

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/end-asias-strategic-miracle/

The end of Asia’s strategic miracle?

18 Aug 2017|Richard N. Haass

It is too soon to know whether and how the challenge posed by North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs will be resolved. But it is not too early to consider what that challenge could mean for a part of the world that has in many ways defied history.

The moniker ‘Asian Miracle’ goes some way towards conveying just how extraordinary the last half-century of economic growth in many Asian countries has been. The first economy to take off was Japan, which, despite a slowdown in recent decades and a relatively small population, remains the world’s third-largest economy.

China’s ascent began a bit later, but is no less impressive: the country achieved over three decades of double-digit average GDP growth, making it the world’s second-largest economy today. India, soon to be the world’s most populous country, has lately been experiencing an impressive 7–8% annual rate of GDP growth. And the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations averaged some 5% growth in recent years.

But contemporary Asia’s economic miracle rests on a less-discussed strategic miracle: the maintenance of peace and order. Since the end of the Vietnam War in the mid-1970s, Asia has stood out for its lack of major conflicts within or across borders—an achievement that distinguishes it from Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and even Latin America.

This stability is all the more extraordinary because Asia is home to a large number of unresolved disputes. When World War II ended in 1945, Japan and Russia did not sign a peace treaty, owing largely to their competing claims over the Southern Kuril Islands, known in Japan as the Northern Territories. Eight years later, the Korean War also ended without a formal peace treaty, leaving behind a divided and heavily armed peninsula.

Today, competing territorial claims—mostly involving China—continue to stoke tension across Asia. Japan is embroiled in a dispute with China over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands in the East China Sea. More than half a dozen other Asian countries disagree vehemently with China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. And India is at loggerheads with China over their long-shared Himalayan border.

Despite all of these tensions, Asia has remained largely at peace, partly because no country has wanted to jeopardise economic growth by initiating a conflict. This perspective is most clearly associated with Deng Xiaoping. In leading China’s process of economic ‘reform and opening up’ from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, Deng explicitly emphasised the importance of a stable external environment to facilitate internal economic development. The reliance on regional trade ties to support growth and employment has provided yet another incentive to sustain peace.

But economics was probably not the only factor at play. Because most Asian countries are host to relatively homogeneous societies with strong national identities, the chance of civil conflicts erupting and spilling over national borders is relatively low. Last but certainly not least, America’s strong military presence in Asia—which underpins its robust regional alliance system—has reduced the need for Asian countries to develop large military programs of their own, and has reinforced a status quo that discourages armed adventurism.

These factors have contributed to peace and stability in Asia, but they cannot be taken for granted. Indeed, they are now coming under increasing pressure—putting the strategic miracle that has facilitated Asia’s economic miracle in jeopardy.

What changed? For one thing, China’s economic rise has allowed it to expand its military capabilities. As China adopts an increasingly assertive foreign policy—exemplified by its border dispute with India and territorial claims in the South China Sea—other countries are increasingly motivated to boost their own military spending. As that happens, it becomes more likely that a disagreement or incident will escalate into a conflict.

Meanwhile, the US—the only power with the capability to offset China—seems to be retreating from its traditional role in Asia. Already, US President Donald Trump’s administration has withdrawn his country from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and confronted US allies on their defence spending and persistent trade imbalances. More generally, the growing unpredictability of US foreign policy could weaken deterrence and prompt allies to take their security into their own hands.

The most immediate cause of potential instability is North Korea, which now poses not just a conventional military threat to South Korea, but also a nuclear threat to all of Asia, as well as to the US. This could invite a devastating pre-emptive strike from the US. But, if the US refrains from military action, the results could also be catastrophic, if the North actually does strike. Even just the threat of such a strike could be destabilising, if it drives concerned US allies such as South Korea and Japan to increase their military spending and reconsider their non-nuclear postures.

Should any of these scenarios come to pass, the consequences would be far-reaching. Beyond the human costs, they would threaten the economic prosperity of not only Asia, but the entire world. A conflict between the US and China, in particular, could poison the single most important bilateral relationship of the 21st century.

The good news is that none of this is inevitable. There is still time for governments to embrace restraint, explore diplomacy, and reconsider policies that threaten to undermine stability. Unfortunately, we are living in a time of rising nationalism and at times irresponsible leadership. Add to that inadequate regional political-military arrangements, and it is not at all certain that wisdom will triumph over recklessness, or that Asia’s unique decades-long peace will endure.

AUTHOR
Richard N. Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author, most recently, of A world in disarray: American foreign policy and the crisis of the old order. This article is presented in partnership with Project Syndicate © 2017. Edited image courtesy of Flickr user Justin.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.stripes.com/news/lookin...es-an-urban-battlefield-1.483796#.WZteuD6GPIU

Looking past Afghanistan, NATO sees an urban battlefield

By JOHN VANDIVER | STARS AND STRIPES
Published: August 21, 2017

STUTTGART, Germany — The U.S.-led NATO alliance says it isn’t adequately prepared for urban combat and is asking defense contractors for help in reshaping its fighting forces.

The allies see capability gaps in close-quarters warfare, where enemies can create confusion as they mingle with large populations, according to a contract proposal posted by NATO’s Norfolk, Va.-based transformation headquarters.

“NATO is not sufficiently organized, trained, or equipped to comprehensively understand and execute precise operations across the maritime, cyberspace, land, air, space dimensions/domains” in densely populated coastal cities, stated the bid proposal, which closed Monday.

For three years, NATO’s transformation office has worked on a strategy for coping with global population shifts.

The United Nations predicts that by 2035 the world population will increase to 8.7 billion people, an increase of 1.4 billion people, and that most of this growth will take place in developing countries and in urban areas.

“Studies, based upon global demographic trends, suggest that an increasing percentage of armed conflicts will likely be fought in urban surroundings,” the NATO contract proposal stated.

NATO wants an “overarching” concept to explore and raise awareness of threats, the proposal said.

A first draft of the new “NATO Concept” is wanted by the end of the year and will be subject to further testing and validation.

The contract coincides with the NATO Military Committee’s tasking to Allies Command Transformation to produce a conceptual study on urbanization and its military implications.

“(It) is a matter of when, not if, the military will be required to operate in urban environments,” NATO’s urbanization project team stated.

Army chief Gen. Mark Milley has also spoken frequently in recent months about pivoting from a force structure largely designed around wars to be fought on the plains of northern Europe and deserts of the Middle East.

NATO’s increased focus on urban conflict comes as the alliance continues to send troops into Afghanistan, where allies have waged a long, bloody campaign in mostly rural terrain.

While coalition troops are no longer involved in day-to-day combat, they are training Afghan forces struggling against a durable Taliban force that has evaded defeat during the 16-year campaign against it.

Vandiver.john@stripes.com

Twitter: @john_vandiver

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/asia/southeast-asia-grapples-extremism-resurgence

EXPERT COMMENTARY

Southeast Asia Grapples with Extremism Resurgence

AUGUST 20, 2017 | JOHN WATTS

Following the recent liberation of Mosul and Raqqa under siege, the so-called Islamic State is slowly collapsing inwards. As it does, the prospect of battle hardened foreign fighters returning to their countries of origin are a concern for governments around the world. For governments in Southeast Asia, the concern is not just the recent uptick in extremist attacks, but the parallels it has with recent history.

Southeast Asia has a long and unbroken history of Islamic extremism dating back to the end of World War II. The threat it has posed has waxed and waned over time, but it peaked in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s when al Qaeda linked fighters from a burgeoning regional terrorist network, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), returned from training in Afghanistan. JI was responsible for a series of high profile bombings and terrorist attacks throughout Southeast Asia, particularly against Western targets. After a targeted campaign by regional governments, JI was severely degraded and its networks fractured. Nonetheless, the precedent of returning fighters joining an emerging terror network has powerful lessons for today.

Since IS declared its caliphate, a number of groups throughout Southeast Asia have declared allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. But other than a series of relatively ineffectual terrorist attacks and aspirational plots, there has been little indication that those groups posed a serious threat. The recent capture of the city of Marawi in the southern Philippines marks a steep change in the threat these groups pose. It is significant not just because extremists groups have managed to capture and hold a city. But also because it demonstrates that several disparate groups are willing to join together towards achieving a regional extremist objective. Of even greater concern is that the attack has attracted foreign fighters, with terrorists from other Southeast Asian nations as well as the Middle East and Chechnya reportedly amongst the dead.

Although the parallels with the rise of Jemaah Islamiyah are concerning, Southeast Asia today is very different to that of twenty years ago. Then, JI was able to draw support from the populations political disenfranchisement and exploit the chaos following the removal of dictators, such as Suharto in Indonesia, to establish several bases of operations. Today, regional militaries and police forces are, to varying degrees, far more capable than they were. Southeast Asia’s population is wealthier than they were, more politically empowered and the quality of governance has generally improved. Individually, each government is better prepared to respond to any domestic terrorist threats than they were. But ongoing political discontent and pockets of extremist ideology persist.

Despite the large Muslim population in Southeast Asia, the threat that current Islamist groups pose is comparatively small. But there are several areas in the region which have similar conditions to those that enabled IS to grow in the Middle East, including porous borders, exploitable natural resources, active criminal networks, a networked of jailed extremists and vacuums of governance. In order to counter those conditions, Southeast Asian governments are acting to directly target those conditions and counter the perception that the region offers a viable alternative to Syria for aspiring extremists.

It is for this reason that the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines have launched a joint trilateral maritime patrol in the Sulu seas. This initiative will include naval patrols, rotation air patrols, information sharing and streamlined processes for hot pursuits. It will also be supported by command centers being set up in each country, and is being promoted as the first step in a broader security plan.

The Trilateral Maritime Patrol (TMP) Indomalphi is an important response to the growth of extremism in the region. The Sulu Sea borders restive, remote and poorly governed regions of all three countries. The borders are extremely porous and the numerous small boat activity makes it easy for criminal and extremist groups to move people, funding and resources between the neighboring islands. The links between transnational crime and extremist groups is always blurred, but the link in Southeast Asia is acute. By targeting violent criminal activity in the region, this initiative not only reduces extremists logistical networks and ability to generate funds, but targets many of the groups themselves. It also helps mitigate regional piracy, which is again on the rise.

The patrols also signal the next step in a broader trend, and perhaps the future of security in the region. The three participating countries have welcomed greater regional participation, with both Brunei and Singapore present at its launch. It also comes as the US, Australia and Japan have declared increased support, including reconnaissance aircraft and increased maritime capacity building. Regional nations have operated together in the past, both in regular military exercises and in anti-piracy operations.

Achieving the goals of this operation will be challenging. Even an increased presence by three navies working cooperatively will be unlikely to restrict all criminal and extremist activity in the area. There will no doubt be missteps and hard lessons to learn along the way. But through operating together, they will increase their maritime capacity and improve their interoperability. This will mark an important next step in the region taking ownership of its own security needs, and furthers a growing trend on intra-regional security cooperation. Should it succeed and expand, it will not only impact the ability of extremists and transnational groups to operate effectively but will also send a strong message about the future of the region’s security capabilities. Considering the Sulu Sea is only an island chain away from the South China Seas, it is a development likely to have much broader implications.

THE AUTHOR IS JOHN WATTS

John Watts is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council's Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. As part of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International security he is focused on Middle East and Indo-Pacific security issues.

Learn more about The Cipher's Network here

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[Housecarl]

Hummm.....This should get interesting.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/north-ko...emical-arms-agency-intercepted-222725768.html

North Korea shipments to Syria chemical arms agency intercepted: U.N. report

By Michelle Nichols
Reuters
August 21, 2017

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Two North Korean shipments to a Syrian government agency responsible for the country's chemical weapons program were intercepted in the past six months, according to a confidential United Nations report on North Korea sanctions violations.

The report by a panel of independent U.N. experts, which was submitted to the U.N. Security Council earlier this month and seen by Reuters on Monday, gave no details on when or where the interdictions occurred or what the shipments contained.

"The panel is investigating reported prohibited chemical, ballistic missile and conventional arms cooperation between Syria and the DPRK (North Korea)," the experts wrote in the 37-page report.

"Two member states interdicted shipments destined for Syria. Another Member state informed the panel that it had reasons to believe that the goods were part of a KOMID contract with Syria," according to the report.

KOMID is the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation. It was blacklisted by the Security Council in 2009 and described as Pyongyang's key arms dealer and exporter of equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons. In March 2016 the council also blacklisted two KOMID representatives in Syria.

"The consignees were Syrian entities designated by the European Union and the United States as front companies for Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC), a Syrian entity identified by the Panel as cooperating with KOMID in previous prohibited item transfers," the U.N. experts wrote.

SSRC has overseen the country's chemical weapons program since the 1970s.

The U.N. experts said activities between Syria and North Korea they were investigating included cooperation on Syrian Scud missile programs and maintenance and repair of Syrian surface-to-air missiles air defense systems.

The North Korean and Syrian missions to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The experts said they were also investigating the use of the VX nerve agent in Malaysia to kill the estranged half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un in February.

North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs and the Security Council has ratcheted up the measures in response to five nuclear weapons tests and four long-range missile launches.

Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013 under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States. However, diplomats and weapons inspectors suspect Syria may have secretly maintained or developed a new chemical weapons capability.

During the country's more than six-year long civil war the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has said the banned nerve agent sarin has been used at least twice, while the use of chlorine as a weapon has been widespread. The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Tom Brown)

 

[Housecarl]

Pres. Trump approved sending 4K more troops to Afghanistan - Address tonight.
Started by mzkitty‎, Yesterday 03:27 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-troops-to-Afghanistan-Address-tonight./page3

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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-afghanistan-china-idUSKCN1B20P8

AUGUST 22, 2017 / 1:09 AM / 31 MINUTES AGO

China defends ally Pakistan after Trump criticism

BEIJING (Reuters) - China defended its ally Pakistan on Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States could no longer be silent about Pakistan's "safe havens" for militants and warned it had much to lose by continuing to "harbor terrorists".

Trump on Monday committed the United States to an open-ended conflict in Afghanistan, signaling he would dispatch more troops to America's longest war and vowing "a fight to win".

Trump insisted that others - the Afghan government, Pakistan, India and NATO allies - step up their own commitment to resolving the 16-year conflict, but he saved his sharpest words for Pakistan.

Senior U.S. officials warned security assistance for Pakistan could be reduced unless the nuclear-armed nation cooperated more in preventing militants from using safe havens on its soil.

Critics say Pakistan sees militants such as the Taliban as useful tools to limit the influence of old rival India. Pakistan denies allowing militants refuge on its territory, saying it takes action against all groups.

Asked about Trump's speech, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Pakistan was on the front line in the struggle against terrorism and had made "great sacrifices" and "important contributions" in the fight.

"We believe that the international community should fully recognize Pakistan's anti-terrorism," she told a daily news briefing.

"We are happy to see Pakistan and the United States carry out anti-terror cooperation on the basis of mutual respect, and work together for security and stability in the region and world."

China and Pakistan consider each other "all-weather friends" and have close diplomatic, economic and security ties.

China has its own security concerns in the region, in particular any links between militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Islamist groups China blames for violence in its far western region of Xinjiang.

"We hope the relevant U.S. policies can help promote the security, stability and development of Afghanistan and the region," Hua said.

Reporting by Michael Martina; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-pentagon-gbsd-idUSKCN1B12H3

AUGUST 21, 2017 / 3:45 PM / 9 HOURS AGO

U.S. Air Force awards contracts to Boeing, Northrop for ICBM replacement

Mike Stone
3 MIN READ

(Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force has awarded Boeing Co and Northrop Grumman Corp separate contracts to continue work on the replacement of the aging Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile system, the Pentagon said on Friday.

Though the award for the new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) comes amid rising tensions with North Korea, the Air Force had asked the defense industry last summer for proposals to replace the aging ICBM system and its nuclear cruise missiles as the military moved ahead with a costly modernization of its aging atomic weapons systems.

"The Minuteman III is 45 years old. It is time to upgrade," Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein said in a statement on Monday.

Northrop Grumman was awarded $328 million, and Boeing $349 million over the three-year contract.

The relatively small award is a milestone that would allow Boeing and Northrop to continue parallel detailed development and prototyping for the Minuteman replacement. The Pentagon's office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) has said the total could cost the United States $85 billion. The Air Force has estimated $62 billion.

Lockheed Martin Corp, Northrop and Boeing were all competing for the contract which is needed to perform the three-year technology maturation and risk reduction (TMRR) phase of Minuteman replacement.

A Lockheed representative said the company was "disappointed" and looked "forward to a debrief about the selection."

Boeing's Strategic Deterrence Systems Director, Frank McCall, said in a statement, "Since the first Minuteman launch in 1961, the U.S. Air Force has relied on our technologies for a safe, secure and reliable ICBM force." Boeing provided the Minuteman III missile for the current ground-based nuclear ICBM system.

Northrop Grumman's chief Wes Bush said in a statement, "We look forward to the opportunity to provide the nation with a modern strategic deterrent system that is secure, resilient and affordable."

Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson said, "We are moving forward with modernization of the ground-based leg of the nuclear triad."

Modernization of the U.S. nuclear force was expected to cost more than $350 billion over the next decade. The United States plans to replace its aging systems, including bombs, nuclear bombers, missiles and submarines. Some analysts estimated the cost at $1 trillion over 30 years.

"Our missiles were built in the 1970s. Things just wear out, and it becomes more expensive to maintain them than to replace them," Wilson said.

Reporting by Mike Stone; Editing by Tom Brown and Diane Craft

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nationalpost.com/opinion/rob...ator/wcm/ce42194a-e9c4-4850-9565-1b060c0580d3

Robert Fulford: China's leader Xi Jinping has assumed the role of a dictator

Xi Jinping, the most powerful head of China since Mao Zedong, is preparing to enhance his already vast authority. Nobody calls him a dictator, but that's the role he's assumed

Robert Fulford
August 18, 2017
2:01 PM EDT

Xi Jinping, the toughest and most powerful head of China since Mao Zedong, has been spending the summer marshalling his supporters while preparing to enhance his already vast authority at the 19th National Congress this fall. Nobody calls him a dictator, but that’s the role he’s assumed.

Xi is expected to deliver the keynote address at the Congress as a way of having his ideas on government written into the Party constitution, giving him a way to install his legacy in the future of the country.

He has a strong sense of history and a weakness for phrases like “the Chinese dream.” He’s the sixth leader of the People’s Republic and the first who was born after the revolution. He’s expected to win his second five-year term as General Secretary at the Congress, but there’s every chance he will go on later to win a third term, one more than tradition allows.


Nobody calls him a dictator, but that is the role he has assumed

Those who have followed his career expect his performance at the Congress will include some elements that no one can expect. He enjoys surprises.


When he was elected to the job of General Secretary in 2012 he was considered “safe” by the then-powerful figures in the party. They saw him as a routine bureaucrat who would coast through five years without changing anything.

Instead, he changed everything. He staffed the upper rungs of the party with his friends and rid himself of those who showed signs of doubting him. Before him, China was relatively relaxed on human rights—there were hopes that modest levels of freedom would soon be allowed. Xi reversed course and made trouble for everyone who wanted even the beginning of freedom.

He reorganized the military, making it capable of offence as well as defence. He persecuted lawyers who tried to defend their persecuted clients. His regime defined freedom of religion (which China theoretically provides) as the government’s freedom to determine everyone’s religion. There is now very little in the national government that Xi doesn’t supervise, directly or through the allies he appoints. An article in the South China Morning Post last week pointed out that, “Since the start of last year, eight ministries and four organizations directly under the State Council, China’s cabinet, have been given new chiefs.” He carefully nourishes his ego and his belief that he (and he alone) knows the way ahead for China.


He reorganized the military, making it capable of offence as well as defence

Vanity is an obvious part of his make-up. As Evan Osnos wrote in a New Yorker profile of him in 2015, when Xi he received a guest in his office, “he stood still, long arms slack, hair pomaded, a portrait of take-it-or-leave-it composure that induced his visitor to cross the room in pursuit of a handshake.”

He’s especially proud of his reputation for being well read. He likes to display his culture by quoting Chinese classics, but he goes far beyond that. Interviewed by Russian journalists, he mentioned that he’s read Tolstoy, Chekhov, Pushkin and eight others he cited. Visiting France, he said he had read Voltaire, Rousseau, Sartre, and 15 others.

He’s had three biographies of himself written and state publishers have issued a series of books, The Remarks of Xi Jinping, with the material respectfully arranged. There’s no doubt that readers are expected to recall Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. For children there are cartoon books about Xi, one of them called How to Make a Leader.

When Xi became General Secretary in 2012 he was at the head of the all-powerful seven-member national committee. He had only one reliable ally among the seven. He soon put his man, Wang Qishan, in charge of an anti-corruption campaign. That helped Xi eliminate some challengers and warned off potential opponents. Since then, those who oppose Xi tend to find themselves accused of corruption. Some are simply placed “under investigation,” which paralyzes their political value until the investigation ends, if it ever does.

Already head of the armed forces, Xi keeps adding to his portfolio. He’s made himself chairman of several crucial committees, including national security, foreign policy and the economy.

He calls on China to pursue the Chinese Dream: the “great rejuvenation of the nation,” a mixture of prosperity, unity and strength. He’s proposed at least sixty social and economic changes, some of them with merit. They range from relaxing the one-child policy to eliminating camps for “re-education through labor.” The newest high-speed-rail trains are called “Rejuvenation,” to remind everyone of Xi and his accomplishments.

Standing at the core of Chinese power, Xi believes he knows the structure his country needs. He has no time for western politicians and journalists who believe that economic freedom and political freedom naturally go hand in hand.


Already head of the armed forces, Xi keeps adding to his portfolio

He’s opened up the economy, fostering more competition, allowing market-driven flexibility, giving private corporations the right to compete with state enterprises. But in politics he goes in the opposite direction. The success of democratic capitalism holds no allure for him. He doesn’t even want to hear about it. In August 2013, an internal memo was leaked from party headquarters, citing “seven unmentionables,” phrases not to be used in official documents. They included “human rights,” “independent judiciaries” and “Western constitutional democracy.”

Liu Xiaobo was jailed for merely advocating opposition parties—that was “inciting subversion of state power.” When he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, official media in China were forbidden to mention it. Last month, when Lui died of cancer while in prison, his widow was kept from talking to supporters and reporters and was jailed herself. The Xi regime not only imprisons those who promote human rights but also punishes lawyers who try to defend them. On one day, July 10, 2015, in a spectacular roundup, police arrested 60 lawyers and ransacked their offices. They were guilty of defending people who had defied the actions of the state.

All this Xi can explain: China needs stability for economic success and demands for individual rights lead to instability.

Even so, Xi continues to have admirers. After Xi and Donald Trump met in April, Trump proclaimed, “He is a good man. A very good man.”

National Post

robert.fulford@utoronto.ca

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[Housecarl]

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...e=newsletter&utm_term=170822&utm_campaign=bop

A Second Korean War Could Quickly Spread Across All of Asia

By Brendan Scott and Adrian Leung
August 21, 2017, 2:00 PM PDT August 21, 2017, 9:51 PM PDT

- Northeast Asia’s geography reveals the peril of any strike
- Great powers risk being drawn into escalating conflict

A recent survey commissioned by the New York Times found that people who could find North Korea on a map were more likely to favor talks over military action. A glance at North Asia’s geography explains why.

More than six decades after the Korean War ended without a peace treaty, the peninsula remains bisected in a perpetual stalemate, with the U.S.-backed South Korean military lined up against more than a million North Korean troops. While tensions have occasionally flared -- such as after Kim Jong Un’s weapons tests or threats of “merciless revenge” over American-led military exercises that began Monday -- the two sides have so far staved off another devastating conflict.

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The 250-kilometer (160-mile) border defined in a 1953 armistice lays bare one obvious peril of any confrontation: The demilitarized zone sits on the doorstep of the Seoul metropolitan area, where about half of South Korea’s 51 million people live.

North Korea has spent decades concealing hundreds of artillery batteries along the frontier that could wreak havoc in the southern capital, according to Joseph Bermudez, an analyst for the 38 North website run by the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Those weapons could kill thousands of people and damage scores of factories in the time it took the U.S. to project “fire and fury” across the border, as President Donald Trump has warned.

“If all of a sudden artillery rounds started plopping down in the middle of the city, hitting those high-rises, there would be panic like you would not believe,” Bermudez said. “Not only are people killed by direct explosion, they’re killed by all the debris, and they’re killed by accident. You don’t need much artillery to do that.”

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After an initial exchange of fire, the danger could quickly engulf the rest of South Korea and neighboring Japan, countries that have been American allies since World War II. More than 80,000 troops are based across the two countries and the U.S. territory of Guam, which would provide key staging areas for any American-led attack.

Those U.S. bases were within reach of Kim’s bombs long before his first successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile on July 4. Even if Kim still lacks the capacity to outfit those missiles with miniaturized nuclear warheads, he could cause plenty of damage with conventional and chemical weapons.

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Kim would probably seek to maximize his advantage against more powerful foes by striking softer civilian targets in places like the greater Tokyo area, which is home to almost 40 million people. At the same time, North Koreans might look to escape the allied onslaught by flooding across the Yalu River to China. The region might also face environmental threats should the U.S. strike Kim’s heavy-water reactor north of the capital Pyongyang, scattering radioactive debris into the atmosphere and groundwater.

Mao Zedong’s decision to back China’s communist neighbors in North Korea was a key reason the U.S.-led United Nations forces were never able to achieve a decisive victory in the Korean War. China’s concern then -- that a unified Korea could provide a springboard for attacks on its own territory -- remains largely unchanged. And the world’s most populous country would be hard-pressed to remain on the sidelines if a full-fledged conflict erupted on its border.

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iICC2PvKRMTA/v4/800x-1.png

Unlike his predecessor, Chinese President Xi Jinping commands a nuclear power with one of the world’s most advanced navies and air forces. Should China join a second Korean conflict, that firepower would make it harder for Trump to ensure the safety of the U.S. homeland -- much less its bases and allies across Asia.

And don’t forget Russia, which shares borders with China, Japan and North Korea. Russian President Vladimir Putin is already challenging the U.S. in hotspots around the world.

The U.S. is constantly engaging with China and Russia to explain what it would do in a conflict to minimize the chance of an escalation, Bermudez said.

“It’s certainly possible to prevent superpower escalation,” he said. “Communication is the key here.”

 

[Housecarl]

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http://observer.com/2017/08/nato-poland-russia-military-exercises/

OPINION

Getting Déjà Vu From Russia’s Military Exercises, Poland Readies to Resist Putin

Moscow rattles its saber on NATO’s doorstep

By John R. Schindler • 08/21/17 11:01am

Right now, the Kremlin is preparing to mount major military exercises on its border with NATO. Termed Zapad—meaning West in Russian—and slated to take place in mid-September, these exercises have unnerved the Atlantic Alliance and caused concern in Western capitals about what the Russians are really up to.

Moscow has not shared much information about Zapad, which will include troops from Russia and Belarus. Estimates of its size range from a low figure of 12,000 personnel, based on official statements, to as high as 100,000—which would make Zapad the biggest Kremlin military exercise since the Cold War.

There’s bad history here. Moscow has termed major western-focused exercises Zapad for decades, and the 1981 war games under that name, the biggest ever held by the Soviet military, seriously rattled NATO. Zapad-81, aside from its military mission, had the clear intent of showing the Kremlin’s Polish neighbor—which was then a Soviet client under domestic siege by the Solidarity movement—that Moscow could not be trifled with.

Having shaken off the Kremlin’s shackles at the Cold War’s end, Poland is a free country and a bulwark of NATO, but Warsaw remains concerned by this latest iteration of Zapad. The exercises are slated to take place in Belarus and in Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, right on the Polish frontier.

Then there’s the tricky matter of what Zapad’s actual intent might be. Is it to intimidate Belarus, whose ramshackle regime no longer wants to be Vladimir Putin’s pawn? Might Moscow leave several thousand troops in Belarus after Zapad’s end to keep Minsk on-side? Could the exercises actually be a cover for aggression? The Kremlin has repeatedly used war games to obscure build-up for an invasion, most infamously of Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1968. More recently, Putin’s invasion of Georgia in August 2008 was preceded by military exercises, a dry run, only weeks before, right on Russia’s border with Georgia.

Most analysts doubt Putin plans to invade a NATO country this September, which would mean war with the Atlantic Alliance, but Warsaw is preternaturally cautious, knowing the Russians as well as they do. The strategic Suwałki gap in northeastern Poland, a narrow sliver of land between Belarus and Kaliningrad, remains tempting for Moscow. In the event of war, there can be little doubt that Russian forces would charge through that gap—where they would meet the Polish military.

And it’s not just Poles. This spring, NATO finally came through, following years of pleading from Warsaw, and deployed 1,100 troops in northeast Poland. Some 900 of those troops are American, and this NATO battalion group, which is based 35 miles south of Kaliningrad, is merely a tripwire. They would be quickly flattened by Russian tanks if war breaks out, but they guarantee Poland will not be fighting alone.

That fear is widespread in Poland and is no surprise given the country’s painful history of abandonment by unreliable Western allies. No NATO country has taken the threat of a resurgent Russia more seriously. In fall 2013, months before Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, Warsaw was signaling that NATO could no longer avert its eyes about Russian misconduct. Poland’s defense ministry postulated a new military doctrine based on territorial defense, which was viewed as unduly alarmist by some NATO countries still eager to appease Putin.

How prescient the Poles had been was soon painfully clear, with the Kremlin’s theft of Crimea and its invasion and occupation of eastern Ukraine in spring 2014. Since then, the Atlantic Alliance has been forced to ponder major war in Europe again, and Poland has led the way. Warsaw is one of the few NATO countries to spend the “required” minimum of two percent of GDP on defense (the others, aside from America, are Britain, Estonia and Greece).

Increased funding has been put to good use, and the Polish military is in the middle of an extensive defense modernization program that will run through 2022. For the army, the largest of Poland’s armed services, this means hundreds of new armored vehicles, including modernized Leopard II tanks and cutting-edge artillery systems. The army possesses three divisions and 13 maneuver brigades, making it one of the biggest land forces in NATO. To compare, the German army boasts two divisions with eight maneuver brigades (one of them half-French), even though Germany has more than twice Poland’s population and its GDP is four times as large.

Poland’s navy is largely a coastal defense force, given the country’s relatively short coastline on the Baltic Sea, but the air force is modern and well equipped, including a wing of 48 late-model F-16 fighters purchased from the United States. The recent arrival of American AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles means Polish F-16s now can strike as deep as 230 miles behind enemy lines—a critical capability, since, in the event of war, Warsaw wants to destroy invading Russian forces before they reach Poland.

Here Poland’s excellent special forces are critical, since in a crisis they will be employed to find targets deep in the enemy rear for the F-16s to take out with JASSMs. Warsaw’s special operators, which boast extensive combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, include several units and count as a fourth branch of the military. They rank among the finest special operators in NATO, indeed the world, on a par with America’s Delta Force and Britain’s famed SAS.

In response to the resurgent Russian threat, Warsaw has stood up a fifth branch of its armed services, the Territorial Defense Force (WOT in Polish). Slated to reach 50,000 troops by 2022, this new force has the express mission of countering Kremlin subversion and sabotage. Putin’s snatching of Crimea with the notorious “little green men” of Russian military intelligence or GRU created an indelible impression in all the NATO countries that border Russia, Poland included. WOT, made up of part-time volunteers who receive 30 days of military training per year, will be the first line of defense against GRU operatives who might infiltrate the country.

This new force will encompass one brigade in each of Poland’s 16 voivodeships (roughly “provinces”), plus an extra brigade for the heavily populated Warsaw region. Three WOT brigades were stood up in 2016, fittingly on Poland’s eastern border with Belarus and Ukraine, while three more are being raised this year on the border with Kaliningrad and in the Warsaw region. All 17 brigades will exist by the end of 2019, and WOT will be fully operational three years after that.

There is no shortage of volunteers, and the creation of the territorials has witnessed an upsurge in patriotism, helped by the fact that WOT carries on the legacy of the legendary Home Army, the Polish underground force that battled Nazi and Soviet occupiers in the 1940s. Raising a fifth armed service has not been without controversy in Poland, where every move by the current right-wing government is viewed skeptically by its political opponents.

The Ministry of Defense has indicated that the territorials have a political purpose as well as a military one, namely strengthening the country’s “patriotic and Christian foundations”—the sort of comment from the current government that raises hackles in Brussels but is less controversial among Poles. Across the country, WOT mass swearing-in ceremonies for male and female volunteers have become commonplace, and Warsaw is eager to showcase their patriotism.

It’s no secret that the current defense ministry, led by the nationalist Antoni Macierewicz, views the newly recruited territorials more favorably than many leaders in the regular military, quite a few of whom have been fired by Macierewicz over alleged ties to Moscow. Hundreds of senior officers have resigned rather than work for Macierewicz, creating turmoil in one of NATO’s most important militaries.

Nevertheless, Poland’s armed forces remain the bulwark of the Atlantic Alliance against Vladimir Putin and his increasingly aggressive Russia. Poland’s part-time territorials are taking their place in the line, guarding NATO’s exposed eastern frontier. If the rest of the alliance took defense and security as seriously as the Poles do, the Russian threat would hardly be worth discussing.

John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he’s also been a Navy officer and a War College professor. He’s published four books and is on Twitter at @20committee.

SEE ALSO: The East-West SpyWar as Viewed From Putin’s Doorstep

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.usnews.com/news/top-new...hly-enriched-uranium-in-days-if-us-quits-deal

Iran Says Can Produce Highly Enriched Uranium in Days if U.S. Quits Deal

Aug. 22, 2017, at 6:32 a.m.

LONDON (Reuters) - Iran can resume production of highly enriched uranium within five days if the nuclear deal it struck with world powers in 2015 is revoked, Iran's atomic chief was quoted by state media as saying on Tuesday.

The deal that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani championed with the United States, Russia, China and three European powers led to the lifting of most sanctions against Tehran in return for curbs on its nuclear program.

Rouhani has intensified efforts to protect the deal, also known by its acronym JCPOA, against Washington's return to an aggressive Iran policy, after U.S. President Donald Trump approved new sanctions on Tehran.

Rouhani warned last week that Iran could abandon the nuclear agreement "within hours" if the United States imposes any more new sanctions.

"The president's warning was not baseless," Head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi said on Tuesday.

"If we decide, we can reach 20 percent (uranium) enrichment within five days in Fordow (underground nuclear plant)," he added.

However, Salehi who was reappointed this month as vice president and the head of the Atomic Energy Organization, said his main priority would be to protect the JCPOA.

Following the nuclear deal, Iran drastically reduced the number of centrifuges - machines that enrich uranium - installed at Fordow, and kept just over 1,000 there for research purposes.

The JCPOA states that no enrichment is permitted at Fordow for 15 years.

Uranium enriched to a high level can be used to make an atomic bomb. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on six Iranian firms in late July for their role in the development of a ballistic missile program after Tehran launched a rocket capable of putting a satellite into orbit.

Trump also signed in August a U.S. Senate bill that imposed sanctions on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.

Iran says new U.S. sanctions breach the JCPOA but the United States says they were unrelated to the deal.

During his election campaign Trump called the deal a "disaster" and "the worst deal ever negotiated". This month he said he did not believe Iran was living up to the deal's spirit.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-russia-israel-idUSKCN1B30JS

AUGUST 22, 2017 / 11:57 PM / AN HOUR AGO

Netanyahu to press Putin over Iran's Syrian foothold

Dan Williams
3 MIN READ

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will tell Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday that he is concerned Iran and its Shiite allies are expanding their presence in Syria as Moscow works to tamp down the Syrian civil war, Israeli officials said.

Russia has been the main broker of de-escalation zones set up in Syria in recent weeks. Israel worries those zones will allow Damascus's Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah reinforcements to deploy in greater strength along its northern front.

Another sponsor of the zones is the United States, which shares Moscow's focus on defeating Islamic State insurgents. Israel argues that Iran is the greater common threat.

Netanyahu and Putin will meet in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi for their sixth series of talks since September 2015. Netanyahu is due back in Israel later in the day for talks with White House peace envoys Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and Dina Powell.

"I will discuss with (Putin) Iran's accelerated effort to entrench militarily in Syria," Netanyahu said in a statement on Tuesday. "This creates a problem not just for Israel, but for all the of countries of the Middle East and the whole world."

A Kremlin statement said Putin and Netanyahu would "exchange opinions on bilateral relations and the situation in the Middle East, primarily Syria, on fighting international terrorism, a Palestinian-Israeli settlement and other global and regional issues."

Russia intervened in Syria on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2015, its forces fighting what it deems Sunni Islamist "terrorists" in partnership with Iran and Hezbollah, Israel's arch-foes. Moscow argues its big-power clout deters Iran or Hezbollah from opening a new front with Israel.

"We take the Israeli interests in Syria into account," Alexander Petrovich Shein, Russia's ambassador to Israel, told its Channel One television on Tuesday. "Were it up to Russia, the foreign forces would not stay."

Netanyahu has publicly alleged, without providing details, that Iran plans to set up air and naval bases in Syria and his government has issued veiled threats to take pre-emptive action.

"We will find the common diplomatic and political interest with the United States, and later on with Russia, in order to combine our efforts and effect Iran's return to its place," Yoav Gallant, a member of Netanyahu's security cabinet, told Israel's Channel Two television.

"We should also prepare the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) so it ... has relevant plans (for Syria), should that be required."

In comments published this week, the chief of Israel's air force said Israel had struck suspected Hezbollah arms shipments in Syria around 100 times during the Syrian civil war, apparently without Russian interference and rarely drawing retaliation.

Additional reporting by Katya Golubkova in Moscow; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Jeffrey Heller, Larry King

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.realcleardefense.com/art...ver_nuclear_weapons_modernization_112122.html

Cloud of Controversy Looms Over Nuclear Weapons Modernization

By Sandra Erwin
August 23, 2017

Donald Trump recently reminded the world that his “first order as president was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal.” And he tweeted: “Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!”

The president’s hot rhetoric, alas, is about to collide with the cold fiscal and political realities of nuclear weapons modernization.

The U.S. Air Force this week took a major step forward when it selected Boeing and Northrop Grumman to begin designing a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile to replace the 50-year-old Minuteman.

The August 21 announcement did not come as a surprise. The Air Force had been steadfast in its plans to start acquiring the next-generation ICBM, known as the ground-based strategic deterrent program. It solicited proposals last summer and bids were due in October. Each of the winners received a $349 million award for the so-called “technology maturation and risk reduction” phase of the project. Boeing and Northrop beat out Lockheed Martin in the high-stakes competition.

The contractors, over the next three years, will map out their concepts for how to build, deploy and maintain a fleet of more than 600 missiles. The ground-based strategic deterrent, or GBSD, is the land-based leg of the nation’s nuclear triad. Along with the Navy’s nuclear missile submarines and the Air Force’s nuclear-armed stealth bombers, they exist for the sole purpose of deterring other countries from launching a thermonuclear war.

Congress this fall will be digging deeper into the Pentagon’s planned modernization of the triad and expects to receive an updated “nuclear posture review” from the Defense Department. While a debate is expected on the geopolitical realities that compel the United States to continue to fund these programs, the projected $400 billion price tag for the modernization looms large.

The GBSD program alone is projected to cost up to $80 billion for the missiles and ground infrastructure. Critics have suggested the Air Force should save the money and continue to upgrade the aging Minuteman III inventory. Others have floated the idea of completely doing away with the land-based leg of the triad, arguing that the Navy’s new Columbia-class submarines and the Air Force’s B-2 and B-21 stealth bombers will provide sufficient deterrence.

Daunting fiscal and political hurdles should be a concern for the Air Force and for the contractors in this program, noted defense industry analyst Byron Callan of Capital Alpha Partners. “We remain guarded on prospects for GBSD,” he wrote in a note to investors. The Pentagon simply will not have enough money to pay for everything it wants over the next decade. “There’s the nuclear triad, Army modernization, Navy expansion, new space systems, the F-35 joint strike fighter,” he argued. “Funding will be constrained.”

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said repeatedly the Pentagon will need a major budget boost to pay for long-term modernization needs. But it is hard to envision how that will happen in an era of deep partisan divisions and no consensus on national security funding priorities.

The GBSD today is the most politically vulnerable of the three legs. The Navy’s Columbia-class submarine program seems “quite safe,” said Callan. The Air Force’s super-secret B-21 bomber has dual conventional and nuclear roles, and its development is said to be progressing. Meanwhile, “we continue to wonder about the logic and cost of replacing land-based ICBMs,” he said. Some fundamental questions have yet to be asked: “What's the incremental deterrent value of a land-based ICBM force? Why not use maneuvering hypersonic weapons? And who is being deterred?” Also, is the GBSD the way to deter Russia in the 2020s and how much does this matter to China?

Kingston Reif, a nuclear weapons analyst at the Arms Control Association, said the GBSD program is “ripe for further scrutiny.” A debate is expected on Capitol Hill on “whether GBSD is the most cost-effective way to replace the Minuteman III system,” Reif said. “The Air Force has yet to make a compelling case, in my view, as to why another Minuteman III life extension isn't a viable option in the near term.”

The Pentagon has rejected these arguments and intends to forcefully defend investments in a new land-based leg of the triad.

“Yes, it’s a lot of money. But it is well worth it given world conditions,” former Air Force Secretary Deborah James told RealClearDefense.

James, who served during the Obama administration, was one of the architects of the GBSD program and one of its most ardent advocates. “I do recognize that there are different viewpoints,” she said. But the “preponderant view” now is that the global security environment warrants these investments.

“Russia is building up its nuclear arsenal. North Korea is posing threats that 15 to 20 years ago we didn’t even think about,” said James. “This is probably no time to radically change the triad approach that has served us well for over 70 years.” And she noted that the cost — about 4 to 5 percent of the defense budget — should not be cause for alarm.

James predicts that GBSD contractors will refine the cost estimates and introduce new technologies that will make the new system cheaper to operate than the Cold War-era Minuteman missiles

“The last time we developed ICBM technology was more than 40 years ago,” she said. “A lot has changed and we are using very old data.”

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said the ICBM modernization is not up for debate. "As others have stated, the only thing more expensive than deterrence is fighting a war. The Minuteman III is 45 years old. It is time to upgrade."

Nuclear weapons experts who have studied the history of strategic deterrence predict the triad will survive whatever political storms lie ahead. No U.S. administration wants to be the one blamed for weakening the nation’s posture.

What makes the triad hard to break is that each leg is supposed to be independent. The Pentagon designed it that way so any of the three legs can inflict unacceptable damage. “Bombers are more flexible. Submarines are viewed as the last resort. But the ICBMs are viewed as the most stabilizing leg,” said an industry official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Minuteman III leg features 450 hardened silos that are connected to the president through redundant and assured communications, he noted. “It would require a massive attack to eliminate the ICBMs. It poses an adversary an insurmountable obstacle,” the official said. “If we did not have the ICBMs our nuclear force would resemble France, with just submarines and bombers. ICBMs -- because of the sheer number of targets -- play a critical role in stabilizing the nuclear balance. And you need varied means of attack so adversaries don’t focus on just one thing.”

Sandra Erwin is a national security and defense reporter for RealClearDefense. She can be reached at serwin@realcleardefense.com. Follow Sandra on Twitter @Sandra_I_Erwin.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/08/23/military_mass_is_back_112123.html

Military Mass is Back

By Jyri Raitasalo
August 23, 2017

During the last 20 years, western militaries have followed a transformational agenda. Ever since the early 1990s, military “overweight” has been shed as direct military threats to western security and strategic interests evaporated. During the post-Cold War era, and relying on the so-called “Revolution in Military Affairs” (RMA), military transformation became a tool to redefine war and the guidelines for developing national armed forces in the West. Trashing Army Corps, Divisions and Brigades, slashing fighter jets and Navy vessels and reducing military manpower by the millions, western militaries, particularly in Europe, have become more usable, but less resilient and capable to operate according to the demands of large-scale high-intensity warfighting. This is particularly true if one takes the rising military capabilities of China and Russia as a yardstick.

The recent events in the East and South China seas, as well as Russia's actions in Ukraine and Syria, have all surprised western strategic decision-makers. After two decades of outright western (read: American) defense policy supremacy, peer competitors have emerged, and they have started to challenge the western-defined post-Cold War era international security architecture. What was expected to be all about common security threats in an interdependent world with a non-zero-sum approach to security, has turned into fierce competition between western states on the one hand and China and Russia on the other. And in-between a range of lesser, but still notable, actors are causing more problems than used to be the case during the 1990s and the following decade.

What has been particularly significant in the latest development of events has been the speed with which the West is losing its edge on international security affairs. China’s “new” artificial islands and the militarization of the East and South China seas, to be followed by rising competition in the Indian Ocean, and Russian annexation of Crimea and the following military operations in Eastern Ukraine and Syria have confronted western states during the last few years. In addition, Afghanistan is lost, Libya is failing, and Iran is on a roll in Iraq and Syria. These countries have all been at the epicenter of western security and defense policy agenda for years. Also, North Korea has been able to destabilize the western security approach with its million-man military forces, nuclear weapons and developing ICBM capability.

While all of the above has been happening during the last days, weeks, months and years, western states have been continuing on their transformational approach to military forces combined with the willingness to continue effectuating military savings and formulating austerity measures strangling western militaries and their capabilities. Particularly in Europe military forces are becoming dysfunctional, vis-à-vis the international security environment. Small professional forces - the size of few battalions, two brigades at the most - are not well equipped to deal with the rising tide of large-scale military risks and threats that are not only on the horizon but are already here.

Possibilities to develop sufficient, credible and real military capability with the preferred western transformational approach would require much more economic resources than European defense establishments have received during the post-Cold War era. What in the late 1990s was called a “capability gap” between the United States and Europe has during the last 15 years grown even wider. Only the U.S. has been able to finance its military transformation with sufficient R&D and procurement allocations in order to replace lost platforms and soldiers with high-tech capabilities. The only problem is that Iraq and Afghanistan have consumed American strategic thinking for the last 15 years and the notion of large-scale, high-end warfighting has not received required attention - on the policy, doctrinal or procurement levels.

In Europe, the outlook has been grim. At the same time as military forces have been slashed, professionalized and even miniaturized in most countries, defense expenditures have actually been decreased. European states have not compensated the decreasing size of their armed forces with increased defense investments on capabilities. On the contrary - according to NATO statistics, between 1990-2014 defense expenditures in NATO Europe decreased almost 20% based on 2010 prices. During the same timeframe, NATO accepted 13 new member-states - all in Europe. Thus the 2016 “hike” of European defense spending - 3,6% increase compared to the defense spending in 2015 - is a good start, but mostly symbolic in nature.

Without significant long-term increases in European states’ defense spending, there will not be a credible military capability on the continent to meet the challenges of the 2020s and 2030s. Sending small contingents of soldiers to out-of-area crisis-management or counter insurgency operations will not be sufficient in the foreseeable future. Nor will participation in counter-piracy or counter-terrorist operations.

Even if it is hard for many western political decision-makers to come to terms with the harsh realities of today’s and tomorrow’s military risks and threats, the West in general - and European states particularly - need to invest more in their militaries. Despite the facts that the transformational military logic could provide credible military capability - if financed properly - Europe still needs more military mass. Without combined-arms units capable of independent operations, supported by massed indirect fires, ground-based air defense, electronic warfare and precision strike capabilities, Western states in the “European theater” will not be up to the task of safeguarding against real military threats.

Spending more is a good start - as 25 years of underinvestment in military forces has eaten away much of the credibility that the tense security environment today would require. And building bigger forces is a good second step. Companies and battalions will not do, regarding indirect fires, mechanized offensive capability, electronic warfare, C2, ground-based air defense (GBAD) capability and a whole lot of other spheres of defense capability. Thirdly, within the NATO-context, European member-states should focus less on article 5 and what others (read: the U.S.) should do for us. Adopting an article 3 attitude, with increased defense financing, is the only way through which European states individually, and Europe as a whole, can be secure in the future. European states simply need more defense capability, period. Military mass is back.

-----

Jyri Raitasalo is Docent of strategy and security policy at the Finnish National Defence University. Previously he served as head lecturer of strategy at the Finnish National Defence University. The views expressed here are his own.

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/milita...n-pentagon-admits-n795141?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_np

NEWS
AUG 23 2017, 7:18 AM ET

U.S. Has Thousands More Troops in Afghanistan Than the Pentagon Admits

by COURTNEY KUBE

WASHINGTON — The average number of U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan at any given time is thousands more than the Pentagon officially acknowledges, according to three U.S. defense officials.

The Pentagon officially acknowledges 8,400 troops on the ground there, but that number actually hovers between 11,000 and 12,000, the officials said.

The actual force manning level is 8,448, which is the maximum number of U.S. service members who are authorized to be assigned to either Resolute Support or U.S. Forces Afghanistan, the two military missions there.

But there is overlap between units as service members are transitioning in and out and there are units and people there on temporary duty shorter than 120 days. Those additional forces put the actual footprint at between 11,000 and 12,000 on any given day, according to the officials.

President Donald Trump announced a new strategy in Afghanistan Monday night, saying that the U.S. will expand authority for American armed forces to target the terrorist and criminal networks that sow violence and chaos throughout Afghanistan. But the president did not provide specific details about how the U.S. military mission will change or how many U.S. troops could be deployed for the new strategy.

Speaking during an unannounced visit to Baghdad Tuesday, Secretary of Defense James Mattis also declined to say how many more U.S. troops could be deployed.

"I'd prefer not to go into those numbers right now. The first thing I have to do is level the bubble and account for everybody who's on the ground there now, the idea being that we're not going to have different buckets that we're accounting for them in, to tell you what the total number is. And there is a number that I'm authorized to go up to," Mattis said.

Related: Trump Vows to Continue Aghan War. Taliban Say They're Fine With That.

"I've directed the Chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] to put the plan together now. We've obviously been discussing this option for some time. When he brings that to me, I'll determine how many more we need to send in, Mattis said.

Asked whether reports that the U.S. may send about 3,900 more troops, Mattis said, "I'd rather not say a number and then have to change it later on. Let me look at the plan that the military brings me."

Just last week, Mattis explained that the number of U.S. troops actually serving in Iraq, Syria, and in Afghanistan is not even transparent to him.

"We had to change how they were accounting for them, because there were so many different pockets," he said during a press availability at the Pentagon. "We in this building couldn't figure it out."

He explained that some troops there are not counted because they are there for a short duration, some are transitioning in or out, and some are on special missions.

Related: Pence Puts Pakistan 'On Notice'

"I had to change the accounting process because we couldn't figure out how many troops we had there," Mattis said. When asked why the Pentagon still has not provided the correct number to the media, Mattis said, "I didn't know that was the case," and directed a member of his staff to see him about getting the media the more accurate numbers. Mattis made that comment on August 14, but the Pentagon still has not provided the correct figure.

The Commander of all U.S. military forces in the Middle East said Tuesday that the first deployments of troops will arrive in Afghanistan pretty quickly, according to the Associated Press.

Speaking to reporters traveling with him in Saudi Arabia, General Joseph Votel said, "What's most important for us now is to get some capabilities in to have an impact on the current fighting season."

 

[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ers-seize-140-pounds-of-fentanyl-at-US-border

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/mexican-soldiers-seize-140-pounds-fentanyl-us-border-132705903.html

Mexican soldiers seize 140 pounds of fentanyl at US border

Associated Press • August 22, 2017

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Soldiers in northern Mexico say they have seized a surprisingly large stash of the powerful opioid fentanyl from a truck near the U.S. border.

The Mexican Army's Second Military Zone said late Monday that soldiers at a highway checkpoint found over 140 pounds (63.8 kilograms) of fentanyl on Saturday packed in plastic-wrapped bricks hidden behind sheet metal in the insulated floor of a truck trailer.

Soldiers also found three bags containing almost 30,000 pills, apparently also containing fentanyl. The driver and a youth accompanying him were detained.

Fentanyl is five to 15 times more potent than heroin.

The army said the truck was heading from Mexico City to Tijuana when it was stopped at checkpoint in San Luis Rio Colorado, near Yuma, Arizona.

Another truck was found further west along the border carrying 60.6 pounds (27.5 kilograms) of heroin.

Opium poppies are grown in Mexico while fentanyl is often imported from China and smuggled into the United States.

To put Saturday's seizure in perspective, the Defense Department said that in the previous 4½ years, its total seizures of fentanyl had amounted to 106 pounds (48 kilograms) and about 36,000 fentanyl pills.

78 reactions

 

[Housecarl]

Just as CTH Predicted About Trump's Play, Pakistan Rejects Ownership of the Taliban
Started by Buick Electra‎, Today 06:51 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...lay-Pakistan-Rejects-Ownership-of-the-Taliban

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/world/asia/pakistan-trump-afghanistan-india.html

ASIA PACIFIC

Trump’s Request for India’s Help in Afghanistan Rattles Pakistan

By SALMAN MASOOD
AUG. 22, 2017

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Trump’s appeal for India’s help on Afghanistan set off alarm bells on Tuesday in Pakistan, where officials warned that the approach risked jolting a tumultuous relationship. They also expressed relief that Mr. Trump did not call for abrupt reductions in military aid to Pakistan, which the United States has long accused of going easy on militants.

As part of Mr. Trump’s new plan for addressing the 16-year United States conflict in Afghanistan, he asked India — which Pakistan has historically seen as its enemy — to “help us more,” especially with economic assistance.

Mr. Trump also reiterated his predecessors’ calls that Islamabad crack down on militant groups that have waged attacks from bases in Pakistani territory.

“We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting,” Mr. Trump said on Monday, although he stopped short of cutting off military aid, as some Pakistani elites had feared.

Pakistan and the United States have long had a troubled relationship, increasingly strained by differences over Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan. Even before American military and intelligence operatives tracked down and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, American officials chided Pakistan’s military and intelligence agency as harboring or turning a blind eye to militants.

RELATED COVERAGE

Trump Outlines New Afghanistan War Strategy With Few Details AUG. 21, 2017

Angry Trump Grilled His Generals About Troop Increase, Then Gave In AUG. 21, 2017


Pakistani officials, in turn, have cited Indian influence as a primary cause of instability and insecurity in Afghanistan. Officials in Islamabad accuse India of supporting a hostile political regime in Kabul and funding militants, who use Afghanistan as a base to launch attacks inside Pakistan.

Even before Mr. Trump unveiled his strategy on Monday, Islamabad was apprehensive and concerned.

The Pakistani military has been at the forefront of formulating the country’s foreign policy and has taken the lead in defining the contours of Islamabad’s relationship with Afghanistan and India. The civilian government has very little say, if any, in these policy initiatives.

Pakistani officials said they expected private contractors to take a more dominant role than troops already in Afghanistan. Senior Pakistani security officials stress that an all-inclusive engagement is the only option for peace inside Afghanistan. More troops inside the country, along with blaming Pakistan for harboring terrorists, will not work, they said in background interviews.

However, there was no formal, official response to Mr. Trump’s speech by Tuesday evening. Pakistan’s foreign minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, is to leave for the United States in the next few days to hold talks with American officials, a spokesman said.

The military also decided not to put forth a formal public response. In what could be viewed as a pre-emptive move, Major Gen Asif Ghafoor, the military spokesman, had said in a press briefing earlier on Monday that no terror group was operating inside Pakistan.

Sehar Kamran, an opposition senator who leads an Islamabad-based think tank, said Mr. Trump’s plan appeared to be “more of the same, under much more colorful language and contradictory bluster.”

“The shift from a timeline-oriented approach to a condition-based one, I think, is only the vocalization of a longstanding practice,” she said, adding. “What is concerning for Pakistan, however, is the contradiction within his statement that expresses both an acknowledgment of the country’s sacrifices while simultaneously downplaying them by continuing accusations of ‘sheltering terrorists,’ and doing not enough with billions and billions paid by America.”

Ms. Kamran said that pushing India to play a stronger role inside Afghanistan would isolate Washington’s friends in Islamabad “without realizing, understanding or perhaps deliberately underestimating the impact of increasing Indian presence on Pakistan’s western border.”

“An unnecessary flexing of military muscles and the deployment of additional troops at this time will only undo much that has been achieved over many years diplomatically, and serve to further antagonize regional countries like Pakistan, China and Russia,” she said.

Analysts said Pakistan’s dependence on American aid had declined in recent years — partly as China flexes its military might in South Asia — giving policy makers in Islamabad more room to maneuver.

“Pakistan is prepared to absorb the impact of a more assertive U.S. policy toward the country,” said Arif Rafiq, a nonresident fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington. “It’s the most economically stable that it’s been in a decade, thanks in part to massive Chinese investment, and it has managed to secure much of its border regions despite the withdrawal of most U.S. combat forces.”

Mr. Rafiq said that Pakistan also knows that it has several options to counter punitive actions by Washington, including closing supply routes to Afghanistan.

“I think what Pakistan hopes for is the U.S. to engage it as a partner in Afghanistan, rather than as a contractor deputed to arrest or kill insurgent leaders named by Washington,” Mr. Rafiq said. “That requires coordination on border security and a structured dialogue process with the Taliban. I think Islamabad will remain rather firm in steering its engagement with both Kabul and Washington in that direction.”

Other analysts offered an even more scathing view of Mr. Trump’s speech.

“By inviting India to be more active in Afghanistan, Trump has confirmed the worst fears of Pakistan’s generals: that America is in cahoots with India against Pakistan,” said Mosharraf Zaidi, a foreign-policy analyst in Islamabad.

“There may never be a perfect approach to convince Pakistan to abandon the Haqqani network, but this speech was a terrible attempt,” Mr. Zaidi said, referring to the Pakistan-based militant group that has been blamed for most of the deadly attacks inside Afghanistan.

However, Maria Sultan, a defense analyst based in Islamabad and director general of the South Asian Strategic Stability Institute, said the Trump policy was “not as bad as we were expecting. The responsibility has been essentially shifted to Afghanistan.”

She warned that intelligence-based operations against groups inside Pakistan might increase. “This will further reduce the space for cooperation between Pakistan and U.S. and will be counterproductive for a long-term relationship,” Ms. Sultan said.

Follow Salman Masood on Twitter @salmanmasood.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-journalist-killing-20170823-story.html

A Mexican reporter was in a program to protect journalists. He was still killed

By Kate Linthicum, Contact Reporter
August 23, 2017, 2:55 PM | Reporting from Mexico City

His phone rang, but Mexican newspaper reporter Candido Rios Vazquez didn’t answer.

Officials said Rios was shot to death at a corner store in Hueyapan de Ocampo. Also killed were a former police investigator with whom he was sharing a soda and a local rancher who may have been caught in the crossfire.

Rios was at least the ninth journalist killed in Mexico so far this year. The spate of killings, which have targeted some of the country’s most prominent and respected reporters, has prompted international outcry, with human rights advocates and American officials pressing President Enrique Peña Nieto to do more to protect journalists and prosecute crimes against them.

Investigators have not said whether they think Rios was killed for his work, nor have they named any suspects in the killing.

But the reporter had long received threats from local officials related to his stories, according to Perez, an editor at Diario de Acayucan, the newspaper where Rios worked for the last decade.

“The threats were constant,” Perez said in a phone interview Wednesday. He said one of the town’s former mayors was among the people who had threatened Rios’ life.

According to Perez and the State Commission for Attention and Protection of Journalists, Rios was enrolled in a federal government program designed to shield journalists and human rights workers who have received credible threats related to their work. The program, which was created in 2012, provides about 170 media and human rights workers with emergency evacuations, police protection and, in some cases, even a panic button that summons authorities.

Perez said Rios had an emergency button on his cellphone and security cameras installed in his house.

Rios knew his life was in danger.

In a video uploaded to his Facebook page Aug. 13, he denounced a suspected corruption network in Hueyapan de Ocampo, accusing several officials of illegally using government money and cheating in past elections.

In the video, which lasts almost 15 minutes, the journalist said he had been arrested in the past for having told the truth, and suggested that a journalist’s pen is no match for the arms carried by those who hope to silence him.

“They riddle us with bullets, knowing that our weapons do not fire bullets, our weapons shoot truths,” he said.

Still, Rios said he felt compelled to uncover the truth despite the risk.

“I speak to my people,” said Rios, who had worked as a truck driver before he switched to journalism to help combat what he saw as injustices in his community.

“It is my duty,” he said.

According to Article 19, a nonprofit that advocates for media protection in Mexico, there were 426 threats or attacks against the news media last year, including killings, beatings and torture. Journalists are more likely to face threats from government officials than from criminal groups, according to the National Human Rights Commission.

Human rights advocates complain that public officials don’t want to strengthen protections for journalists because a free and transparent press often isn’t in their best interest. This year, the officials who run the program in which Rios was enrolled warned that funding was set to run out.

Opposition leaders have seized on the issue in recent months.

This week, Margarita Zavala, a possible candidate for the right-leaning National Action Party in next year’s presidential election, tweeted her outrage. “Another attempt on the freedom of the press,” she wrote. “Enough!”

Rios’ killing comes on the heels of a string of slayings of high-profile journalists.

They include Javier Valdez, an internationally recognized investigative reporter who was slain May 15 in Sinaloa state, and Miroslava Breach, a veteran investigative reporter who was shot to death while driving her child March 23 in Chihuahua. Breach’s death prompted the publisher of El Norte, the Juarez newspaper where she worked, to shut down the publication. In a letter to readers, the publisher said he could no longer guarantee the safety of his staff.

In May, several prominent Mexican news outlets went dark for a day to protest the slayings of journalists across the country.

The killings have prompted a large group of foreign journalists to pen a letter to President Enrique Peña Nieto pleading for more protections for reporters. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a worldwide group, held talks with Peña Nieto this year. U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Roberta Jacobson has made press freedom one of her top issues, bringing in U.S. journalists with experience in war zones to coach local reporters on self-protection and security protocols. A few months ago, Jacobson traveled to Veracruz, a particularly dangerous state for journalists, to talk with local reporters about how the United States could support them.

Despite the anger, not a single suspect has been tried in any of this year’s killings.

Killings in Mexico expand well beyond journalists, as authorities struggle to contain violence between warring criminal groups. The country is on track to record more homicides in 2017 than in any year in the last two decades.

There were 931 homicides reported between January and July of this year in Veracruz, up from 537 during the same period last year.

Rios had covered some of those deaths.

Before he was killed Tuesday afternoon, he sent a voice message to his editor. Someone had been wounded in a neighborhood in his town, Rios said, but it was “a minor story.”

“May God take care of me,” he said as he signed off.

Cecilia Sanchez in The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

Twitter: @katelinthicum

ALSO:

U.S. warns citizens about traveling to Mexico's Cancun and Los Cabos as violence surges

As Mexico debates giving the military more power, a judge asks why soldiers gunned down 22 people

In January, President Trump vowed to hire 5,000 new Border Patrol agents. It never happened

----

UPDATES:

2:55 p.m.: This article has been updated with details from editor about call, voice message; description of other victims.

12:15 p.m.: This article has been updated with background on Rios’ accusations against local officials.

This article was originally posted at 11:05 a.m.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.defenseone.com/news/2017/08/the-d-brief-august-23-2017/140444/?oref=d-river

The D Brief

7th Fleet commander, gone; Unpacking Trump’s Afghanistan strategy; Drones gear up to track missiles; China blasts US sanctions; and just a bit more…

BY BEN WATSON
READ BIO
BRADLEY PENISTON
READ BIO
AUGUST 23, 2017

The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet commander has been fired. Two days after the year’s fourth shiphandling mishap in the Western Pacific, the U.S. Navy relieved Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin of his command of the Japan-based 7th Fleet. He was fired by Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Scott Swift, who cited a “loss of confidence” and who also ordered all ships in theater to plan for a “‘deliberate reset’…that focuses on navigation, maintaining mechanical systems and manning the ship’s bridge appropriately.” That comes on top of the review of Pacific Fleet operating procedures, operating tempo, training regimens, and more — a process expected to take months — ordered Monday by the Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson.

Also yesterday, the bodies of several of the 10 sailors missing from the USS John S. McCain after its Aug. 21 collision with an oil tanker off Singapore were found aboard the ship. Washington Post, here.

U.S. lawmaker wants a separate look. “Democratic Rep. Scott Peters issued the request on Tuesday, saying that a ‘thorough investigation’ could focus on whether the Navy’s operations tempo has become too high to be safe, and if the sea service has enough resources to do its job properly. San Diego Union-Tribune, here.

Some regional reax: “In South Korea, some people… joked that an enemy could disable American destroyers by deploying container ships,” The New York Times reported. “In Japan… The Yomiuri Shimbun, a right-leaning newspaper, quoted a Japanese naval officer expressing concern about the capacity of American troops to conduct surveillance at a time of heightened tensions with North Korea.”


China demands the U.S.“immediately” withdraw a new round of sanctions on companies that the Treasury Department says help North Korea’s weapons programs, the Washington Post reports.

About the sanctions: “The cases target Chinese firms that allegedly had imported $700 million in North Korean coal since 2013 and a Russian-operated firm allegedly helping Pyongyang procure fuel,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “In all, the U.S. alleges that the coal trade generates more than $1 billion in revenue a year for North Korea, which helps to fuel its weapons programs.”

Investigators’ lead: a defector. “One person described in the complaint as ‘Defector 1, who has firsthand knowledge’ of North Korea’s financial dealings, said the government relies on the exports of coal ‘as its primary means of obtaining access to foreign currency,’ and that the North Korean military controls the amount of coal produced and its export,” the Journal reports.

What’s more, “The defector told investigators that ‘over 95%’ of North Korea’s foreign currency earnings from coal exports go toward advancing North Korea’s military and North Korea’s nuclear missiles and weapons programs.” Read on, here.

North Korea’s state media reveal photos showing designs for one and possibly two new missiles—released just hours after U.S. officials praised Kim Jong-Un for apparent “restraint.”

About the missiles: “Concept diagrams of the missiles were seen hanging on a wall behind leader Kim Jong Un while he visited a plant that makes solid-fuel engines for the country’s ballistic-missile program,” the Associated Press reports. “One of the photos clearly showed a diagram for a missile called ‘Pukguksong-3,’ which appears to be the latest in its Pukguksong, or Polaris, series. The other was harder to discern, though it carried a ‘Hwasong,’ or Mars, designation name,”
The short take: The Pukguksong-3 “might be designed to fly farther and to be launched from protective canisters, which allow missiles to be transported more easily and makes them more difficult to locate and destroy in advance… It could possibly also boost the North’s submarine-launched missile capabilities.” And that suspected Hwasong missile is from the North’s ICBM stocks.

Says @armscontrolwonk, Jeffrey Lewis: “If I understand North Korean propaganda, this is their way of telling us what we’ll see in the air in the coming year.”

For more detailed takes on these developments, check out the Twitter threads from Ankit Panda, here; nonproliferation expert Joshua Pollack, here; or the Center for Nonproliferation Studies’ Dave Schmerler, here.

Rex-T on DPRK’s restraint: “I’m pleased to see that the regime in Pyongyang has certainly demonstrated some level of restraint that we’ve not seen in the past. We hope that this is the beginning of this signal we’ve been looking for,” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a presser on Tuesday. Tillerson singled out an apparent absence of “missile launches or provocative acts” from Pyongyang since the UN Security Council imposed new sanctions on August 5.

Notes ABC News: “It has only been two and a half weeks since those sanctions passed – and just three and a half weeks since North Korea’s latest missile launch, a second ICBM capable of hitting the continental United States.”

But the restraint turned to bluster once again on Tuesday when Pyongyang called President Trump’s approach to North Korea “unimaginably reckless,” adding, “Mad guy Trump’s unrestrained war-inciting tongue-lashing might turn the U.S. mainland into huge heaps of ashes.” Notes the Journal, reporting from Seoul, “The remarks came a day after the U.S. and South Korean militaries began annual drills, which the allies say are aimed at defending South Korea in the event of conflict but which Pyongyang says are rehearsals for an invasion.”

U.S. military reax: “[T]hat’s what we routinely expect—but it doesn’t stop us in our resolve,” said Gen. Vincent Brooks, commander of U.S. Forces-Korea. More here.

Defense Secretary James Mattis is in Ankara today. There, he will “he will hold talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli,” with the focus expected to be on the U.S.-backed Kurdish militia fighting ISIS in Syria, Agence France-Presse reports.

Mattis has already stopped in Baghdad on Monday, before hopping a helo to meet with the leadership of Irbil, in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

SitRep on the ISIS war: “Mosul completed. Raqqa 60 percent cleared. TalAfar surrounded. 5.5 million people freed,” Special Presidential Envoy for Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, Brett McGurk, tweeted out late Tuesday.

Kushner goes to Egypt and Egypt changes the plan. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi meets today with an entourage led by President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, AP reports. “Egypt’s top diplomat, Sameh Shoukry, was to meet with Kushner and the U.S. delegation, but a modified version of the minister’s schedule showed the meeting had been called off, shortly after the Americans landed in Cairo.”

And why it was called off may have something to do with this: “The Trump administration on Tuesday cut nearly $100 million in military and economic aid to Egypt and delayed almost $200 million more in military financing, pending human rights improvements and action to ease harsh restrictions on civic and other non-governmental groups.”

For what it’s worth, “A U.S. embassy official in Cairo said Kushner’s meeting with Shoukry had never been set in stone because ‘the schedule was never fixed,’” Reuters adds.

Cairo’s foreign ministry called suspending the funds a “misjudgement,” CNN reports. “Trump approved the decision to withhold aid earlier this month, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed off within the last week.” More here.

Saudi-led airstrikes north of Yemen’s capital left dozens of rebels and civilians dead, Yemeni officials said this morning. “According to the officials, an estimated number of 60 were killed in the attack, which took place in the strikes on Wednesday morning in the town of Arhab, about 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of Sanaa,” AP reports. “The two-story hotel in the town’s Qaa al-Qaidhi neighborhood sustained extensive damage and bodies were still being retrieved from under the rubble, witnesses said. They also said another airstrike hit a checkpoint manned by the Houthis, a few kilometers (miles) from the hotel.” Some truly grim reporting in AP’s story, but you can read the rest, here.

Iran is close to securing its “biggest prize yet” in the Syrian war: securing a land corridor to Mediterranean, AP reports. Though it is still hardly a fait accompli, you can read the rest of the story, here.

Lastly today: Erik Prince blames McMaster for blowing up his merc plan for Afghanistan. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker spoke to the Blackwater founder Tuesday to learn Prince is no fan of President Trump’s new Afghanistan strategy. “I see it as a temporary setback, because a year from now, or even six months from now, we will be dealing with the exact same issues we are now,” said Prince. “He rolled on this one.”

Prince has been back in the news lately for a May 31 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal advocating what he called “The MacArthur Model for Afghanistan.” The key components of the plan: centralized authority in a so-called “Viceroy,” who can make decisions independently, small teams of special operations forces striking high-value terrorist targets, culled from the local population but trained largely by Western military and contractors.

Trump reportedly was considering the idea but Prince says the plan was “absolutely blocked by [Lt. Gen.] H.R. McMaster [who] wanted nothing to do with any idea other than a more troops, more money solution.” Prince says his conversation with the president’s national security advisor “was polite. It was professional. But he didn’t like the idea of the Pentagon doing anything other than exactly what they’ve been doing.”

By his estimates, the plan would save the U.S. government more than $30 billion, a number that many others have reportedly found dubious. Prince told Defense One he would go “toe-to-toe” with anyone who disputed his claim but offered no further evidence as to its credibility or feasibility.

Although he is not getting any more encouragement from the White House (and was never getting any from the Pentagon) Prince says that the idea is not dead. “I see it as a temporary setback because a year from now, or even six months from now, we will be dealing with the exact same issues we are now,” he said.

Ben Watson is news editor for Defense One. He previously worked for NPR's “All Things Considered” and “Here and Now” in Washington, D.C. Watson served for five years in the U.S. Army, where he was an award-winning combat cameraman and media advisor for southern Afghanistan's special operations ... FULL BIO
Bradley Peniston is deputy editor of Defense One. A national-security journalist for two decades, he helped launch Military.com, served as managing editor of Defense News, and was editor of Armed Forces Journal. His books include No Higher Honor: Saving the USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Persian ... FULL BIO

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.apnews.com/e4f3608d718a...n=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

Iran extends reach with fight for land link to Mediterranean

By BASSEM MROUE and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
Yesterday

BEIRUT (AP) — Thousands of Iranian-backed fighters in Syria’s central desert region are advancing east, bringing Tehran closer to its goal of securing a corridor from its border, through Iraq and all the way to the Mediterranean and providing it unhindered land access to its allies in Syria and Lebanon for the first time.

The land-route would be the biggest prize yet for Iran in its involvement in Syria’s six-year-old civil war.

It would facilitate movement of Iranian-backed fighters between Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon as well as the flow of weapons to Damascus and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iran’s main proxy group. It also positions Iran to play a prime and lucrative role in what is expected to be a massive rebuilding effort in both Iraq and Syria, which have been devastated in their ongoing wars.

The potential for a physical artery for Iran’s influence across the region is raising concern in predominantly Sunni Arab countries and in Israel, the nemesis of both Iran and Hezbollah. It poses a challenge to the Trump administration, which has vowed to fight Iran’s growing reach.

The route is largely being carved out by Iran’s allies and proxies, a mix of forces including troops of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Hezbollah fighters and Shiite militias on both sides of the border aiming to link up. Iran also has forces of its own Revolutionary Guard directly involved in the campaign on the Syrian side.

Concerns over their advances are expected to come up when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds talks Wednesday in the Russian resort of Sochi with President Vladimir Putin, whose country is an ally of Iran and Assad.

The talks will focus “first and foremost (on) preventing Iran’s military entrenchment in Syria,” David Keyes, a spokesman for Netanyahu, said.

“Iran’s aggression in the region continues to grow. The regime is trying to entrench itself militarily on Israel’s border. Israel cannot and will not allow this,” he said. “Any cease-fire which allows Iran to establish a foothold in Syria is a danger to the entire region.”

A corridor would be a boost for Israel’s powerful enemy Hezbollah, which has an arsenal of tens of thousands of rockets and missiles. Iran currently ships weapons to Hezbollah mostly by flying them to Syria to be shipped on the ground to Lebanon.

Israel has warned it would do what it can to keep Iran from threatening its borders and has carried out airstrikes in Syria against suspected weapons shipments bound for Hezbollah. Israel pushed hard for a U.S- and Russia-brokered truce that came into effect recently in southern Syria to keep Iranian-backed militias at a distance from the Golan Heights, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

The land route is by no means a fait accompli. Any road link will likely be a frequent target by Sunni insurgent groups.

But Iran’s allies are making progress on both sides of the border, taking territory from the Islamic State group.

In recent months, Syrian troops and allied militiamen have marched forward on three fronts toward areas bordering Iraq. One of their main targets is the IS-held eastern city of Deir el-Zour, where the militants have imposed a siege for years on a small government-held pocket.

Syrian troops and pro-Iranian Iraqi militiamen do already meet at one small area on the border — at the Jamouna region on the Iraqi side and Wadi al-Waer on the Syrian side. But the area is too dangerous to be used as a corridor, since militants continue to launch hit-and-run attacks.

Syrian troops reached another part of the border in June, but much of the adjacent territory on the Iraqi side is still IS-held.

Inside Iraq, Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen are gaining more influence in predominantly Sunni areas bordering Syria. Militiamen are involved in the battle to retake the Iraqi town of Tel Afar, which would boost the militias’ hold on the nearby border region. The Shiite militiamen are also present in Iraq’s western Anbar province bordering Syria.

“Our aim is to prevent any barriers from Iraq to Syria all the way to Beirut,” said Jaafar al-Husseini of Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah militia. “The resistance is close to achieving this goal.”

Al-Husseini warned that if the Americans try to act against the advances on the Syrian side, Iraqi militiamen will target U.S. troops in Iraq.

U.S.-backed Syrian fighters had aimed to move up from southeastern Syria to the north through IS-held territory along the Iraqi border, an assault that would have blocked pro-Iranian forces’ moves to link up. But in June, Assad’s forces succeeded in reaching the border first, cutting them off. Now the American allies are preparing to try to from the other direction, moving south along the border from the northeastern province of Hassakeh, according to Syrian activists.

In addition to hundreds of members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard corps, thousands of pro-Iranian fighters are deployed in Syria and have played instrumental role in shoring up Assad’s forces. They include Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Afghanistan’s Fatimiyoun, Pakistan Zeinabiyoun as well as Iraq’s Nujbaa and Kataeb Hezbollah groups.

Iranian leaders avoid publicly speaking about their aim to link to so-called “axis of resistance,” referring to Iran, Hezbollah, Syria and other anti-Israel forces. But its allies have no qualms about showing their ambition.

“The aim is for a geographical connection between Syria, Iraq and the axis of resistance,” Syrian Information Minister Ramez al-Turjuman said in a TV interview.

Earlier this year, Washington helped broker a deal between the Iraqi government and Olive Green, an American private security company, to secure the highway linking Baghdad with the Jordanian border. That was seen by Iran’s allies as an attempt to impede the land link.

Qais al-Khazaali, who heads the Iranian-backed Iraq militia Asaib Ahl al-Haq, warned that the Iraqi people “will not allow the return of American security companies.”

The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdurrahman, said it is almost impossible to prevent Iran from achieving its goal, after it spent hundreds of millions of dollars and sent arms and fighters to help keep Assad in power.

“Iran’s influence in Syria is unstoppable even if Bashar Assad leaves power because Iran has deep links and presence in Syria,” Abdurrahman said. “Had it not been for Iran, the regime would have collapsed in 2013.”

___

Associated Press writer Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

 

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/11-beheaded-attack-libya-checkpoint-pro-haftar-forces-141408057.html

IS claims beheading of 11 at Libya checkpoint

AFP • August 23, 2017

Benghazi (Libya) (AFP) - At least 11 people were beheaded Wednesday in an attack claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group on a checkpoint manned by forces of Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

Haftar's spokesman Colonel Ahmad al-Mesmari said "at least nine soldiers were beheaded... in addition to two civilians" when the jihadists attacked at dawn in the Al-Jufra region about 500 kilometres (300 miles) south of Tripoli.

IS claimed responsibility for the attack via its Amaq propaganda channel on the Telegram messaging app, saying its fighters had killed or wounded "21 members of Haftar's militia".

Libya has been rocked by chaos since the 2011 fall and killing of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a NATO-backed revolution.

Jihadists, arms dealers and people traffickers have gained a foothold in the North African country as multiple authorities and dozens of militias vie for power.

Forces allied with the United Nations-backed Government of National Accord drove IS jihadists from their stronghold of Sirte on the Mediterranean coast in December.

The GNA underlined at the time that the battle against Islamist rebels was not over, as armed groups continue to hunt down IS members who fled Sirte as the city fell.

Analysts and military sources say the group remains active in Libya, particularly in the desert south where the GNA holds little sway.

Haftar, who backs a rival administration that refuses to recognise the GNA, controls much of the country's vast southern desert.

His self-proclaimed Libyan National Army in May seized Tamenhant base near the southern city of Sebha after driving out a pro-GNA militia.

The following month, it seized Al-Jufra, including a key military air base, from the Benghazi Defence Brigades, a coalition that includes Islamists driven out of Libya's second city by pro-Haftar forces.

That placed the strongman in control of all the major cities and military bases in southern Libya.

Also in July, Haftar announced the "total liberation" of Benghazi, three years after his forces launched a military operation to seize the city.

But clashes have continued in the city, a bastion of the 2011 uprising that later fell to jihadists.

Forces loyal to Haftar regularly blame attacks against them on IS, particularly in Benghazi.

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[Housecarl]

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http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2...s-winning-afghanistan/140463/?oref=d-topstory

Are ‘Restrictions’ Keeping Us From Winning in Afghanistan?

An Army intelligence expert and retired special forces warrior lay out what red tape the President should cut in Afghanistan.

BY PATRICK TUCKER
READ BIO
AUGUST 23, 2017

Red tape and bureaucracy are always good targets for new managers eager to show fast progress, and so Donald Trump, in his first presidential speech on Afghanistan, promised to lift restrictions that he said prevented commanders in the field “from fully and swiftly waging battle against the enemy.” But how much do such restrictions really matter?

Defense One put the question to two Army officers with multiple deployments to the region, one a retired Special Forces operator; the other, an intelligence officer now in the Reserves. They both named several restrictions that they called obstacles to greater success in Afghanistan. But they weren’t the same restrictions, or the same obstacles, and that’s as good an indication that there’s no quick fix to America’s longest war.

On Monday, Trump said he would “expand authority for American armed forces to target the terrorists and criminal networks that sow violence and chaos through Afghanistan. These killers need to know they have nowhere to hide, that no place is beyond the reach of American might and American arms.”

The intelligence officer said this line left him shaking his head. Targeting, of course, can mean many things, the most straightforward of which is “picking a human to capture or kill.” But Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, the Haqqani network, and others “were pretty much fair game,” especially for the special operations community, he said. “There never seemed to be serious restrictions on groups that were considered ‘terrorist networks.’”

What would improve things, the intelligence officer said, is lifting restrictions on the ways that U.S. advisors can work with the Afghan National Army.

Here’s a quick primer on the ANA process for targeting individuals and networks for small plane strikes, as described by Maj. Gen. Robert Walters Jr. and Col. Loren Traugutt in the May-June issue of the Army’s Military Review.

First, an ANA tactical team looking to strike a target makes a request, and sends what data they have via the ANA’s National Information Management System, or NIMS, to the National Military Intelligence Center. “The NMIC targeting staff conducts a thorough review of the information…to ensure there is a viable target for execution,” Walters and Traugutt write. This review sweeps up a ton of metadata and other intelligence artifacts, including “friendly force frequencies, call signs, and mobile numbers; datamining of recent intelligence reporting within the NIMS; and geospatial imagery content.” That review also feeds a report about nearby civilians, friendly forces, and infrastructure.

All of that information — the original request, the review, the vicinity report, etc. — goes to the Afghan Target Working Group: representatives of the government, the military, and the intelligence community who meet daily. If the package meets the group’s “stringent criteria,” it goes to the Army’s Targeting Board, which decides whether the strike should proceed despite the risk of collateral damage. Approved strike orders are sent to the mission planning cell, which plans the operation.

From September to November 2016, this process took in almost 200 target requests that resulted in 65 strikes by Afghan A-29 Super Tucano aircraft, Walters and Traugutt wrote.

Walters and Traugutt note that Afghan intelligence agencies are tapped into deep and complex human-intel networks and are increasingly well-equipped with gear like Boeing ScanEagle drones, Wolfhound voice interception radios, and PC-12 planes.

But the intelligence officer said plenty of incorrect or misleading intel still makes it into targeting reports despite the “thorough review.”It’s the sort of thing advisors might be able to fix by improving the process of intelligence collection at the source. “I was hoping for removal of restrictions for military advisers, not necessarily concerning the rules of engagement,” said the intelligence officer of Trump’s speech. That means loosening restrictions on how advisors move about the country, allowing them to do with less security, giving them the ability to permanently embed with the brigade level commands, and allowing advisors to train Afghan soldiers differently on intelligence collection, emphasizing how to collect quality intelligence, rather than spending a lot of time and effort to make bad intelligence conform to some wonky international standard to appease a bunch of bureaucrats elsewhere.

As for the Special Forces officer, he said the key restriction he would like to see lifted is the ability to reach across Afghanistan’s eastern border. “We’ve struck targets in Pakistan. But we’ve done it in half measures. We’ve never said, ‘Here are all the targets outside of the Mīramshāh [region]’” he said. He acknowledged that an increase in such strikes would surely strain U.S. relations with Pakistan and possibly Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. The Pakistan government would likely “see it as a violation of their sovereign space,” he said. That’s why any strategy should also focus on marginalizing the Pakistani intelligence service, or ISI, within the Pakistani government.

The brunt of the work would still be done by the special operations community, said the Special Forces officer, who pointed out that just days before Trump’s address, the ANA announced the creation of a new Afghan corps for special operations missions.

“Let’s just assume that Special Forces has a huge part,” the former Special Force officer said. “That’s a continuation of what happened under Obama…I think Trump discovered the same thing that the other presidents discovered.”

Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One. He’s also the author of The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (Current, 2014). Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The Futurist for nine years. Tucker has written about emerging technology in Slate, ... FULL BIO

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.longwarjournal.org/archi...t-groups-openly-operating-inside-pakistan.php

Mapping terrorist groups openly operating inside Pakistan

BY BILL ROGGIO & ALEXANDRA GUTOWSKI | August 23rd, 2017 | Bill@gmail.com |

Graphic: Jihadist Groups in Pakistan

Yesterday, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs took umbrage with President Trump’s speech where he called out Pakistan for harboring terrorist groups. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that “Pakistan does not allow use of its territory against any country,” and denounced the so-called “false narrative of safe havens.”

Pakistan’s denial is laughable on its face. For decades, the country has permitted a number of jihadist groups to openly operate under its aegis. Many of these groups – such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harakat-ul-Muhahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Hizbul Mujahideen, and Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami – were created with the support of Pakistan’s military and the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.

A map depicting the location some of these groups have known to operate from is embedded to illustrate the support Trump spoke about.

Pakistan helped create these groups with the idea that they would focus their activities against Indian forces in the state of Jammu and Kashmir to help bring down the country’s most critical enemy in India. Instead, these groups quickly became part of the South Asia jihadist network and allied themselves with the Taliban and al Qaeda. Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was even formed at the behest of Osama bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam.

The Pakistani state has supported the Afghan Taliban since its founding. Without Pakistani support and safe haven, the Afghan Taliban would likely have a difficult time waging a successful insurgency in Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban dinks and dunks across the border with ease, in and out of the tribal regions, where they plot, execute and then return to safety in Pakistan – where it also recruits, runs madrassas and training camps, and receives medical care for its wounded.

The Pakistani military and intelligence services support the Hafiz Gul Bahadar and the Mullah Nazir Groups, despite the fact that these two Taliban organizations wage jihad in Afghanistan and support al Qaeda and other terrorist movements.

While the Pakistan government has targeted and killed or captured key al Qaeda leaders inside Pakistan, the fact that Osama bin Laden was able to live in a large home just outside of Abbottabad, the nation’s West Point, and direct al Qaeda’s operations for years raises serious questions about what Pakistani military and intelligence leaders knew and if he received direct support.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi began as an anti-Shia group and has joined the jihadist network. The Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi is a Taliban movement in northwestern Pakistan. Both have attacked the Pakistani state. Despite this, the Pakistani government has tolerated their existence.

This map does not include groups such as the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Islamic Jihad Union, the Turkistan Islamic Party, and others as these terrorist outfits wage war against these Pakistani state, and the Pakistan military has actively targeted them.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal. Alexandra Gutowski is a military affairs analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Tags: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Hafiz Gul Bahadar, Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami, Harakat-ul-Muhahideen, Hizbul Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Mullah Nazir Group, Pakistan, Taliban, tnsm

6 Comments

James says:
August 24, 2017 at 3:11 am
Bill, we should label Pakistan as being the Grand Central Station of global terrorism. For years now, I have been commenting on LWJ that we need to work more closely and as a team with India, particularly their intelligence services. Our friend over there ought to be India, much more so than Pakistan. We have a lot more in common with India than Pakistan. Maybe with Trump in there now this hope and vision of mine can be finally realized. This will go a long ways in suppressing the threat posed by global terrorism.

As far as Pakistan is concerned, they need to get with the program. If anything, our working more closely with India just may impose a healthy jealousy and envy on their part.

Reply
Zeeshan Awan says:
August 24, 2017 at 2:09 pm
Dear sir, read ur story and thought that it would be informative but unfortunately it’s not. It’s an easy way to blame Pakistan for the defeat which Us forces faced in Afghanistan but it was not Pakistan’s fault but America’s as its three presidents fialed to form an anti terror policy for the war land. I am sure you would gather info for the story from different sources but sir i suggest you to change them as they are not providing you the correct information. Yes in the past Pakistan trained the militants but then US was also with Pakistan, now you should and i must say you must visit to Pakistan to witness withown your eyes that here are no place for terrorists now, peace is restored in Pakistan and people are having a normal life like country. We are peace loving people and we expect support from the peace lover’s in the US and world. Would be very grateful of you give a moment to read my response on ur story with open heart. Thank you.

Reply
Arjuna says:
August 24, 2017 at 2:26 pm
Pakistan is laughable on its face.
Karachi needs an AQ designation.
That’s where AQIS is based and that’s where news reports say the ISI is “safeguarding” Ayman Al Zawahiri and Hamza Bin Laden.

Reply
Azad Khan says:
August 24, 2017 at 3:13 pm
Pakistan is an economic Singapore for jehadist and radical islamic elements of the Arabic world, it offers cover under islamic sharia law, access and gateways to drug smuggling, human trafficking and gunrunning with the assistance of the local political establishment.
These structures have been built and consolidated in last 25 years and Pakistan can no longer be viewed as an ally who will keep commitments to anybody, the only way out is to build a punitive sanctions regimen specifically structured for Pakistan based terrorism this may start a movement in its political class to bring Pakistan back into the comity of nations.
For now Pakistan, Gulf States and China form a block which enable the jehadis.

Reply
Tomonthebeach says:
August 24, 2017 at 3:15 pm
Pakistan is not, nor has it ever been, a friend of the US. Let us not forget who was harboring Bin Laden & Co. They have been Muslim separatists from their bloody formation as an independent country – unwilling to live peacefully with their Hindu countrymen in India (Yes I know there is a muslim minority (14%) in India).

The question I hope State and DOD is asking is whether or not it would be better if we declared Pakistan to be hostile to the US or continued to pretend they are allies, and keep sending nuclear extortion payments.

Reply
Nick Mastrovito says:
August 24, 2017 at 3:16 pm
Well said, Bill!

Reply

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/vp-pence-warns-venezuela-sanctions-under-consideration-135904087.html

Trump administration imposes sweeping sanctions on Venezuela

Associated Press
FABIOLA SANCHEZ and JOSHUA GOODMAN
August 25, 2017

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The Trump administration slapped sweeping financial sanctions on Venezuela on Friday, dramatically ratcheting up tensions between the two countries and making it harder for embattled President Nicolas Maduro to raise badly needed cash to prevent a debt default.

The sanctions, which Trump signed by executive order, prohibit American financial institutions from providing new money to the government or the state oil company, PDVSA. They also restrict the Venezuelan oil giant's U.S. subsidiary, Citgo, from sending dividends back to Venezuela and ban trading in two bonds the government recently issued to circumvent its increasing isolation from Western financial markets.

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"Maduro may no longer take advantage of the American financial system to facilitate the wholesale looting of the Venezuelan economy at the expense of the Venezuelan people," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said at the White House.

The financial sanctions drew quick rebuke from Venezuela's government, with Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza calling them the worst aggression against the country in two centuries.

"What do they want — they want to starve the Venezuelan people?" Arreaza told reporters at the United Nations after meeting with Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

He said his government would fight the measures with all of its diplomatic and economic strength, but also blamed members of the opposition — some of whom expressed satisfaction with the U.S. action — for conspiring to bring further hardships on the Venezuelan economy.

"We are also victims, as he is, of fake news," Arreaza said in a rare show of solidarity with Trump.

A senior Trump administration official said additional sanctions would be imposed if Maduro doesn't reverse course and meet opposition demands that he roll back plans to rewrite the constitution, free dozens of political prisoners, and hold fair and transparent elections.

In a conference call to brief reporters on the measures, the official said the United States has significant influence over Venezuela's economy but does not want to wield it in an irresponsible manner that could further burden the already struggling Venezuelan people. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the measures in greater detail.

Reflecting those concerns and a strong lobby effort by the U.S. oil industry, Friday's action stopped short of cutting off U.S. imports of Venezuelan oil that are crucial both to both Venezuela's economy and to Gulf refiners. The executive order also allows debt financing for exports of food, medicine and other humanitarian goods.

The sanctions follow through on Trump's threat last month that he would take strong economic actions if Maduro's increasingly authoritarian government went ahead with plans to create a constitutional assembly that is made up wholly of government loyalists. The opposition boycotted the vote to elect the body's 545 delegates.

Since the assembly was seated, it has voted by acclamation to oust the nation's outspoken chief prosecutor, take lawmaking powers from the opposition-controlled congress and create a "truth commission" that many fear will be used to silence the government's political opponents. Several prominent opposition mayors have also been removed or ordered arrested by the government-stacked supreme court.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence signaled the move earlier Friday, tweeting that the U.S. "will not stand by as Venezuela crumbles."

"The birthright of the Venezuelan people has always been and will always be libertad," he wrote, using the Spanish word for "freedom."

The sanctions are bound to worsen a crisis that has already seen Venezuela's oil-dependent economy shrink by about 35 percent since 2014 — more than the U.S. economy did during the Great Depression. But it's unclear how quickly the impact on the streets will be felt.

Maduro, who is among some 30 senior officials already barred from the United States, has been warning for weeks that the Trump administration was readying a "commercial, oil and financial blockade" in the mold of the one that has punished Cuba for decades.

He found an opportunity to argue his case that he's being unfairly targeted after Trump said earlier this month that he wouldn't rule out a "military option" to resolve Venezuela's crisis — comments that were roundly rejected throughout Latin America, even by some of Maduro's toughest critics.

On Friday, journalists were invited to a shooting range at Caracas' main military base to watch as troops taught a handful of civilian government supporters how to fire assault weapons. The event, attended by military officials from China, Belarus and Russia, was a prelude to military exercises Maduro called for this weekend as a deterrent to any U.S. military intervention.

David Smilde, a Tulane University sociologist who has spent decades researching Venezuela, said blanket sanctions that cut off the government's cash flow and hurt the population are likely to strengthen Maduro in the short-term.

"It will bolster his discourse that Venezuela is the target of an economic war," said Smilde, who supports Friday's more limited sanctions.

But with Venezuela's streets calmer than they have been for months, and the opposition reeling from its failure to prevent the constitutional assembly from going forward, action from an increasingly concerned international community represents the best chance of reining in Maduro, he added.

Maduro is already struggling to combat widespread shortages and triple-digit inflation as oil production has tumbled to its lowest level in more than two decades. Any economic sanctions, however mild, increase the risk of a default on Venezuela's ballooning debt.

The government and state oil company have about $4 billion in debt payments coming due before the end of the year but only $9.7 billion in international reserves on hand, the vast majority consisting of gold ingots that are hard to trade immediately for cash.

Venezuela has taken desperate steps to remain current on its debt throughout the economic crisis, and the president has blamed his enemies for spreading rumors about any impending default.

____

Goodman reported from Bogota, Colombia. Associated Press Writer Jennifer Peltz contributed from the United Nations.

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/iraq-forces-break-islamic-states-lines-tal-afar-134904487.html

Iraqi forces say they have broken through Islamic State lines in Tal Afar

Reuters
By Thaier Al-Sudani and Kawa Omar
August 25, 2017

TAL AFAR, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi government forces broke through Islamic State's lines inside Tal Afar on Friday, reaching the old city center and the neighborhood around the Ottoman-era citadel, according to a military statement.

On the sixth day of the offensive, elite Iraqi units seized the northern neighborhoods of Nida', Taliaa, Uruba, Nasr, and Saad, according to a statement from the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC).

The Iraqi forces have seized about three quarters of the city since the offensive started in the early hours of Aug. 20, according to the latest JOC map, published on Friday evening. The militants remain in control of the northeast quarter.

Tal Afar lies on the supply route between Syria and the former Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, 80 km (50 miles) to the east. It has produced some of the militant group's most senior commanders.

Tal Afar, which had a pre-war population of about 200,000, is the latest objective in the U.S.-backed war on Islamic State, following the recapture of Mosul after a nine-month campaign that left much of the city, the biggest in northern Iraq, in ruins.

The fall of Mosul effectively marked the end of the self-proclaimed caliphate Islamic State declared over parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014. Tal Afar was cut off from the rest of IS-held territory in June.

Up to 2,000 battle-hardened militants remain in Tal Afar,

according to U.S. and Iraqi military commanders. The number of civilians left in the city is between 10,000 and 20,000, according to the American military.

As in the battle for Mosul, civilians are suffering.

Waves of residents fled the city in the weeks before the battle started. Those remaining are threatened with death by the militants, who have held a tight grip there since 2014, according to aid organizations and residents who managed to flee.

On Tuesday, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said those who had fled were suffering from dehydration and exhaustion, having lived off unclean water and bread for three to four months. People were arriving at camps for displaced people with wounds from sniper fire and mine explosions.

Two mass graves, containing about 500 bodies, have been found in Badosh, on the road between Mosul and Tal Afar, another military statement said on Friday. The dead are believed to be inmates killed by the militants when they overran a prison in the area in 2014, it said.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Andrew Roche)

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[Housecarl]

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/knifeman-dead-terrorist-attack-soldiers-214625554.html

Knifeman dead after 'terrorist' attack on soldiers

AFP • August 25, 2017

Brussels (AFP) - A knife-wielding man was shot dead on Friday after wounding a soldier in Brussels, in what authorities called a "terrorist attack".

The man, who prosecutors said yelled 'Allahu akbar' (God is greatest) during the violence, was shot by soldiers on a street in the city centre.

"We believe that it is a terrorist attack," said a prosecutors' office spokeswoman, who added the attacker "is dead."

The incident comes after attacks claimed by the Islamic State group in Spain last week killed 15 people and a knifeman's stabbing spree in Finland left two dead and eight wounded.

One of the two soldiers targeted was "slightly" wounded, according to federal prosecutors, who have opened a terror probe of that attack launched around 8:00 pm (1800 GMT).

The mayor of Brussels, Philippe Close, told reporters the incident was the work of a "lone individual".

Soldiers have been deployed at railway stations and landmark buildings since the Paris terror attacks in 2015, when a link to Brussels was first established.

The Belgian capital has been on high alert since suicide bombers struck Zavantem Airport and the Maalbeek metro station near the EU quarter in March 2016, killing 32 people and injuring hundreds more.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks, which were carried out by the same Brussels-based cell behind the November 2015 suicide bombings and shootings in Paris which left 130 dead.

Belgian authorities heaved a sigh of relief in June when a man who tried to bomb a Brussels train station was shot dead by a soldier.

Belgian authorities identified the man in that incident as a 36-year-old Moroccan national with the initials O.Z., while local media named him as Oussama Zariouh.

No one was injured in the foiled attack at Brussels Central station but officials said the consequences could have been severe had the bomb, full of nails and gas canisters, detonated properly.

The man shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) during the attack and prosecutors said he had sympathies for IS.

Police found explosive materials in a raid on the home of the suspect in Molenbeek, a Brussels district which has been linked to recent deadly terror plots in France and Belgium.

Belgian soldiers and police have repeatedly been the target of attacks in recent months.

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/duterte-fires-sniper-rifle-jihadis-120157836.html

Duterte Fires Sniper Rifle At Jihadis In Marawi After Capture of Grand Mosque

Newsweek
Jack Moore, Newsweek • August 25, 2017

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte put on a public act of force in Marawi on Thursday, firing a sniper rifle toward jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) after his soldiers recaptured the southern city's grand mosque.

Wearing a military uniform, the Philippine leader traveled to the front lines of the battle against the Maute group, which overran the city of 200,000 in May. He stopped at a military patrol base, taking up arms to show unity with his troops.

“I need to be with you to show my solidarity,” Duterte was quoted as saying by army officials.

A government statement said that Duterte “tried a sniper rifle and fired twice toward the direction of the terrorists.” He spent two hours with military commanders in the center of Marawi in what was his third visit to the embattled city. He was unable to travel to the city until July, when he made his first trip. He blamed the delay on bad weather.

In three months of fighting, hundreds of people—mostly militants—have been killed. Evidence has surfaced indicating that the militants besieging the city are not simply acting on the inspiration of ISIS: The group’s central command in Syria has been funneling funds to southeast Asian militants to help the offensive.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte holds a weapon as he visits troops fighting the extremist Maute group in Marawi, Philippines, on August 24. Presidential Palace/Handout via Reuters

Duterte's trip to the front lines and use of a weapon appeared to aim at strengthening his image as a strongman leader, one who deals with Islamist insurgency and drug crime with brutal force.

Since coming to power in May 2016, Duterte has embarked on a deadly campaign against drug gangs, empowering vigilantes to kill thousands of drug addicts and those suspected of peddling narcotics. “If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself, as getting their parents to do it would be too painful,” he said in June 2016.

Philippine militants with the Maute group and some from the Abu Sayyaf group sweeping into Marawi, on the southern island of Mindanao, prompted fears that ISIS had gained a significant stronghold in southeast Asia.

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The battle for Marawi represents the most significant capture of Asian territory by an ISIS-linked group, and the most notable since ISIS seized the Libyan central coastal city of Sirte in mid-2015.

The Abu Sayyaf group, known for taking hostages to raise funds to create a de facto Islamic state in the southern Philippines, has pledged allegiance to ISIS and beheaded several Western nationals, including two Canadian men and a German man, in the past year.

The group’s notorious leader, Isnilon Hapilon, is leading the campaign to take control of the city after a failed army raid to capture him in May. He is believed to be in hiding in the city, amid its dense urban sprawl of mosques, houses and buildings, some connected by tunnels.

Both the U.S. and Australia have provided assistance to the Philippine military to help it push back the jihadist insurgency.

More from Newsweek

ISIS Faces Another Defeat, This Time In The Syrian Desert
Top U.S. General Says ISIS Will Be Crushed in Afghanistan After Trump Announcement
U.S. Coalition, ISIS and Assad Have Raqqa Residents Trapped In A 'Deadly Labrynth'

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[Housecarl]

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https://www.thecipherbrief.com/dead-drop/dead-drop-august-25

Dead Drop: August 25

AUGUST 25, 2017 | ANONYMOUS

THE PRINCE AND THE POTUS: Monday night’s announcement of the President’s Afghan policy came after consultations at Camp David the previous Friday. Politico reported that Blackwater founder Erik Prince had been scheduled to attend the meeting with the President’s brain trust but was blocked at the last minute by National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster. Prince later confirmed that – and predicted to Breitbart, before Trump’s remarks, that the President would “roll over and accept the same failed strategy on Afghanistan.” If there was any doubt about how the Steve Bannon-led Breitbart would react to the new policy – it was erased Tuesday morning with a volley or stories and commentary with headlines like: “President H.R. McMaster’s Yuge Foreign Policy Blunder,” “His McMaster’s voice: Is Trump’s Afghanistan Policy that Different from Obama’s?” and (complete with a picture of the defunct Atlantic City Trump Taj Mahal) “An Old Casino King Doubles Down on a Bad Hand in Afghanistan.”

SECRET SERVICE: “SEND $” Word is out this week that the Secret Service is pretty much tapped out trying to protect the President and his large, jet-setting family. In the first six months of the Trump administration, the USSS has had to shell out $60,000 just to rent golf carts at Trump-owned courses. Not only is the Secret Service out of cash – but civil service rules generally prohibit paying overtime to civil servants when their compensation would exceed the $160K neighborhood. So even if Congress ponies up some additional bucks – the outfit will have to get inventive to find ways to compensate their overworked agents. While Erik Prince’s plan to privatize parts of the war in Afghanistan does not seen ascendant, perhaps (as previously discussed in The Dead Drop), his suggestion to contract out the presidential protection gig will gain some traction.

SHERMAN 4 CIO: On August 18, President Trump announced his intention to appoint John B. Sherman as the Chief Information Officer of the Intelligence Community. Federal News Radio noted that Sherman is the third IC CIO in a row to have a CIA background.

WARREN 4 CNN: Army Colonel Steve Warren was a respected and popular press spokesman who, according to Stars and Stripes, was encouraged to hang up his uniform to take a civilian job in the Pentagon. But, according to an unusually blunt statement by Assistant Secretary of Defense Dana White, “Unfortunately, the White House determined he was not a suitable candidate for the position.” Well, being viewed as “unsuitable” by the White House apparently made him a perfect fit for the President’s least favorite network, CNN. Within a couple days of word getting out that Warren would not be getting a civilian gig at the Pentagon – CNN hired him to join their stable of military analysts.

WHERE THERE IS A WILSON, THERE’S A WAY: Valerie Plame Wilson, former clandestine CIA officer whose cover was blown during the Bush ’43 administration, sought media attention this week for her “GoFundMe” page, which is trying to raise $1 billion to buy a controlling interest in Twitter – for the purpose of shutting down President Trump’s account. When last we checked, she was just $999,961,000 short of her goal. Plame Wilson says she wants to prevent Trump from starting a nuclear war with a tweet. In the (very likely) event that she falls short of her fundraising goal – she says she will donate money raised to Global Zero, “a nonprofit organization leading the resistance to nuclear war.” We suggest Global Zero might use some of that cash to update its website, which lists the leaders of its movement. The roster includes Plame Wilson and about 300 other international figures – quite a few of whom are long dead – like former Secretary of State Larry Eagleburger (who died in 2011) and former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger who passed on in 2015.

POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:

Ya Think? Heard on CNN on Sunday: A teaser urging viewers to tune in Monday for coverage of the total eclipse of the sun…” an event DECADES in the making.” So THAT’S when they lined up the sun and moon.
Nice work if you can get it. According to Deadline Hollywood, ABC has OK’d a pilot for a one-hour TV series called “Romeos & Juliets.” They say the show “centers on a badass, tough-as-nails female CIA operative who is forced to partner with a handsome, self-absorbed agent from the CIA’s elite “Romeo and Juliet” division — agents who are trained to use sex and charm to keep America safe.” Agency alumni assure the Dead Drop there is no such division in real life – but several have volunteered to return to Langley should one be set up.
NETWORK NEWS: Not a day goes by when members of The Cipher Brief Network aren’t making news. Here are just a few examples from this week:

Former CIA Deputy Director David Cohen told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an interview that aired on Sunday that the President is politicizing” intelligence regarding the determination as to whether Iran is complying with the nuclear deal saying: “It’s very disconcerting. And it stands the intelligence process on its head.”
Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Admiral James Stavridis was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday talking about the President’s Afghan policy speech and the tragic collision of USS JOHN S. MCCAIN. Regarding Afghanistan, Stavridis said the president has selected the “best of three bad options.”
Retired Army 4-star General Jack Keane told Fox News that the President is “moving in the right direction” with his newly announced policy on Afghanistan.
Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell was interviewed for a CBS Evening News story about whether Russian-based Kaspersky anti-virus poses a threat. “There is a connection between Kaspersky and Russian intelligence, and I’m absolutely certain that Russian intelligence would want to use that connection to their advantage,” Morell said.
Former DNI James Clapper, interviewed on CNN following President Trump’s speech in Phoenix, said he has questions about Trump’s “fitness to be in this office.”
WHAT’S ON THEIR NIGHTSTAND? (Our contributors tell us about what they’re currently reading)

Nick Fishwick, former senior member of the British Foreign Office:

“I have been reading The Korean War by Max Hastings. The Korean War is largely forgotten in Britain now, even though it was the conflict many of my parents’ generation – too young for World War II – fought in. There are fascinating historical insights into the U.S.-UK relationship – political and military—as well as into the nature of leadership, the rise of China and the Western response to it, and the possible use of nuclear weapons for strategic ends.

An American friend once described the U.S. and Britain as “two countries divided by a common language.” So Americans should remember that when Brits describe a situation as “a bit sticky,” as a British brigadier described his position to U.S. HQ in 1952, we mean that we are facing a massacre of historic proportions. Hope this helps avoid future misunderstandings.”

SECURITY QUOTE OF THE WEEK: A series of comments on the Trump Administration’s Afghanistan strategy.

“I think what’s unstated is that we could get some quick victories in Afghanistan and turn the momentum to the Afghans favor, but that would take a surge of U.S. combat forces. After 16 years in Afghanistan, that’s not politically doable. It was, obviously, in 2009, and it certainly was in 2001. But eight years after the last Afghan surge, with not much to show for it, it’s just not viable. I don’t think it was ever considered as an option, but they [Trump administration] have worked considerably more aggressively on the strategy, rather than tactically with the number of troops. “

-Retired General Jack Keane, former Vice Chief of State, United States Army

“In a way, we have won earlier in Afghanistan on at least two occasions — after banishing the Taliban and al Qaeda in 2001 and in 2004 -2005 when Afghanistan held its first successful presidential and parliamentary elections. But we did not consolidate our gains and became too distracted with Iraq. So here we are.

-John McLaughlin, former Acting and Deputy Director of the CIA

“We all would have hoped the necessary American role would have been a lot less right now. When I look at this, this isn’t like defeating the Third Reich. This might be more like what police departments have to do everyday fighting crime. In other words, after you’ve had a really good day, you got to do it again tomorrow. We may be seeing that kind of approach in Afghanistan through the current planning horizon.”

-Retired General Mike Hayden, former Director of the NSA and CIA

“By our staying in Afghanistan, or Iraq, we are, by definition, “nation-building.” Our mere presence constitutes nation-building.”

-Retired Lt. Gen. James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence

TIP YOUR SERVER: Got any gossipy news nuggets that are yearning to be free? Drop us a line at TheDeadDrop@TheCipherBrief.com and share the wealth. No one will track it back to you. Promise.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/art...gy_offers_a_fresh_dose_of_reality_112147.html

New Afghanistan Strategy Offers a Fresh Dose of Reality

By John Cooper
August 25, 2017

In his address last Monday, President Donald Trump drew attention to something that has been too long denied or ignored by policymakers: America’s “forgotten war” in Afghanistan remains one to be fought and to be won.

Trump’s speech demonstrated that he, along with his formidable national security team, understand what is at stake in Afghanistan and that the United States and our partners must confront realities on the ground as they are, not as we wish them to be.

The president touched four bases in this speech, and in doing so, hit a home run.

First, he acknowledged the sacrifice of thousands of service men and women in the conflict, along with many Americans’ frustrations that the war has continued for so long, seemingly without a strategic vision or an articulated end goal.

Second, he made the effective case that the “consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable,” and that the United States must continue to support the vital security mission in Afghanistan. Importantly, he stressed that strategic decisions will be made based on conditions on the ground, not via politically motivated judgments determined by election cycles.

Third, he reframed the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan as a regional one, highlighting how we must revamp our approach to South Asia as a whole. This will include pressuring Pakistan on its, at best, lukewarm approach to combatting terrorism, and reaffirming and strengthening alliances with key partners like India.

Fourth, and finally, he articulated a vision for victory, not just how to avoid outright defeat. He stressed the relaxation of restrictive rules of engagement and connected a secure Afghanistan with America’s own national security.

The critical rejoinders to the strategic approach Trump outlined, while numerous, were predictable and shortsighted.

Full withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces, which some have advocated, would leave Afghanistan to be overrun by terrorist groups. It would also enable geopolitical adversaries like Iran, Russia, and China to gain a stronger foothold in a key region of the world.

Unfortunately, this is a lesson the United States has had to learn far too often – when we create power vacuums in unstable corners of the globe, the result is almost always more insecurity, more bloodshed, and more innocent lives lost.

President Obama’s disastrous, politically motivated withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 is but the most recent example.

Others have argued that the only way to solve the security problem in Afghanistan is to deploy tens of thousands of additional troops to eradicate terrorism from Kabul to the border regions. This approach is also unfeasible for various cost and operational reasons, and misguided from a strategic standpoint.

In fact, both sides of the spectrum seem to miss the point that 2017 Afghanistan is not 2001 Afghanistan.

The mission in Afghanistan today is simple: train and assist Afghan security forces so they can assure their own national security, and maintain a sufficient U.S. presence to conduct counterterrorism operations.

American and NATO forces are no longer leading primary combat operations, nor should they. Such operational responsibility belongs to the Afghan people.

However, to abort the “advise and assist” mission prematurely would be to undermine what so many Americans have given their lives to achieve – a stable, secure Afghanistan, in which terrorist groups cannot operate freely and plan attacks on the United States and its allies.

Pulling out of Afghanistan would also severely limit our ability to conduct rapid-response and counterterrorism operations quickly and powerfully, thus giving our enemies an upper hand against us and our partners.

These two missions are not, contrary to some assertions, nation building. In fact, they are the polar opposite. By empowering the Afghans to deliver their own security, and maintaining a residual force to conduct security operations, we are returning responsibility to the Afghan people, while sending a message to the rest of the world that the military might of the U.S. will remain engaged to support our interests at the strategic crossroads of the world.

The international community has done a lot of self-righteous hand-wringing in recent months about the United States supposedly “taking a step back from leading on the world stage.”

On Afghanistan, the Trump administration is signaling the exact opposite. Not only does it intend to achieve victory in Afghanistan – it will deploy the full range of foreign policy tools to do so.

Time will tell if this administration can accomplish what its predecessors have not, but the president’s speech Monday was a much-needed dose of reality, and a sign there is reason to be hopeful that America’s “forgotten war” does not remain so.

John Cooper is an Air Force veteran and currently serves as senior communications manager for The Heritage Foundation’s Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/art..._input_to_help_shape_future_force_112141.html

Army Seeks Gamers’ Input to Help Shape Future Force

By Amy Robinson
August 24, 2017

JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va., Aug. 23, 2017 — The Army is currently seeking soldiers to provide feedback through online gameplay in order to contribute to the development of the future force.

Operation Overmatch is a gaming environment within the Early Synthetic Prototyping effort. Its purpose is to connect soldiers to inform concept and capability developers, scientists and engineers across the Army.

"What we want is two-way communication, and what better medium to use than video games," said Army Lt. Col. Brian Vogt, ESP project lead with U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command's Army Capabilities Integration Center.

Encouraging Soldier Innovation

Through a collaborative effort between TRADOC, U.S. Army Research and Development Command and Army Game Studio, Operation Overmatch was created to encourage soldier innovation through crowd-sourcing ideas within a synthetic environment.

"Soldiers have the advantage of understanding how equipment, doctrine and organization will be used in the field -- the strengths and weaknesses," said Michael Barnett, chief engineer at the Army Game Studio and project lead for Operation Overmatch. "And they have immediate ideas about what to use, what to change and what to abandon -- how to adapt quickly."

Within Operation Overmatch, soldiers will be able to play eight versus eight against other soldiers, where they will fight advanced enemies with emerging capabilities in realistic scenarios.

Players will also be able to experiment with weapons, vehicles, tactics and team organization. Game analytics and soldier feedback will be collected and used to evaluate new ideas and to inform areas for further study.

Currently, the game is in early development, Vogt said.

One of the benefits of collecting feedback through the gaming environment within ESP is the ability to explore hundreds -- if not thousands -- of variations, or prototypes, of vehicles and weapons at a fraction of what it would cost to build the capability at full scale, Vogt explained. A vehicle or weapons system that might take years of engineering to physically build can be changed or adapted within minutes in the game.

"In a game environment, we can change the parameters or the abilities of a vehicle by keystrokes," he said. "We can change the engine in a game environment and it could accelerate faster, consume more fuel or carry more fuel. All these things are options within the game -- we just select it, and that capability will be available for use. Of course, Army engineers will determine if the change is plausible before we put it in the scenarios."

The game currently models a few future vehicles to include variants of manned armored vehicles, robotic vehiclesand unmanned aerial vehicles. The scenarios are centered on manned/unmanned teaming at the squad and platoon level in an urban environment. Through game play, soldiers will provide insights about platform capabilities and employment.

This article appeared originally at Department of Defense (DoD). By Amy Robinson, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ori...-what-is-behind-tremors-among-army-ranks.html

TURKEY PULSE

Turkish military upheaval continues at top levels

Metin Gurcan
August 24, 2017
Comments 6

The Turkish Defense Ministry stated Aug. 22 that seven generals and admirals of the Turkish military have resigned. The ministry said the resignations were personal initiatives that had nothing to do with a recent round of surprising appointments — and in fact had been received before the Aug. 2 appointments were made — but the popular belief is that these were protests of the growing strength of Gen. Hulusi Akar in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK).

After Turkey's Supreme Military Council met Aug. 2, I noted that the power and influence of Akar, the TSK chief of general staff, had been reinforced and that relations between civilians and the military from now on could better be grasped not from an institutional perspective, but by understanding the personal trust and harmony between Akar and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. From now until Akar retires in August 2019, civilian-military relations in Turkey can henceforth be summarized as Erdogan-Akar relations.

Usually, appointments of generals aren't popular discussion items. But when special forces commander Lt. Gen. Zekai Aksakalli — whose popularity skyrocketed because of his stance against the July 15 failed coup last year — was put into a relatively passive post as commander of the 2nd Army Corps in faraway western Turkey, military appointments became a controversial topic. Just a year ago, Aksakalli had been promoted to lieutenant general, and his star truly shined with his command of Operation Euphrates Shield against the Islamic State in Syria.

The most-asked question of the day was why Aksakalli was placed at such a distance when he is most needed. The most imminent threat from Syria in 2018 that might require Turkey’s intervention on the ground is posed by the Kurdish nationalist Democratic Union Party (PYD). If necessary, Turkey will rely on its special forces and battalion-level combat task forces, along with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) units they have been training. In 2014-2015, Aksakalli commanded urban combat operations on the Sur-Nusaybin front and after 2016, he led cross-border operations at al-Bab. He is recognized as the commander who best knows the region and the threats faced.

There are three factors behind Aksakalli’s new appointment. The first is the tense relations between Akar and Aksakalli. There have been comments that Aksakalli, contrary to what is popularly believed, had not opposed the putschists strongly enough, and his differences of opinion with his superiors while he was commanding Operation Euphrates Shield and his criticism of TSK developments after the coup attempt had become public knowledge. Everyone remembers that in March, Aksakalli — in his deposition about the coup attempt — had said, in what was seen as a dig at Akar: “In the TSK, when you hear of a crisis or an emergency situation, the first thing to do is to issue orders confining troops to barracks. If they had applied this basic rule on July 15, the coup attempt would have been unraveled quickly.”

Several retired senior officers have said that this comment by Aksakalli that directly criticized Akar, his superior, was the beginning of the end.

Adding to Aksakalli's woes was a damning statement from Lt. Gen. Metin Temel that created doubts about Aksakalli's supposed "robust stance" against the putschists. Temel, who commands the 2nd Army and is known as the strongest combatant against the attempted coup, said Aksakalli had remained passive during the attempt and went to his own headquarters only the next day, at 11 a.m. July 16.

A number of major problems led to Aksakalli's rifts with Temel in the field and with Akar at the national headquarters: the deaths of 72 soldiers at al-Bab, the loss of scores of tanks and armored vehicles there, Aksakalli's ordering special forces to employ armored units — contrary to TSK’s combat doctrine — and consequently, the loss of coordination among ground units.

Much has been said about how Aksakalli blocked putschists from capturing the special forces headquarters by ordering noncommissioned officer Omer Halisdemir to shoot Brig. Semih Terzi, who was leading that attack. Nevertheless, civilian authorities were not pleased by Aksakalli’s absence from his command post that night.

Military sources in Ankara say that the replacing of Aksakalli — who has spent most of his service with special forces and who had been top commander of special forces for the past four years — with Brig. Ahmet Ercan Corbaci, 11 years his junior, reflects the decision of the high command to rejuvenate the special forces.

There are those who believe Aksakalli did himself in by opting to become a media star and refusing to lower his public profile. Retired special forces Col. Coskun Unal, who is now a Turkey analyst for Sidar Global Advisors, said Aksakalli's appointment to such a passive post is a message to other generals that no officer will be allowed to shine as a public figure, no matter what their record may be. Unal says the recent military promotions and appointments basically scrap TSK's traditional service lengths, promotions and assignments. Unal believes such ambiguity will consolidate Akar’s control of TSK generals, backed by Erdogan's green light.

Unal noted that from now on in the TSK there will be a “Gen. Akar factor” and said: “We are talking of a general who grew up under the influence of Islamic intellectuals; who has been close to religious and conservative political circles since his days as a lieutenant; whose 33-year career included only a very short field experience but long and tiring headquarters postings; who lived through one coup, two allegations of coups and one actual coup attempt; and who now has the full support of the government because of his tough attitude toward the [coup organizers]. He now has the task of cleansing the TSK of hidden extremists before he retires in August 2019.”

One question that is not yet answered is how Aksakalli’s surprising removal from the command of special forces will affect operations in Syria. Unal made a critical point: “No doubt the strong ties and harmony Aksakalli and his team had built with the Free Syrian Army will lose momentum. This may also lead to a degrading of FSA’s importance for Ankara.” We now have to wait and see whether Aksakalli's replacement, Corbaci, will be able to build similarly warm and productive relations with the FSA.

In sum, Aksakalli’s transfer to a placid post far from the action and invisible to public view and the resignations of the seven generals and admirals have fortified the standing of Akar and his close associate, land forces commander Gen. Yasar Guler. These two generals now command a group of obedient young generals who will carry out orders without questioning. Akar’s absolute command and control of the TSK will continue until August 2019, always close to Erdogan.

Whether the tremors in the TSK will continue or calm down depends in part on whether Aksakalli decides to retire, as some predict, or stay in the army. Many of his comrades-in-arms are insisting that he should remain in the army, though his further advancement is highly unlikely.

Found inEFENSE/SECURITY COOPERATION

Metin Gurcan is a columnist for Al-Monitor's Turkey Pulse. He served in Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Iraq as a Turkish military adviser from 2002-2008. Resigned from the military, he is now an Istanbul-based independent security analyst. Gurcan obtained his PhD in May 2016, with a dissertation on changes in the Turkish military over the last decade. He has been published extensively in Turkish and foreign academic journals and his book titled “What Went Wrong in Afghanistan: Understanding Counterinsurgency in Tribalized, Rural, Muslim Environments” was published in August 2016. On Twitter: @Metin4020

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[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://scout.com/military/warrior/Article/Could-China-Win-a-War-Against-America-101458943

Could China Win a War Against America?

It depends on the goal.

James Holmes - 8 hours ago 0

"TOKYO, July 31, 1894 -- 'For the foreseeable future,' declares an American defense expert, 'no rational Japanese naval planner could present a plan to defeat the Chinese navy, even in the Yellow Sea.' Why say such a thing? Because it stands to reason. Japan has been a modern industrial nation only since the Meiji Restoration of 1868-1869. That's under three decades.

"And after centuries of self-imposed seclusion, Japan has no seafaring tradition to speak of. Its navy? Posh. The Imperial Japanese Navy (INJ) got its start as an ironclad fleet only 25 years ago, when it took custody of the French-built ram Stonewall. CSS [3]Stonewall [3]was a hand-me-down [3] from that notable naval power, the Confederate States of America.

"These are sketchy beginnings. Tokyo has had too little time to overcome them [4]. The hodgepodge IJN fleet would stand little chance against a bigger, better-funded Qing Dynasty navy that -- unlike its Japanese nemesis -- possesses battleships. And battleships are the arbiters of naval warfare [5]."

This story was originally published by The National Interest

***

"TOKYO, April 17, 1895 -- Today the Chinese and Japanese imperial governments signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki [6], ending the limited war that broke out last August [7]. Under the treaty's terms the Qing government relinquishes its suzerainty over Korea, cedes Formosa, the Penghu Islands group, and the Liaotung Peninsula to Japan, and opens new treaty ports to Japan on a most-favored-nation basis.

"But the treaty's impact goes well beyond that. Foreign commentators see Shimonoseki as signifying Japan's arrival [8] as Asia's preeminent power. This limited war, in short, transformed the regional order.

"How? The crucial event in this Sino-Japanese War was last September's Battle of the Yalu, off the Korean west coast. That's where the IJN Combined Fleet met and crushed the Qing navy's Beiyang Fleet -- defying prewar estimates of the naval balance."

***

The foregoing is fictionalized news analysis, but it captures the state of expert opinion about the military balance on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, and at the peace settlement that followed. Few observers thought Japan's navy could win, and they gave good reasons for reaching such a verdict. They also happened to be wrong. Glaringly so.

History abounds with such failures. The opening quotation from an unnamed military expert [9] is a slight twist on Kennedy School professor (and former Pentagon official) Graham Allison's[10] recent claim that the U.S. military is and will remain unbeatable in Asia [11] -- even on China's home turf -- into the indefinite future. Only the irrational could think otherwise, saith Allison. Yes, you read that right. Herewith, three lessons from 1895 that suggest otherwise:

Lesson #1: People Devise Widgets

Human beings design hardware, and the tradeoffs they make at the drawing board can have colossal import. Look at it this way. The three basic attributes of any warship are speed, protection, and armament. If shipbuilders want a lot of one attribute, they typically end up sacrificing along one or both of the other axes. A heavy missile loadout, for instance, adds weight to a hull. Weight slows down the ship, requiring designers to compensate by subtracting armor, adding bigger, more expensive engines, or both. Slow, stoutly armored, and heavily armed, or fleet-of-foot with lighter or fewer weapons? Navies invariably strike such compromises.

There's no free lunch in naval architecture. Take a modern example, the U.S. Navy's Littoral Combat Ship. The founders of the LCS project mandated a whole lot of sprint speed. That meant not just sporty engines but lightweight construction and limited armament. Indeed, one of the LCS classes is built entirely of aluminum, not the sturdiest material for withstanding battle damage [12]. If speed is all-important, you give up protection and weaponry. All ship designs involve choices. Seafarers may not discover the repercussions of those choices until they're in the thick of combat.

Now flash back to fin de siècle Asia again. Like many navalists of the day, Chinese naval officials and their foreign advisers saw battleships as the coin of the realm. They prized thick armor -- protection -- over speed and firepower. China's German-built battlewagons boasted heavier guns than IJN men-of-war, but with a slower rate of fire. And because of their steep cost, there were only two of them in the Beiyang Fleet, the formation that fought at the Yalu. Japanese designers, by contrast, rated speed, maneuverability, and rapid-fire gunnery above protection and major-caliber guns.

Battle revealed that Qing designers had chosen poorly [13]. Quick-firing Japanese guns delivered heavy aggregate weight of shot against the Beiyang Fleet, even though each individual projectile carried less destructive power. Lighter Qing vessels proved susceptible to Japanese gunfire, even though the two rugged battlewagons largely shrugged off punishment. Beiyang Fleet commanders lost two-thirds of their force at the Yalu. That's what you call decisive.

Are we really prepared to say the People's Liberation Army (PLA) -- an upstart force like the IJN of 1894 -- cannot pull off a similar feat? Have Chinese ship designers made uniformly bad choices? Is the thicket of anti-access defenses the PLA has strewn along the mainland coast over the past two decades a sham? China's military has a habit of defying judgments of its battle capacity. Virtually every platform unveiled over the past decade -- guided-missile destroyers, high-tech diesel subs, an aircraft carrier -- has taken Western China-watchers by surprise. So let's not succumb to hubris. We all know what follows hubris [14].

Lesson #2: People Use Widgets Imaginatively (or Maybe Not)

As things turned out, then, IJN officials outthought their opponents in fleet design. Japanese mariners also outmatched their antagonists in seamanship, gunnery, and martial élan. Boasting superior weaponry biases probabilities in favor of the side holding it, to be sure. But when you come down to it, people, not machines, fight wars; and they use their minds [15]. The lesser combatant can give a good account of itself -- perhaps good enough to carry the day. It worked for Tokyo.

If it's possible for the weaker contender to play a weak hand wisely, it's also possible for the strong to play a strong hand foolishly. You can misuse a formidable military, squandering your advantages in part or in full. The strong tend toward complacency. When you're top dog, why try harder? Or, big powers have a bad habit of taking on commitments willy-nilly -- commitments that demand forces and policy energy. The weak have the luxury of concentrating on one thing a time -- indeed, they can do little else -- whereas the strong scatter their strength across the map. The weak thus have a chance to turn the world upside down, making themselves stronger than enemy forces at the decisive place and time.

Such factors help explain why Qing naval commanders were reluctant to mass their entire fleet to overmatch Japan's Combined Fleet. China has a long, distended periphery to manage, whereas Japan focused tightly on the Yellow Sea basin -- on Korea, and on the Liaotung Peninsula, which overshadows sea access to China's capital city. Winning to the north, moreover, let Tokyo exact prizes such as Formosa and outlying islands to the south. If a lesser power squares off against a stronger power that spreads itself thin, who wins? It may not be the competitor that boasts more military might on paper. Ergo...

Lesson #3: Beware of Soothsayers

Those who hold forth authoritatively about human conflict are apt to disappoint. The only thing wise men profess with sublime confidence is how little they know [16]. Analysts traffic in complexity and uncertainty, a realm of human interaction ruled by mercurial and indeed "paradoxical" logic [17]. Reversals and re-reversals of fortune are commonplace in that graveyard of military prognoses.

And this is a realm where knowing the foe is harder than strategists like Sun Tzu allow. Foreign militaries resemble "black boxes [18]" in peacetime. That is, outsiders know what they look like outwardly. They can tabulate lists of ranges, payloads, and other technical specifications, and venture informed guesswork about combat performance. But only in wartime does hardware perform up to its potential -- or not. Nor is foreseeing how foreign officers and enlisted will execute their duties amid the din of combat a straightforward proposition.

To borrow from Carl von Clausewitz, armed conflict is a trial of resolve and arms waged through the medium of the latter -- i.e., through the medium of physical force. Many are the instances in history when the weaker contender prevailed. That's because one side typically wants its goals more than the other. Political leaders balk at hazarding the nation's entire military in an all-out slugfest unless their political aims command surpassing value.

Risking it all raises the possibility of losing it all -- and exposing the nation to worse things in the future. Better to conserve resources, hedging against the unknown. The strong, consequently, may pull their punches for political reasons. Clausewitz observes that a weaker combatant need not win an outright military triumph to win politically -- the only kind of winning that matters. It can dishearten a muscle-bound adversary, or drive up the costs of victory so high that the adversary concludes it can't win at an acceptable price. Relative apathy bestows opportunity on weaker but resolute antagonists.

So to rifle through the pages of Jane's Fighting Ships, project the victor in a naval clash, and pronounce other possibilities irrational is to rule out human ingenuity, human fallibility, and the vagaries of war. Worse, it rules out politics. Japan only needed a small-scale triumph over imperial China to fulfill its aims in 1894-1895. It saw no need to overthrow the Qing regime, occupy China, or even vanquish the entire Qing navy. Today, likewise, China need not utterly defeat American arms to achieve modest goals. Capability sufficient to Beijing's purposes may soon fall within the PLA's grasp. Heck, it may already be within reach.

Take your prophecies, with a pinch of salt.

This story was originally published by The National Interest

James Holmes is Professor of Strategy at the Naval War College. The views voiced here are his alone.

This first appeared in 2014 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

 

[Housecarl]

North Korea just fired off multiple missiles
Started by AlfaMan‎, Today 03:59 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?523403-North-Korea-just-fired-off-multiple-missiles

"Walking in Circles" Michael Yon on Afghanistan
Started by night driver‎, Today 08:51 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ng-in-Circles-quot-Michael-Yon-on-Afghanistan


--

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://mwi.usma.edu/finally-afghanistan-strategy-puts-pressure-pakistan/

FINALLY, AN AFGHANISTAN STRATEGY THAT PUTS PRESSURE ON PAKISTAN

Javid Ahmad | August 25, 2017

President Donald Trump deserves praise for his new, long-overdue Afghanistan policy, which was unveiled after a torturous, months-long debate. The new policy moved beyond specifying future US troop numbers to defining a larger strategic end state in Afghanistan. More importantly, the policy drew a clear distinction between America’s friends and foes and sent the right message to the Taliban and their patrons: that US commitment to Afghanistan is unwavering and that we will no longer telegraph our exit with artificial deadlines.

Although many Afghanistan watchers have criticized the new policy as a status quo, it was welcomed in Kabul. Afghan leaders have especially applauded the US shift from a calendar-based approach to one based on conditions on the ground, although those conditions need to be properly defined to ensure the United States does not sign on to a forever war.

More crucially, the new Afghan policy makes one striking departure from past US policies: a new approach towards Pakistan, a poster child for terrorism. The policy rightly distinguishes Pakistan as a clever adversary and not an imperfect friend, and makes clear that the United States would no longer turn a blind eye to Islamabad’s duplicity in providing sanctuary, support, and a platform to terrorists that kill American and Afghan forces.

Pakistan has not yet released an official statement, but several anonymous Pakistani officials have been quoted characterizing the new Afghan policy as “nothing new.” Some Pakistani officials have asked why Pakistan is being pressured to do more.

In the past year, Pakistan has incarnated its longstanding Afghan policy, directed from its military headquarters in Rawalpindi, to prop up the Afghan Taliban as a means of extorting concessions from Kabul or even creating a pliant state by toppling the pro-Western Afghan regime. For years, Pakistan had pushed the Afghan government to reach a political settlement with the Taliban, which is Rawalpindi’s preferred option, but has hesitated or refused to allow the Taliban leaders to engage in negotiations with Afghanistan, especially when Pakistan needs were unmet. In his speech, President Trump encouraged the Taliban to engage in peace talks, but he was right to not give up US military efforts against the Taliban that would eventually pressure them to the negotiating table.

However, this will not happen without Pakistan’s cooperation. The challenge is that there are multiple competing voices among those who run Pakistan’s Afghan policy about what accommodation they expect in a political deal for them to relinquish the Taliban. On the one hand, there are elements within Pakistan’s security establishment that relish chaos in Afghanistan, which they prefer and can manage over a noncompliant regime in Kabul. These elements view destruction in Afghanistan as power and leverage and perpetuate their odious and predatory behavior through using terrorism and violence as a tool. The end result is that the Taliban today are increasingly energized by their recent territorial gains in Afghanistan and believe that time is on their side.

But, on the other hand, there are also elements within Pakistan that are concerned about the infusion of radicalism into the ranks of its powerful military. For example, radical Islamic ideals that appeal to unemployed youth are now also affecting lower-level members of Pakistan’s military. Although this blowback effect has not yet been turned into tangible threats within the army, Pakistan’s military continues to address the symptoms rather than the root of the problem. Fretful of this reality, Pakistan’s military realizes that if this trend continues, it will most likely create subversive insiders in the army that will threaten its stability from within. Unfortunately, these are minority voices that go unnoticed and often do not receive the kind of attention their concerns merit.

Meanwhile, the Taliban has not publicly sought a political deal, and it is unlikely for the group to sue for peace. Ultimately, Taliban’s objective is to take control of the Afghan political system and fundamentally change it. A cursory look at past fruitless peace efforts shows that these have failed because of bad faith, miscalculation, or bad timing. There is also another problem. The Taliban has no single pro-peace voice or a messenger who could authoritatively speak for the group to negotiate peace. There is also no Taliban leader who can coalesce the entire group around a political deal and deliver on it. Nor would any Taliban leader freely engage with the Afghan government without Pakistan’s consent, for fear of reprisals from Rawalpindi.

Under such conditions, the new US policy and the mini-surge of nearly 4,000 additional US troops would be crucial in tilting the ongoing Afghan stalemate in favor of the Afghan government. More vitally, the mini-surge would boost the current Afghan train, advise, and assist mission and help with building the offensive capabilities of Afghan forces, especially the Afghan special forces. The Afghan government has already announced plans to turn its special forces division into a corps, and the mini-surge would help with doubling the number of Afghan special forces to 30,000 troops. Additional US troops would also play a pivotal role in bolstering the Afghan air force and improving the leadership and intelligence collection capacities of Afghan forces.

While it remains to be seen how Pakistan would respond to the new US policy, there are reasons to believe that any shift in Pakistan’s policy would be short-term and tactical. First, several of Pakistan’s political parties are supporting radicalization and flirting with jihadi mindsets. Many Pakistani political parties repeatedly call for a jihad against the United States in Afghanistan. Even Imran Khan, the leader of Pakistan’s main opposition party, has claimed that the Taliban are fighting a “jihad” in Afghanistan that is justified by Islamic law. Khan’s recent response to the new Afghan policy was that it was the outcome of the “Indian and Jewish lobby.” Such public statements in support of criminal activities are not only misguided but also inspire violent extremist ideologies and provide a space for insurgents to recruit.

At the same time, the underlying thinking in Rawalpindi may well be that it can still achieve its traditional goals through different means, perhaps by even creating another proxy group. Even if Rawalpindi changes its posture towards the Taliban, the shadow of history in Afghan-Pakistan relations would likely hamper the policy shift. More importantly, there would likely be no positive change in Pakistan’s strategy unless and until it genuinely supports political inclusivity in Afghanistan.

Second, the mainstream media in Pakistan, rather than being a force broadly supportive of stability in Afghanistan, is often the opposite. A broad cross-section of Pakistani media (social and print) frequently argue that the United States has failed in Afghanistan and that it should withdraw its troops. Elements in the mainstream media are also raising paranoia and anti-Americanism among the people, while openly advocating on behalf of the insurgency next door.

While there may be a realization in Rawalpindi that its current Afghan strategy has not succeeded, there are no tangible signs of an actual policy shift. Future tactical concessions from Pakistan should be taken with a grain of salt. The United States should, meanwhile, follow through on Trump’s speech with concrete actions, particularly on Pakistan, including extending drone strikes to Taliban and Haqqani leadership in Quetta and North Waziristan and imposing targeted financial and travel sanctions on known Pakistani intelligence and military personnel who aid and abet these groups, and diplomatically isolate Pakistan if it does not deliver. At the same time, Kabul must resist the temptation of trailing into hasty and high-risk peace talks and accepting conditions that privilege Pakistan’s interests at the expense of Afghan security.


Javid Ahmad, a non-resident fellow at Modern War Institute at West Point, is a fellow at the Atlantic Council. Follow him on Twitter: @ahmadjavid.
The views expressed herein are those of the author and not necessarily those of West Point, the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or any agency of the US government.