WAR 08-26-2017-to-09-01-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

I'm starting the thread early this time. I'm expecting the next couple of days to be personally a bit "interesting" so I may not have a chance to get to this thread for a couple of days...HC

(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****

(285) 08-19-2017-to-08-25-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...8-25-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/nuclear-inspectors-access-iran-military-bases-nikki-haley-165327072.html

Nuclear inspectors should have access to Iran military bases: Haley

Reuters • August 25, 2017

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Friday pressed the International Atomic Energy Agency to seek access to Iranian military bases to ensure that they are not concealing activities banned by the 2015 nuclear deal.

"I have good confidence in the IAEA, but they are dealing with a country that has a clear history of lying and pursuing covert nuclear programs," Haley told a news conference after returning from a trip to the Vienna-based U.N. agency.

"We are encouraging the IAEA to use all the authorities they have and to pursue every angle possible" to verify compliance with the nuclear deal, she said.

Haley visited the U.N. nuclear watchdog's headquarters as part of U.S. President Donald Trump's review of the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), made by former President Barack Obama.

The deal is designed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons by imposing constraints on its nuclear program in return for the lifting of international sanctions on Tehran. The IAEA concluded that Iran secretly researched a nuclear warhead until 2009, which Tehran denies.

Iran’s top authorities have rejected giving international inspectors access to their military sites and officials have told Reuters any such move would trigger harsh consequences.

"The JCPOA made no distinction between military and non-military sites. There are also numerous undeclared sites that have not been inspected. That is a problem,” said Haley.

Iran is suspected by the IAEA of conducting weapons-related activities at at least one military site years before the 2015 deal.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a think tank, said that the deal sets out a process for the IAEA to request access to any Iranian site, and that it would be publicly known if such a request was made and rejected.

"The agency to our knowledge has not requested access to any site and been denied," he said. "Furthermore, the agency cannot and should not seek access to a site simply to test the Iranians' cooperation. They must have a legitimate reason."

Kimball charged that the Trump administration "is seeking a pretext" to accuse Iran of not complying with the deal, which Trump has repeatedly vowed to tear up.

Haley also leveled harsh criticism at Irish Major General Michael Beary, the commander of United Nations forces in Lebanon, accusing him of turning a blind eye to Iran's covert arming of the Hezbollah militant group.

"General Beary says there are no Hezbollah weapons," she said. "That’s an embarrassing lack of understanding on what’s going on around him,” she said.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos and Riham Alkoussa at the United Nations, and Jonathan Landay in Washington; Writing by Jonathan Landay; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Alistair Bell)

69 reactions

 

[energy_wave]

North Korea launches trio of missiles amidst US-South Korea military drills.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/25/asia/north-korea-fires-projectile/index.html

 

[Housecarl]

The Winds of War Blow in Korea and The Far East
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-of-War-Blow-in-Korea-and-The-Far-East/page25

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

Iran and Israel are poised for war — in Syria
Started by China Connection‎, Today 04:49 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?523367-Iran-and-Israel-are-poised-for-war-%97-in-Syria

Mugabe Says Zimbabwe "Will Not Prosecute Killers Of White Farmers"
Started by BetterLateThanNever‎, Today 06:34 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...l-Not-Prosecute-Killers-Of-White-Farmers-quot

Main Russia/Ukraine invasion thread - Donetsk now claims all of Ukraine - Post #18742
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-now-claims-all-of-Ukraine-Post-18742/page472

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-security-idUSKCN1B51FW?il=0
(fair use applies)


Exclusive: Indonesian militants planned 'dirty bomb' attack - sources
Tom Allard and Agustinus Beo Da Costa
August 25, 2017 / 12:07 PM / 19 hours ago


JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian militants planned to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb, security sources said, highlighting the rising ambitions of extremists to wreak destruction in the world's largest Muslim-majority nation.

But experts cast doubt on their expertise, equipment and chances of success.

The plot was foiled when police raided homes and arrested five suspects in Bandung, West Java, last week, the sources with direct knowledge of the plot said. After the raids, police spoke of a plan to explode a "chemical" bomb but provided no other details.

The plot comes as Indonesia grapples with an influx of militants deported from other countries and the fallout from the Islamic State-led siege in the southern Philippines city of Marawi that regional leaders and analysts worry has energized militants across Southeast Asia

The three counter-terrorism sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the militants had hoped to transform low-grade radioactive Thorium 232 (Th-232) into deadly Uranium 233 (U-233).

The highly radioactive uranium would be combined with the powerful home-made explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP) to create a "nuclear bomb", according to an instruction manual used by the militants and reviewed by Reuters.

In fact, the device would be, at best, a radiological dispersal device or dirty bomb that could spray radioactive material when the conventional bomb exploded.

A spokesman for Indonesia's national police, Inspector General Setyo Wasisto, declined to confirm or deny the plot to construct the device, but said it would have been more potent than the two bombs made from TATP that killed three police in Indonesia's capital Jakarta in May.

"If this bomb was finished, it would have had a more destructive impact than the bomb made from 'Mother of Satan'," he said, using the nickname for TATP.

"It could burn anything and make it hard for people to breathe."

Thorium-232 can be transformed into Uranium-233 but requires the Thorium to absorb a neutron, a process that needs powerful irradiation, generally from a nuclear reactor, according to three analysts contacted by Reuters and the website of the World Nuclear Association, which represents reactor vendors and nuclear engineers, among other industry stakeholders.

The militants' manual advised an X-Ray machine or microwave be used instead.

"X rays would not have enough punch to overcome the binding energy of the Thorium atoms," said Peter Hayes, an expert in radiological devices from the Nautilus Institute, in an email.

"And, no, you can't cook Th-232 to make U-233 in a microwave and, if you could, you would have a painful and rapid death from the radioactive nature of the co-present U-232 produced alongside U-233."

One senior Indonesian counter-terrorism source said the Bandung-based cell had bought a large amount of a household item and had begun to extract the Thorium. Reuters has chosen not to name the item.

"They needed three weeks. It was still only one week (into the process when police raided)," the source said.

"A MUSLIM'S DUTY"

Indonesia has suffered a series of mostly small attacks by extremists over the past 18 months, although police have disrupted many more.

Indonesian terrorism analyst Rakyan Adibrata fears militants have been inspired by the events in Marawi, where IS fighters continue to occupy part of the city despite a three-month offensive by Philippines force to re-take it.

"They don't have the ability to occupy a city like has happened in Marawi, but they want to do something big that pleases their bosses in Islamic State," said Adibrata.

A radiological bombing could fit the bill, although Adibrata said that it was highly unlikely that the Bandung cell had either "the equipment or the knowledge" to succeed.

Most of Indonesia's recent attacks have involved members of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a pro-IS alliance of Indonesian militants. Many have been directed from Syria by an Indonesian national and JAD leader Bahrun Naim, according to police.

Naim is identified as the author on the front page of the 47-page Indonesian-language bomb instruction manual - named "Nuclear for Dummy" (sic) - and posted on a blog that has since been taken down.

"Mastering weaponry is essentially every Muslim's duty," it says.

"This paper, we hope, also can motivate the Muslim mujahideen to learn nuclear science easily and apply it."

Last week, police said the militants had been working off Naim's manual, but did not disclose its contents.

According to police, the suspected Bandung plotters were members of JAD and were considering targets like the presidential palace in Jakarta and police headquarters in Bandung and the capital.

Two of the five suspects are Indonesian migrant workers deported from Singapore and Hong Kong this year for posting radical Islamist material on social media.

They spent a month or less in a deradicalization shelter before joining up with the other militants, sources told Reuters.

About 177 Indonesian militants have been deported from other countries this year, according to Adibrata, citing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

 

[Housecarl]

Go to first new post North Korea has launched a missile "OVER JAPAN"
Started by onetimer‎, Today 02:16 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...launched-a-missile-quot-OVER-JAPAN-quot/page3

The Winds of War Blow in Korea and The Far East
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-of-War-Blow-in-Korea-and-The-Far-East/page27

The Four Horsemen - 08/28 to 09/04
Started by Ragnarok‎, Today 03:53 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?523522-The-Four-Horsemen-08-28-to-09-04

Venezuela - Miliciano Equipment Issue (Video)
Started by Dozdoats‎, Yesterday 12:08 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?523481-Venezuela-Miliciano-Equipment-Issue-(Video)

Tass: Russia and Syria create Joint Air Defense System
Started by Possible Impact‎, 08-26-2017 07:37 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...sia-and-Syria-create-Joint-Air-Defense-System

CIA Veteran Sees Russian Connection to 2 Groups Opposing Fracking, Pipelines
Started by thompson‎, 08-26-2017 03:56 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ction-to-2-Groups-Opposing-Fracking-Pipelines

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-finland-idUSKCN1B825C

AUGUST 28, 2017 / 1:50 PM / AN HOUR AGO

Trump says U.S. 'very protective' of Baltic region

Steve Holland
3 MIN READ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Monday the United States is “very protective” of the Baltics in the face of a Russian naval exercise with China in the Baltic Sea and said the United States and its allies would be able to handle any threat.

“We are very protective of that region,” Trump said at a joint news conference with visiting Finland President Sauli Niinisto. “That’s all I can say. We are very, very protective. We have great friends there.”

A Russian naval exercise with China in the Baltic Sea has rattled tensions in the region and Trump has sought to reassure NATO allies there, sending Vice President Mike Pence on a recent trip.

Niinisto said he recently played host to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland and that Putin offered assurances that the Russia-China naval exercise should not be seen as a threat.

Niinisto said the United States, Finland and Sweden have also conducted training exercises in the Baltic region.

“We have to be very careful that this huge training, huge military trafficking ... does not cause any accidents or problems because we know from accidents might grow whatever,” he said. “That is why I think it’s important that we continue to work with NATO to enhance ... dialogue between Russia and NATO.”

Slideshow (7 Images)

On a visit to Brussels in May, Trump’s allegiance to NATO was thrown into doubt when he opted not to mention the U.S. commitment to the NATO treaty’s Article 5, which says an attack on one member is an attack on all.

He later cleared up the confusion, saying he was committed to NATO’s common defense.

Trump entered office hoping for better U.S. relations with Russia but his effort has failed thus far to bear fruit amid continuing questions surrounding Russian meddling in last year's U.S. presidential election, something both Moscow and Trump deny. He signed legislation early this month imposing a new round of U.S. sanctions against Moscow.Trump called the Baltics "a very important part of the world."

"These are all threats we will be able to handle if we have to. Hopefully we won't have to handle them but if we do we'll be able to handle them," he said.

Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Chris Reese and James Dalgleish

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-talafar-idUSKCN1B81VL

AUGUST 28, 2017 / 10:45 AM / 43 MINUTES AGO

Iraqi forces face tough resistance from IS in final Tal Afar battle

Thaier Al-Sudani, Kawa Omar and Ahmed Rasheed
3 MIN READ

AL-’AYADIYA/BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi forces said they faced tough resistance on Monday from Islamic State fighters driven out of the city of Tal Afar to a small town where they had “nothing to lose” by fighting to the end.

An advance by the Iraqi army and Shi’ite paramilitary groups into al-’Ayadiya was being slowed by snipers, booby-traps and roadside bombs, military officials told Reuters.

“The offensive started from two fronts in a bid to distract Daesh fighters,” army Lieutenant Colonel Salah Kareem said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

“A total of four suicide bombers driving vehicles rigged with explosives attacked our troops under sniper cover. We had to slow down to avoid high casualty rates among our soldiers.”

Iraqi forces have in recent days recaptured almost all of the northwestern city of Tal Afar, long a stronghold of Islamic State. They have been waiting to take al-’Ayadiya, 11 km (7 miles) northwest of the city, before declaring complete victory.

“Our intelligence shows that the most diehard Daesh fighters fled Tal Afar to al-’Ayadiya,” Kareem said.

He said continuous air strikes and round-the-clock drone surveillance had prevented them fleeing to neighboring Syria.

”They have nothing to lose ... they will fight to the last breath,” Kareem said.

Islamic State mortar rounds and sniper fire struck close to the advancing forces. The army hit back with tanks, heavy machineguns and mortars.

Up to 2,000 battle-hardened militants were believed to be defending Tal Afar against around 50,000 government troops last week. It was unclear how many were left in al-’Ayadiya.

Many motorcycles carrying the Islamic State insignia had been abandoned at the side of the road outside al-’Ayadiya.

CALIPHATE IN RUINS

If the fight for the town is proving surprisingly tough, the bigger battle for Tal Afar was easier than expected for Iraqi forces.

The city’s dramatic and rapid collapse after just eight days of fighting lent support to Iraqi military reports that the militants lack sturdy command and control structures west of Mosul.

Civilians who fled Tal Afar in recent weeks told Reuters of harrowing conditions in the city, where people had been surviving on bread and dirty water for months. Some militants had looked “exhausted” and “depleted”, residents said.

Tens of thousands of people are believed to have fled in the weeks before the battle started. A Reuters team saw no sign of civilians in the neighborhoods it toured on Saturday and Sunday.

Tal Afar became the next target of the U.S.-backed war on the jihadist group following the recapture in July of Mosul, where it had declared its "caliphate" over parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Mosul’s collapse effectively marked the end of the caliphate, but the group remains in control of territory on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border.

Writing by Raya Jalabi; editing by Andrew Roche

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.atimes.com/article/chinas-pla-readying-missiles-stun-indian-air-power/

China’s PLA readying missiles to counter Indian air power

As tensions mount between India and China in a border dispute, Beijing is strengthening its mobile missile defenses to counteract India’s perceived air supremacy

By ZI YANG AUGUST 27, 2017 12:49 PM (UTC+8)
Comments 49

Every summer the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducts a major air defense exercise at its western theater command’s air force experimental training base. The anti-aircraft brigade of the 79th group army was the main participant in this year’s drill, on August 22.

The exercise evaluated the unit’s radar system, command and control network, intercept capabilities, electronic and cyber warfare abilities, mobility and logistics. The batteries engaged a variety of aircraft, including the J-10, J-11, Mil Mi-171, Harbin Z-9 and an assortment of UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles).

Reporting, Chinese state media gave particular attention to the Hongqi-16 (HQ-16), one of the PLA’s most prized surface-to-air missiles.

Earlier this month, video and photographic evidence surfaced online that shows China moving trainloads of HQ-16 and HQ-17 missiles to Tibet as the standoff with India at Doklam continues.

The HQ-16 is a third-generation medium-range air defense missile system. Inspired by the Russian Buk, the HQ-16 has a 40 km maximum range of fire. Cold-launched vertically, it takes 13 minutes for a moving HQ-16 to load and fire missiles armed with 70kg warheads.

The HQ-16 can lock-on eight targets and engage four simultaneously. Its missile has a claimed maximum flight speed of Mach 2.8, with a single-hit probability rate of between 70% and 98%. In 2016, an upgraded version known as the HQ-16B was unveiled with a greater range of fire at 70 km.

A battery of HQ-16 consists of four launch vehicles, a target searching radar vehicle, a tracking and guidance radar vehicle, a command and control vehicle, missile transport and reloading vehicles and power supply trucks. The HQ-16 is generally used to defend stationary assets.

The HQ-17, however, is highly mobile. Sitting on an all-terrain tracked chassis, the HQ-17 usually accompanies fast-moving armored units. An improved version of the Russian Tor-M1, the HQ-17 has a 12 km range of fire.

Like the HQ-16, the HQ-17 uses vertical cold launchers against enemy jets, helicopters, smart bombs, cruise missiles and UAVs. But unlike the former, one HQ-17 vehicle combines all functions of an HQ-16 battery, empowering it with greater mobility. It takes ten seconds for a moving HQ-17 to engage an enemy. Carrying eight 9M331 missiles with a maximum flight speed of Mach 2.3, an HQ-17 can engage two targets simultaneously.

The HQ-17’s claimed hit probability against cruise missiles is between 56% and 99%; against fighter jets it’s between 45% and 93%; and against helicopters 82% and 98%.

The transporting of HQ missiles to Tibet shows the PLA is reinforcing its layered air defense arrangement in anticipation of Indian air power. The systems’ suitability for operating on the high plateau was confirmed at an exercise, in May, in Tibet’s Tanggula Mountains.

When reflecting on the 1962 war with China, Indian generals often blame their country’s defeat on its misuse of air power. Many believe the war’s outcome would have been quite different had India’s air force participated in an offensive role.

A recent Vayu Aerospace study concluded that the PLA air force would be at a disadvantage in a future war due to Tibet’s extreme climate, which would will limit the payload and combat radius of Chinese aircraft.

Last year, India deployed supersonic BrahMos missiles to Arunachal Pradesh near Tibet. In June, the Indian army announced its plans to send a squadron of HAL Dhruv helicopters to the Chinese border. More recently, the Indian defense ministry approved a deal to purchase six US-made AH-64 Apache attack helicopters for the army aviation corps and announced that it is looking to procure 234 naval helicopters, at a cost of US$5 billion. On August 24, the Indian air force added six C-130J Super Hercules strategic aircraft to its Arjan Singh base in Panagarh, 470 km from Doklam.

The Chinese high command understands India’s assumption of achieving air supremacy in the next war. However the PLA is quietly putting together a neat little surprise for India’s flyboys.

Follow the author on Twitter @MrZiYang.

SECURITY GEOPOLITICS SOUTH ASIA CHINA

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.theglobalist.com/pakistan-united-states-afghanistan-taliban-strategy-war/

Ending Pakistan’s Export of Jihadists: The Key to Win in Afghanistan

A policy to win in Afghanistan requires undermining the Taliban’s strategic base – the external support and sanctuary that Pakistan continues to provide.

By Robert M. Cassidy, August 28, 2017
Comments 5

“I have seen much war in my lifetime and I hate it profoundly. But there are worse things than war; and all of them come with defeat.” (Ernest Hemingway)

U.S. stated policy is now to win in Afghanistan. The senior leadership has opted for victory over defeat. What does this mean and how does the Coalition get there?

A win is an Afghanistan that does not fragment and endures as a state that is inhospitable to al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the Islamic State-Khorasan and other Islamists groups. There will still be violence and poverty, but stability without a continuous existential threat is success.

Victory, then, is a relatively resilient Afghan state, with the government, the security forces and the population aligned against a marginalized Taliban.

But as S. Paul Kapur, Professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, helpfully reminds us: “Jihad has become a central component of Pakistani grand strategy.”

Therefore, a policy to win in Afghanistan requires a regional strategy that aligns political will and capacity to defeat the enemy’s strategy. This means undermining the Taliban’s strategic center of gravity – the external support and sanctuary that Pakistan continues to provide.

Pakistan prevents victory

Pakistan’s strategic malice is the main reason why the United States and its partners still face a stalemate in Afghanistan after almost 16 years. The sanctuary in Pakistan is the most significant strategic impediment to a win in Afghanistan.

Almost every U.S. DOD report on progress in Afghanistan over the years has stated that Pakistan’s sanctuary and support prevent the defeat of the Taliban. The reduction of this sanctuary and stopping the sources of support of the Taliban in Pakistan is a strategic imperative to ending the war.

However, Pakistan has failed to alter its strategic calculus. It continues to incubate and guide the regeneration of murderous Islamist zealots.

The fresh candor about Pakistan in the Trump administration’s recent Afghanistan policy announcement should mean that the United States will desist in the illusion that Pakistan, one of the foremost ideological and physical incubators of Islamist terror, Inc., is an ally and a friend. It is neither.

Pretending that Pakistan was an ally in the war against Islamist militants, one that would act in ways to help defeat Islamist networks in the tribal areas, made the West complicit in Pakistan’s malicious strategic conduct.

No strategic momentum

Years of tactical and operational gains in taking away the Taliban’s capacity have been fleeting because defeating an enemy means taking away its capacity and its will.

Strategic momentum has been absent because the will of the Taliban and the Haqqanis rest in their senior leadership, regenerative potential and resources, which reside in and emanate from Pakistan’s sanctuary.

Pakistan has created this contradiction to prevent the defeat of the Taliban, protract the war and erode the Coalition’s will. Its likely ultimate goal is to make the capacity of the Coalition irrelevant because it could ultimately depart the fight without achieving its strategic aims.

Why does Pakistan continue to support its Islamist proxies that are clearly enemies of the Coalition and Afghanistan? And, what is to be done?

Pakistan’s proxies

From its inception, Pakistan’s perceived existential mandate was to oppose India and to revise the regional status quo through the export of Islamist militant proxies. The incubation and export of Islamist militants provided the purpose and meaning for Pakistan, its security establishment and its people.

To be certain, the emergence and size of murderous Islamists in South Asia is the result of the decades that Pakistan’s security establishment deluded itself in supporting some of the most virulent strains of Islamist proxies.

Now 20 designated terrorist organizations operate in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region alone. These groups have perpetrated barbaric acts of violence in Afghanistan, Kashmir, India and ultimately — like the proverbial genie that gets out of the bottle — in Pakistan itself. In the end, this perfidy has been to the detriment of Pakistan’s security.

For the first two and a half decades of Pakistan’s existence, its senior leaders pursued policies that were disastrous for Pakistan’s security. These policies bankrupted its economy and diverted resources from development.

Catastrophic wars

In addition, Pakistan started three major wars with India and suffered draws or defeats in all of them. The 1971 War, or Bangladesh War, was the singularly most traumatic war of the three full wars with India. It reduced Pakistan to a rump of its former territory and it further ingrained a permanent paranoia about strategic depth and encirclement by India in Afghanistan.

For the next three decades after 1971, as a consequence of its catastrophic defeat in the Bangladesh War and the loss of East Pakistan, the Pakistani security establishment shifted even more discernibly from conventional confrontation with India, to relying more on Islamist militants for strategic advantage and depth in Afghanistan, and to fully pursuing the nuclear weapons option.

Pakistan has supported proxies to pursue objectives in Afghanistan, India and Kashmir with the rationale that its strategic weapons would serve as a deterrent.

For the last almost 16 years, Pakistan has employed irregular warfare to promote its illusory notion of strategic depth by supporting the Taliban and other lethal proxies in Afghanistan. This war will not end, or it will end badly if Pakistan does not cease its support to the Taliban.

Pakistan’s strategic double game

Until now, the United States of America and its friends have not devised a regional strategy that employs its full weight and that of other regional actors to alter Pakistan’s strategic double game.

The fact that the United States paid in excess of $33 billion to Pakistan in the first 16 years of war — and that Pakistan continued to incubate and export Islamists into Afghanistan — is abominable.

Moreover, U.S. promoters of relations with Pakistan since at least the 1950s were key in supporting Pakistan’s mythological narrative that Pakistan was a stalwart anticommunist bulwark during the Cold War and a genuine ally in the war against al Qaeda, the Taliban and Islamist terrorists.

But the reality was that U.S. and Pakistani interests only aligned during the Soviet-Afghan War. And even then, Pakistan’s behavior still revealed duplicity with the United States and malign use of America’s generous funding of that war to defeat the Soviets through mujahideen proxies.

Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence Directorate (ISI) has maintained links between Al Qaeda, its longtime Taliban allies and a host of other Islamists inside and outside Pakistan.

Putting pressure on Pakistan

The Coalition cannot win in Afghanistan without a regional approach that brings the full weight of the United States and other regional actors to bear on Pakistan to stop it from aiding the Taliban and the Haqqani Network.

Since the days after 9/11, the United States has essentially stipulated that Pakistan

– must curb all domestic expression of support for terrorism against America and its allies
– show a sustained commitment to and make significant efforts towards combating terrorist groups
– cease support, including by any elements within the Pakistan military or its intelligence agency, to extremist
and terrorist groups; and
– dismantle terrorist bases of operations in other parts of the country.

Pakistan’s proxy jihadists cannot be defeated with half measures. And yet, we have coddled Pakistan as an important ally in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, even though it is essentially an enemy that has acted in ways fully inimical to the Coalition’s troops, its Afghan allies and the aims of the Afghan state.

A strategic menu

A strategic menu that levers regional actors and relies more on sticks than carrots is necessary to tap into Pakistan’s fear, honor and interests in unprecedented ways. The following eight steps should merit consideration:

1) stop paying for malice;
2) end Pakistan’s major non-NATO ally status;
3) state intention to make the line of control in Kashmir permanent;
4) shut down the ground lines of communications via Pakistan;
5) declare Pakistan the state-sponsor of terrorism that it is;
6) issue one last ultimatum for Pakistan to help end the sanctuary and to not impede success;
7) invite the Indian Armed Forces into Afghanistan for security operations in the Pashtun east and south;
8) and, as a last resort, reciprocate Pakistan’s malice and perfidy via cutout proxies.

A trans-regional strategy

To influence or modify Pakistan’s malign strategic calculus requires a trans-regional strategy that impinges on and appeals to Pakistan’s pathologies and perceptions. A viable strategy cannot address Pakistan without addressing India.

Likewise, a trans-regional strategy cannot address India without weighing some degree of cooperation and reciprocity with China, Russia, Iran and the Central Asian states.

And, since Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were the only countries besides Pakistan that recognized the repugnant Taliban regime, they would likely warrant some role in the negotiated end to the war — as would Qatar.

The Coalition and its Afghan partners need to be ruthless, creative and coercive. This film has run before, and it had a bad ending. The incubation and export of Islamist militants for the purpose of jihad has been a preferred modus operandi of Pakistan since its inception.

Uncontested sanctuary in Pakistan contributed to the Soviet Union’s defeat in Afghanistan.

It is only possible for Pakistan to become a genuine strategic partner to the United States if it changes, and eschews its support of proxy terrorists and insurgents. The sine qua non for a win is to shut down the sanctuary and the external support from Pakistan.

More on this topic

Afghanistan: A Morally Corrupting War
Drones: Backfiring on U.S. Strategy
Shooting Afghanistan: Beyond the Conflict (II)
1139
Tags: Afghanistan, latest, Pakistan, strategy, Taliban, terrorism, United States, war


About Robert M. Cassidy
Robert M. Cassidy, Ph.D., Colonel (Retired), USA, is the author of three books and a number of articles about irregular warfare and Afghanistan. He has served in Afghanistan and Iraq. The views in this article are his own and do not represent the views of the institutions with which he affiliates.
Full bio →

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....lets see how this works....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-china-idUSKCN1B80II

AUGUST 27, 2017 / 11:56 PM / 12 HOURS AGO

India and China agree to end border standoff

Sanjeev Miglani and Ben Blanchard
4 MIN READ

NEW DELHI/BEIJING (Reuters) - India and China have agreed to an “expeditious disengagement” of troops in a disputed border area where their soldiers have been locked in a stand-off for more than two months, India’s foreign ministry said on Monday.

The decision comes ahead of a summit of the BRICS nations - a grouping that also includes Brazil, Russia and South Africa - in China beginning on Sunday, which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend.

Indian and Chinese troops have been confronting each other at the Doklam plateau near the borders of India, its ally Bhutan, and China, in the most serious and prolonged standoff in decades along their disputed Himalayan border.

The Indian ministry said the two sides had agreed to defuse the crisis following diplomatic talks.

“In recent weeks, India and China have maintained diplomatic communication in respect of the incident at Doklam,” the ministry said in a statement.

“On this basis, expeditious disengagement of border personnel at the face-off site at Doklam has been agreed to and is on-going,” it said in a statement.

It did not offer more details of the terms of disengagement from the area which had raised fears of a wider conflict between the Asian giants who fought a brief border war in 1962.

China said Indian troops had withdrawn from the remote area in the eastern Himalayas. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Chinese troops would continue to patrol the Doklam region.

“China will continue to exercise sovereignty rights to protect territorial sovereignty in accordance with the rules of the historical boundary,” she said.

The Chinese defense ministry said troops would remain on a state of alert.

“We remind the Indian side to learn the lesson from this incident, earnestly respect the historical boundary and the basic principles of international law, meet China half way and jointly protect the peace and tranquillity of the border region,” spokesman Wu Qian said in a statement.

“The world is not peaceful, and peace needs to be safeguarded. The Chinese military has the confidence and the ability to protect the country’s sovereignty, security and development interests,” Wu added.

SMOOTH SUMMIT

The trouble started in June when India sent troops to stop China building a road in the Doklam area, which is remote, uninhabited territory claimed by both China and Bhutan.

India said it sent its troops because Chinese military activity there was a threat to the security of its own northeast region.

But China has said India had no role to play in the area and insisted it withdraw unilaterally or face the prospect of an escalation. Chinese state media had warned India of a fate worse than its crushing defeat in the war in 1962.

Indian political commentator Shekhar Gupta said there was too much at stake for the two countries to fight over a small piece of territory.

"Hopefully, Doklam is a new chapter in India-China relations. Too much at stake for both big powers to let legacy real-estate issues linger," he said in a Twitter post.

India and China have been unable to settle their 3,500-km (2,175-mile) frontier and large parts of territory are claimed by both sides.

Lin Minwang, an India expert and the deputy director of the Center for South Asia Studies at China's Fudan University, said the detente would ensure a smooth BRICS meeting.

"Both sides should be happy. Modi is also happy. They can conduct a meeting smoothly and naturally. If there was still a stand-off, how could they meet?"

Additional reporting by Tommy Wilkes in NEW DELHI and Michael Martina in BEIJING; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Robert Birsel

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http://thediplomat.com/2017/08/chin...my-rocket-force-flight-tests-older-df-4-icbm/

Chinese People's Liberation Army Rocket Force Flight Tests Older DF-4 ICBM

China conducts a test of its DF-4 ICBM amid heightened tensions with India.

By Ankit Panda
August 25, 2017

On Wednesday, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) carried out a flight test of a Dong Feng 4 (DF-4; known by the United States as the CSS-3) intercontinental-range ballistic missile, a U.S. government source with knowledge of China’s strategic weapons programs told The Diplomat.

The test was carried out from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, a common satellite and ballistic missile launch site, which is also known by the U.S. intelligence community as the Wuzhai Missile and Space Test Centre. The site is in China’s Shanxi province.

The test of a DF-4 is notable since the missile is China’s oldest intercontinental-range system, with an estimated range of 5,500 to 7,000 kilometers — insufficient to strike targets in the continental United States apart from Alaska. The missile is a two-stage, liquid propellant missile that was first deployed in the mid-1970s. Today, few DF-4s are thought to be deployed, with the PLARF primarily relying on the DF-5 for intercontinental-range targeting.

It’s unclear if Wednesday’s launch featured a DF-4 based in a silo or in the more usual rollout launch configuration, where the missile would exit a hardened basing site before being erected, fueled, and launched.

Given that the DF-4 is no longer a primary component of the PLARF’s targeting, it’s also unclear what specific purpose Wednesday’s test was intended to serve. China has conducted multiple ballistic missile launches recently, but has mostly focused on its newer intermediate-range ballistic missiles, solid fuel missiles, and long-range ground-launched cruise missiles.

Wednesday’s test does suggest that China continues to rely on the DF-4 for certain targeting scenarios. While the missiles are aging and few are thought to remain operational, the DF-4 could serve as an important strike platform against targets in India, for example. (The PLARF’s newer, more advanced systems are likely assigned to U.S. targets.)

If there was a signaling motive behind Wednesday’s flight test, it could have been meant for India. For more than two months now, Chinese and Indian troops have been locked in a tense standoff over a piece of territory disputed between Bhutan and China in the Himalayas. Over these months, Chinese rhetoric has grown increasingly strident, with state-run media threatening conflict.

While the prospect of escalation does not appear to be imminent, a DF-4 launch would serve as a reminder of the nuclear stakes that will loom over any future India-China conflict.

 

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http://thediplomat.com/2017/08/the-egypt-north-korea-connection/

The Egypt-North Korea Connection

Cairo remains one of Pyongyang’s leading trade partners in the Arab world.

By Samuel Ramani
August 28, 2017

On August 22, 2017, the U.S. State Department announced its decision to cut economic and military aid to Egypt by up to $300 million. While Egypt’s deteriorating human rights record was cited by State Department officials as the principal reason for these unexpected aid cuts, many analysts have speculated that Egypt’s close economic and security ties to North Korea were also behind Washington’s sudden decision to cut financial assistance to Cairo.

Even though Egypt has been a leading U.S. ally in the Middle East since the 1970s, Cairo remains one of Pyongyang’s leading trade partners in the Arab world. Egypt’s close links to Pyongyang can be explained by historical bonds born out of both countries’ shared Cold War experiences as non-aligned Soviet allies, and the Egyptian military’s long-standing interest in procuring North Korean military technology.

Egypt and North Korea: A Long-Standing Diplomatic Partnership

Even though Egyptian foreign policy has undergone numerous realignments since Gamal Abdel Nasser assumed power in 1952, Cairo’s close relationship with North Korea has remained a consistent feature of Egypt’s Asia-Pacific strategy since the dawn of the Cold War. The persistence of cordial relations between Egypt and North Korea can be explained by both countries’ membership in the non-aligned movement (NAM) and shared solidarity with the Soviet Union during the 1950s and 1960s.

The anti-Western sentiments that made Nasser a leading figure within the NAM revealed themselves in striking fashion during the 1956 Suez Crisis. Egypt’s decision to nationalize the Suez Canal received enthusiastic support from Pyongyang. As Nasser successfully withstood a military intervention from the United Kingdom, Israel and France, North Korea’s leader Kim Il-sung authorized the donation of a small but symbolic sum of financial assistance to Egypt, to demonstrate his approval of Nasser’s anti-imperial defiance.

North Korea’s alignment with Egypt during the Suez Crisis set the stage for a strengthened Cairo-Pyongyang alliance during the 1960s. In 1961, a North Korean diplomatic delegation arrived in Egypt with the intention of establishing consular relations. To cement an alignment with Cairo, North Korean policymakers provided diplomatic support for Egypt’s efforts to push British troops out of South Yemen and fiercely condemned Israeli conduct during the 1967 Six-Day War. These actions increased trust between Egypt and North Korea and encouraged the Egyptian air force’s most senior commander, Hosni Mubarak, to enlist North Korean pilots to assist Egypt’s war effort against Israel in 1973.

Even though Egypt’s strategic partnership with the United States stigmatizes overt displays of cooperation with North Korea, the Cairo-Pyongyang diplomatic partnership has survived due to ongoing communication between leaders of both countries and shared economic interests. The establishment of person-to-person contacts between the Egyptian and North Korean governments, consolidated by Mubarak’s four visits to Pyongyang from 1983-1990, laid the foundation for subsequent Egyptian investments in the North Korean economy.

The most striking demonstration of Cairo’s willingness to invest in North Korea was Egyptian telecommunications giant Orascom’s establishment of Koryolink, the DPRK’s only 3G mobile phone network, in 2008. This business deal, which was authorized by Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, gave Orascom 300,000 new North Korean customers. This deal highlighted the potential for mutually beneficial economic links between the two countries, and Sawiris’s subsequent visits to Pyongyang facilitated further Egyptian investments in the North Korean economy.

In spite of the political turmoil that followed Mubarak’s ouster in 2011, the Cairo-Pyongyang economic partnership has remained intact. As Egypt’s Port Said remains a critical trans-shipment point for North Korean arms exports to Africa, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has upheld his predecessors’ North Korea policy and refused to enforce UN sanctions against Pyongyang.

Egypt’s Interest in North Korean Military Technology

In addition to maintaining diplomatic ties and valuable trade links with the DPRK, Egyptian policymakers have viewed North Korea as a critical supplier of military technology since the 1970s. To reward North Korea for its contributions to Egypt’s 1973 war effort, President Anwar el-Sadat authorized the sale of Soviet-made Scud-B missiles to the DPRK from 1976-1981. The North Korean military responded to Cairo’s missile sales by technologically assisting Egypt’s Scud-B missile production efforts.

Despite the establishment of a cold peace between Egypt and Israel in 1979, and a strengthened U.S.-Egypt alliance under Hosni Mubarak, Cairo remains a major purchaser of North Korean military technology. Egypt’s decision to maintain security links with North Korea can be explained by two strategic factors.

First, the North Korean government has helped train Egyptian scientists to produce their own missile systems, in exchange for hard currency provisions from Cairo. This arms-for-hard currency trade agreement helps reduce Egypt’s reliance on foreign arms imports, and allows Egypt to modernize its military without being solely reliant on the United States and Russia.

Egypt’s missile industry has particularly benefited from close military links with North Korea. During the 1990s, Egypt’s defensive capabilities were enhanced by Mubarak’s purchases of Scud-C missiles from North Korea. These procurements encouraged North Korean scientists to assist Egypt’s Scud-C missile production program during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

More recently, Iran’s ballistic missile tests have caused Egyptian military officials to express interest in purchasing new surface-to-surface missile systems, for defensive and retaliatory purposes. As North Korea continues to export air defense systems and satellite-guided missile technologies across the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, Pyongyang has re-emerged as a useful security partner for Cairo, as Egypt seeks to help its leading ally, Saudi Arabia, militarily balance against Iran.

Second, the Egyptian government’s continued refusal to accept comprehensive international inspections of its nuclear energy program, has increased concerns in Washington that Egypt could seek its own nuclear deterrent, if Iran violates the 2015 nuclear deal. This theory is substantiated by the IAEA’s discovery of highly enriched uranium at Ishas in 2007 and 2008, which occurred in spite of Mubarak’s rhetorical commitment to a nuclear-free Middle East.

As the United States and Russia both oppose Egypt’s procurement of nuclear weapons, North Korea could be a useful supplier of nuclear material to Egypt, if Cairo seeks to revive its uranium enrichment program. As many defense analysts believe that rising tensions between the U.S. and Egypt under Sisi increase the risk of Egypt procuring its own nuclear deterrent, Trump’s decision to cut aid to Egypt could convince Sisi to expand Cairo’s long-standing defense partnership with North Korea. This outcome would underscore the inefficacy of international sanctions against the DPRK and lead to a profound political backlash against Trump’s use of coercive diplomacy with Egypt.

Even though the United States has been Egypt’s principal great power ally for four decades, Egypt has refused to give up its long-standing economic, diplomatic and military partnership with North Korea. Therefore, Trump’s unexpected decision to cut foreign aid to Egypt leaves Sisi with an uncomfortable choice between reluctantly kowtowing to U.S. demands and risking a long-term suspension of the Washington-Cairo security partnership.

Samuel Ramani is a DPhil candidate in International Relations at St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford. He is also a journalist who writes regularly for the Washington Post and Huffington Post. He can be followed on Twitter at samramani2 and on Facebook at Samuel Ramani.

 

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http://www.janes.com/article/73364/china-releases-civil-military-integration-plan

Industry
China releases civil-military integration plan

Jon Grevatt, Bangkok - IHS Jane's Defence Industry
25 August 2017

The Chinese government has published a plan to shape the country's near-term objectives in relation to its civil-military integration (CMI) strategy.

The plan was published on 23 August by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Central Military Commission's (CMC's) Science and Technology Commission (STC), which was established in 2016.

According to state-run news reports, the plan presents some priority CMI policies from 2017 until 2020.

These include strengthening top-level design and planning, facilitating greater resource sharing between military and civilian institutions, supporting the commercialisation of military and civilian technologies, investment in additional research and development (R&D) facilities, and establishing dedicated CMI training programmes.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/...m.html?rref=collection/sectioncollection/asia

ASIA PACIFIC

A Pacifist Japan Starts to Embrace the Military

By MOTOKO RICH
AUG. 29, 2017

GOTEMBA, Japan — The Japanese soldiers jumped out of the jeeps, unloaded the antitank missiles and dropped to the ground. Within minutes, they aimed and fired, striking hypothetical targets nearly a half-mile away.

The audience of more than 26,000, crammed into bleachers and picnicking on camouflage-patterned mats on the ground, clapped appreciatively, murmuring “Sugoi!” — or “Wow!”— during live-fire drills conducted over the weekend by Japan’s military here in the foothills of Mount Fuji.

Pacifism has been a sacred tenet of Japan’s national identity since the end of World War II, when the United States pushed to insert a clause renouncing war into the country’s postwar Constitution. But there are signs that the public’s devotion to pacifism — and its attitude toward the Japanese military, known as the Self-Defense Forces — have begun to change, in part at the urging of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Mr. Abe’s slow, steady efforts to remove pacifist constraints on the military may have gotten help Tuesday, when North Korea fired a ballistic missile that sailed over Japan’s northern island, Hokkaido, prompting the government to issue television and cellphone alerts warning residents in its path to take cover. It was the first time North Korea had flown a missile over Japanese territory without the pretext of launching a satellite. The missile landed harmlessly in the Pacific Ocean, but Mr. Abe called it an “unprecedented, grave and serious threat.”

“We have been living in peace for such a long time that we believe this peace is going to last forever,” said Ichiro Miyazoe, 74, walking in the Ikebukuro neighborhood of Tokyo after the latest test from Pyongyang on Tuesday. “Japan has had a weak attitude, like a losing dog. We must have a stronger military.”

Although the Japanese public has long been ambivalent about Mr. Abe’s agenda — polls show that about half or more disagree with his efforts to revise the pacifist clause of the Constitution — its fascination with the military has been growing.

Applications for tickets to attend the Fuji drills were oversubscribed by a factor of nearly six to one this year. According to polls by the prime minister’s cabinet office, the number of those who say they are interested in the Self-Defense Forces has risen to 71 percent in 2015, up from about 55 percent in the late 1980s.

Manga comics and anime television shows like “Gate,” which feature the Self-Defense Forces fighting against supernatural creatures, have grown popular, while online matchmaking sites offering dates with soldiers have become trendy.

Of course, such activities do not necessarily translate into a desire for a more assertive national defense policy. The most important function of the Self-Defense Forces is disaster relief, and support for the forces soared in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, when troops rescued victims and restored disaster-ravaged zones.

But at events like the Fuji live-fire drills, some members of the public are starting to consider the possibility that their military could be called upon to perform more than live exercises or disaster relief.

“Once the U.S. or South Korea engages in a war, Japan will also have to take part,” said Masaaki Ishihara, 60, a manager at a construction company in Yokohama who attended the Sunday drills with his wife, 9-year-old son and a friend. “Japan will be forced to get involved.”

Despite the festival-like atmosphere, with people eating flavored shaved ice and snapping up T-shirts, model tanks and military-themed cookies at souvenir stands, Mr. Ishihara’s wife, Takako, 49, said the exercises felt “like a real battle.”

“I got scared watching it,” Ms. Ishihara said. “Will peace really continue?”

With the rising threats in the region, Mr. Abe has repeatedly called for a constitutional revision to allow Japan to expand its military capabilities. Japan is protected by its alliance with the United States, but Mr. Abe and his supporters believe the country needs to do more on its own.

Two years ago, Mr. Abe pushed through security laws that permit Japan’s troops to participate in overseas combat missions. The Japanese government has also proposed defense spending increases for six years running, and the Defense Ministry recently announced it would request funds to purchase an American missile defense system, known as Aegis Ashore, that can intercept missiles midflight above the earth’s atmosphere.

Even as it has grown anxious about the threats, the Japanese public, as citizens of the only country to have experienced the horrors of nuclear war, has remained steadfastly committed to its war-renouncing charter. Before the security laws were passed in 2015, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tokyo to oppose them.

Protesters also regularly show up at American bases in Okinawa to object to the U.S. military presence. There are currently about 54,000 U.S. troops in Japan.

Analysts said the public has yet to reckon with just how far they are willing to go in the name of national security.

“I think that ordinary people tacitly want to avoid thinking about a potential contradiction between the notion of the pacifist clause of the Constitution and the reality of changes in Japanese defense policies,” said Jiro Yamaguchi, a professor of political science at Hosei University.

Shinobu Mori, 52, who drove 120 miles with her daughter to attend the annual rite of military Kabuki theater near Mount Fuji, said she enjoyed the display but hoped the firepower would never actually be used. “I grew up in a peaceful era,” she said. “So I would like to pass that on to the next generation.”

Tuesday’s missile launch generated a sense of mild panic, with some private train lines halting service for about 20 minutes. An announcement at Tokyo station around 6 a.m. warned commuters that a missile from North Korea was flying over Japan and told them to take cover in a train car or waiting room.

Joe @jtnarsico
I woke up with a Siren and an announcement that North Korea launched a missile that would possibly hit cities within Hokkaido.
2:30 PM - Aug 28, 2017 · Hakodate-shi, Hokkaido
312 312 Replies 5,281 5,281 Retweets 4,636 4,636 likes​

On social media, one Twitter user described “a red pillar of fire” falling from the sky toward Hokkaido. “The only thing I can do is self-defense in this world,” he wrote. “It’s important to be ready. We cannot deny that World War III might be close.”

Japan has long interpreted its pacifist Constitution to allow it to conduct self-defense operations, and it has more than 225,000 active-duty troops and advanced armaments like naval destroyers equipped with sophisticated missile defense and fighter jets.

But over time, the government has nudged the definition of self-defense into a more assertive posture. Recently, it has quietly discussed the possibility of acquiring cruise missiles allowing it to pre-emptively strike a missile launch site if it detected signs of an imminent attack.

Some analysts say Japan’s notion of pacifism has always contained contradictions.

“It is faux pacifism, and it always has been,” said Grant Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine colonel and a research fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies. “It is predicated on the perspective that Japan faces no threats.”

Indeed, from the moment it was inserted into the Constitution, the pacifist clause has been fluid, with the historian John Dower calling it “a miasma of ambiguity.”

Most experts say that it would be politically difficult to change the Constitution, but that a debate needs to move from mainly political and academic circles to include the wider public.

“I don’t think it’s going to change, but the general public’s sentiment may be moving towards that direction if this threat continues to increase,” said Masako Toki, a research associate with the Nonproliferation Education Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Liberals continue to oppose a military buildup in Japan, but some analysts say younger people don’t understand the dangerous stakes of tilting toward militarism.

“I think there is a whole generation that has basically not done a good job of going beyond embracing pacifism,” to explain to younger people why it is important, said Sabine Frühstück, professor of modern Japanese cultural studies at U.C. Santa Barbara and the author of “Playing War: Children and the Paradoxes of Modern Militarism in Japan.”

“It’s one of these things that has become a black box in Japan,” Ms. Frühstück said of pacifism, “in the sense of ‘this is just what we got and how things are supposed to be.’”

Miyuki Nakayama, 23, a student leader of the Public for the Future, a group that opposes military action, said people have simply forgotten the lessons of World War II. “They don’t imagine a war might be real in the future,” Ms. Nakayama said.

Reporting was contributed by Makiko Inoue, Hisako Ueno, Kaho Futagami and Thisanka Siripala from Tokyo.


ELATED COVERAGE
North Korea Fires Missile Over Japan AUG. 28, 2017

Shinzo Abe Announces Plan to Revise Japan’s Pacifist Constitution MAY 3, 2017

Looming War Games Alarm North Korea, but May Be a Bargaining Chip AUG. 16, 2017

 

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http://www.realcleardefense.com/art...to_russias_standoff_with_the_west_112177.html

A Solution to Russia’s Standoff With the West?

By Sandra Erwin
August 29, 2017

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited Ukraine last week in a show of support for the besieged Eastern European nation. And he issued a stern warning: “Despite Russia's denials, we know they are seeking to redraw international borders by force, undermining the sovereign and free nations of Europe.”

Renewed Pentagon efforts to shore up Ukraine’s military and stepped up involvement in military exercises in the region are stark reminders that relations between Russia and NATO continue on a downward spiral.

Russia’s aggressive actions in Eastern Europe, combined with its attempts to meddle in the 2016 U.S. elections, have created a foreign policy crisis that nobody in Washington or Brussels seems to know how to resolve.

So here comes an idea from Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution: Freeze NATO at its current size and create an “arc of neutrality” spanning from Europe’s far north to its south — including Finland and Sweden; Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus; Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan; Cyprus plus Serbia, as well as possibly other Balkan states.

This “alternative security architecture,” O’Hanlon contends, “could do much to transform NATO-Russian relations.” He believes this could help turn over a new leaf with Vladimir Putin, defusing tensions and taking the region off its war footing.

“The big idea proposed here is this: NATO should not expand further into Eastern Europe,” O’Hanlon argues in a new Brookings paper titled “Beyond NATO.”

The notion of the military alliance suddenly reversing course on growing its membership may seem like an act of capitulation to Putin, but it also could be viewed as a win-win, O’Hanlon says. Ukraine and Georgia, in particular, have been publicly and officially promised future NATO membership, but with no specificity about when or how that might be achieved. “As a result, they are strategically exposed. They enjoy no current benefit of Article V protection guarantees, yet Russia has extra incentive to keep them in its crosshairs.”

As countries become more unstable, it “reduces to near nil the odds that NATO will, in fact, commit firmly to offer them membership.”

O’Hanlon says his proposed East European security architecture would be preferable to NATO membership for countries like Ukraine and Georgia “for the simple reason that it is a far more credible and attainable arrangement.”

Many foreign policy experts share O’Hanlon’s view that NATO’s rapid expansion has fueled the current crisis. “Whether most Russians truly see NATO as a physical threat is a question, but many do see it as an insult — a psychologically and politically imposing former enemy that has approached right up to their border,” he says.

An alliance of just 12 countries when it was created in 1949, NATO grew to 16 members by the end of the Cold War and has added another 13 countries since then. Russia has reacted aggressively to NATO’s eastward growth, says O’Hanlon. “If the Trump administration is serious about its worthy goal of improving U.S. relations with Russia, how exactly can it do so?” he asks. “It may be possible to reduce the risks of rivalry and war by focusing on what may be, in Putin’s mind, the fundamental cause of the problem: NATO expansion.”

That does not mean the United States should abandon friends like Ukraine and Georgia. “However, there is likely a better way to help them,” he says. Creating a buffer zone in Eastern Europe would require that both Russia and NATO commit to uphold the security of Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and other states in the region, suggests O’Hanlon. Russia would have to withdraw its troops from those countries, and corresponding sanctions would be lifted.

O’Hanlon tells RealClearDefense that, so far, nobody from the Trump administration has reacted to or commented on his proposal. “I don't have any insight into whether there would be support from the Trump administration for this, but I hope so, as it would seem to fit with the president's interest in exploring ways to get along better with Russia without lowering our guard in any way.”

Any path that would lead to a more peaceful coexistence should be worth exploring, he insists. The acrimony in U.S.-Russian and NATO-Russian relations has not only been detrimental to global security but also has impeded cooperation on urgent matters such as the security of nuclear materials. “There is also little reason to think that, left essentially on geostrategic autopilot, the relationship will markedly improve in the years ahead.”

Until the crisis simmers down, countries in Eastern Europe will continue to fret about the prospect of a Russian invasion. NATO has stationed about 5,000 troops, “a modest force, more of a tripwire than a forward defense,” in the Baltic States and Poland, O’Hanlon notes.

In military bases across the region this summer, tens of thousands of troops from the United States and 23 other countries staged combat drills that were far more sophisticated and complex than in years past. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford recently characterized Russia as the “most capable state actor that we face.”

As to whether Putin would even consider this proposed security architecture idea, O’Hanlon says it is hard to predict. The incentives may not be there yet for the Russian president to want to negotiate.

“Putin may feel he is in an advantageous position to continue to try to weaken NATO, and the European Union more generally, by stoking various conflicts, promoting and supporting extremist leaders in Western Europe, fomenting dissent in American politics, and generally keeping the major democratic powers guessing as to what will happen next,” says O’Hanlon. “Putin may also welcome an ongoing standoff with the West for the additional excuses it provides him for his strongman behavior at home and his aggressiveness abroad,” he adds. “The outcome of any effort to create a new security architecture is, therefore of course, uncertain but it should be attempted nonetheless.”

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.

Editor's Note: For more on NATO, see RealClearWorld's interview with Michael O'Hanlon:

 

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http://thediplomat.com/2017/08/china-quietly-looms-over-zapad-2017-exercises/

China Quietly Looms Over Zapad 2017 Exercises

Any Russian aggression out of the exercises could hurt Sino-Russian relations.

By Nicholas Trickett
August 28, 2017

As Russia prepares for the Zapad exercises in September with its partner Belarus – the largest military exercise since the Cold War – many regional and transatlantic observers are, understandably, worried. Putting aside the alarmist rhetoric of potential Russian aggression, much less attention is paid to the unintended consequences of Russian actions aimed at destabilizing Belarus, Ukraine, or other regional actors.

Most coverage of Zapad ignores the presence of a new player in Eastern Europe: China. Russia may be entertaining provocative action with the exercise, but anything Russia could do would undermine China’s economic interests in the region and, by extension, Russia’s relationship with its so-called strategic partner.

China and Crimea

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Ukraine was originally China’s gateway into Europe when the Belt and Road Initiative was first articulated in 2013. Then-president Viktor Yanukovych went to China hoping to procure state-to-state loans in the wake of his rejection of an EU association agreement, a move welcomed by Moscow that triggered a political chain reaction leading to his ouster. Whether the loans would have kept him in power is unclear but they never materialized. Those loans aside, Chinese telecoms entrepreneur Wang Jing also proposed to build a $3 billion deepwater port in Sevastopol – home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Crimea – along with $7 billion in further infrastructure investments in early December as political crisis spread.

The potential investment into the port coincided with an agreement to lease 3 million hectares of Ukrainian farmland earlier that fall as well as talks to open China’s market to certain Ukrainian agricultural exports. Corn was of particular interest for China, since it has historically relied on imports from the United States. Ukraine quickly became an important food security partner, accounting for close to half of China’s corn import needs based on the United States Department of Agriculture’s 2017 estimates, roughly 1.4 million tons so far this year. Since then, China has slowly increased access for Ukrainian dairy producers and other food exporters. China’s acute food security concerns make Ukraine a logical partner given its agricultural potential.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea and military involvement in the Donbas put China’s foreign policy stance of non-interference in others’ domestic politics to the test. The EU is China’s largest trade partner. Their mutual trade was worth about 1.4 billion euros a day in 2016 and the two parties have been negotiating an agreement on investment since November 2013. There was no conceivable way that China could recognize the annexation at the time, opting to abstain from a vote in the United Nations (UN) discouraging the recognition of Crimea’s legal status. To date, China supports a peaceful resolution that takes into account the interests of all sides, knowing full well that such a resolution is not a possibility for the foreseeable future.

Ukraine as Transit Hub

Plans to invest into Crimea fell apart quickly. Doing so would have been a tacit recognition of the annexation, infuriating Western partners and guaranteeing sour relations with Kyiv. Talk of investing into a deepwater port in Ukraine dissipated, but local authorities kept it alive in the news to lie about the peninsula’s business prospects. China’s trade and investment interests pivoted towards the mainland, including the proposed port project.

Ukraine reached a Deep Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) agreement with the EU in 2015, eliminating 98.1 percent of EU tariff duties on Ukrainian goods and services. In response, Russia began an escalating series of road and rail transit bans to other countries through Russia, which Ukraine has answered in kind.

The bans added new impetus to trade through the Trans-Caspian corridor, buoyed by the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway (BTK) in the South Caucasus. The first train is expected to travel the line next month, making transit of Chinese goods through the region that much more attractive. Cargo transshipments through Azerbaijan’s Alat Port – dependent on the BTK to sustain itself – have grown 43.5 percent this year and Black Sea ports such as Constanta in Romania are joining the Trans-Caspian route. All the member states of the corridor have begun work on harmonizing tariffs and border practices.

With better market access, it has become more attractive for China to source production in Ukraine in the future as well as invest in its ports and roads. The China Harbor Engineering Company (CHEC) won a contract to dredge and upgrade the Ukrainian port of Yuzhny north of Odessa. The China Export-Import Bank was recently approached to finance a bridge project in Kremenchuk, showing growing interest in infrastructure in the country. Ukraine expects to spend nearly $2 billion next year on road construction and is reportedly in talks with China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) to construct the nation’s first concrete highway connecting Odessa and Kherson. China has effectively pivoted from Crimea to the mainland and though the Trans-Caspian route remains too expensive to be competitive for Ukrainian firms, China can afford to subsidize its own exports.

Ukraine has eased the visa regime for Chinese businessmen, trade turnover grew 5.3 percent in 2016 reaching $6.51 billion, and the two countries have signaled interest in low-level security cooperation. Turnover is small for China, but brick and mortar projects will cement Chinese interest and capital flows into the country. That the DCFTA has made Ukraine an attractive market has undercut Russia’s economic pull. China is unconcerned about reform unlike European partners, something Kyiv may find useful in the near future as Trans-Caspian trade grows and port concessions are awarded.

Belarus as Launch Pad

Belarus’ rising significance for China’s aims in Eastern Europe comes as a result of growing investment, targeted trade, and most importantly, transit of Chinese goods to Europe by rail. Increases in transit also concern the Baltic States looking to find new trade opportunities. Transit volumes on Belarus’ rail network were up 30.4 percent for the first 7 months of 2017 year-on-year in tariff ton-kilometers, 8.85 billion thus far or 89.1 percent of Belarus’ own exports by rail in that time. Belarus’ transit rail trade is now nearly as large as its own exports by rail.

Most of that growth is due to greater container volumes by rail from Russia and other Eurasian Economic Union states like Kazakhstan, driven by routes and exports subsidized by China. Some transit growth comes from Russian goods headed to Ukraine due to transit bans on their border. After significant drop-off in the wake of the Ukraine crisis, trade turnover between Belarus and Ukraine has grown 26 percent so far in 2017 year-on-year from the nearly $4 billion in trade last year. Turnover is complicated by the fact that Belarusian firms trade with the Donbas and all increase in oil exports to Ukraine originate in Russia. China can use both countries as stepping-stones to supply chains in the Baltics and Poland without the same level of oversight required in EU member states.

Belarus began looking to China for infrastructure investment back in 2013 to lessen dependence on Russia and avoid European complaints on human rights. The most visible projects kicked around have been the Great Stone industrial park near Minsk and the creation of a logistics hub in Bolbasovo. Bolbasovo is also intended to become a trade hub for China to relocate production, but remains early in development.

Great Stone existed largely on paper until this May when the first sub-park was commissioned ahead of the Belt and Road Summit. Great Stone is meant to capitalize on Belarus’ labor costs so that Chinese companies can cheaply manufacture cars and higher-tech products. Doing so allows them to piggyback onto Belarus’ customs union with Russia, avoid negotiating with obstinate Russian companies for market access in Russia proper, and also sell to Eastern European EU member states. China and Belarus are considering a $585 million joint investment fund designed to attract companies to Great Stone. Of the 15 companies now claiming residency in the park, 11 are Chinese. President Lukashenko also has gone as far as to suggest military-industrial firms from China could open shop, a signal aimed at Moscow.

Just as in Ukraine, China has sought agricultural imports from Belarus. Belarus was granted market access for beef and poultry exports this year and Chinese investors have expressed willingness to invest up to $1 billion into the sector at large. Doing so would help Belarus reach its own export targets for its Agribiz-2020 plan. Most importantly, the two countries have signed a protocol for border cooperation, forming a basis for greater trade opportunities down the road.

Unintended Consequences

To be clear, the odds Russia will meet the expectations of more fearful rhetoric around the Zapad exercises are quite low. Michael Kofman’s overview is instructive in showing that more paranoid fears reflect much more on the West’s insecurities than facts on the ground and in the Russian general staff dictate. But if some form of aggression — hybrid or conventional — were to occur, Russia would risk further strategic isolation given its dependence on China.

Take China’s financial role for Russian firms and the Russian economy. Billions in Sino-Russian financing deals are covering budget holes in Moscow, such as the recent $11 billion financing agreement for the Russia Direct Investment Fund and Vneshekonombank (VEB), both under sanctions. State oil giant Rosneft is now searching for Chinese capital to plug budget holes, and may sell off shares of the company to Chinese partners. Chinese financing has kept Novatek’s LNG project on Yamal afloat. The Russia-China Investment Fund (RCIF) is supposed to invest $500 million in Russian projects this year. Russia’s central bank has even opened a Beijing office and some proffered the idea of issuing Yuan-denominated bonds, though the idea hasn’t taken root due to disagreements between banks on the efficacy of the policy. China has been a lifeline, but a cautious one.

All rail transit through Russia now funnels through Belarus because of transit bans with Ukraine. Anything that would provoke Poland to squeeze rail transit through Russia or interrupt transit flows through Belarus would force China to focus yet more on Trans-Caspian trade. A serious destabilization of Ukraine would harm China’s Black Sea toehold into European markets and a chain of investments stretching from Xinjiang to Georgia. Russia can write off investments it desperately needs into its own rail system if transit routes are interrupted or seriously threatened.

The issue isn’t just economic. China will have to spend political capital to compartmentalize its deals with Russia from its interest in infrastructure projects in more illiberal or dissatisfied members of the EU or states in Europe. China has already bought EU silence on the South China Sea through investment into Greece and Hungary, but has to play a careful game as scrutiny ratchets up on strategic investment policies. Greater EU concern over Chinese influence may lead to more forceful policy responses to projects in Greece, the Balkans, and Central Europe. China is increasingly perceived as a threat to European unity like Russia, a threat that becomes more pressing with aggressive Russian action this September.

Russia would likely lose a considerate audience in Beijing on important issues were it to undermine China’s economic strategy in Eastern Europe and force China to save face with major European partners. While China can build all the fences it wants for its trade partners, it can’t sit on them forever when an avowed strategic partner threatens their sovereignty and security. Russian leaders best not forget as Putin switches to social spending in an election year with the considerable financial aid of his counterparts in Beijing.

Nicholas Trickett holds an M.A. in Eurasian studies through the European University at St. Petersburg with a focus on energy security and Russian foreign policy.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-says-war-games-are-purely-defensive-1504018667

WORLD

Russia Says War Games Are ‘Purely Defensive’

Military exercises planned for Baltic Sea region are highlighting tensions between NATO and Moscow

By Nathan Hodge
Aug. 29, 2017 10:57 a.m. ET
25 COMMENTS
MOSCOW—The Russian military dismissed Western concerns over a major war game that has underscored Cold War-style tensions in the Baltic Sea region, as the U.S. further beefed up its presence there.

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Alexander Fomin said Tuesday the joint-Russian-Belarusian exercises, which will take place in September partly on Belarus’s border with NATO members Lithuania and Poland, would be of “a purely defensive nature,” testing the ability of troops to respond to a hypothetical adversary.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials have warned the maneuvers, planned amid a military buildup in the region by the alliance and Russia, could serve as a screen for Russia to deploy more military equipment and heighten the risk of an accident or miscalculation that could touch off a crisis.

The U.S. has deployed a tank brigade to Central and Eastern Europe, part of a larger deterrent force covering NATO’s eastern flank. On Tuesday, it sent seven F-15C Eagle fighter planes from a base in the U.K. to Lithuania to take over NATO’s Baltic air policing mission from Poland, a larger-than-normal deployment of aircraft.

Poland had deployed four F-16s, but the U.S. is increasing the size of its deployment because of NATO’s expectation of increased Russian military operations. The U.S. will also deploy 140 airmen to Lithuania to support the mission.

Russia is stationing a more robust presence, including missiles and new army units, moves it says are designed to counter NATO deployments.

Gen. Fomin said Western media and politicians had been “spreading myths about the so-called Russian threat” in advance of the exercise, known as Zapad 2017.

“The most unbelievable scenarios on how events will unfold are being offered,” he said.

NATO officials have cast doubt on official Russian figures about the size of the exercise and complained about a lack of transparency. In his Tuesday briefing, Gen. Fomin said a total of 12,700 service members would be involved in the exercise, the majority of whom—7,200 troops—would be from Belarus.

Gen. Fomin added that 70 aircraft and helicopters would participate, along with 680 combat vehicles, including 250 tanks, and 10 warships.

The number of troops Russia says is taking part remains under the threshold of 13,000 that would require international observers to attend the drills. The Russian military said foreign military attachés would be invited to observe exercises on Sept. 18.

NATO officials say they expect there may be substantially more troops participating than the officially quoted numbers.

The Russian military says the exercise is meant to simulate both conventional combat and antiterrorist operations. According to the Tuesday briefing, the exercise is built around a scenario in which “extremist groups” supported and equipped by some external power penetrate Belarus and the Kaliningrad region, an exclave of Russia sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.

The exercise will have two major phases. In the first, Russian-Belarusian forces will deploy to counter enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups, and stand up a group of air forces and air-defense units to protect important government installations, the Russian military said. In the second stage, the units will test command and control during combat operations.


In addition, Baltic fleet ships will rehearse a blockade to prevent “bandit formations” from withdrawing by sea.

In Brussels on Tuesday, NATO ambassadors, including the newly appointed U.S. representative Kay Bailey Hutchison, met in a closed session to discuss the Zapad exercise, allied officials said.

—Julian E. Barnes in Brussels contributed to this article.

Corrections & Amplifications
Kay Bailey Hutchison’s name was misspelled in an earlier version of this article. (08/29)

Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com

 

[Housecarl]

Well here's another one going hot.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/rohingya-men-answer-call-arms-against-myanmars-forces-050447346.html

Rohingya men answer call to arms against Myanmar's forces

Sam JAHAN, AFP • August 28, 2017

Cox's Bazar (Bangladesh) (AFP) - Heavily pregnant and confined to a squalid Bangladeshi refugee camp, Ayesha Begum does not regret that her husband will miss the imminent birth of their sixth child as he fights alongside Rohingya militants in Myanmar.

Begum, 25, joined the exodus of Rohingya fleeing troubled Rakhine State in recent days as fresh violence erupted between Myanmar's security forces and militants fighting for the stateless Muslim minority.

But like many, her husband stayed behind in Myanmar to join the growing ranks of Rohingya men answering the call to arms against security forces, say relatives and community leaders.

"He took us to the river and sent us across," Begum told AFP in Kutupalong camp, describing crossing the Naf River by boat with her children into Bangladesh.

"He bid us farewell, saying if I live he'd see us soon in a free Arakan (Rakhine state) or else we'll meet in heaven," she added, breaking down in tears.

The Rohingya largely eschewed violence despite years of suffocating restrictions and persecution.

That dramatically changed last October when a nascent Rohingya militant group launched surprise attacks on border posts.

Myanmar's military reacted with a violent "clearance operation" to sweep out the militants. The UN says that crackdown could have amounted to ethnic cleansing.

Despite the sweeps, violence continued as remote villages were hit by near-daily killings of perceived state collaborators attributed to operatives of the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army (ARSA).

The militants struck again on a large scale on Friday, with scores attacking around 30 police posts in pre-dawn raids, killing at least a dozen security force members using knives, homemade explosives and some guns.

This time the security response has seen more than 100 people, including some 80 militants, confirmed killed and prodded thousands of Rohingya civilians to dash for Bangladesh.

But the country, which already hosts tens of thousands of refugees from the Muslim minority in the Cox's Bazar area, has refused entry to any more.

Those unable to sneak in are stranded along the "zero line" border zone, where Bangladeshi officials have noticed a conspicuous absence of men among the civilians crowding the checkposts.

"We asked them what happened to their men. They said they all stayed back to fight," a Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) commander told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

- 'Fight or die' -

At the border Rohingya elder Shah Alam, a community leader from Rakhine state, said 30 young men from three villages in his district joined ARSA "for our freedom".

"Do they have any other choice? They chose to fight and die rather than be slaughtered like sheep," he told AFP.

The previously unknown militant group has claimed responsibility for the attacks in October and more recent strikes against Myanmar's security forces, urging fellow Rohingya to join the fight.

Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi has accused the group of atrocities including using child soldiers, allegations the militants deny.

The government department directly run by Suu Kyi -- the State Counsellor's Office -- has classified the ARSA as "terrorists" and released a flurry of statements and grim pictures of civilians allegedly shot dead by militants.

But ARSA's rallying cry is being answered in Rohingya camps across Bangladesh, despite some doubts over whether their rag-tag units -- seemingly mainly armed with knives and homemade weapons -- can defeat Myanmar troops.

But one young rebel told AFP his Rohingya comrades were determined to fight on, despite the odds.

"There are hundreds of us hiding in the hills. We took an oath to save Arakan, even if it is with sticks and small knives," said the rebel, who declined to give his name, near the border in Bangladesh.

Many of those Rohingya displaced by the violence say they barely escaped with their lives.

They describe Buddhist mobs and security forces shooting unarmed civilians and burning down homes, an abuse repeatedly documented in Rakhine since the upswing in conflict.

For many, it was the final straw.

"Young people are fed up," said one prominent Rohingya activist in Bangladesh who asked to remain anonymous.

"They grew up witnessing humiliation and persecution, so the current consensus among the Rohingya community is unless you fight, they're not going to give us any of our rights."

Outside a camp in Cox's Bazar two young Rohingya men were anxious to join the fight, describing it as "farj" -- a religious duty -- to join the "freedom fighters" in Rakhine.

"We don't have any options. Our backs are on the wall. Even the teenagers in our villagers have joined the fight," one of the men told AFP, vowing "to cross the border on the first chance".

Just one of Hafeza Khatun's three sons crossed with her into Bangladesh last month, the older two staying back to fight.

But her youngest joined them a week later at his mother's blessing, returning to battle Myanmar's security forces "who would kill us anyway" without resistance, she said.

"They are fighting for our rights. I sent my sons to fight for independence. I sacrificed them for Arakan," she told AFP.

128 reactions

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.france24.com/en/20170830-64-dead-clashes-between-syria-regime-monitor

30 August 2017 - 11H20

64 dead in clashes between Syria regime and IS: monitor

BEIRUT (AFP)*-*Fierce fighting between Syrian government forces and the Islamic State group has killed 64 combatants in Raqa province over a 24-hour period, a monitoring group said Wednesday.

The clashes come with the army pressing an advance through Raqa, in northern Syria, towards neighbouring Deir Ezzor, the only remaining province of the war-ravaged country still in the hands of IS jihadists.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said the fighting had claimed the lives of 38 jihadists and 26 pro-regime combatants since Tuesday morning.

It takes to 145 the overall death toll in six days of fighting in villages on the banks of the Euphrates River in the east of Raqa province, near Deir Ezzor.

IS said in a statement on Tuesday that its members had killed dozens of regime combatants in "intense fighting lasting hours".

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that the regime was fighting to secure a foothold in Raqa province "in order to advance in Deir Ezzor".

The jihadists have laid seige to government forces and civilians in the provincial capital of Deir Ezzor since 2015.

Earlier this month, government troops and allied fighters arrived at the outskirts of Madan, the last IS-held town in the countryside of eastern Raqa province before Deir Ezzor.

But IS launched a counterattack last week that pushed the regime forces back, and fighting has since continued.

The Syria army operation in the area, backed by air support from ally Russia, is separate from the battle for provincial capital Raqa city.

The effort to oust IS from the city is being led by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....missed this one....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.france24.com/en/20170823...mic-aid-egypt-citing-poor-human-rights-record

US slashes military and economic aid to Egypt, citing poor human rights record

Latest update : 2017-08-24

The Trump administration cut or delayed hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Cairo, citing human rights concerns, hours before Egypt's president and foreign minister met with White House adviser Jared Kushner on Wednesday.

Kushner, who is also President Donald Trump's son-in-law, was in Cairo as part of a Middle East tour aimed at exploring ways to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which last collapsed in 2014.

A modified version of Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry's schedule had earlier showed the meeting with Kushner cancelled, which was widely seen as a snub in protest at the aid cuts. But Shoukry later sat in on Kushner's meeting with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and met with the American delegation separately at the Foreign Ministry.

Kushner's delegation includes Jason Greenblatt, the U.S. envoy for international negotiations, and Dina Powell, the deputy national security adviser.

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, citing Egypt's poor human rights record and its crackdown on civic and other non-governmental groups.

The move came as a surprise to many, given the close ties forged since Trump took office. The U.S. president has repeatedly hailed el-Sissi as a key ally in the fight against terrorism.

In a statement, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said Cairo regretted the U.S. decision, calling it a "misjudgment of the nature of the strategic relations that have bound the two countries for decades."

It said the move "reflects the lack of careful understanding of the importance of supporting the stability and success of Egypt as well as the size and nature of the security and economic challenges faced by the Egyptian people." The decision, it warned, may have "negative consequences for the realization of common U.S.-Egyptian interests." It did not elaborate.

Egypt is among the top recipients of U.S. military and economic assistance, receiving about $1.5 billion annually. The $1.3 billion in military aid and $250 million in economic aid is linked to Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, and underpins a U.S.-Egyptian security relationship that is now mostly aimed at fighting terrorism.

In recent years, Egypt has clamped down on civil society, particularly human rights groups and other organizations that receive foreign funding. Such groups played a central role in the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, and pro-government media often present them as part of a conspiracy to undermine the state.

The authorities have arrested thousands of people since el-Sissi led the 2013 military overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist who won the country's first freely contested election.

Most of those in detention are Islamist supporters of Morsi, but a number of prominent liberal and secular activists have also been jailed.

Trump made no public mention of human rights when he warmly welcomed el-Sissi to the White House in April, an omission that many took as a sign that the issue was not a priority for the administration.

But two months later, two senators from Trump's Republican Party slammed as "draconian" a new Egyptian law that effectively bans the work of non-governmental organizations and urged its repeal.

Egypt has defended the law, which provoked an international backlash, saying it was drafted and approved according to its constitution.

Egypt is grappling with an insurgency by Islamic militants in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, an ailing economy and a rapidly growing population of 93 million. The militants, led by a local affiliate of the extremist Islamic State group, have in recent months targeted Egypt's large Christian minority, killing scores in a spate of attacks.

Kushner has meanwhile been trying to revive Middle East peace talks, which last collapsed in 2014. He has made little evident progress, and has yet to lay out a clear vision for what Trump has called the "ultimate deal."

He and his delegation traveled to Jordan on Tuesday, where they met with King Abdullah II. They also visited Saudi Arabia and Qatar, according to local media reports.

On Thursday, the delegation is expected to hold separate meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but no major breakthroughs are expected.

Trump has yet to fully endorse a two-state solution, which has been at the heart of U.S. policy for nearly two decades. He has said it's up to Israel and the Palestinians to decide the shape of a final settlement.

(AP)
Date created : 2017-08-23

 

[northern watch]

Daily Express‏Verified account @Daily_Express · 1m1 minute ago

World War 3? Pakistan blasts Donald Trump as 'HOSTILE' after President threatens Islamabad

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://warontherocks.com/2017/08/countering-chinese-coercion-the-case-of-doklam/

COUNTERING CHINESE COERCION: THE CASE OF DOKLAM

ORIANA SKYLAR MASTRO AND ARZAN TARAPORE
AUGUST 29, 2017

Editor’s Note: This is the fifth installment of “Southern (Dis)Comfort,” a new series from War on the Rocks and the Stimson Center. The series seeks to unpack the dynamics of intensifying competition — military, economic, diplomatic — in Southern Asia, principally between China, India, Pakistan, and the United States. Catch up on the rest of the series here.

Two nuclear-armed powers have stepped back from the brink — for now. Yesterday India and China announced they had agreed to end a two-month border confrontation, in which a few hundred troops had faced off in the Doklam area claimed by both China and Bhutan, and many thousands more had been placed on heightened alert. The immediate crisis seems to be over, but it offers tantalizing insights into Chinese coercive strategies and how they may be thwarted. This has implications not only for India in its own land border disputes, but also for several Southeast Asian nations and the United States, as they all confront China’s attempts to expand its control and influence.

Background: The Standoff at Doklam

China had every reason to believe that a short stretch of new road, high in the remote Himalayas, would reinforce its claims on the “tri-junction” where the borders of China, Bhutan, and India meet. In mid-June, Chinese military road crews began to extend a road in an area known as Doklam, disputed by China and Bhutan. The road had been built into the disputed territory as early as 2003, and PLA troops had often conducted foot patrols in the area of the proposed road extension. But China knew the area was disputed, and had acknowledged as much in agreements with Bhutan in 1988 and 1998, and with India in 2012. Extending the road would be a relatively cheap and clear way for Beijing to advance its claims in the dispute. (The details of the competing territorial claims have been ably covered, including here at War on the Rocks.)

Almost immediately after the road crews began their work, however, they were surprised by an Indian Army intervention. Indian troops entered the disputed territory, with at least the tacit consent of Bhutan, and physically impeded the construction of the road. India saw the Chinese encroachment as a threat to its security and its regional influence — it historically regarded Bhutan as a pliant buffer and remains its security guarantor today, even as their alignment has loosened in the past decade. New Delhi denounced the Chinese road building as an attempt to unilaterally change the status quo in contravention of the 2012 agreement.

Monday’s agreement to end the standoff returns to the situation to the status quo ante, exactly as India and Bhutan demanded. Troops from both sides have disengaged, and China claims it will continue patrolling and asserting its sovereignty claims. The official statements are vague on some details, presumably to save face among their respective publics. Most importantly, the statements only imply — rather than saying outright — that China will abandon the road construction that triggered the crisis. Beijing seems to have blinked. What explains this setback for Chinese policy?

China’s Coercion Playbook

China used the same playbook in Doklam as it has in other territorial disputes, especially Vietnam and the Philippines. This playbook usually involves four elements. The first step is to develop a larger or more permanent physical presence in areas where China has already has a degree of de facto control — whether that means new islands in the South China Sea or roads in the Himalayas. Using its military to build infrastructure in the Doklam area was likely an attempt to consolidate China’s control along its southwestern border, including this disputed area where it has patrolled for some time.

This consolidation usually goes hand-in-hand with the second element, coercive diplomacy. Here, China couples its threats or limited military action with diplomatic efforts designed to persuade the target state to change its policies or behavior. The strategy is to put the onus on the other side, often in a weaker position militarily, to risk confrontation over these gradual changes to the status quo. The goal is to ensure the target country does not counter China’s consolidation attempts, and ideally to compel them to engage in bilateral negotiations. It is in such talks that China can then leverage its stronger physical position to secure a favorable settlement.

China has used this model of coercive diplomacy not only against weaker claimants in the South China Sea, but also against the United States. In the 2009 U.S. Naval Ship Impeccable incident, for example, it used coercive diplomacy and other elements of its playbook against U.S. maritime surveillance operations. The Doklam case carried the added enticing prospect of opening new channels of diplomatic communication — and influence — with Bhutan, with which China currently lacks formal diplomatic relations.

Third, China uses legal rhetoric and principles to present its position as legitimate and lawful, thereby staking a claim to a broader legitimizing principle in territorial disputes. In the case of Doklam, China portrayed the Indian response as a violation of Chinese sovereignty — it claimed Indian troops entered Chinese territory through the Sikkim sector of the Sino-Indian border and had been “obstructing Chinese border troop activities.” China declared its road construction was entirely lawful, designed to improve infrastructure for the local people and border patrols. China’s policy position was that the border was delimited in 1890, formally reaffirmed several times since, and reinforced by the routine presence of Chinese troops and herders. Its legal argument thus rested in part on the first element of the playbook: the physical presence that it sought to make permanent with the road at Doklam.

Lastly, China leverages its government-controlled media to highlight its narrative and issue threats. These tend to involve warnings about not underestimating Chinese resolve and the Chinese people’s determination to protect their sovereignty just because China has restrained itself so far. The Chinese media was replete with such articles, warning India, for example, not to “play with fire” lest it “get burned.” They cautioned the Indian government not to be driven by nationalism and arrogance, to avoid miscalculation and repeating the mistakes of the 1962 war. This is not just a war of words; research shows that escalating threats in the media can be a precursor to China’s use of force.

While other countries may also seek to impose a territorial fait accompli — such as Russia in Ukraine — China always follows its multi-pronged playbook. It consistently demonstrates a preference for ambiguity, risk manipulation and controlling the narrative to win without fighting. Any use of coercion — which involves threats and use of force — carries the risk of escalation to conflict, even if China has previously managed to resolve most of its disputes without war. How China advances its claims in South and East Asia will determine whether those regions remain peaceful and stable.

Thwarting Coercion With Denial

China’s playbook, however, did not go according to plan this time, because it did not account for India’s unexpectedly swift and assertive response to its road-building. India did not simply voice displeasure or threaten to punish China if it continued to pursue its territorial claims as the United States and Southeast Asian countries have done in the South China Sea. In those cases, China used its coercive playbook effectively, forcing its adversaries to either back down or raise the ante. And as China’s uncontested gains have shown, its adversaries have generally lacked the capabilities, and especially the political resolve, to escalate crises.

But in this situation, India thwarted China’s coercion through denial — blocking China’s attempt to seize physical control of the disputed territory. By physically denying China’s bid to change the status quo, India created a stalemate, which suited its strategic policy. It did not acquiesce to a Chinese fait accompli, and it did not have to summon the capabilities or resolve to reverse China’s position, which would have risked a general war. India was able to do this because of a local military advantage and its broader policy of standing up to China. As a result, China did not have the option of proceeding under the guise of peaceful legitimate development, per its playbook; pressing its claims on Doklam would have required it to ratchet up military pressure. The stalemate thwarted Chinese coercion — but as long as it lasted, it was pregnant with risks of escalation and conflict.

Disengagement, But Dangers Persist

The immediate risks of conflict have receded, but the border dispute remains unresolved, and the broader Sino-Indian relationship remains fraught. First, on Doklam, while China has backed down for now, its statement that “China will continue fulfilling its sovereign rights to safeguard territorial sovereignty in compliance with the stipulations of the border-related historical treaty” suggests it has not changed its position on the border tri-junction. Indeed, during the standoff, China reportedly offered financial inducements to cleave Bhutan away from its traditional relationship with India — it has other ways, and continued ambitions, to press its claims.

Second, the India-China relationship remains tense, and prone to military risk, especially if China seeks to reassert itself after a perceived slight at Doklam. This could include an incursion somewhere along the India-China Line of Actual Control — indeed, such actions have already been reported. Or China might pursue a “cross-domain” response, for example with punitive cyber attacks or threatening activity in the Indian Ocean.

Third, over the longer term, India should be wary of learning the wrong lessons from the crisis. As one of us has recently written, India has long been preoccupied with the threat of Chinese (and Pakistani) aggression on their common land border. The Doklam standoff may be remembered as even more reason for India to pour more resources into defending its land borders, at the expense of building capabilities and influence in the wider Indian Ocean region. That would only play into China’s hands. Renewed Indian concerns about its land borders will only retard its emergence as an assertive and influential regional power.

The Lessons of Doklam

With the crisis only just being de-escalated, it is too early to derive definitive lessons from Doklam. However, a few policy implications are already apparent. First, Chinese behavior in territorial disputes is more likely to be deterred by denial than by threats of punishment. China will continue the combination of consolidating its physical presence and engaging in coercive diplomacy, lawfare, and media campaigns unless it is stopped directly. This is what India did at Doklam — it directly blocked Chinese efforts to change the status quo. Denial in other areas would require different military tasks — for example, in the Indian Ocean, it may involve anti-submarine warfare and maritime domain awareness.

Second, denial strategies may be effective, but they have their limitations. Denial is inherently risky. Countering China’s playbook involves risks of escalation — which most smaller adversaries, and at times even the United States, are unwilling to accept. Moreover, denial strategies can only serve to halt adversary action, not to reverse what the adversary has already done. As Doklam shows, India could convince China not to proceed with its road-building — but China did not relinquish its claims or its established pattern of presence in the area. Denial by itself offers no pathway to politically resolving the crisis.

Third, the agreement to disengage suggests that Beijing’s position in crises can be flexible, and perhaps responsive to assertive counter-coercion. Domestic audiences, even those in autocracies, often prefer sound judgment to recklessly staying the course. If the Doklam standoff had escalated to a shooting war, anything short of a decisive victory might have put Xi Jinping in an unfavorable position at the 19th Party Congress and hurt the PLA’s image with the Chinese people. But short of that, the Chinese government was always in the position to sell Doklam as a non-event, something the decreasing domestic media coverage suggests it was preparing to do. Beijing will frame the disengagement agreement as further proof of Chinese strength, especially relative to India. As the stronger power, China could magnanimously agree to a mutual disengagement for now while reserving the right to move forward when it sees fit.

Finally, the Doklam agreement, even if it is temporary, tells us that when China confronts a significantly weaker target, such as Bhutan, it will only be deterred by the actions of a stronger third party — in this case, India. Had India not acted, China would likely have been successful in consolidating its control and extracting territorial concessions from Bhutan. Third-party involvement may not be as easy in other cases — India had a privileged position in Bhutan. Such a strategy may also have significant second-order effects. In the near term, it is potentially escalatory — China argued that India has no basis for interfering in this bilateral dispute, and had many options for escalating the crisis at a time and place of its choosing. More broadly, such third-party involvement could intensify geopolitical competition between China and other powers such as the U.S. or India, if they intercede in other countries’ disputes with China. The lesson of Doklam for the United States is that arming small states and imposing incremental costs may not be enough. Washington may have to accept the greater risks associated with intervening more directly if it hopes to counter Chinese expansion in East Asia.


Oriana Skylar Mastro is an assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University. She can be contacted through her website: www.orianaskylarmastro.com. Arzan Tarapore is an adjunct researcher at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation, and a PhD candidate at King’s College London.

-

Southern (Dis)Comfort

AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, AND THE LIMITS OF U.S. INFLUENCE
Southern (Dis)Comfort

CHINA’S MILITARY BASE IN DJIBOUTI: STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS FOR INDIA
Southern (Dis)Comfort

SOUTHERN ASIA’S ESCALATING STRATEGIC COMPETITION
We ha

 

[Housecarl]

Daily Express‏Verified account @Daily_Express · 1m1 minute ago

World War 3? Pakistan blasts Donald Trump as 'HOSTILE' after President threatens Islamabad

I wonder if these guys realize how lucky they actually are considering any other era satrap's leadership down to the district level would have their heads on pikes by now for what they've been up to...

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-blasts-deal-removed-lebanon-syria-border-094840183.html

US airstrikes block evacuation of Islamic State militants

BASSEM MROUE and JOSH LEDERMAN, Associated Press • August 30, 2017

BEIRUT (AP) — U.S. airstrikes blocked the advance of an Islamic State convoy carrying militants toward Iraq on Wednesday, derailing a Hezbollah-negotiated deal that removed the extremists from the Lebanon-Syria border, where they have been for years.

The airstrikes came amid U.S. criticism of the deal, reflecting a growing outrage within the Trump administration over the decision to give the militants safe passage from the battlefield instead of killing them, and Iran-backed Hezbollah's leading role in it.

The developments also were an embarrassment for the U.S.-backed Lebanese military, which agreed to the deal and had declared victory over the militants.

U.S. officials said the airstrikes to disrupt the fleeing militants were intended to send a strong signal that the deal, while helping to clear IS from the border, undermined a broader U.S.-led strategy for defeating the group in Syria and Iraq.

More than 48 hours after they left the Syria-Lebanon border for eastern Syria, the buses carrying 300 militants and almost as many of their relatives were stuck in a desert area on the outskirts of the largely IS-held Deir el-Zour province near the frontier with Iraq.

It is not clear how the standoff will be resolved. Syrian activists say alternate routes are being considered to bring the militants to Boukamal, an IS-controlled town on the Iraqi border, according to the agreement.

But officials of the U.S.-led coalition said they will continue to monitor the convoy and aren't ruling out more airstrikes.

"Irreconcilable (IS) terrorists should be killed on the battlefield, not bused across Syria to the Iraqi border without Iraq's consent," according to a tweet from Brett McGurk, the top U.S. envoy for the anti-Islamic State coalition.

The evacuation deal followed separate but simultaneous weeklong offensives by the Lebanese army on one side of the border and by the Syrian government and Hezbollah on the other. Hezbollah has thousands of fighters shoring up the forces of President Bashar Assad.

Iraq also reacted angrily to the evacuation, with its president saying that moving the militants to the Iraqi-Syrian border was an "insult."

Later Wednesday, the coalition said its warplanes struck a small bridge and cratered a road to hinder the convoy without targeting the evacuees. Airstrikes also hit a separate group of IS militants traveling to meet the convoy, according to Col. Ryan Dillon, a coalition spokesman.

Responding to the criticism but not addressing the airstrikes, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a statement that negotiating with the militants was the "only way" to resolve the "humanitarian and national" issue of finding the remains of nine Lebanese soldiers that the militants kidnapped in 2014.

Hezbollah is a significant player in Lebanon with government ministers and lawmakers, while the role of its fighters also has been growing in Syria.

The Syrian government, backed by Russian air power and Iranian-organized militias including Hezbollah, has focused its military campaign in recent weeks on Deir el-Zour, where government troops have been besieged for years in the provincial capital.

Dillon criticized Moscow and Damascus for allowing the buses of militants to travel through territory they control.

"To say they are serious about defeating IS looks suspect right now," Dillon told The Associated Press.

Nasrallah, in his third statement on the issue in a week, said his fighters are battling alongside the Syrian troops to oust IS militants from the area where the others are headed.

"We transported those defeated militants from one front we fight in to another front we also fight in," he said.

Unease has been growing in the Trump administration about Lebanon's campaign against IS on its border because of the apparent coordination between Lebanon's military and Hezbollah. Lebanon maintains it's an independent operation.

In parts of Syria that have been freed from IS control, there is a growing influence by Hezbollah, and that has raised concerns about a stronger Iranian hand in Syria and the potential for Hezbollah to use the territory as a base to attack Israel.

But Lebanon's move to halt the fight after IS was squeezed into a small sliver on the border and then let the militants flee has further alarmed Washington. President Donald Trump has placed a particular emphasis on killing IS members while faulting former President Barack Obama for being too willing to let the militants regroup elsewhere.

The U.S. said it wasn't consulted as part of Lebanon's deal with IS, Hezbollah and the Syrian government, and it wouldn't have agreed to it if asked.

"We have obvious concerns, however, for any action that provides ISIS capabilities to shift its forces and thus put more civilians in harm's way," said Edgar Vasquez, a regional spokesman for the U.S. State Department.

Still, U.S. officials pushed back on speculation in Lebanon that the U.S. might cut aid or other help to Lebanon's armed forces, saying no such halt was being considered. U.S. officials said Lebanon's military, which enjoys broad confidence from the public, was the only institution stable and credible enough to hold together the country's delicate political situation. The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk to reporters.

Lebanon's military has defended the agreement.

Army commander Gen. Joseph Aoun said that as the offensive against IS was underway, the Lebanese mediator called him to say the extremists accepted a cease-fire in return for information about the fate of the missing soldiers.

"I had one of two choices. Either to go on with the battle and not know the fate of the soldiers, or give in and know the fate of the soldiers," he said. Remains of several people have been uncovered in the border area, and DNA tests are underway to determine whether they belong to the missing soldiers. Lebanese officials say they are almost sure they are.

Officials said there could be a silver lining for the coalition: While the IS militants had been holed up in a mountainous region of the Lebanon-Syria border where they were difficult to target, the evacuation deal means they will relocate to desert areas where coalition forces can strike them more easily.

___

Lederman reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Zeina Karam and Sarah El Deeb contributed from Beirut.

22 reactions

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-troops-risk-inflaming-clan-conflict-deadly-somalia-151309875.html

U.S. troops risk inflaming clan conflict after deadly Somalia raid

By Abdi Sheikh, Reuters • August 30, 2017

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A raid involving U.S. troops in Somalia has caused a rift between the precarious U.S.-backed government and a powerful clan that says innocent farmers were massacred, months after President Donald Trump approved stepped-up operations there.

The U.S. Africa command, Africom, has acknowledged that U.S. forces participated in a ground operation in support of Somali troops in the village of Bariire last week, and says it is investigating reports of civilian deaths.

It did not reply to further questions from Reuters about the incident, the second mission in Somalia this year in which it has acknowledged the participation of U.S. ground troops. A Navy Seal was killed in a raid in May.

Last week's raid took place in an area that had been occupied by al Shabaab Islamist militants but was recaptured by government forces earlier in August.

Residents from the Habar Gidir clan, a powerful group spread across southcentral Somalia, said some villagers had weapons, but only to protect themselves from a rival clan. They said the villagers had nothing to do with militants, who had been driven away before the government forces and U.S. troops launched their raid on Friday.

"It was after morning prayers when I heard gunshots. I jumped over a wall made of iron sheets and the boy went out through the small gate," said Muktar Moalim Abdi, 47, whose 13-year-old nephew was killed in the raid, about 50 km (30 miles) from the capital.

"They told me the boy was shot as he tried to take cover under the banana trees," said Abdi, one of 10 relatives of the victims that spoke to Reuters along with three witnesses of the raid itself. Their statements give the most detailed public account yet of last week's raid.

The relatives and witnesses were not able to say conclusively whether U.S. forces present during the raid had opened fire, or whether all the shooting was carried out by the Somalis that the Americans were accompanying.

The Somali government's initial account described those killed as Islamist fighters, although within hours it issued another statement acknowledging that civilians had reportedly been killed.

A government commission set up to investigate is due to report on Thursday. Somali officials have meanwhile declined to comment further.

Somalia has been in a state of civil war since 1991. It now has an internationally-backed government, supported by African peacekeepers, battling al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-affiliated militia which has attacked civilians in neighboring states.

It is one of half a dozen countries, including Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Libya, where Washington acknowledges conducting military operations against militants.

In March, Trump gave the U.S. military in Somalia greater authority to carry out strikes and raids, including without waiting for militants to attack U.S. allies. Ramped up operations followed, with Africom reporting eight U.S. airstrikes from May to August this year, compared to 13 for the whole of 2016.

In the case of last week's raid, a veteran Western expert on the security situation in Somalia said it seemed likely that the U.S. troops had "been drawn into local clan dynamics" by whoever supplied their intelligence.

"The real question is, what was the source of the intelligence and why did they believe it?"

U.S. officials acknowledge that developing the intelligence needed to pursue al Shabaab takes longer than in, say, Iraq or Syria, where the U.S. military devotes vastly more resources. Somalia's complex tribal dynamics are also a complicating factor.

Two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, described Somalia as an "economy of force" effort for the U.S. military, meaning fewer resources were available there than on other battlefields.

GUNFIRE IN THE MORNING

Mohamed Hassan Amin said he and his pregnant wife survived because they ran outside and hid in a banana grove when the deadly gunfire began. They initially thought it was an attack by the rival clan and were relieved to see armored vehicles, which they thought meant the African peacekeeping force and government troops had come to keep them safe.

"My friend said, it looks like AMISOM and Somali forces came to rescue us," Amin told Reuters by phone. Then, the Somali troops spotted them and surrounded them at gunpoint, he said. About a dozen white soldiers were present.

"The white men told us to lie down. A translator helping one asked 'how long have you been militants?' We replied that we had never had links with al Shabaab."

At that point, Somali troops who had previously met the farmers recognized them and told their colleagues to release them, he said. They were told to help collect the dead and injured, he said.

Among the dead were two 13-year-old boys and a 15-year-old, said survivors. Abdi Mohamed, 50, the uncle of one 13-year-old, said his nephew was an orphan working as a shepherd.

Abdi, the uncle of the other, said his nephew was initially only injured but bled to death. Mohamed Osman Aden, the farm owner's nephew, said the third child was 15.

A clan elder who spoke to Reuters on Friday had given younger ages for the boys.

All three witnesses said no one from the community had fired at the soldiers. Reuters could not independently verify their accounts.

Before the raid, the men had already had four meetings with the soldiers and African Union peacekeepers, said farm owner Ahmed Hassan Sheikh Mohamed. The government wanted the villagers to disarm, but they were reluctant because of their long-standing feud with a rival clan.

Mohamed said the government troops who had driven al Shabaab fighters from the area earlier in August had told the villagers they no longer needed weapons. The villagers put eight guns into storage, but kept one gun in the hands of a watchman, who did not shoot when the soldiers approached.

"Who could fight armored vehicles?" Mohamed asked.

Since the raid, survivors and relatives have been permitted to travel to the capital to make their case, without being arrested as suspected al Shabaab fighters.

PUBLIC ANGER

At the Diplomat hotel in downtown Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, scores of relatives of the dead occupied every plastic chair, spilling into the corridors and parking lot, sitting on the ground and murmuring angrily.

The bodies were not buried, but were brought to the capital. They are being kept in a refrigerated container taken from a lobster truck and stashed in a nearby garage.

"We do not enjoy keeping the shrinking, wrinkling dead bodies of our brothers and uncles in a fridge for a sixth day. But more painful would be to bury the dead body of your innocent brother as a militant," said Mohamed Osman Aden, a nephew of one of the dead men.

The refusal to bury a body is a powerful and deeply distressing protest in Muslim culture, which demands that burial take place within 24 hours of death.

The families want blood money - traditionally 100 camels, worth about $100,000, for every dead male. More than that, they want an apology.

"We shall bury them if the government admits they were innocent farmers. If not, we shall keep them in the garage because we never bury militants," said Aden.

If the clan is not placated, it could rob the government of a powerful ally in the important Shabelle region, site of some of Somalia's most fertile farmland.

The clan have already been angered by a U.S. airstrike that killed at least 10 members of their pro-government militia last year, and by a death sentence for another clan member who killed a minister that he mistook for a militant.

A split with the government could mean their militia cools relations with Mogadishu at a time when Western allies are trying to bring anti-Shabaab forces closer together.

"The whole problem is the Somali government which brought in and allowed the U.S. to massacre our people," shouted Halima Mohamed Afrah, the aunt to one of the men killed in Bariire.

"The government should openly say over the media that they killed innocent farmers. Admit it, compensate us and then take the killers to court ... if these conditions are not met ... Blood should be shed for blood."

(additional reporting by Feisal Omar in Mogadishu, Katharine Houreld and John Ndiso in Nairobi and Phillip Stewart in Washington; writing by Katharine Houreld; editing by Peter Graff)

55 reactions

 

[TammyinWI]

Thank you for these on-going updates!

 

[Housecarl]

You're most welcome TammyinWI.

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/world/middleeast/iran-missiles-lebanon-israel-.html?smid=tw-share

Iran Building Weapons Factories in Lebanon and Syria, Israel Says

By ISABEL KERSHNER
AUG. 29, 2017

JERUSALEM — Israel is using a visit this week by the United Nations secretary general, Antonio Guterres, to highlight concerns about what it says are Iran’s efforts to produce advanced, precision weapons in Lebanon and Syria.

“Iran is busy turning Syria into a base of military entrenchment,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a news conference with Mr. Guterres on Monday, “and it wants to use Syria and Lebanon as war fronts against its declared goal to eradicate Israel.”

Mr. Netanyahu asserted that Iran “is building sites to produce precision-guided missiles toward that end in both Syria and in Lebanon.”

He added: “This is something Israel cannot accept. This is something the U.N. should not accept.”

Israel’s defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, also spoke in his meeting with Mr. Guterres about Israel’s concerns about factories for precision weapons and what he called Iran’s repeated attempts to smuggle arms into Lebanon.

Continue reading the main story
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“We are determined to prevent any threat to the security of the citizens of Israel,” Mr. Lieberman said, according to a transcript of his remarks from his office.

The assertions are not new, but Israel now appears to want to put them on the international agenda.

Israel’s chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi, told an audience at a policy conference in Herzliya, Israel, in June that Iran had been working over the past year to set up independent production facilities in Lebanon to manufacture precise weapons, which use advanced technology to guide them to specific targets.

The beneficiary, he said, would be Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite organization, with which Israel fought an inconclusive, monthlong war in 2006. Adding that Iran was setting up similar facilities in Yemen, General Halevi warned, “We cannot remain indifferent to this and we don’t.”

Israeli leaders also pressed Mr. Guterres to prod the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, into fulfilling its mandate to prevent Hezbollah’s weapons buildup.

“I will do everything in my capacity to make sure that UNIFIL fully meets its mandate,” said Mr. Guterres, visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories for the first time since taking up the top United Nations post in January. He added that “the idea or the intention or the will to destroy the state of Israel is something totally unacceptable from my perspective.”

Israel has carried out several airstrikes in Syria in recent years against convoys or stores of advanced weapons said to be destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Acting under the cover of the Syrian civil war, the Israeli strikes have prompted little retaliation from Hezbollah, which is fighting in Syria to prop up the government of President Bashar al-Assad, an Iranian ally.

Through Hezbollah and other proxies, Iran has been extending its influence and its reach in the region and, according to Israeli officials, is working to provide Hezbollah with more precise weapons to hit valuable targets in its next war against Israel.

But while Israel has acted with relative impunity in the chaotic environment of Syria, any pre-emptive strike on Lebanese soil could spiral into a broader conflict over Israel’s northern border.

Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported this week that in the face of the Israeli warnings, Prime Minister Saad Hariri of Lebanon has been working to stop Iran’s construction of the missile factory in his country.

More generally, Israel has been voicing concern that arrangements for cease-fires and de-escalation zones in southern Syria will help Iran and its loyalists consolidate their presence across Israel’s frontiers.

Last week Mr. Netanyahu traveled to Sochi, Russia, on the Black Sea to confer with President Vladimir Putin. “The victory over ISIS is welcome,” Mr. Netanyahu told Mr. Putin, referring to the Islamic State, which has been battling Mr. Assad’s forces. “Iran’s entry is unwelcome, endangering us, and in my opinion, endangering the region and the world,” Mr. Netanyahu said, according to his office.

Israeli officials have also raised these concerns with American officials.

Correction: August 31, 2017
An article on Wednesday about the construction of weapons factories in Lebanon and Syria misspelled the given name of the Israeli defense minister. He is Avigdor Lieberman, not Avidgor.

A version of this article appears in print on August 30, 2017, on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Israel Warns Iran Poses New Threat On Doorstep.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
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http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2017/08/30/zapad_2017_rattling_the_wests_cage_112524.html

Zapad 2017: Rattling the West's Cage

By Yuval Weber
August 30, 2017
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Russia’s Zapad military exercises will boast up to 100,000 Russian and Russia-allied soldiers, security services personnel, and civilians, making it the largest Russian military exercise since 1981. The maneuvers, whose official name means West in Russian, will take place Sept. 14-20, and their official purposes include testing new equipment, tactics, logistics, and combat readiness for a confrontation with NATO in or around Belarus, which is still considered the most likely reason for a major conflict involving the homeland security of Russia.

Russian defense officials will carefully monitor the results of the operation, which “serves as the capstone to the Russian military’s annual training cycle,” according to Dmitry Gorenburg. But Zapad’s unofficial purpose -- its political impact -- has in large part already succeeded. First, Zapad shows Russia’s maintained security relevance on the European continent. Second, it intends to rattle regional neighbors unsure of the extent of Russia’s interests. Third, the exercises are meant to alert Aleksandr Lukashenko, the leader of Russia’s closest ally Belarus, that his recent moves to chart a more balanced course between Russia and the European Union can be easily quashed.

Video

The exercises, though claimed by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu as being “strictly defensive in nature,” take place in a highly combustible political environment. In a speech earlier this summer outlining Zapad, Shoigu reminded his audience that Russia’s chief defense mission was to deter NATO invasion of itself and Belarus. Shoigu was speaking not simply in terms of physical homeland security, but about any form of conflict with the goal of toppling the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Shoigu remarked that the relationship between Russia and its Western neighbors “tends to deteriorate due to the increased military activity of NATO countries in Eastern Europe.” He stressed that “what is happening demonstrates the outspoken reluctance of Western partners to abandon the anti-Russian course. This is evidenced by the May NATO summit, in which international terrorism and Russia were put in one series of threats … These unjustified actions of our Western colleagues lead to the destruction of the security system in the world. They increase mutual distrust and force us to apply response measures, primarily in the Western strategic direction.”

Reasons for alarm?

These comments and the sheer number of troops, weapons, and equipment brought to Russia’s borders and into Belarus alarm neighboring states. Russia’s neighbors fear that Moscow will use the exercises to test the resolve of the NATO alliance by simulating a counter-invasion of the Baltic countries and Poland. These countries may be protected by NATO’s security guarantees, but they are difficult to defend from actual invasion. Hence, a tepid response from NATO and the United States to a simulated invasion, on the heels of Donald Trump’s equivocation on NATO commitments on the campaign trail and in the early months of his presidency, may embolden Russia to take a harder line on regional security at the expense of vulnerable Eastern European states. As an additional symbol of Russian offensive power, Russian defense officials have selected the First Guards Tank Army for the mission; this recently reconstituted fighting force has a pedigree dating back to World War II. In its earlier incarnation, it fought its way across Western Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus before attacking Berlin and serving as part of the occupation force in Germany after the war. Later, it participated in the invasion of Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring and define the contours of the Brezhnev Doctrine, under which no military ally of the Soviet Union could unilaterally liberalize and thus threaten the Soviet Union.

Beyond the implication of a potential incursion into Europe itself, there is a related fear that Russia may use Zapad as a precursor to regime change in Belarus. Although Belarus is a closely allied state, its leader, Aleksandr Lukashenko, has made a career of trying to balance between Russia and European neighbors. Now facing some of the strongest domestic opposition of his 23-year rule, Lukashenko has moved purposefully westward in orientation. As Russia held large-scale military exercises just prior to invading Georgia in 2008 and to its annexation of Crimea in 2014, there is sufficient precedent that Sergey Lavrov, the Foreign Minister, has had to repeatedly deny the idea that it could happen again.

The fear around Belarus and the region is that a legal pretext for future occupation via an expansive view of joint defense has already been created, and its logic set in motion. On Aug. 10, Putin submitted a draft federal law to the Duma on the joint air defense of Russia and Belarus. In it, the Russian President asks the Duma to ratify the protocol of Feb. 3, 2009, to defend the common borders and airspace of Russia and Belarus via the creation of a unified regional air defense system. The aim of this bill is to “improve the security of the external air border of the Union State [and] contribute to strengthening the security of the two states.”

While the legal move is more likely meant as a signal to Lukashenko to stay in his lane, Russian actions in Georgia and Ukraine both proceeded under highly specific legalistic justifications to achieve significant security outcomes. Russia intervened in Georgia to protect newly minted Russian citizens — people who had recently acquired citizenship to provide, in part, the reason for intervention. In Crimea, local authorities first seceded from Ukraine, then held a referendum to join Russia, and then voted to join Russia — all within a few days — to avoid the the specific charge that Russia had annexed Crimea directly. Although Russia does not need the Zapad military exercise to remove Lukashenko from office or to overpower Belarus, the protection of joint borders can be interpreted very broadly.

The Zapad exercises will be an important event for Russia to assess its military and civil capabilities under duress. For the United States and NATO allies, the maneuvers should similarly provide an opportunity to observe not only Russia’s physical capabilities, but the anxious and combative worldview that takes invasion and regime change as its main challenges. The likelihood of anything beyond the pre-planned exercises is pretty low: there has been no demonization of Lukashenko or Belarus on Russia media, and the likely consequences of invasion or regime change, such as the 2018 World Cup being taken away, further sanctions on the Russian economy and individuals, and the tumult that this would introduce into Russian society ahead of presidential elections next year, are all clearly understood. Nevertheless, a massive military exercise on NATO’s borders will help both Russia and its adversaries understand the conditions of Europe’s security environment.

Yuval Weber is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a Kennan Institute Fellow at the Daniel Morgan Graduate School. He additionally serves as a Center Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University and is an Assistant Professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia. Follow him on Twitter @yuvalweber. The views expressed here are the author's own.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.hoover.org/publications/strategika

Strategika
Current Issue
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Issue 44

Preemptive Strikes and Preventive Wars

BACKGROUND ESSAY
http://www.hoover.org/research/preemptive-strike-or-preventive-war
Preemptive Strike Or Preventive War?

by Williamson Murray via Strategika
Tuesday, August 29, 2017

With the troubles bubbling over on the Korean Peninsula, as the North Korean regime approaches possession of nuclear weapons and missiles capable of striking the United States, two words, preemptive and preventive, have gained increasing currency. While similar in meaning, their context is crucial in understanding their applicability to the current crisis. And here, as is so often the case, history is a useful tool in thinking through the possibilities.

With the troubles bubbling over on the Korean Peninsula, as the North Korean regime approaches possession of nuclear weapons and missiles capable of striking the United States, two words, preemptive and preventive, have gained increasing currency. While similar in meaning, their context is crucial in understanding their applicability to the current crisis. And here, as is so often the case, history is a useful tool in thinking through the possibilities. A preemptive strike usually carries the connotation of attacking or destroying substantial enemy capabilities, in some cases with the hope that it will so wreck the enemy’s military forces that he will not be able to use them effectively, should war result. In the largest sense, those who execute preventive strikes have usually understood that their military effort, no matter how successful, would lead to a conflict of some indeterminate length. Thus, the two words are directly tied together in that preemptive strike almost inevitably will lead to what the attacker in most cases regards as a preventive war.

We, of course, have been down this road in the recent past. In response to 9/11, the Bush administration in its National Security Strategy for 2002 boldly stated that the United States “must be prepared to stop rogue states and their territorial clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends.” That statement led directly to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 with the aim of removing Saddam Hussein and his supposed weapons of mass destruction as well as the possibility that he might eventually possess nuclear weapons. Well, there were not any weapons of mass destruction and the United States almost immediately found itself mired in a totally unexpected quagmire—a quagmire at least unexpected by the administration and all too many of its military advisers. The ensuing insurgency against the United States and its allies as well as the civil war between the Sunni and Shi’a religious constituencies proved to be a nightmare for American strategists and policy makers. In retrospect, the result of the Iraq invasion seems obvious, but it was certainly not so at the time.

In reflecting on the Bush administration’s aim of preventing future threats to the homeland by launching a preventive war against Iraq, one inevitably runs into Clausewitz’s ironic warning that echoes through much of history: “No one starts a war—or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so—without being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.”1 In fact, in the real world, once embarked on war, statesmen and generals have almost inevitably discovered that they have underestimated the enemy, or their intelligence was faulty, or they have overestimated their own military’s effectiveness, etc., etc. There are cases in history, of course, where a preventive war might well have prevented a far worse conflict. The most obvious case was the refusal of Britain and France to fight in defense of Czechoslovakia in 1938, when Nazi Germany was in a far weaker position than it would prove to be in 1939. But the judgment is only the result of having the terrible strategic results of and fallout from the Munich Conference available to the historical commentator. At the time no one except Winston Churchill—and obviously the Czechs—understood what Neville Chamberlain gave away in surrendering Czechoslovakia to the tender mercies of Nazi Germany.

Perhaps the most useful way to think of preemptive strike is that it represents a tactical effort to change the balance of forces in favor of the aggressor, who should understand that the initial strike is only the opening shot that heralds the beginning of war. The dictionary definition indicates that the meaning of preemptive is “to seize the initiative.” But “seizing the initiative” is only the first step. We might start our examination of preemptive strikes with the decision of Jefferson Davis and his Confederate cabinet to approve the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Interestingly, internal political considerations appear to have been the driving force behind their decision. Crucially, in April 1861, North Carolina and Tennessee remained on the fence, apparently still uncertain as whether to join the Confederacy or attempt to remain in the Union. Davis and his advisers were also afraid that Federal supply ships would reach Sumter and thus, prolong the crisis. As for worries that such a preemptive strike might have a serious impact on Northern public opinion, that possibility received little consideration from the Confederate leadership. In retrospect, Southern leaders were still contemptuous of the Northerners’ ability and willingness to conduct a war seriously. It proved to be a disastrous miscalculation. What the Confederates received in bombarding Sumter was a massive outpouring of Northern popular outrage and a determination to fight the war through to its conclusion. That popular feeling would motivate Union armies throughout the war.

The Japanese make interesting reading, even if their case is more ambiguous. Their two major international conflicts in the twentieth century both began with preemptive strikes to insure that their military forces would have the advantage in what they understood would be an upcoming struggle. The attack on Port Arthur in early February 1904 aimed at damaging the Czarist Russian Pacific fleet so thoroughly that it would not be able to play a significant role in the war that the Japanese understood they would have to wage against the Russians in Manchuria immediately after their attack on Port Arthur to achieve their political aims. The Japanese would eventually win their war, but the casualty bill was extraordinarily high, while the nation was bankrupt at the war’s conclusion. Only the facts that the Czarist Army suffered from gross incompetence and that revolution broke out in European Russia in the following year prevented a Japanese defeat.

In the second case, the Japanese preemptive strike on the American Fleet at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 was not so successful. It aimed at taking the U.S. battle fleet off the strategic table, while the main Japanese effort conquered the raw material riches of Southeast Asia, in particular oil and rubber. What exactly would happen afterwards was not entirely clear to Japanese planners except that they believed they would have time to build a strategic set of bases on the Pacific Islands that would be impossible for the Americans to break, and thus, the United States would find itself forced to make peace. What happened, of course, is that the Pearl Harbor attack awakened a sleeping giant. Within three years the Japanese were confronting the U.S. Fifth or Third Fleets—depending on who was in command, Admiral Raymond Spruance or Admiral William “Bull” Halsey—which was by itself larger than all the rest of the fleets in the world combined. The smoking ruins of Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki underlined the extent of the Japanese miscalculation in launching their preemptive strike against Pearl Harbor as the kick off to their war against the United States and its allies in Southeast Asia.

Perhaps the most effective combination of a preemptive strike was the opening gambit for a preventive war came in 1967 with the Six-Day War. Outnumbered, at least on paper by the massive Arab armies deploying on their frontiers and with the rhetoric in the Arab capitals indicating an intention to wipe Israel off the map, the Israelis struck first. In this case, the preemptive strike consisted of the bulk of the Israeli Air Force flying deep into the Mediterranean and then swinging south to launch a series of devastating attacks on the major Egyptian air fields. In less than half an hour, the Israeli Air Force had wiped out nearly all of Nasser’s air force. With air superiority now assured the Israeli Defense Force’s (IDF) ground forces began a preventive war that would last for six days and see the IDF destroy the Egyptian Army in Sinai, capture Jerusalem’s old city, destroy the Jordanian Army and seize the West Bank, and knock the Syrians off the Golan Heights. If the Six-Day War failed to bring peace to Israel, the Jewish state has never been threatened to the extent that it was in June 1967. However, the very success made it impossible for the Arab states to agree to a peace treaty. Six years later, Israeli arrogance and underestimation of their Arab enemies resulted in the costly and inconclusive Yom Kippur War.

Perhaps the most successful preemptive strike in history was also launched by the Israelis in June 1981 that wrecked the Osirak reactor that the French were building for Saddam Hussein. Using exquisite intelligence, F-16 fighter bombers, escorted by F-15 fighters, attacked at precisely the time when Iraqi anti-aircraft crews were taking their meals. Saddam was furious, because the strike had set the Iraqi nuclear program back for an extensive period of time. But he had no military answer he could make to the Israelis; thus, bluster and outrage at the Zionist international conspiracy could be his only response.

If the Japanese and Israeli cases provide a somewhat ambiguous story line, there is the grim warning of 1914 that suggests that preemptive strike and preventive war can have disastrous consequences. In July 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany determined to risk a preemptive strike to take Serbia out of the game, fully conscious of the fact that such a war might well lead to a general European war. When the Russians mobilized in response to Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war on Serbia, the Germans responded by launching a preemptive strike against France, the infamous Schlieffen Plan. The German calculation rested on the belief that in launching the unprovoked invasion of Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, the German Army could knock the French out of the war and win what they clearly believed was a preventive war against the Entente armies surrounding their frontiers.

Frightened by the buildup of the Czarist Army that had begun shortly after Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, and their increasing diplomatic and strategic isolation, the Germans casually embarked on a preventive war. But the Schlieffen Plan failed in the Battle of the Marne. By launching the Schlieffen Plan without serious strategic thought, the Germans immediately brought the British with their Royal Navy and the British Expeditionary Force, which in spite of its small size would prevent the Germans from outflanking the French Army. Moreover, by invading France with so little justification, the Germans insured that international public opinion, particularly in the United States, would be hostile to the Reich’s cause right from the war’s beginning.

It would seem that preemptive strikes may be of some utility, but only in the case where military forces are fully prepared to take advantage of the resulting chaos. But there are all too many cases in history where the attacker who launches the preemptive strike finds himself mired in a war that turns out to be far more difficult than he supposed at the beginning. In other words, like the Wehrmacht in 1941, the result of the preemptive strike, one that was enormously successful, only resulted in Nazi Germany finding itself tied to a conflict it lacked the resources and capabilities to win.

1 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, 1975), p. 579.

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http://www.hoover.org/research/preemptive-strikes-and-preventive-wars-historians-perspective
Preemptive Strikes and Preventive Wars: A Historian’s Perspective

by Barry Strauss via Strategika
Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Preventive wars and preemptive strikes are both risky business. A preventive war is a military, diplomatic, and strategic endeavor, aimed at an enemy whom one expects to grow so strong that delay would cause defeat. A preemptive strike is a military operation or series of operations to preempt an enemy’s ability to attack you. In both cases, a government judges a diplomatic solution impossible.

Preventive wars and preemptive strikes are both risky business. A preventive war is a military, diplomatic, and strategic endeavor, aimed at an enemy whom one expects to grow so strong that delay would cause defeat. A preemptive strike is a military operation or series of operations to preempt an enemy’s ability to attack you. In both cases, a government judges a diplomatic solution impossible. But judgment calls are debatable and preventive wars often stir up controversy. Preemptive strikes run the risk of arousing a sleeping enemy who, now wounded, will fight harder. Yet both preventive wars and preemptive strikes can succeed, under certain limited circumstances. Consider some examples.

The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) is the granddaddy of all preventive wars. The Peloponnesians, led by Sparta, decided to make war on Athens less because of a series of disputes dividing the two blocs than because of the future that they feared, one in which Athens’ growing power would break apart Sparta’s alliance system. The Athenians wanted to decide the two sides’ dispute via arbitration, but the Spartans refused, which cost Sparta the moral high ground. Before Athens and Sparta could fight a proper battle, the war began. Sparta’s ally, Thebes, launched a preemptive strike on the nearby city and Athenian ally, Plataea.

Both the preemptive strike and the preventive war succeeded but at no small cost. It took four years of hard fighting and considerable escalation before Plataea surrendered. Sparta emerged victorious against Athens but only after 27 years of intermittent and escalatory warfare. The price of victory was steep, leading to embroilment in war against Persia, a falling-out with Sparta’s former allies, and ultimately, the collapse of the Spartan regime after centuries of stability. Athens lost the Peloponnesian War, but managed to preserve and even strengthen its regime at home; it never successfully restored its overseas power.

To turn to another ancient case, Rome frequently engaged in preventive war. The most egregious example was the Third Punic War (149-146 B.C.), when Rome declared war on Carthage. Carthage offered no serious threat for the foreseeable future, if ever, because Rome had thoroughly defeated it twice in the past. Yet some Romans feared the growing prosperity of its long-time rival. The war was hard-fought but led to a complete Roman victory. After a lengthy siege, Carthage was destroyed. It ceased to exist as a polity. For a century it wasn’t even a city, but then it was re-founded—as a Roman city.

Turning to modern times, Japan fought a preventive war against Russia in 1904-1905 in order to stop the Russians from building up their strength in the Far East, particularly via a railroad through Russian-occupied Manchuria. The Japanese launched the war with a preemptive strike, a surprise attack on the Russian naval base at Port Arthur. The strike weakened the Russian fleet but did not destroy it. Ultimately Japan was successful at sea but compelled to accept a stalemate on land. The outbreak of revolution in Russia forced the Russians to the peace table and handed Japan victory, but although Japan bruised Russia badly it did not win the war on the battlefield.

In June 1967 Israel launched a series of preemptive strikes against Egyptian and other Arab air forces. A devastating success, it contributed greatly to Israel’s victory in the Six Day War. In 1973 Egypt and Syria launched a series of highly successful surprise attacks if not preemptive strikes. Although Israel bounced back by dint of effort and with American resupplying, the Arab states’ military successes, along with their use of the Arab “oil weapon,” led to victory, especially for Egypt.

None of the belligerents in 1973 had to convince their people to fight, but not all politicians have that luxury. In Rome before the Third Punic War, for instance, the leading war hawk, Cato the Elder, frequently ended his speeches in the Senate with the statement that Carthage must be destroyed. It took an effort to convince the senators to fight a preventive war against a less-than-obvious threat, but it is even more difficult to convince modern liberal democratic societies to do so. Popular and successful politician though he was, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not dare ask Congress for a declaration of war against Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Yet both regimes were expansionist powers offering widely—but not unanimously—acknowledged threats to American security. Even after Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war only against Japan, even though the U.S. and Germany were engaged in an undeclared shooting war in the Atlantic. Not until Germany declared war on the U.S. on December 11, 1941, four days after Pearl Harbor, did the U.S. Congress declare war on Germany.

Most would consider the Japanese attack on the U.S. in 1941 a preventive war by Japan, before the U.S. could intervene in the Far East. The Japanese might say that American economic strictures such as freezing Japanese assets and embargoing oil were tantamount to acts of war. In any case, Japan launched a preemptive attack on both the U.S. navy and air force in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. The strike did great damage but left the Americans with more than enough resources to rebound and win the war. This despite Japan’s ability to inflict a second damaging preemptive attack on the U.S. air force in the Philippines, a little over nine hours after news of the Pearl Harbor attack had arrived.

The U.S. fought a preventive war in Iraq in 2003 against the threat of Saddam Hussein’s program of weapons of mass destruction. Some in the U.S. government also hoped to turn Iraq into an ally. The invasion succeeded in defeating Iraqi conventional forces, occupying the country, and toppling Saddam. Yet U.S. intelligence concluded that although Saddam’s goal was to recreate his WMD program, that program had been destroyed in 1991. Public support for the war in the U.S. wavered after the emergence of an Iraqi insurgency. In spite of eventual success by a U.S. counter-insurgency campaign, a change of government in the U.S. brought a complete withdrawal of remaining American troops from Iraq. Today Iraq has no WMD but it is a divided state, reeling from war with ISIS, and in large part an ally of Iran rather than the U.S. If preventive war was a success, it came at a heavy price.

To sum up, preventive wars and preemptive strikes work only under certain conditions. If the attacker carries out a brilliant operation, has overwhelming military superiority, is able to mobilize political support particularly at home but also abroad, and is willing to pay a heavy price and bear a long burden in case the war drags on, then one of those two moves might make sense. States lacking those strengths would do best to avoid such risky endeavors.

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http://www.hoover.org/research/calculating-risk-preventive-war
Calculating The Risk Of Preventive War

by Max Boot via Strategika
Tuesday, August 29, 2017

The issue of “preemptive” war is more in the news now than at any time since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The impetus, of course, is the rapid development of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, which will soon give Pyongyang the capability to hit any American city with a nuclear-tipped ICBM. President Trump has been threatening “fire and fury” in response, and warning that the United States is “locked and loaded” for war.

The issue of “preemptive” war is more in the news now than at any time since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The impetus, of course, is the rapid development of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, which will soon give Pyongyang the capability to hit any American city with a nuclear-tipped ICBM. President Trump has been threatening “fire and fury” in response, and warning that the United States is “locked and loaded” for war. His national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, has said that North Korea may not be deterrable and that, therefore, a preemptive strike may be justified.

In truth, the use of “preemptive” in this context is a misnomer. In international law, a “preemptive” strike is one undertaken just before an enemy attack. There are few examples of such conflicts beyond the 1967 Six Day War. The use of force in such an instance is labeled “anticipatory self-defense” and is clearly legal and logical. If Washington were to acquire intelligence that North Korea was about to attack the United States—or even U.S. allies such as South Korea and Japan—there is no doubt that a preemptive strike would be warranted.

But that is not the situation the U.S. faces at the moment. If it were to attack North Korea today, it would be launching a preventive, rather than a preemptive, war—a war intended to address a future, rather than imminent, threat. The strategic and legal rationale for such a move is far shakier. There are a few instances where preventive strikes were undoubtedly wise—e.g., Israel’s attacks on nuclear facilities in Iraq (1981) and Syria (2007)—even if not strictly sanctioned under international law. There are also widely cited examples of when a preventive war would have made sense—for example, against the growing power of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. (It may, however, be argued that such a conflict would not have been truly preventive because it would have occurred after Hitler had already provided a casus belli by violating the Treaty of Versailles.)

But history is also littered with preventive wars that are widely considered a mistake and sometimes a crime. These include the German attack on France and Belgium in 1914 (motivated by fear of rising Russian power—in order to strike at Russia the German General Staff decided to first defeat Russia’s ally, France); the German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 (motivated, again, by fear of its rising power); the Israeli attack on the Sinai in 1956 (designed to avert an Egyptian threat, it led to a humiliating climb-down by Israel in the face of American pressure); and of course the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was based on a faulty premise (Iraq’s WMD program was not nearly as far advanced as U.S. intelligence feared) and plagued by faulty execution.

In addition, the U.S. was lucky to avoid a preventive conflict with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. If John F. Kennedy had given in to the advice of his more hawkish advisers and launched a military attack on Cuba, the result would likely have been a catastrophe; the Kennedy administration did not realize that the Soviets had already activated tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba and given their commanders discretion to use them.

The track record of preventive conflict makes clear that such a use of force should be approached with great caution—more caution, certainly, than displayed in the Bush administration’s 2002 National Security Strategy, which declared: “Given the goals of rogue states and terrorists the United States can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past. The inability to deter a potential attacker, the immediacy of today’s threats, and the magnitude of potential harm that could be caused by our adversaries’ choice of weapons, do not permit that option. We cannot let our enemies strike first.”

Preemptive strikes make sense against terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or Islamic State that are plotting attacks against the U.S. or our allies. But it is a different matter when it comes to a preventive war against North Korea, which is armed not only with nuclear weapons but also chemical and biological weapons and 10,000 artillery tubes in close proximity to Seoul. Any conflict with Pyongyang should be approached with considerable caution given the large-scale loss of life that would be likely.

Such risks are not justified even by North Korea’s growing capacity to attack the American homeland. Kim Jong-un may be an unusually cruel ruler, but there is no evidence that he is suicidal, undeterrable, or bent on aggression. His aim in acquiring nuclear weapons is defensive—to allow his criminal regime to survive. North Korea has possessed formidable conventional, chemical, and biological capabilities for decades without using them, for the simple reason that its rulers realize that any large-scale conflict would result in the destruction of their regime and their personal demise. Even if North Korea acquires a few dozen nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States, it can still be deterred, just as Russia and China were (and are), by the thousands of nuclear weapons in the American arsenal. It is simply not worth rolling the dice on a preventive war under such difficult circumstances.

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[Housecarl]

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Your Army

Three Army brigades set for deployments this fall

By: Meghann Myers  
12 hours ago

Two brigades from Fort Stewart, Georgia, and one from Fort Bliss, Texas, are scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan and Kuwait this fall, the Army announced Wednesday.

The 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade and 3rd Sustainment Brigade are headed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, while 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division will make its way to Kuwait to support Operation Spartan Shield, the Army announcements said.

“Our soldiers in the 3rd Infantry Division Combat Aviation Brigade and the 3rd Sustainment Brigade have completed tough and realistic training to assume their missions in Afghanistan,” said Maj. Gen. Leopoldo Quintas Jr., the commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, in a statement. “I am confident in the abilities of our Dogface soldiers, and I am eager for them to join us in Afghanistan for Operation Resolute Support.”

The 3rd Infantry Division soldiers will replace those from the 16th Combat Aviation Brigade and 1st Sustainment Brigade, according to the Army.

Meanwhile, soldiers from 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division will take over for soldiers in 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. They will join their headquarters element, which has been deployed to Iraq since July, in the Persian Gulf region.

“The 2nd ‎Armored Brigade Combat Team, Iron Brigade, has undergone some of the most intensive and realistic training the 1st Armored Division has to offer, and its leaders have forged a ready team,” said Maj. Gen. Pat White, 1st Armored Division‘s commander. “This force is fully prepared and ready to take over their new mission in support of Operation Spartan Shield.”


About this Author
About Meghann Myers

Meghann Myers is the senior reporter at Army Times. She covers personnel, fitness, the sergeant major of the Army and various other lifestyle issues affecting soldiers.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.longwarjournal.org/archi...st-target-taliban-after-overrunning-bases.php

Analysis: Coalition and Afghan forces must target Taliban after overrunning bases

BY BILL ROGGIO | August 29, 2017 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio

A recent Taliban attack on a remote Afghan Uniform Police base highlighted the tactical difficulties that Afghan forces and the Coalition face. On multiple fronts throughout Afghanistan, the Taliban has proven capable of massing in broad daylight, overrunning Afghan outposts, bases, and district centers, often at night, and celebrating their victories, all without fear of being targeted by Afghan and Coalition air forces.

A video released by the Taliban, entitled “Mansoor Goozar,” underscored the Taliban’s ability to take the fight to Afghan forces, often with little to stand in their way. In the video, a large Taliban force traveled in a convoy to an assembly area during daylight. The convoy was clearly identifiable as Taliban; the trucks were flying the Taliban’s white flag and the fighters were well armed.

Once they reached their destination, the fighters stopped to pray. Again, this occurred in broad daylight. The Taliban then assembled for their assault of the Afghan Uniform Police base. During the attack, which began after dark, the Taliban coordinated their actions using radios and set up support by fire position to aid in the assault.

The Taliban force appeared to have easily overrun the Afghan police outpost. After entering the base, the Taliban fighters organized all of the weapons, ammunition, vehicles (including US supplied HUMVEEs and Ford Ranger pickup trucks) to flaunt on social media. The Taliban then pulled out of the base during daylight taking their spoils.

The entire operation – from assault, to filming the war loot, to withdrawal – took about a day. Afghan ground forces did not respond to the attack, nor did Coalition or Afghan air assets target the Taliban before, during, or after the raid, despite the fact that the Taliban convoy moving into and out of the outpost was easily identifiable and moving over desert terrain where civilian casualties would have been highly unlikely.

he Coalition and the Afghan government hope to halt the Taliban’s gains and chip away at territory under the jihadist group’s control, attacks such as this one have to be stopped. The Taliban not only replenished its supply of war materials, but also demoralized Afghan forces while gaining massive propaganda footage and delegitimizing the Afghan government.

Ideally, a Taliban convoy assembling and operating in broad daylight would be hit by air power before reaching their target. However, if the Taliban succeeds in overrunning a base or district center, Afghan or Coalition aircraft should consider hitting them as they celebrate victory and raise the Taliban flag, or as they exit the base with their war bounty.

This would require increased communication between Afghan and Coalition forces. It oftentimes seems as if the Taliban, shown in the video using radios, communicate better with each other and are more well prepared than the Afghan forces.

While air strikes may be viewed as defensive or punitive, if the Afghan government wants to halt Taliban gains, the Taliban must be forced to pay a heavy price for massing and striking outposts, bases, and district centers. Hitting Taliban forces as they travel in convoys or after they overrun bases will force its military commanders to reconsider their tactics, which have proven successful in all areas of Afghanistan.

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

Tags: Afghanistan, Taliban

9 Comments

gar says:
August 29, 2017 at 4:49 pm
duh! Ok, I get it, everything has its complexity side of any debate. So, we, those of us, going duh, wonder why they are not being taken out. When our forces were in-country and occupying bases, eyes were on them. Perhaps, the air-cover, via drones, satellites, and responding combat aircraft is not available. When our troops are not vulnerable, we withdraw air assets. The minimal assets the Afghan’s can bring to bear are going to be highly valued and those who pull the trigger to use them are reluctant to risk them? Well, whats the solution? Provide more expensive assets for the Afghans to squander because they have an assured supply? Like bullets, they are more inclined to ‘waste’ ammunition with an unlimited supply. Just saying

Reply
Ted Hitchcock says:
August 29, 2017 at 7:29 pm
Thanks for that. Afghanistan never fails to astound. Were you able to identify the location of the attack?

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Carol Grayson says:
August 29, 2017 at 9:23 pm
Absolutely the wrong way to go…. There is a window of opportunity to seek peace in Afghanistan as highlighted by Ambassador Mellbin, EU Ambassador and EU Special Representative in Kabul, who stated on Twitter, “We had the Taliban letter. Now we have the US strategic review. Time to get to work! Peace is Possible.” I would say peace is ESSENTIAL The country is in danger of splitting further, increasing ethnic tensions. Ways must be explored to unify the country. There are growing numbers of Afghan army demoralized and defecting. Even former Northern Alliance members are now supportive of Taliban when faced with growing corruption and concerns over the behaviour of the Vice President, an alleged war criminal! Also more allegations are emerging that “35 Women, Children And Elders Killed In US Bombing In Bakht Abad Area Of Shindand District, Herat Province.” The long suffering Afghans need peace!

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Rob Good says:
August 29, 2017 at 10:14 pm
Let’s just be honest about why we are there and from objectives determine goals and means. There is no way to ensure that a friendly government is in control of the entire nation. If we want to have assets in the region to have a vote in what happens the cost is, minimum, 20k troops and support to hold Kabul. Even this minimum requires overland supply routes through Pakistan. At what price? If we add to the mission control of other cities figure one augmented Marine battalion per city. At least the Marines would have real training grounds. But power projection beyond firebases implies costs that increase rapidly as distance travelled to engage goes up.
To control the entire ring road and cities including Kandahar and Herat will require 100K+ troops and 100 billion $ per year.

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Joseph says:
August 30, 2017 at 12:55 am
We have thrown in the Towel.
This is going irreversibly downhill.
All that seems to be important in America is fighting Trump.

Reply
Evo says:
August 30, 2017 at 1:17 am
Trump is still dragging feet on sending more troops. All Afghanistan neighbours are hostile to us American presence. Not a good position

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bob clarke says:
August 30, 2017 at 2:52 am
This seems like a pattern of weakness shown by the last two administrations, and not just in Afgh — we saw/see the same going on in Iraq and Syria — It requires political will-power to whack the moles, which has been lacking. Leadership seems resigned to watching posts get overrun, armories looted, and “victories” celebrated without even sending a couple of fighter a/c to spoil the goings on. Maybe this administration will behave differently, we already see signs like devolving more decision making responsibility to the field, but time is running out.

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don says:
August 30, 2017 at 3:57 am
Unfortunately, tactics that have proved successful in all areas of Afghanistan in the past sixteen years have not resulted in either a strategic win or even a strategic stalemate, as with the Korean War. The Korean DMZ or border is roughly three hundred kilometers in length and is defensible. The Vietnam DMZ was one hundred kilometers in length and the enemy regularly bypassed it by going around using the Ho Chi Minh trail through Laos and Cambodia and the ’73 Paris Peace Treaty was not enforced after withdrawing half a million GIs. Land locked Afghanistan is roughly the size of Texas and its borders or DMZ are equally lengthy and shared with Pakistan, Tajikastan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and China; short of conscripting two million GIs to secure the 5997 kilometer border so the Afghans, 99 percent of which are Muslim, can then sort out their Islamic differences in a humanistic counter insurgency to achieve the right side of history and gay marriage for Omar is a pipe dream, without the seeds.

Reply
Dick Scott says:
August 30, 2017 at 3:41 pm
You would think that after almost 17 years of training and supplies that the Afghan army would be more effective. And the Taliban do not look much like an “army”.

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Tidd: SOUTHCOM is Shifting From Tactical to Strategic Outlook in Illegal Trafficking Fight

By: John Grady
August 30, 2017 1:36 PM

Rather than concentrating on cutting off goods moved via illegally trafficking – people, cocaine, opioids, gold, exotic animal and plants – U.S. Southern Command and its national partners are now looking at the best way to disrupt the criminal networks that control that flow, SOUTHCOM commander Adm. Kurt Tidd said at a Coast Guard Academy leadership event Tuesday.

During his keynote, presented by the U.S. Naval Institute, Tidd said gone are the days when the combatant command was identified as “the guys who do drugs.” The idea now is to address the broader security challenges where criminal network activities blur into terrorist activities. To disrupt those networks means using classic military skill sets, law enforcement expertise and intelligence professionals to meet the mission.

SOUTHCOM’s switch from tactical to strategic means a mission to “detect, illuminate, disrupt” criminal activities, while including and supporting law enforcement and judiciary of regional partner nations.

Earl Anthony Wayne, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, said at the same event that Mexico sees the value of this approach to deal with its own security struggles and the challenges it faces from migrants crossing from Central America and drug trafficking through the region.

Wayne added that when the Mexican government began cracking down on the drug cartels, it soon realized its national and local police weren’t ready, so it turned to its military. The army then was focused on humanitarian missions and the navy functioned more as a coast guard, so they also had to be trained for the new mission.

“The military had to learn a whole new set of procedures,” including when to shoot or when to hold fire to avoid unnecessary casualties, Wayne said.

Even inside the narcotics trade, Tidd said the emphasis has switched from cocaine to heroin, and from drugs from Mexico to synthetics from China.

But the real source of new profits is coming from illegal gold mining in Peru, Colombia and Guyana. Tidd described the cartels using a slurry process with mercury to extract the ore, with the landscapes “looking like the back side of Mars” when the cartel’s workers are done. The biggest benefit to the cartels is that once the gold leaves the country where it was mined, “it’s legal.”

Tidd said Colombia estimated cartels there are clearing $3.5 billion in illegal gold mining versus $2 billion in cocaine a year.

Regardless of which commodity generates the cartels’ profits, “the problem of corruption” in law enforcement and the judiciary are still real in these nations, and as a result, “the military is often called in” to deal with the cartels, Tidd said.

The cartels “create very large zones of influence” inside these nations, not just geographically but politically because of the profits. The continuing demand for narcotics in the United States complicates the problem of hurting the cartels and networks outside its borders.

“We buy the stuff,” Tidd said, estimating that $19 to $20 billion in illegal drug sales comes from the United States.
“That buys a lot of officials and arms.”

Building trust among partner nations and creating true jointness of operations in disrupting the networks is the way to succeed, Tidd and Wayne agreed.

Tidd said there are four steps the SOUTHCOM is taking to build partner capacity with this new strategic approach. First, military and police forces must understand the value in respecting human rights. Second, ”you must have a professional NCO (non-commissioned officer) corps” to maintain standards and be effective. Third, they are trying to harvest talent from all communities, including male and female personnel of all social and economic standings. And lastly, they are working to apply true jointness – including military, law enforcement, intelligence and diplomatic communities – to the challenge.

Video

“We have the best chance of success of working jointly” with Mexico and other Latin American nations, Wayne said.

Several times, the two were asked what it would take in interdictions to have an impact on narcotic trafficking. The answer lies in eliminating demand in the domestic market, both said. In terms of more assets, Tidd said it was very unlikely that the Navy could provide more ships to help with interdictions and still meet its commitments to other combatant commands.

“You’re in the situation where you rob Peter to pay Paul … We’ve just got to be more creative” in going after the networks, Tidd said.

As the event was ending, Wayne was asked about President Donald Trump’s promise to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico to cut down the flow of illegal immigrants and narcotics. The diplomat said that would be a “waste of resources.” He said that belief is shared among many working in homeland security even if they cannot speak publicly on the question.

He acknowledged the numbers of illegal crossings are significantly down, in part due to the rhetoric about what will happen if an illegal entrant is captured.

There are “certain places where a wall makes sense” along parts of the border, but a better investment would be in technology, such as “a smart wall with sensors,” Wayne said, adding, “that is different than what you did with a wall.”

Working together with the Mexican government to install in-depth layers of security sensors with mobile response forces on both sides of the border would be effective in cutting down illegal crossings.

“We sure have the technology to get eyes on them and then intercept,” Wayne said.

Related

SOUTHCOM Pitching New, Low-Cost Ideas To Get Ships Operating In U.S. 4th Fleet
October 18, 2016
In "News & Analysis"


Vice Adm. Kurt Tidd Tapped to Lead U.S. Southern Command
October 30, 2015
In "Budget Industry"


SOUTHCOM Tidd: Russia, Iran and China Expanding Influence in Central, South America
April 10, 2017
In "China"

About John Grady
John Grady, a former managing editor of Navy Times, retired as director of communications for the Association of the United States Army. His reporting on national defense and national security has appeared on Breaking Defense, GovExec.com, NextGov.com, DefenseOne.com, Government Executive and USNI News.

 

[SusieSunshine]

http://www.oann.com/n-korea-threate...japan-was-prelude-to-strike-on-u-s-territory/


People fill the square of the main railway station to watch a televised news broadcast of the test-fire of an inter-continental ballistic rocket Hwasong-12, Wednesday, August 30, 2017, in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for more weapons launches targeting the Pacific Ocean to advance his country’s ability to contain Guam, state media said, a day after Pyongyang for the first time flew a ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear payload over Japan. (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon)

August 30, 2017

OAN Newsroom

North Korea is once again threatening to attack Guam.

The country’s state-run media issued a warning Wednesday, saying its recent missile launch over Japan was a preview for a planned strike on the U.S. territory.

Video of North Korea’s latest launch was also released, showing a mid-range ballistic missile shooting into the sky.

Reports say Kim Jong-un wants to conduct more missile tests to advance North Korea’s military capabilities.

President Trump has said diplomatic talks with the North are not the answer.

China has suspended coal imports from the North, and banned North Korean companies from doing business in the country.

Meanwhile, South Korea and Japan agreed to significantly increase the pressure on Pyongyang, demanding even stricter U.N. sanctions against North Korea.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe say that Pyongyang’s projectile launch is an act of outrageous violence exceeding the level of a provocation.

The South Korean president expressed his solidarity with the people of Japan as the North Korean missile launch sparked concern and unease among the residents of Hokkaido.

The statements come after intensified threats out of Pyongyang promising more ballistic missile tests and threats targeting Guam.

Japan and South Korea say they are seeking deeper cooperation on the matter with the U.S. as well as with China and Russia.

Early next month, the leaders will meet with their Russian and Chinese colleagues at an economic forum in the Russian city of Vladivostok where they plan to deepen communication on the North Korean menace.

The threat escalates as Pyongyang vows even more missile tests despite the U.N. condemnation of the rogue state’s actions.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.realcleardefense.com/ar...ld_damage_defense_industrial_base_112201.html

Air Force’s New ICBM Plans Could Damage Defense Industrial Base

By Daniel Gouré
August 31, 2017

Which of these things is not like the others? North Korea has twice tested this year a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Pyongyang also is believed to have acquired advanced solid rocket motor technology from foreign sources that would significantly improve the performance of its long-range missiles. China recently displayed a new road-mobile, solid-fuel ICBM capable of carrying ten or more nuclear warheads. Russia has some twenty programs underway to modernize its nuclear delivery capabilities. It is currently deploying both the new RS-24 Yars (SS-27 Mod 2) mobile, multi-warhead ICBM and the RS-28 Sarmat (SS-30) heavy ICBM that can carry up to 10 multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV) warheads plus advanced missile defense countermeasures. Iran is testing ballistic missiles of various ranges and could probably deploy an ICBM any time it wants. This week the U.S. Air Force awarded contracts to Boeing and Northrop Grumman to begin developing a replacement for the 1960s-vintage Minuteman ICBM. The first of the new missiles called the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), won’t be deployed for another decade and then only if there are no major technical glitches or budgetary hiccups.

The U.S. is not currently producing and deploying any new strategic nuclear delivery systems. After years of delays, the Air Force in 2015 awarded a contract for a new strategic bomber to Northrop Grumman. The first new bomber will be available in the mid-to-late 2020s. The Navy is moving forward on the Columbia ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) as the replacement for the aging Ohio-class SSBNs. The current plan is to build 12 Columbia-class SSBNs with the first one to begin construction in 2021 and enter service in 2031. The reality is that for the next two decades at least, the U.S. will have to rely on an aging, even obsolescing strategic nuclear force posture to deter a growing number of hostile nations with modern and growing nuclear arsenals of their own.


The industrial base that supports U.S. strategic forces and will build the next generation of weapons and platforms is in an equally parlous state. A number of companies that once were part of this critical national capability have merged or left the business. Many critical components for the next generation of U.S. ICBMs, bombers and SSBNs are now available from a single source of supply. The public and private infrastructure that supports the maintenance and modernization of the nation’s nuclear weapons has also decayed over time and is in desperate need of recapitalization and modernization.

The Air Force’s acquisition strategy for the GBSD could do further harm to this nation’s critical nuclear forces industrial base. Once there were five companies capable of producing solid rocket motors, one of the most important subsystems for any long-range ballistic missile. Today there are only two: Aerojet Rocketdyne and Orbital ATK. The approach being taken by the Air Force could result in only one producer in a few years.

Simply stated, the Air Force’s management approach for the GBSD program continues a long-standing practice of ignoring the long-term viability of the defense industrial base. Aerojet/Rocketdyne is on the edge of exiting the large solid rocket motor business. Currently, it produces only one large solid rocket motor, the strap-on boosters for the Atlas rocket. The company which builds and launches the Atlas, the United Launch Alliance (ULA), has informed Aerojet/Rocketdyne that as of 2019 this contract will be awarded to Orbital/ATK. The Air Force knew that the loss of this contract would force Aerojet/Rocketdyne to close a major rocket production facility and fire a large number of skilled workers. The excuse Air Force leaders gave for allowing ULA to make a decision that could harm the solid rocket motor industrial base was that they were merely buying launch services and the decision in question was solely the purview of ULA.

Boeing and Northrop Grumman’s current R&D contracts for the GBSD do not require them to employ both solid rocket makers. Both prime contractors have indicated their intention to maintain Aerojet/Rocketdyne and Orbital/ATK as subcontractors for the current phase of development. However, neither is required to do so by the Air Force on this or subsequent phases of the program. Orbital/ATK currently produces all three motors for the Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile. With both the Atlas and Trident contracts, if Orbital/ATK should win all the GBSD work Aerojet/Rocketdyne would then be out of this business, probably for good. Were this to happen, the Air Force is likely to hide behind the fig leaf excuse that this was the decision of the prime(s).

The loss of one of the only two American solid rocket motor companies would mean the closing of facilities and the loss of additional high tech jobs. But equally important, it would create potentially serious risks for U.S. national security. The reduction from two to one solid rocket motor producers would create the unacceptable risk of a technical failure of a motor’s design. Even more serious, a production failure would threaten the viability of two legs of the nuclear triad. Absent a second producer, the nation would have no recourse in such a situation. Nor would it have any options if a collapse of the current strategic arms control regime created a requirement for a rapid expansion of the strategic forces posture. Finally, a single producer creates the potential for monopoly pricing while simultaneously reducing the company’s incentive to continue innovating.

It is past time for the Air Force and the Pentagon to stop avoiding the necessity of ensuring the viability of critical portions of the U.S. defense industrial base. The most important part of that industrial base is the set of companies that support U.S nuclear forces. Maintaining two production houses for this vital component of both the land and sea-based intercontinental ballistic missile and their solid rocket motors should be a national priority.

Daniel Gouré, Ph.D., is a vice president at the public-policy research think tank Lexington Institute. Goure has a background in the public sector and U.S. federal government, most recently serving as a member of the 2001 Department of Defense Transition Team.

 

[Housecarl]

Spain: Barcelona Attack Was Preventable
Started by Dozdoats‎, 08-23-2017 06:59 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?523234-Spain-Barcelona-Attack-Was-Preventable

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-warned-spain-barcelona-attack-risk-report-091557432.html

Spain admits receiving Barcelona attack warning

AFP • August 31, 2017

Barcelona (AFP) - Spain received a warning in May that the Islamic State group was planning an attack in Barcelona but decided it lacked credibility, Catalan regional authorities said Thursday.

But they denied news reports that US security agencies were behind the warning of an attack targeting the city, where the jihadists claimed a deadly van rampage two weeks ago.

The daily El Periodico de Cataluna reported that the US National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) had alerted Spanish intelligence officers to the threat weeks before a man ploughed his van into crowds of tourists along Barcelona's Las Ramblas boulevard on August 17, killing 14 people.

"Unsubstantiated information of unknown veracity from late May 2017 indicated that the Islamic State of Irak and ash-Sham (ISIS) was planning to conducted unspecified terrorist attacks during the summer against crowded tourist sites in Barcelona, Spain, specifically La Rambla street," according to what the paper claims was an NCTC briefing note dated May 25.

The note is a transcription, and not the original, which explains why it has several spelling mistakes, the newspaper's director Enric Hernandez said.

But the regional Catalan government's interior minister, Joquim Forn, dismissed the note as a "composite".

"The warning regarding a possible attack in the summer in places such as Las Ramblas reached us from other sources," he told a news conference without giving further details.

After analysing the information in the warning, and sharing it with Spain's central government, Spanish authorities concluded the "warning had very little credibility," he added.

There is "absolutely no link between this information" and the van attack in Barcelona on August 17, he said.

The head of Catalonia's regional police, Josep Lluis Trapero, said the warning did not come from the CIA or the NCTC.

A spokesman for Spain's CNI intelligence agency, contacted by AFP, refused to "confirm or deny anything on communication with other intelligence services".

The interior ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

But the Madrid-based Cadena SER radio station quoted "anti-terror sources" suggesting that the document published by El Periodico de Cataluna was authentic.

Spain is still recovering from the twin August vehicle attacks that left a total of 16 people dead and more than 120 wounded in Barcelona and the seaside resort of Cambrils further south.

IS claimed both attacks.

29 reactions

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://apnews.com/7b538929486f493d...n=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

IS buried thousands in 72 mass graves, AP finds

By LORI HINNANT and DESMOND BUTLER
Aug. 31, 2016

HARDAN, Iraq (AP) — Surrounded by smoke and flames, the sound of gunshots echoing around him, the young man crouched in the creek for hours, listening to the men in his family die.

On the other side of the mountain, another survivor peered through binoculars as the handcuffed men of neighboring villages were shot and then buried by a waiting bulldozer. For six days he watched as the extremists filled one grave after another with his friends and relatives.

Between them, the two scenes of horror on Sinjar mountain contain six burial sites and the bodies of more than 100 people, just a small fraction of the mass graves Islamic State extremists have scattered across Iraq and Syria.

In exclusive interviews, photos and research, The Associated Press has documented and mapped 72 of the mass graves, the most comprehensive survey so far, with many more expected to be uncovered as the Islamic State group’s territory shrinks. In Syria, AP has obtained locations for 17 mass graves, including one with the bodies of hundreds of members of a single tribe all but exterminated when IS extremists took over their region. For at least 16 of the Iraqi graves, most in territory too dangerous to excavate, officials do not even guess the number of dead. In others, the estimates are based on memories of traumatized survivors, Islamic State propaganda and what can be gleaned from a cursory look at the earth.

Still, even the known numbers of victims buried are staggering — from 5,200 to more than 15,000.

Sinjar mountain is dotted with mass graves, some in territory clawed back from IS after the group’s onslaught against the Yazidi minority in August 2014; others in the deadly no man’s land that has yet to be secured.

The bodies of Talal Murat’s father, uncles and cousins lie beneath the rubble of the family farm, awaiting a time when it is safe for surviving relatives to return to the place where the men were gunned down. On Sinjar’s other flank, Rasho Qassim drives daily past the graves holding the bodies of his two sons. The road is in territory long since seized back, but the five sites are untouched, roped off and awaiting the money or the political will for excavation, as the evidence they contain is scoured away by the wind and baked by the sun.

“We want to take them out of here. There are only bones left. But they said ‘No, they have to stay there, a committee will come and exhume them later,’” said Qassim, standing at the edge of the flimsy fence surrounding one site, where his two sons are buried. “It has been two years but nobody has come.”

IS made no attempt to hide its atrocities. In fact it boasted of them. But proving what United Nations officials and others have described as an ongoing genocide — and prosecuting those behind it — will be complicated as the graves deteriorate.

“We see clear evidence of the intent to destroy the Yazidi people,” said Naomi Kikoler, who recently visited the region for the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. “There’s been virtually no effort to systematically document the crimes perpetrated, to preserve the evidence, and to ensure that mass graves are identified and protected.”

Following the release of the AP research, the State Department noted that it is providing assistance to Iraqi authorities for the investigation of mass graves.

“Sadly, we anticipate that additional mass graves will be discovered as additional lands are liberated from Da’esh,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

Then there are the graves still out of reach. The Islamic State group’s atrocities extend well outside the Yazidi region in northern Iraq.

Satellites offer the clearest look at massacres such as the one at Badoush Prison in June 2014 that left 600 male inmates dead. A patch of scraped earth and tire tracks show the likely killing site, according to exclusive photos obtained by the imagery intelligence firm AllSource Analysis.

Of the 72 mass graves documented by AP, the smallest contains three bodies; the largest is believed to hold thousands, but no one knows for sure.

___

ALL THEY COULD DO WAS WATCH THE SLAUGHTER

On the northern flank of Sinjar mountain, five grave sites ring a desert crossroads. It is here that the young men of Hardan village are buried, under thistles and piles of cracked earth. They were killed in the bloody IS offensive of August 2014.

Through his binoculars, Arkan Qassem watched it all. His village, Gurmiz, is just up the slope from Hardan, giving a clear view over the plain below. When the jihadis swept over the area, everyone in Gurmiz fled up the mountaintop for refuge. Then Arkan and nine other men returned to their village with light weapons to try to defend their homes.

Instead, all they could do was watch the slaughter below. Arkan witnessed the militants set up checkpoints, preventing residents from leaving. Women and children were taken away.

Then the killings began. The first night, Arkan saw the militants line up a group of handcuffed men in the headlights of a bulldozer at an intersection, less than a kilometer (half mile) down the slope from Gurmiz. They gunned the men down, then the bulldozer plowed the earth over their bodies.

Over six days, Arkan and his comrades watched helplessly as the fighters brought out three more groups of men — several dozen each, usually with hands bound — to the crossroads and killed them. He didn’t always see what they did with the bodies. One time, he saw them lighting a bonfire, but he couldn’t see why.

Finally, the jihadis brought in artillery and prepared to make an assault on Gurmiz. Arkan and his comrades fled up the mountain to where their families had taken refuge.

Now, since IS fighters were driven out of the area, the 32-year-old has returned to his home. But he’s haunted by the site. As documented by the aid group Yazda, which has mapped the Sinjar sites, the graves are in a rough pentagon flanking the crossroads, largely unprotected. Around one of them is a mesh fence and a wind-battered sign. As Arkan spoke at the site, a shepherd herded his flock nearby.

“I have lots of people I know there. Mostly friends and neighbors,” he said. “It’s very difficult to look at them every day.”

___

“THIS BODY IS WEARING MY FATHER’S CLOTHES”

As IS fighters swarmed into the Sinjar area in early August 2014, Talal fled his town along with his father, mother, four sisters and younger brother. They and dozens of other men, women and children from his extended clan converged on an uncle’s farm outside the town of Tel Azer. They prayed it was remote enough to escape the killings that were already engulfing so many Yazidis.

It wasn’t.

The jihadis fired at the house from a distance. Then they rolled up in their vehicles and shot one man in the head as they stood in the yard. They surrounded the farmhouse, ordered everyone outside and demanded the impossible: Convert.

The Yazidi faith, one of the region’s oldest, has elements of Christianity and Islam but is distinct. Yazidis worship the Peacock Angel, fallen and forgiven by God under their tradition, and their shrines feature carved images of the birds and references to the sun. Muslim extremists condemned them as “devil worshippers” and over the centuries have subjected them to multiple massacres — 72, by the Yazidis’ count.

In its own propaganda, the Islamic State group made clear its intention to wipe out the Yazidi community. In an issue of its online English-language magazine Dabiq, it scolded Muslims for allowing the Yazidis to continue existing, calling their ancient religion a form of paganism. It quoted Quranic verses to justify killing the Yazidis unless they become Muslim.

Thwarted in their halfhearted attempt at conversions, the fighters separated about 35 teenage girls and young women from the rest, crammed them into a few cars and drove away. The militants herded the older women and young children into the farmhouse and locked the door.

Then they lined the men and teenaged boys against the wall of the stables — around 40 in all, including Talal.

There were too many of them, too bunched up, to efficiently mow down, so the fighters then ordered them to lie on the ground in a row, Talal said. That was when his uncle told him to make a run for it. Talal bolted into his uncle’s hayfield, as did several other men. The militants fired at them, and the bullets ignited the hay, dry from the summer sun. The fire covered Talal’s escape, and he took shelter in a nearby creek.

There he hid, listening as the gunmen shot his family to death. He eventually fled toward the mountain, joined by three others who had survived the massacre. Four out of 40.

Back at the farm, the gunmen eventually left and the women and children emerged, looking around with growing horror.

Nouri Murat, Talal’s mother, found her husband. His body was untouched, but his head was shattered. Her daughters, she said, were confused at first. “This is strange, this body is wearing my father’s clothes,” one of them said. As Nouri frantically searched around the property for any surviving menfolk, her 9-year-old daughter Rukhan lay down beside her father’s corpse.

Finally, other women persuaded the family to head to the mountain before the Islamic State fighters returned.

As they began the long walk north, Nouri noticed Rukhan’s bloody fist. Fearing her daughter was wounded, she pried open the girl’s clenched fingers. Inside were a handful of her father’s teeth.

___

“THEY DON’T EVEN TRY TO HIDE THEIR CRIMES”

Nearly every area freed from IS control has unmasked new mass graves, like one found by the sports stadium in the Iraqi city of Ramadi. Many of the graves themselves are easy enough to find, most covered with just a thin coating of earth.

“They don’t even try to hide their crimes,” said Sirwan Jalal, the director of Iraqi Kurdistan’s agency in charge of mass graves. “They are beheading them, shooting them, running them over in cars, all kinds of killing techniques, and they don’t even try to hide it.”

No one outside IS has seen the Iraqi ravine where hundreds of Shiite prison inmates were killed point blank and then torched. Satellite images of scraped dirt along the river point to its location, according to Steve Wood of AllSource. His analysts triangulated survivors’ accounts and began to systematically search the desert according to their descriptions of that day, June 10, 2014.

The inmates were separated out by religion, and Shiites were loaded onto trucks, driven for a few kilometers (miles) and forced to line up and count off, according to accounts by 15 survivors gathered by Human Rights Watch. Then they knelt along the edge of the crescent-shaped ravine, according to a report cited by AllSource.

“I was number 43. I heard them say ‘615,’ and then one ISIS guy said, ‘We’re going to eat well tonight.’ A man behind us asked, ‘Are you ready?’ Another person answered ‘Yes,’ and began shooting at us with a machine-gun. Then they all started to shoot us from behind, going down the row,” according to the Human Rights Watch account of a survivor identified only as A.S.

The men survived by pretending to be dead.

Using their accounts and others, AllSource examined an image from July 17, 2014, that appeared to show the location as described, between a main road and the railway outside Mosul. The bodies are believed to be packed tightly together, side by side in a space approximately the length of two football fields end to end, in what the AllSource analysis described as a “sardine trench.” Tire tracks lead to and from the site.

“There’s actually earth that has been pushed over and actually moved to cover parts of the ravine. As we look across the entire ravine we only see that in this one location,” said Wood. “Ultimately there are many, many more sites across Iraq and Syria that have yet to be either forensically exhumed or be able to be detailed and there’s quite a bit more research that needs to take place.”

The key, Wood said, is having photos to indicate a grave’s location taken soon after its creation.

Justice has been done in at least one IS mass killing — that of about 1,700 Iraqi soldiers who were forced to lie face-down in a ditch and then machine-gunned at Camp Speicher. On Aug. 21, 36 men convicted in those killings were hanged at Iraq’s Nasiriyah prison.

But justice is likely to be elusive in areas still firmly under IS control, even though the extremists have filmed themselves committing the atrocities. That’s the case for a deep natural sinkhole outside Mosul that is now a pit of corpses. In Syria’s Raqqa province, thousands of bodies are believed to have been thrown into the giant al-Houta crevasse.

Conditions in much of Syria remain a mystery. Activists believe there are hundreds of mass graves in IS-controlled areas that can only be explored when fighting stops. By that time, they fear any effort to document the massacres, exhume and identify the remains will become infinitely more complicated.

Working behind IS lines, local residents have informally documented some mass graves, even partially digging some up. Some of the worst have been found in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour. There, 400 members of the Shueitat tribe were found in one grave, just some of the up to 1,000 members of the tribe believed to have been massacred by IS when the militants took over the area, said Ziad Awad, the editor of an online publication on Deir el-Zour called The Eye of the City who is trying to document the graves.

In Raqqa province, the bodies of 160 Syrian soldiers, killed when IS overran their base, were found in seven large pits.

So far, at least 17 mass graves are known, though largely unreachable, in a list put together from AP interviews with activists from Syrian provinces still under IS rule as well as fighters and residents in former IS strongholds.

“This is a drop in an ocean of mass graves expected to be discovered in the future in Syria,” said Awad.

___

Butler reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Balint Szlanko and Salar Salim in Irbil, Iraq; Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad; Zeina Karam and Philip Issa in Beirut, and Maya Alleruzzo in Cairo contributed to this story.

___

Read previous stories in AP’s occasional series “Islamic State: A Savage Legacy” at www.ap.org/explore/a-savage-legacy/

 

[northern watch]

Strategic Sentinel‏Verified account @StratSentinel · 14m14 minutes ago

Pakistan reportedly in talks with Russia over S-400 Anti Aircraft System purchase

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://mwi.usma.edu/reflections-north-korea-deterrence-twenty-first-century/

REFLECTIONS ON NORTH KOREA AND DETERRENCE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Nathaniel Davis | August 31, 2017

In the twentieth century, nuclear deterrence was generally a closed bipolar system. The two superpowers squared off in something resembling parity, most smaller nuclear powers aligned with one side or the other, and those few outlier states who charted a more independent nuclear policy were generally less concerned with great power politics and more concerned with regional power or survival. The balance of terror was frightening, but it also proved stable.

Fast-forward to the twenty-first century and we find the prospect of smaller nuclear states, like North Korea, willing to engage in threats and brinksmanship with superpowers. There is certainly no prospect of mutually assured destruction between superpowers and rogue regimes; the assurance of destruction is one-directional. While contemporary deterrence looks different from its Cold War predecessor, the centrality of deterrent threats remains. However, our response to a limited-capability nuclear attack by a rogue regime would take on a new dynamic of signaling our long-term credibility in the higher-level deterrence between great powers.

Nuclear war is the most extreme manifestation of war. Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz postulated an irrational Absolute War in which war escaped all rational bounds and became war for its own sake, a theoretical condition not yet attained in human history, but which general nuclear war might resemble. Cold War strategist Herman Kahn classified the final rung on his escalation ladder as “Spasm or Insensate War.” Just as spacetime is deformed as it approaches the gravitational extremes of a black hole, so too does the relationship between strategy and morality become warped and distorted as it nears the extremes of nuclear war.

In the case of nuclear-armed great powers, where mutually assured destruction is a distinct possibility, nuclear deterrence is built upon an exchange of immoral threats. Immoral threats are justified in order to prevent, through deterrence, immoral outcomes. As Michael Walzer, the greatest living Just War theorist, has written, “We threaten evil in order not to do it, and the doing of it would be so terrible that the threat seems in comparison to be morally defensible.”

Walzer notes that “Deterrence only works . . . if each side believes that the other might actually carry out its threat.” While there is always a level of ambiguity surrounding such threats, building and maintaining the credibility of the threat is what produces the desired deterrent effect. Fortunately, the balance between ambiguity and credibility has never been tested. As Walzer notes, “for all its ghastly potential, deterrence has so far been a bloodless strategy.”

Deterring Action vs. Deterring Threats

Much of the rhetoric flying back and forth between the United States and North Korea serves to increase the perception that the threat will be carried out, thus reinforcing deterrence. We must reinforce deterrence until it fails as it is the best among poor options.

However, there is also a subtle dynamic at play. Both parties may reasonably threaten action predicated upon the action of a potential adversary, thus reinforcing deterrence. If you do X, we will do Y. However, when action is threatened based on an adversary’s threat of action—if you threaten X, we will do Y—it may actually undermine deterrence. If state A makes a threat against state B’s threats, and state B refrains from further threats while retaining the intent to act, the removal of the exchange of threats may risk provoking preemptive action on the part of state B. In other words, if state B calculates that the threat alone will cause state A’s threat to be carried out, it may choose to act without warning. Furthermore, if state A makes a threat against state B’s threats, state B continues its threats, and state A does not act, the credibility of state A’s threats will be reduced, effecting both the interaction of state A with state B, but also with other states.

Essentially, threats represent a form of discourse that is, for better or worse, a necessary component of deterrence. Threatening to respond militarily to an adversary’s threats—as opposed to its actions—thus destabilizes the delicate model of deterrence that not only contributed to keeping nuclear weapons in their silos for the entire Cold War, but remains at the core of effective deterrence strategy today.

Credibility on the Day After

On November 20, 1983, a made-for-television film, The Day After, shook American society with a glimpse of general nuclear war and its aftermath. The premiere garnered an estimated 100 million viewers, and President Ronald Reagan would later write in his diary that the film affected his views on nuclear policy. In the film, both superpowers launch a full nuclear attack near simultaneously. It is ambiguous as to who resorts to general nuclear war first; what is unambiguous is that for twenty minutes, the missiles were in the air and their results inevitable. In a heated argument between Air Force security personnel over whether to shelter in place or flee after the launch of the missiles they had been tasked to guard, the film makes the point that even though no warheads had yet landed, both sides had launched, and the war was already effectively over. Credibility did not matter on the day after. Whichever side had made the decision to retaliate had done so under duress, in the very short period of time in which the other side’s missiles were in the air.

Morally, if the purpose of nuclear weapons is deterrence, then theoretically, once one side launches, deterrence has failed and the other side’s launch would be a further immoral act in response to the initial immoral act. Ambiguity as to whether the second launch would occur is the necessary immoral threat which underpins deterrence. In the case of general nuclear war between great powers, the decision would be immediate, under pressure, and between the devastation of the world or half the world.

However, North Korea is not a great power. Mutually assured destruction does not apply, as North Korea cannot destroy the United States. It may be able to devastate a city or territory, so an element of deterrence remains, but the decision to respond would not be as immediate or under such duress as general nuclear war; it would be a decision to prevent the continuation of the demonstrated North Korean threat.

If North Korea uses nuclear weapons and we responded in kind, it could be seen as disproportionate, depending on the extent of North Korean attack, and the targeting and yield of the response. Nuclear weapons are the most indiscriminate of weapons. However, given what some have interpreted as a new red line from the president, credibility will also be at stake. Fortunately, the president’s statements have been ambiguous enough that a conventional response and artful rhetorical framing, combined with the limited nature of North Korean capabilities, may succeed in maintaining credibility in the nuclear domain. However, it is equally possible that the use of nuclear weapons by North Korea could pose the United States with the dilemma of choosing between a disproportionate response and decreasing the credibility of the threats on which our general deterrence relies. North Korea is not the only state our nuclear arsenal seeks to deter, and others will surely be watching how we respond, judging our credibility, and adjusting their own calculations accordingly.

In the language of game theory, on which much of nuclear deterrence theory rests, the bipolar deterrence of the Cold War was a single game, consisting of one round, in which each player had one move, and then it would be over. The problem posed by a North Korean use of nuclear weapons would only be the first round of a multilevel game, in which action or inaction against North Korea in the first round would influence the credibility of deterrent threats in subsequent rounds against other more capable adversaries. Today, credibility still matters on the day after.

Clausewitz noted that war was limited by what he called the “spirit of the age.” What will be the spirit of our age? We may soon find out. As Walzer concluded, “deterrence itself, for all its criminality, falls . . . for the moment under the standard of necessity.” Welcome to twenty-first-century deterrence.


Nathaniel B. Davis is a major in the United States Army and the Director of Defense and Strategic Studies at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the position of the United States Military Academy, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense.

 

[Housecarl]

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Military Exercises Are Tearing Up Russia’s Infrastructure

When 500+ armored vehicles hit the road, watch out

WIB LAND September 1, 2017 Robert Beckhusen

Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin has been racing to bolster the Russian military’s fighting abilities with frequent, large-scale exercises near his country’s western borders. But one recent story from Glavny, which covers western Russia, indicates that the exercises are taking a toll on infrastructure and local governments which are swarmed by armored vehicles.

In recent days, 574 vehicles of the crack 74th Guards Air Assault Division set off at night from its base at Pskov near the Estonian border for a training site at Strugi Krasnye some 40 miles to the northeast. The lumbering convoy headed up a cracked, pitted, asphalt-covered federal highway, tearing up the road and inflicting more than half-a-million dollars in damage.

Twenty of the division’s vehicles broke down during the journey for a failure rate of 3.5 percent, which isn’t bad, demonstrating the division’s ability to move on short notice with relatively few mechanical losses. But the damage upset local authorities. “It’s scary to imagine what will happen when they go back,” Simeon Gutsu of the Pskov’s region Commission for Road Safety told Glavny.

It’s a small anecdote, but given the scale of Russia’s recent exercises — 2017’s Zapad exercise involved some 100,000 troops — involving heavier vehicles than what the 74th Guards operates, it’s likely that wear and tear isn’t contained to Pskov. This is in a country ranked 123rd in the world in the quality of its road infrastructure according to the World Economic Forum, tied with Sierra Leone, Gabon, Venezuela and Nepal. However, the bulk of the Russian army moves by rail, where Russia performs well.

Nevertheless, the news spread to Russian military bloggers who were impressed by the division’s readiness, given the 74th Guards’ role as an elite unit designed to fight at a moment’s notice. They were less impressed with the damage. “So that’s who spoils the roads,” one blogger stated. “It’s familiar,” came a reply. “Especially after summer 2014.”

The Russian Airborne Troops, or VDV, is among the most prestigious and demanding professions in the Russian military — and is much sought-after for soldiers seeking to make their careers, even more so than Spetsnaz special forces units underneath the military’s Main Intelligence Directorate.

The reason behind the prestige is because unlike U.S. airborne forces, the Russian version “fills another niche … that of a reliable enforcer for politically sensitive operations,” Lester Grau and Charles Bartles of the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office noted in their 2017 book The Russian Way of War.

“This role began in Soviet times, with the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 to quell the Hungarian uprising,” the authors add. “VDV units began quietly occupying Hungary weeks before overt Soviet action began, and after the commencement of hostilities they gained a reputation for quickly and efficiently seizing objectives in an urban battle space to which conventional Soviet commanders were not accustomed.”

In 2014, the 76th Guards Air Assault Division rushed from Pskov to southern Russia for the surprise invasion of Crimea. The division’s soldiers were among the first to invade the peninsula, and its troops have died fighting in Eastern Ukraine.

Given the Kremlin’s focus on the airborne, units such as the 76th Guards train at higher rates and are a priority for new equipment. They are heavily armored compared to their Western airborne counterparts, reflecting the Soviet-era “deep battle” doctrine emphasizing airmobile vehicles capable of being carried and dropped by transport planes.

The bulk of these machines comprise BMD-type fighting vehicles and BTR personnel carriers. However, the Russian military has recently sought to strengthen its airborne units with non-airmobile main battle tanks. Which also, of course, put a heavier burden on Russia’s strained roads.