WAR 09-24-2016-to-09-30-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(234) 09-03-2016-to-09-09-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...09-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(235) 09-10-2016-to-09-16-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...16-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(236) 09-17-2016-to-09-23-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...23-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idUSKCN11U05B

World News | Sat Sep 24, 2016 | 5:20am EDT

Warplanes press attack on rebel-held eastern Aleppo

Warplanes mounted a new wave of heavy air strikes on rebel-held areas of Aleppo on Saturday, rebel sources, a rescue worker and a war monitor reported, pressing a major offensive by the Russian-backed Syrian military to take back the whole city.

Residents of rebel-held eastern Aleppo say it has been subjected to the most ferocious bombardment of the war since the Damascus government declared a new offensive that has killed dozens of people in the last two days.

Rebel officials said heavy air strikes on Saturday hit at least four areas of the opposition-held east, home to more than 250,000 people. Rebels say the strikes are mostly being carried out by Russian warplanes.

The attack has drawn on ordnance more destructive than anything previously used against the area, and many buildings have been destroyed, residents say. Images of blast sites show craters several meters wide and deep.

"There are planes in the sky now," Ammar al Selmo, the head of Civil Defense in the opposition-held east, told Reuters from Aleppo on Saturday morning. "Our teams are responding but are not enough to cover this amount of catastrophe."

A Syrian military source told Reuters the operation announced late on Thursday was continuing according to plan.

Asked about the weapons being used, the military source said the army was using precise weapons "suitable for the nature of the targets being struck, according to the type of fortifications", such as tunnels and bunkers, and "specifically command centers".

A senior official in an Aleppo-based rebel faction, the Levant Front, told Reuters the weapons appeared designed to bring down entire buildings. "Most of the victims are under the rubble because more than half the civil defense has been forced out of service," he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based organization that reports on the war, said it had documented 47 deaths since Friday, including five children. Selmo said the toll was more than 100.

"The raids are intense and continuous," Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters.

Related Coverage
Syrian government forces seize Aleppo camp from rebels: monitor, rebel, state TV
The Syrian army says it is targeting rebel positions in the city, and denies hitting civilians.
"Every missile makes an earthquake we feel regardless of how far off the bombardment is," one Aleppo resident said.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Next In World News

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[Housecarl]

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http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-north-korea-un-speech-20160923-snap-story.html

In defiant U.N. speech, North Korea vows to strengthen nuclear forces

By Associated Press
September 23, 2016, 6:00 PM
Reporting from the United Nations

North Korea's foreign minister condemned the United States on Friday for flying supersonic bombers over South Korea this week and vowed*his country will strengthen its nuclear capabilities in defiance of multiple United*Nations*Security Council resolutions.

In a defiant speech before the U.N. General Assembly, Ri Yong Ho said the Korean Peninsula "has now been turned into the world's most dangerous hot spot which can even ignite the outbreak of a nuclear war." He blamed the United States and "its hostile policy" against North Korea.

Ri claimed that the B-1B bombers the U.S. military flew over South Korea crossed the demarcation line separating the two Koreas. The U.S. military has said at least one of two supersonic bombers that it flew over South Korea approached the border with North Korea, an unusual occurrence in the world's most heavily fortified border.

Cmdr. Dave Benham, U.S. Pacific Command spokesman, said Friday that the aircraft remained in South Korean airspace and "did not at any time cross the military demarcation line between North and South Korea."

The U.S. flyover was the second in two weeks*and came two weeks after North Korea conducted its fifth and most powerful nuclear test.

"The United States will have to face tremendous consequences beyond imagination," Ri said.

The North "will continue to take measures to strengthen its national nuclear armed forces in both quantity and quality,” he added,*“in order to defend the dignity and right to existence and safeguard genuine peace vis-a-vis the increased nuclear war threat of the United States."

North Korea's nuclear test*along with recent ballistic missile launches*have deepened concerns that it is moving closer toward obtaining the ability to put nuclear warheads on a variety of its ballistic missiles.

Speaking at a meeting with Southeast Asian foreign ministers on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that every country has a responsibility to vigorously enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions to ensure North Korea "pays a price for its dangerous actions."

Kerry also vowed that the United States would defend its own citizens against the North Korean threat and honor its security commitments to its allies.

Ri spoke days after the U.S., Japan and South Korea met on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly gathering to discuss ways to force North Korea to comply with the U.N. resolutions, which prohibit Pyongyang from conducting nuclear and missile tests.

The three countries discussed work in the Security Council to tighten the sanctions and the possibility of taking measures of their own to restrict revenue sources for the North's missile and nuclear programs.

Ri dismissed the Security Council resolutions as unfair.

North Korea "had no other choice but to go nuclear inevitably after it has done everything possible to defend the national security from the constant nuclear threats from the United States," he said.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2...tween-rising-china-and-rearming-japan/131779/

Maritime Tensions Grow Between Rising China and Rearming*Japan

By Steve Mollman
Quartz
September 23, 2016

The most dangerous flashpoint in the South China Sea could be a Japanese warship, not a disputed isle.

Last month, Japan’s defense ministry*requested a record budget*of about $51 billion for fiscal 2017. At the top of its security worries: China’s maritime*aggression.

Japan has reason to worry. In both the East China Sea and South China Sea, Tokyo faces an increasingly assertive China that looks determined to become an unfettered maritime powerhouse—and is beefing up its naval capabilities*accordingly.

China’s moves threaten to disrupt Japan’s economy and erode its sense of security. The South China Sea is*not the only sea route, but it offers the cheapest, most direct way for energy supplies from the Persian Gulf (and*other commodities*from elsewhere) to reach northeast Asia. As a nation with few natural resources, Japan has a clear interest in keeping sea routes*open.

With that in mind, Japan is strengthening alliances, spending more on defense, and letting its position be*known.

“I am seriously concerned with the continuing attempts to change unilaterally the status quo in the East and South China Sea,” Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe*told Asian leaders*at an ASEAN summit in Laos this*month.

Vulnerable to*disruption

China has been rapidly militarizing in the South China Sea in recent years. That has included establishing bases on artificial islands built atop reefs. Some*warn that*Beijing wants to turn the sea into a “Chinese lake,” and that it is not far off from*creating a “strategic triangle”*of bases in the sea that would help it exert more control over the vital*waterway.

The South China Sea is the one of the world’s chokepoints for oil and natural gas.*Nearly 60%*of Japan’s energy supplies pass through the sea,*largely from the Middle East nations*including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and, increasingly, Iran.*Coal from Indonesia*also passes through, as does corn, wheat, and barley from Australia and the Black Sea*region.

That makes Japan’s economy vulnerable to disruptions, should China ever block shipments through that route, whether in peacetime or in some future*conflict.

And conflict isn’t out of the question. China still resents Japan’s wartime atrocities during World War II and believes Tokyo has yet to express enough remorse for its sins. This week*an exhibition opened*in northeast China focusing on the disposal of Japan’s abandoned chemical weapons in China. According to the Pew Research Center, 81% of Chinese*hold unfavorable views about Japan, up from 70% a decade ago. Meanwhile, 86% of Japanese hold unfavorable views of the Chinese, from 71% a decade*ago.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that Japan is wary of China potentially controlling a waterway as important as the South China Sea. The building of militarized artificial islands by China in the sea’s Spratly archipelago seems to be a step in that direction. As Yoji Koda, a former vice admiral in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force,*wrote in the journal Asia Policy*in*January:

These man-made islands, when fully completed, would provide China with strong footholds in the Spratly Islands for controlling most of the sea lines of communication and for monitoring foreign naval and air*activities.

Joining forces against*China

One way Japan can help deter this is by backing, assisting, or even joining the US Navy’s “freedom of navigation” operations, with which the US asserts its right to sail through certain waters under international law, even if other nations warn it not to. In May, for instance, the USS*William P. Lawrence*sailed close to*the Spratly archipelago’s Fiery Cross Reef, where China has built a militarized*island.

China has warned that such operations are “dangerous and irresponsible” and could*end “in disaster.” Yet nations have the right to make “innocent passage” through even territorial waters, which extend out 12 nautical miles from a coast, as per the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea*(UNCLOS).

In July, an international tribunal*made a comprehensive ruling*under UNCLOS that invalidated China’s sweeping claim to most of the South China Sea. That claim is based on Beijing’s dubious “nine-dash line,” which the tribunal decided had no legal basis. China responded by vowing to ignore the ruling and*trying to discredit*the*tribunal.

Last week, Japanese defense minister Tomomi Inada,*speaking at*the Center for Strategic & International Studies think tank in Washington,indicated Japan’s agreement*with freedom-of-navigation operations. If the world condoned attempts to change the rule of law, she said, the consequences could extend well beyond the South China*Sea.

“In this context, I strongly support the US Navy’s freedom-of-navigation operations, which go a long way to upholding the rules-based international maritime order,”*she said*(pdf).

Inada indicated that Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force would participate in “joint training cruises” with the US Navy in the South China Sea, as well as unilateral and multilateral exercises with regional*navies.

Lu Kang, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry,*criticized her remarks*this week, saying Japan’s actions regarding the sea “makes one feel disappointed to the point of despair,” and adding that “China is unwavering in its determination to safeguard its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and*interests.”

An editorial in the Chinese state-run Global Times also*blasted Inada’s remarks. It suggested that joint US-Japan patrols would be the “gunboat diplomacy of the 21st century,” and that China should respond with military deployments to the Spratly archipelago. If the joint patrols intensified, it said, then China should establish an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the South China Sea, focused on intimidating Japan in*particular.

Inada did not say whether Japan would join the freedom-of-navigation operations in some fashion. This summer China*warned that*Japan would “cross a red line” by doing so, and hinted that the act might lead to military conflict. Given the World War II history and nationalistic sentiment in China, that might be more than just a*bluff.
Yet Inada’s comments show Japan might be moving in that direction anyway—meaning the most dangerous flashpoint in the South China Sea could prove to be a Japanese warship, not a disputed islet or*shoal.

“Japan’s naval operations may generate far more dangerous scenarios, like direct conflicts between the two navies,” Zhang Baohui, director of the Centre for Asian Pacific Studies at Hong Kong’s Lingnan University,*told the Japan Times. “China has done nothing directly against US operations but Japan is a different story. We cannot rule out scenarios of Chinese ships ramming Japanese ones or Chinese ships blocking their*passage.”

Even closer to*home

Disputes in the East China Sea have also contributed to the increased tension between Japan and its giant neighbor. That sea, unlike the South China Sea, touches Japan’s*coast.

In it, Japan’s Ryukyu island chain extends 1,400 km (870 miles) southwest from the Japanese mainland, from Kyushu Island to Taiwan, between China’s coast and the Pacific Ocean. The chain includes Okinawa, where American forces are stationed as part of Japan’s security treaty with the*US.

Beijing has long argued that the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, near the Ryukyu chain, belong to China. Rich fishing grounds and large untapped deposits of natural gas surround the otherwise small, desolate islets (which China calls the Diaoyu Islands). The issue has stirred nationalist anger on both sides for years, with each country bolstering its military presence in the*area.

In late 2013 China*established an ADIZ*over the Senkakus and the rest of the East China Sea. Its defense ministry warned that all aircraft entering the zone must notify Chinese authorities, identify themselves, and obey orders. Enforcement proved difficult and fell by the wayside, but China could reinvigorate its efforts in the future, as new infrastructure comes*online.

China is*building a $544 million military base*off its port city of Wenzhou, the nearest place on the mainland to the Senkakus. It’s also*built a war ship pier*on the Nanji Islands, which are off the coast from Wenzhou and about 100 km (62 miles) closer to the Senkakus than Okinawa. Other facilities in the Nanjis include a heliport and advanced radar equipment that should help China better monitor its*ADIZ.

Last month, China*sent hundreds of fishing boats—accompanied by a few dozen government ships—near the Senkakus. Japan’s foreign ministry*described the act as*a unilateral escalation of tension in the*area.

In March, Japan*opened its own new radar station*on Yonaguni island in the Ryukyus, also near the Senkakus. The listening post is part of a larger Japanese military buildup along the island chain to help it monitor activity in the*sea.

Building*alliances

Faced with a burgeoning maritime power in its longtime rival, Japan is not only reaffirming its strong ties with the United States, but also building alliances elsewhere. In Southeast Asia, it’s helping strengthen the relatively weak maritime forces of nations bordering the South China Sea, and has*provided patrol ships*to both Vietnam*and the Philippines, for*example.

But Japan, of course, can’t control or predict how other nations will behave. Last week Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte moved closer to Beijing and further from the US and its allies. He announced his nation would not be involved in joint patrols in the sea, notably ones with the US Navy. He also*instructed his defense ministry*(paywall) to start buying military hardware from China and*Russia.

Japan has an ally of sorts in Australia. An important three-way alliance has formed between Japan, Australia, and the United States in relation to both seas. After a “Trilateral Strategic Dialogue” in July the three nations*issued a statement*voicing their “strong opposition to any coercive unilateral actions that could alter the status quo and increase tensions.” What China has been up to, in other*words.

Of course Australia’s support for Japan in the East China Sea*only goes so far, whereas US president Barack Obama*reiterated in April*that the US, as part of the security treaty, would come to Japan’s aid in the event of a conflict over the*Senkakus.

A dubious claim of its*own

Japan*is widely perceived*to have the superior claim to the Senkakus, and its position on the South China Sea is in line with today’s law of the sea under UNCLOS. But like China, Japan has shown it is willing to ignore that law if it goes against its*interest.

A case in point is Japan’s insistence that it is entitled to an*exclusive economic zone*(EEZ) around Okinotori (“remote bird”) island, an uninhabited atoll in the Philippine*Sea.

Under UNCLOS, to be legally defined as an “island” a feature must be able to support human habitation and an economic life of its own. If it passes that test, it generates an EEZ of 200 nautical miles, granting the owner sole exploitation rights to the resources of the sea and the seabed, including fish, oil, and natural gas. A “rock” gets just a 12-nautical-mile territorial*sea.

In July, the tribunal*ruled that*every feature in the South China Sea’s Spratly archipelago was at most a “rock.” That included the assortment of manmade islands China has built there in recent years, and also*the largest feature*of the Spratlys, an islet called Itu*Aba.

If Itu Aba isn’t an island, neither is the*much tinier*Okinotori.

China*argues that*Okinotori is at most a rock and should under UNCLOS generate only a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea, not an EEZ.Taiwan*and South Korea agree with China. So do many legal experts. Japan*has argued*that the tribunal’s July ruling does not apply to Okinotorishima (“shima” means island). But there’s no clear reason it should*not.

“Okinotorishima stands as the Achilles’ heel in Tokyo’s credibility to take a harder position against China in the South China Sea,” Jeffrey Hornung, an Asia expert with the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA in Washington,*told the Japan Times. “It is simply too hard to ignore the*hypocrisy.”

Japan has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to bolster Okinotori, including by fortifying parts of it with concrete and steel and even transporting baby corals grown in a lab to the atoll. Last year Shintaro Ishihara, then Tokyo governor,*staged a photo op*at Okinotori. The photos showed the hawkish politician waving a Japanese flag—and fanning, no doubt, the flames of Chinese*anger.

Article 9*revisited

Even at over $50 billion, the defense budget of Japan is*still dwarfed*by those of the US and China. And Japan’s constitution still explicitly renounces war,*notably in Article 9:

Article 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international*disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be*recognized.

The public is*mostly against the idea*of revising that clause, but for prime minister Abe, it has long been a goal. Elections in July gave his Liberal Democratic Party more than two-thirds of the seats in parliament, a supermajority that*could help him change*the constitution and make Japan a major military power once*again.
Whether he succeeds or not, the maritime tension between China and Japan looks set to intensify even*more.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.janes.com/article/64054/india-finally-signs-deal-with-france-for-36-rafale-fighters

India finally signs deal with France for 36 Rafale fighters

Rahul Bedi, New Delhi - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
23 September 2016

India signed an inter-governmental agreement (IGA) with France on 23 September in New Delhi for the purchase of 36 Dassault Rafale fighters in flyaway condition for EUR7.9 billion (USD8.82 billion).

Indian defence minister Manohar Parrikar and his visiting French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, signed the aircraft deal for the Indian Air Force (IAF) 17 months after the procurement was announced in Paris in April 2015. The IGA includes the option for 18 supplementary fighters at the same price, taking a flat 3.5% inflation rate into account.

Officials said India's Ministry of Defence (MoD) would pay 15% of the sum in advance to French aircraft manufacturer Dassault, which will begin deliveries of the fighters in 36 months and complete them in 66 months.

The MoD, however, has yet to sign the final contract with Dassault, which is responsible for offsetting 50% of the overall contract value in India through co-operation with the country's military-industrial sector.

The offsets under negotiation are expected to be split 30:20 between domestic aeronautics programmes and the licenced manufacture of Rafale-related components.

Officials said the Rafale deal includes EUR3.4 billion for the platforms and EUR710 million for the weapons package, which comprises MBDA's MICA and Meteor air-to-air missiles with strike ranges of 70 km and 150 km, respectively, and the Storm Shadow/SCALP stand-off attack missile, which has a 250-300 km range.

India is to pay EUR1.7 billion for customising the 36 Rafales to meet 14 IAF requirements, including the integration of Israeli helmet-mounted displays, as well as indigenously designed missiles and electronic warfare, datalink, and identification friend-or-foe systems.

The fighters will also be customised for SPICE bomb-guidance and range-extension kits, which the IAF plans to acquire from Israel's Rafael, IAF sources told IHS Jane's .

Aircraft spares, hangars, and two maintenance, repair, and overhaul facilities in eastern and northern India are set to cost EUR1.8 billion, while the performance-based logistics (PBL) deal for the fighters is priced at EUR353 million.

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http://www.catchnews.com/india-news...-experts-are-divided-1474732164.html/fullview

Will Pakistan really launch a nuclear war if attacked? Strategic experts are divided

CATCH TEAM | First published: 24 September 2016, 22:01 IST

e strike in Uri, Kashmir, by Pakistan-backed terrorists and speculation about how India would respond have led to fears that the escalation ladder may finally culminate in a nuclear war. That Pakistan may go for this option was indicated by the country's defence minister Khwaja Asif, who said they would not hesitate in using tactical weapons if their security is threatened.

While strategic affairs experts haven't wished away such a possibility for "Pakistan is a rogue state", they have described this recurring threat as "nuclear blackmail". Some have even advocated that India take a re-look at its doctrine of "no first use". Others, meanwhile, have rubbished the possibility of a nuclear war between the two hostile neighbours.

Also Read: Uri terror attack: what India may do to retaliate

Whereas India has been tactically silent on its nuclear capabilities, especially tactical nukes, Pakistan has pompously claimed that it has developed tactical nuclear weapons. It has also pointed out from time to time the loose threshold or the redline that could lead to a tactical nuclear strike against India.

A US State Department report says Pakistan, which like India is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal. The report estimates that Pakistan has 120-130 nuclear warheads, close to India's 120-odd warheads. While Pakistan may have lowered its threshold for a tactical strike, there is a growing understanding in a section of the Indian strategic and defence establishment that the country's no first use policy is not cast in bronze, something Pakistani generals need to be wary of before they embark on any such reckless move.

NUCLEAR BLACKMAIL
The fear that Pakistani nuclear arsenal is a threat to the stability of the region - it may end up in the hands of jihadis or may be deployed by rogue generals - is not unfounded. Indeed, so grave is the fear that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was compelled to reassure the international community in his speech at the UNGA: "We have introduced 'state of the art' measures to strengthen the safety and security of our nuclear materials and facilities."

Sharif claimed that Pakistan neither wants nor is it engaged in an arms race with India - although it just placed an order for Chinese submarines - "but we cannot ignore our neighbour's unprecedented arms build-up and will take whatever measures are necessary to maintain credible deterrence". An Indian strategic affairs analyst says Pakistani nuclear arsenal, or even a part of it, landing into the hands of jihadis is not a scenario one can totally wish away. And that it may have serious consequences.

The successful tests of the nuclear-capable 60-km-range missile Hatf IX (Nasr), and the declaration by the Pakistan Army that it can carry nuclear warheads with high accuracy and has been designed to defeat anti-tactical missile defence systems, signalled that Pakistan may have developed smaller nuclear weapons to blunt India's conventional superiority.

Also Read: Was the Uri attack designed to provoke in the run up to UNGA session?

Former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal, however, rejects any possibility of Pakistan launching a tactical nuclear strike against India as the retaliation would threaten the very existence of the country. "There are more chances of a nuclear war between Russia and the US in the present scenario," Sibal says.

He points out how Pakistan has not tested a small nuclear device, although he did not rubbish the possibility of Pakistan having acquired tactical nukes. "It is a rouge state," he says, adding how the claims of tactical weapons are "useful for Pakistan to make to create fear", something analysts and even political leaders such as the BJP's Ram Madhav have termed as nuclear blackmail.

Sibal also points out that nuclear cooperation between China and Pakistan should be more worrisome for the international community than speculation about the chances of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.

HANGING SWORD
Other experts seem to disagree such as George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who was recently quoted as saying, "If India successfully fought through Pakistani defences (a big question) and threatened the Pakistani army's physical and/or political survival, I believe they would use some small number of nuclear weapons to motivate India to stop."

"It may be crazy or a bluff but is it a bluff India would be sane to call?" he questioned. Perkovich, interestingly, has been a critic of the India-US nuclear deal.

A former Indian Army general, however, says all talk of low threshold and use of tactical nuclear weapons by the Pakistani generals and politicians is merely a psychological warfare tactic to deter any conventional strike by the Indian Army or to stop India from follow what Pakistan terms as the "cold start doctrine", whose existence India has never acknowledged.

In support of his argument, the former general points out that India's military prowess to incapacitate Pakistan is much higher. Moreover, the fact that any Indian retaliation to a tactical nuclear strike may lead to widespread damage in Punjab, home to a majority of the Pakistani elite and the country's granary, would also act as a deterrent. The generals in Rawalpindi would be wary of doing anything that would disrupt their good life.

Also, China and the United States have strategic reasons to ensure that things do not escalate in South Asia. A nuclear war, for example, would threaten the Chinese plans of investing $46 billion in Pakistan, forcing them to advise their "all weather friend" to not make any reckless move. Similarly, the US, which would know of Pakistan's attempt to deploy tactical nukes since it can be easily tracked by satellite imagery, could also intervene or tip-off India in advance, blunting Pakistan's plan.

Also Read: Uri attack aimed at creating war-like situation in J&K, says CM Mehbooba Mufti

 

[Housecarl]

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http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/iran-and-victimization

Iran and Victimization

by Frank Kisner
Journal Article | September 25, 2016 - 7:02am

In the year after the United States brokered a nuclear deal with Iran, and after reviewing numerous incidents where United States Navy ships, lawfully operating in international waters in the Persian Gulf, are being harassed by Iranian Navy boats, I find myself reflecting on the relations between our two nations, and I come to the following conclusions with regard to Iran, and their self-view as a victim of the United States (otherwise derisively called by them, “the great Satan.”)

Anytime "victimization" is employed as a long-term strategy for support of a goal, an ideology, or a government, there can be no evolution of order on a world stage, and no transformation to a better life for the supporters--by definition, the "victims."* As a means to galvanize support, "victimization" is a powerful catalyst.* Take a look at our own American Revolution--arguably the authors of our Declaration of Independence embraced the idea of "victimization" for the effect it would have on the populace in general, a population that at times was somewhat apathetic towards the idea of an independent nation. *The Declaration is replete with "victimization verbiage," as highlighted in the following extract from that incredible document (with my added*emphasis):

"But when a*long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces*a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been*the patient sufferance*of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is*a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny*over these States."

The success of our nation is that, while serving as a rallying cry in 1776, our Founding Fathers "got over it!"* Once Independence had been achieved, and after determining the Articles of Confederation didn't really meet the needs of the new Republic, they turned to crafting our Constitution—and left victimization behind.* Signed in 1787 and ratified (officially) on 21 June 1788 once that ninth State’s vote had been received, the Constitution became our governing principle on 4 March 1789, and has remained the foundation upon which Americans depend.* So almost 12 years to the day after the Declaration of Independence was courageously signed by representatives of 13 colonies, the States which birthed from those colonies looked to the Ideals and Balance of Power captured in our Constitution to define rule of law, and rights--with the acknowledgement that subsequent Amendments have further ratified and provided greater clarity to ideals present in the original document. *And then this new nation looked to normalize relations with its former enemy, and our relations with Great Britain have grown so strong that they are considered in the highest category of our strongest and closest Allies.

So based on my premise that in order for a movement, a government, and most importantly, a population set to grow and evolve, the people must move beyond the "victimization" stage, one can see that it was our Constitution that served and continues to serve as the premier evidence and world-recognized visible representation of that “movement beyond.”*

Let us now examine Iran, and its ability to move beyond its "victimization" stage.* Or, more accurately, let us examine the Iranian government’s*INABILITY to move beyond "victimization."* By the very nature of how they define themselves, they continue to embrace victimization. *The most apparent example of this inability is represented in the title given the most employed and most fervent of their armed forces, known formally as the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, but more commonly referred to as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards or Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).* The naval component of the IRGC is likewise named the Navy of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, or Revolutionary Guards’ Navy.* The IRGC, to include their special forces Quds Force, is heavily employed in extraterritorial operations in many nations in the Middle East, as well as in the waters of the Persian Gulf—clearly evident as operating in Syria as highlighted in the media, although the IRGC and Quds forces are possibly executing other operations—surveillance, etc., in other parts of the world.*

So what’s in a name—in this case, everything.* Iran’s Revolution Guard--we note that they are "guards of the Revolution," which was an occurrence from the last century, with the overthrow of the Shah in 1979--exists as the heart of Iranian military power.* But even though 37 years have passed since that revolution and the overthrow of the Shah, Iran continues to define itself as victims of the Great Satan (USA), and they continue to employ armed forces (both in uniform and out of uniform) under the title of Revolutionary Guard.* By doing so, these forces serve as a constant reminder of the revolution, which logically means that they derive their legitimacy from the revolution.* Which also means they derive their legitimacy from opposition to the “Great Satan.”*

And if you follow this train of logic, the IRGC, and even the government from which they draw their legitimacy, would be ILLEGITIMATE if relations were ever normalized with the United States.** Because with normalized relations, both Iran and the IRGC would no longer be “victims.”* And after 37 years, how does a government and its most ardent supporters in its armed forces, the IRGC, then turn to the general population and say, “oh never mind, everything we’ve been telling you for the past four decades is no longer valid.”* Basically, they can’t without fear of losing power.

To perpetuate the lie and to reaffirm their existence and raison d’etre, the IRGC must provoke a response from the USA, and the Navy of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution is taking increasingly dangerous action to provoke that response.* It is only due to the tremendous professionalism of the United States Navy that Iran has been denied their desired results.* What Iran really wants is for the US to strike...thereby "proving" the "Great Satan" is still a threat to Iran, and thereby serving as a catalyst for demonstrations, national fervor, and an outpouring of support to the IRGC.* So far they have been thwarted, but instead of that being good news, it means they will continue to take a more and more provocative posture in the Gulf.*

I am not advocating the United States turn tail and run.* Far from it, as it would be strategically and diplomatically disadvantageous for us to abandon our international right to maneuver in international waters.* Rather, I am advocating that we identify what is happening, and tell our story now--before a contrived "incident" twists the facts to the point where we lose our ability to illuminate the enemies intent and enemies obvious course of action.* We need to get ahead of the “news cycle,” not only to diffuse possible outcomes, but also to dissuade the IRGC Navy from its provocative actions.

So back to my premise that in order for a movement, a government, and most importantly, a population set to grow and evolve, the people must move beyond the "victimization" stage, Iran is destined to remain a “victim” because its leaders have determined it is in their best interest to do so.* But it would be far better for the international community and for peace, security and stability if Iran would embrace rather than alienate the international community.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/art...sul_many_forces_with_many_motives_110119.html

In Battle for Iraq's Mosul, Many Forces with Many Motives

By Susannah George & Lee Keath
September 25, 2016

BAGHDAD (AP) — An unlikely array of forces is converging on the city of Mosul, lining up for a battle on the historic plains of northern Iraq that is likely to be decisive in the war against the Islamic State group.

The tacit alliance — Iraqi troops alongside Shiite militiamen, Kurdish fighters, Sunni Arab tribesmen and U.S special forces — underscores the importance of this battle. Retaking Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, would effectively break the back of the militant group, ending their self-declared "caliphate," at least in Iraq.

But victory doesn't mean an end to the conflict. In a post-Islamic State Iraq, the enmities and rivalries among the players in the anti-IS coalition could easily erupt.The battle, expected near the end of the year, threatens to be long and grueling. If IS fighters dig in against an assault, they have hundreds of thousands of residents in the city as potential human shields. And as residents flee, they fuel the humanitarian crisis in Iraq's Kurdish region around Mosul, where camps are already overcrowded with more than 1.6 million people displaced over the past two years. Humanitarian groups are rushing to prepare for potentially 1 million more who could be displaced by a Mosul assault.

The battle, expected near the end of the year, threatens to be long and grueling. If IS fighters dig in against an assault, they have hundreds of thousands of residents in the city as potential human shields. And as residents flee, they fuel the humanitarian crisis in Iraq's Kurdish region around Mosul, where camps are already overcrowded with more than 1.6 million people displaced over the past two years. Humanitarian groups are rushing to prepare for potentially 1 million more who could be displaced by a Mosul assault.

The biggest prize captured by the militants after they overran much of northern, western and central Iraq in the summer of 2014, Mosul has been vital for the Islamic State group. The reserves in its banks provided a massive cash boost to the group, and the city's infrastructure and resources helped IS as it set up its caliphate across Iraq and Syria.

Mosul was the location chosen by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to make his first public appearance after declaring the caliphate, a triumphant sermon delivered at a historic mosque in the old city. For the past two years, much of the leadership seems to have operated from Mosul.

If Mosul is retaken, it would be a nearly complete reversal of the jihadis' 2014 sweep. The group would be left with only a few pockets of territory in Iraq. IS fighters have already responded to battlefield losses by reverting to guerrilla-style tactics or retreating into neighboring Syria to defend the group's territory there, which is also rapidly eroding.

For weeks, the disparate forces have clawed back territory in Nineveh province, where Mosul is located, seizing villages and key supply lines. Still, the Iraqi military's closest position is some 30 miles south of Mosul and there remain dozens of militant-held villages with civilian populations that the troops must take before reaching the city's outskirts. Kurdish forces are closer, some within 10 miles of the city to the north and east.

U.S.-led coalition forces have sped up training for Iraqi troops and Kurdish fighters, condensing courses that once took more than two months into just four weeks. In July, the Pentagon announced that 560 more U.S. troops would deploy to Iraq to transform Qayara air base, south of Mosul, into a staging hub for the final assault.

Still, Iraq's military is thousands of soldiers short of the estimated 30,000 troops needed to launch the assault, and the existing forces are stretched thin trying to hold other recaptured territory, particularly in western Anbar province.

Iraq's "biggest challenge is generating the forces required to get to Mosul," said Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky, the head of U.S ground forces in Iraq. "If you want to pull someone out of Anbar to go to Mosul, you've got to put somebody else there."

Iraq's military fell apart when it fled Mosul in the face of the IS blitz two years ago, with a third of its troops melting away. In the ensuing months, it was revealed that tens of thousands of troops on the rolls did not exist: They were only names whose pay was pocketed by commanders. Since then, the military has been slowly rebuilding, while other armed forces such as Shiite militias and Iraq's Kurdish forces have steadily grown in strength.

The rivalries within the alliance are already starting to show and are likely to come to a head once IS falls.

The Kurds, who seized large swaths of territory during the fight against the militants, want to keep it. Iranian-backed Shiite militias demand recognition for the political and military strength they have garnered during the war. The Sunni minority is deeply worried about Shiite domination and discrimination, and those fears are likely only to grow as the community tries to recover from Islamic State rule and return to their homes.

The Shiite-led government in Baghdad will have to balance among these factions.

The most immediate question will be whether Shiite militias and Kurdish forces will join the assault into mainly Sunni Arab Mosul. It's a sensitive issue. Shiite militias have been accused of abuses against Sunnis in other areas they have retaken from the Islamic State group. If Kurds capture parts of the city, it gives them a strong card in future negotiations over the territory they hold.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said all forces will participate in the Mosul operation, a nod to Kurdish and Shiite militia demands.

But at a news conference last week, he also said Iraqi military decisions must respect the delicate ethnic balance in Nineveh province, where most of the population is Sunni Arab, with pockets of Kurds, Shiites, Christians, Yazidis and other minority groups.

When asked what role Shiite militias would have in Mosul, al-Abadi was circumspect. "I don't want Daesh to make use of sectarian conflicts," he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

Sunnis make up the vast majority of the 3.3 million Iraqis displaced by the conflict. The treatment of civilians in Mosul will likely be seen as a test of the government's commitment to lasting political reconciliation. The marginalization of Sunnis and increasingly sectarian politics under al-Abadi's predecessor, Nouri al-Maliki, fueled the rise of the Islamic State group in Iraq to begin with.

For al-Abadi, retaking Mosul is a key political prize. In office just over two years, he has faced increasing anti-government sentiment fueled by IS attacks in and around the capital and the failure to fight corruption or bring reconciliation.

Al-Abadi said he believes Iraq is more unified today than when he took office, but difficulties still remain and "new challenges" are likely to erupt after Mosul is liberated.

"Some people tell me we should delay the liberation of Mosul because of these challenges," he said. "I say: No."

Keath reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Balint Szlanko and Salar Salim in Irbil, Iraq, contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nigeria-security-idUSKCN11V0GG

World News | Sun Sep 25, 2016 | 1:10pm EDT

Man purporting to be Boko Haram leader taunts Nigerian military in video

By Ardo Abdullahi | BAUCHI, Nigeria

The purported leader of Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram Abubakar Shekau appeared in a video posted on social media on Sunday in which he rejected statements by the country's military that he had been seriously wounded.

The Nigerian military has said it has killed or critically wounded Shekau on multiple occasions in recent years, often swiftly followed by video denials by someone who says he is Shekau. Last month Nigeria's air force said it had killed senior Boko Haram members and that Shekau had been wounded.

While the ensuing videos all show someone sporting Shekau's distinctive beard, the grainy quality of the footage means it is not always possible to confirm if the person is the same as in the previous videos.

"You broadcast the news and published it in your media outlets that you injured me and killed me and here I am," said a man purporting to be Shekau in a video addressed to "tyrants of Nigeria in particular and the west of Africa in general".

"I will not get killed until my time comes," he added in the 40-minute video posted on YouTube and delivered in Arabic and Hausa, which is spoken widely in northern Nigeria.

A statement issued by army spokesman Sani Usman said the footage showed that the man purporting to be Shekau was "unstable" and came as "another sign that the end is near for him".

"Boko Haram terrorism as it was known, is gone for good. We are just counting down to the day when all the few remnants will be totally wiped out or brought to justice," he said.

The statement did not explicitly say whether the army considered the man in the video to be Shekau.

Last month's announcement by the air force came days after Islamic State, to whom Boko Haram pledged allegiance last year, announced the appointment of a new leader of the West African group in an apparent rejection of Shekau.

That appointment was later dismissed in a 10-minute audio clip on social media by a man purporting to be Shekau, exposing divisions within the jihadist group that has plagued Nigeria and neighbors Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

Boko Haram has killed about 15,000 people and displaced more than 2 million in a seven-year insurgency aimed at creating a state adhering to strict Islamic laws.

It controlled a swathe of land in northeast Nigeria around the size of Belgium at the end of 2014 but was pushed out by Nigerian troops, aided by soldiers from neighboring countries, early last year.

In a sign the group remains capable of inflicting damage, suspected militants killed four Chadian troops and wounded six overnight in an attack near the town of Kaiga, two security sources told Reuters in Chad.

They added that seven of the Islamist militants had been killed in return fire.

(Additional reporting by Muath Freij in Jordan and Madjiasra Nako in N'Djamena and Felix Onuah in Abuja; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram and Tim Cocks; Editing by Alison Williams and David Goodman)

Also In World News
Warplanes pound Syria's Aleppo, U.N. Security Council meets
China air force holds drills in Western Pacific for second time this month

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.voanews.com/a/south-chin...lines-between-military-civilians/3524091.html

South China Sea Claimants Blur Lines Between Military, Civilians

September 25, 2016 8:46 AM
Ha Nguyen

Southeast Asian nations have tried for years to establish a code of conduct for shipping, fishing and exploring for oil in the South China Sea. The idea is to avoid a conflict in the disputed, and potentially lucrative, waterway.

But some regional experts say such a code may be pointless.

Collin Koh Swee Lean, a maritime scholar at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said that’s because most countries with overlapping claims in the region believe their military buildups there are justified.

Koh said recently this militarization has become more “nebulous” in recent years. From pirates to fishermen, nearly everyone can be implicated if nations clash over ownership of the islands and waters in the South China Sea.

“You’ll find that it’s very difficult to define exactly what militarization is,” he said at a seminar hosted this week by the Saigon Center for International Studies in Ho Chi Minh City.

Civilian fishing vessel or military patrol?

China has rejected an international tribunal ruling in favor of the Philippines over Beijing’s claims to most of the South China Sea. Other governments claiming parts of the waterway are Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have airstrips, cargo planes, and surveillance aircraft in these waters, Koh said, and all but Vietnam have fighter jets there. China is the only country to have bombers available.

http://gdb.voanews.com/1439D5F0-2A81-4E4E-9841-F9DB31888A7A_w610_r0_s.png

He said governments traditionally beefed up their militaries by deploying troops or arms. Now they are blurring the lines and investing in other ways, such as coast guards units.

As countries tussle over this territory, Koh said just about everything can be militarized. States build housing for their fishermen all across the South China Sea, as well as piers where they can refuel -- both of which can serve soldiers. Helipads, which might be intended for search-and-rescue missions, can be used to launch weapons.

In another sign that lines are blurring, Koh said fishing boats have attracted suspicion for being painted like navy patrol vessels. What if, he said, fishermen get drawn into the maritime nationalism and take on the role of vigilantes?

Some of the smaller countries hope Washington could limit Beijing’s reach if Asian neighbors ever come to blows. But historian Edward Miller of Dartmouth College suggested that could be difficult with the more recent focus on coast guards and fishing fleets, rather than traditional projections of military force.

“They are moving the conflict into an area in which the United States cannot directly participate,” said Miller, who has written on the U.S.-Vietnam relationship.

Koh described a Malaysian program in which the government asks citizens to report potentially criminal behavior at sea. On the surface, that could just mean fishermen reporting signs of piracy, smuggling or illegal fishing. But it also could get civilians entangled in military affairs.

Weighing utility of code of conduct

In this context, South China Sea claimants are unlikely to agree on rules of the road, which would be hard to enforce, Koh said.

“My personal thought of a binding code of conduct is, it’s useless,” he said.

Still, such a code could give smaller nations the benefit of strength in numbers, said Nguyen Khac Giang, a senior researcher at the Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research.

For example, he said, if they write a document that clearly forbids building artificial islands, these countries would have a reference when complaining to China for doing just that.

“Southeast Asian countries prefer an international approach in the South China Sea because it’s easier for them to discuss with China in a group, within international law,” Giang said.

China has resisted discussing the South China Sea dispute in multinational gatherings, and says it will negotiate only bilateral agreements with individual states.
Koh doubted the value of this approach. He said nations have swifter military resources these days and can deploy weapons on short notice. So if they’re accused of violating the code of conduct and using force in the South China Sea, they can say the actions are temporary, rather than outright militarization.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-surveillance-vote-idUSKCN11V0H6?il=0

World News | Sun Sep 25, 2016 | 12:48pm EDT

Swiss spy law seen passing with voters on security concerns

By John Miller | ZURICH

Swiss voters on Sunday were seen backing a law extending the national spy service's authority to monitor internet traffic, deploy drones and hack foreign computer systems, early returns published on Swiss state television showed.

The measure cleared Swiss Parliament a year ago, but privacy advocates and left-leaning political parties collected more than 50,000 signatures to put the measure on the ballot, customary in Switzerland's system of direct democracy.

The Swiss government had contended the nation's outdated intelligence laws had left Switzerland ill-equipped to tackle threats that have intensified as militants deploy new technology in a tight-knit global network.

The promise of more effective surveillance and subsequent security improvements resonated with voters worried that militant attacks such as those in neighboring France and Germany could also hit Switzerland, political experts said.

"Swiss people understood the threat in concrete terms and acknowledged that an attack could come at any time," said Patrick Emmenegger, a professor of comparative political economy and public policy at Switzerland's University of St. Gallen. "Consequently, they were aware of the challenge -- and that newer, better tools were needed."

Opponents of the law, who raised the specter of unprecedented mass surveillance, conceded defeat early Sunday afternoon but pledged to monitor how the law is applied in coming years.

CAREFUL WATCH
"We are going to be keeping a careful watch," said Tamara Funiciello, president of the young people's wing of the Swiss Social Democratic party.

Across Europe, countries including France have expanded spy agency powers, following Islamist attacks that have shifted some governments' priorities from privacy to security.

A recent Polish surveillance law extends authorities' access to digital data and loosens the legal framework limiting surveillance by law enforcement.

While Switzerland has so far been unscathed by militant attacks, it has prosecuted several people it contends aided Islamic State.

Two other measures on Sunday's Swiss ballot, a so-called "Green Economy" initiative aiming to require businesses to use resources efficiently, and a measure that would have boosted retirement pension payments by 10 percent, were seen failing, according to early results.

(Reporting by John Miller, editing bn Louise Heavens)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/23...pirates-why-cant-it-stop-west-african-piracy/

Report

Why Is It So Hard to Stop West Africa’s Vicious Pirates?

After vanquishing Somali pirates, the world is looking for a playbook that will work in the Gulf of Guinea.

By Dan De Luce
September 23, 2016
Dan.DeLuce
@dandeluce

With little more than skiffs, ladders, and Kalashnikovs, the pirates of Somalia once hijacked giant cargo ships, extracted millions of dollars in ransom, and forced the world’s navies to send warships steaming to the Gulf of Aden. They stole headlines and Hollywood’s imagination as khat-chewing villains in the hit film Captain Phillips.

But after wreaking havoc in the sea lanes off the Horn of Africa, with more than 200 attacks every year at their peak, the once-notorious Somali pirates have virtually vanished. No cargo ship has been successfully hijacked off the coast of Somalia since the spring of 2012. This year, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) reported only three incidents.

Defeating Somalia’s scourge of piracy required unprecedented cooperation by different navies, efforts to boost stability ashore, and, perhaps most importantly, the use of armed guards on commercial vessels, a radical break with shipping practices and tradition.

The bad news is that while the counterpiracy recipe seems to have worked, shipping companies are already warning about complacency. Many fear that the United States and other navies operating in the area could declare victory and go home, potentially allowing pirates to return.

What’s more, for all its success in the Indian Ocean, the Somali playbook appears unsuited to fighting piracy in the two corners of the world where it is still raging: West Africa and Southeast Asia.

Piracy off Somalia rapidly became such a concern for shippers and sailors because of the scope of the pirates’ hijackings. Unlike pirates elsewhere in the world, the Somalis would seize an entire commercial vessel and crew and demand a ransom. Because of Somalia’s lawlessness, the armed gangs could moor cargo vessels along the coastline without having to worry about coast guards or police.

In November 2009, the pirates captured a Saudi supertanker, Sirius Star, and eventually released the ship for a ransom of $3 million, which was parachuted onto the deck. By 2012, ransoms hit an all-time high with the capture of a Greek tanker Smymi, which was released upon a payout of $9.5 million.

The rapid decline in piracy off the coast of Somalia has taken the shipping industry and governments by surprise. And there is still debate about what caused Somali piracy to trail off.

A big part of the effort came on land. International efforts to roll back al-Shabab terrorists in Somalia, including U.S. airstrikes and an African Union military force on the ground, played an important role by bringing some order to the war-torn country, experts said.

As part of the African Union mission in Somalia, Kenyan troops in 2012 captured the port of Kismayo and chased out al-Shabab fighters. That removed an important stronghold where the pirates had been able to operate. At the same time, some Somali clans — conservative by nature — had come to resent the pirate criminal network that disrupted the traditional order with flashy cars, narcotics, and prostitutes.

“All of a sudden you have authority —*not based on tradition or religious learning but based on big guns and robbery on the high seas,” said author J. Peter Pham of the Atlantic Council. “That upset the other clans,” he said, and power began to shift away from the pirates.

With al-Shabab on the retreat, regional armed forces on the ground, and a degree of stability emerging in Somalia, the pirate gangs could no longer operate with as much freedom or impunity, Pham said.

But the most visible effort against the Somali pirates came at sea. In 2009, the United States launched an international naval mission — Task Force 151 — to fend off pirates along the busy sea lanes off the Horn of Africa. The European Union and NATO each set up counterpiracy flotillas. And China, Russia, and India sent warships in their own separate efforts.

The U.S. Navy famously captured and killed groups of pirates in a few cases and prosecuted a small number in American courts who had fired on U.S. warships. European naval forces also captured pirates and destroyed a number of warehouses along the coast that were being used by the armed gangs. The international naval forces, however, mostly served as a deterrent, and as a source of crucial information and surveillance that was shared with commercial ships plying the Gulf of Aden.

The role of U.S. and other foreign navies played a “critical element” in thwarting the pirates, said David McKeeby of the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which helped coordinate the U.S. role in counterpiracy efforts. Particularly telling was the degree of informal cooperation and information-sharing between the different navies and commercial shippers, with no central control. It was “like something of a naval pickup game,” McKeeby told Foreign Policy.

But the biggest difference may have come aboard those commercial ships. Burdened by rising insurance premiums, shippers began trying to ensure that their vessels were not sitting ducks. The vessels started cruising at higher speeds, installed barbed wire on the lower decks, built “citadel” safe rooms for crews, and toyed with foam machines, high-power water jets, and deafening sonic devices. Finally, and reluctantly, in a sharp break from decades of convention, major shipping companies also started sending out small teams of armed security guards on their vessels — usually former military troops — as a last line of defense.

Some government officials and industry experts said the armed guards, more than any other factor, were decisive in turning the tide against the pirates. Perched on a sprawling cargo ship high above the pirates’ speedboats, the armed guards could easily knock out a boat’s engine or kill gunmen long before they reached the vessel. Not a single commercial ship with armed guards on deck has been successfully hijacked off the coast of Somalia.

The deployment of armed teams aboard ships was “a real game-changer,” said Michael McNicholas, a former U.S. Army officer and now managing director of the Phoenix Group, a maritime security firm.

But it was a game-changer for shippers and insurers, too, prompting plenty of anxiety and forcing Britain and other European governments to waive prohibitions on domestic firms carrying military-style weapons on vessels. Armed guards also complicate life for the ship, since most countries impose restrictions or ban firearms aboard ships coming into port. And deadly force can turn, well, deadly.

In February 2012, two Italian marines guarding an Italian-flagged oil tanker allegedly shot and killed two Indian fishermen, whom they mistakenly took for pirates. The two marines have been charged with murder, and the legal battle over the case is still underway. Authorities in India want to prosecute the marines in an Indian court, but Rome has insisted that the case be tried in Italy because the incident occurred in international waters. Indian authorities also have charged a British security team accompanying a cargo ship with violating India’s weapons laws.

The anti-piracy campaign may have been too successful. With attacks virtually eradicated, many Western governments are questioning the need for keeping up a round-the-clock naval presence along strategic shipping routes off the Horn of Africa.

The NATO alliance has already announced it will end its counterpiracy mission in the Gulf of Aden, Operation Ocean Shield. But European governments will likely extend to December 2018 the mandate of the European Union’s Operation Atalanta, which is due to expire by the end of the year.

The shipping industry wants the warships to stay and has warned of the dangers of complacency. The IMB, which tracks piracy as part of the International Chamber of Commerce, said it “believes that a single successful hijacking of a merchant vessel will rekindle the Somali pirates’ passion to resume its piracy efforts.”

The U.S. Navy has no plans to pull out of the 31-nation counterpiracy task force it set up seven years ago, despite the sharp drop in hijackings off the Horn of Africa, said Cmdr. Bill Urban, spokesman for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.

“Maintaining current U.S. and international community anti-piracy efforts is a proven and effective way to ensure the incidence of piracy in the region remains low,” Urban told FP.

There is so much interest in understanding what overcame Somali piracy because high-seas larceny and kidnapping are spiking in other parts of the world, especially West Africa. The Gulf of Guinea, stretching from Senegal to Angola, represents a crucial gateway for oil shipments from Nigeria and Angola, two major oil exporters. But it’s increasingly a prized hunting ground for pirates looking to kidnap captains and crew from oil-industry vessels working close to shore.

The pirates around Nigeria have started to expand hostage-taking from offshore supply vessels to production storage and general cargo ships. There were 54 piracy incidents reported last year, with 37 crew members kidnapped off the Niger Delta, and 34 the previous year.

As a result, the area along Nigeria’s coast is now the most violent and dangerous area for shipping companies, according to Oceans Beyond Piracy, a Colorado-based nonprofit group that tracks piracy.

The problem could be even graver; the IMB estimates that only one-third of pirate attacks in the Gulf of Guinea end up being reported. Shipping companies often would rather avoid having to inform insurers or endure a long investigation that often comes to nothing.

“You’re not seeing the pirates and criminals captured and brought to account. That’s a risk-reward ratio that is pretty good for the pirates,” said Ian Millen, chief operating officer for U.K.-based Dryad Maritime, a security firm.

The West African spike has prompted calls to employ similar methods, including armed guards, that wiped out piracy off Somalia. But the same playbook may not be applicable.

Unlike Somalia, the countries affected have functioning governments and militaries that are not ready to open the door to international naval forces or heavily armed foreign security guards sailing into their waters.

Dryad’s Millen said it’s highly unlikely that international armed guards will become a trend for commercial cargo vessels operating elsewhere, such as in West Africa. That’s because armed attacks there often happen in or near territorial waters. In that case, the only option is for locally sourced armed protection. British shipping companies deploying armed guards off the east coast of Africa, for example, have to operate with licenses issued in London that restrict their use outside the Gulf of Aden region.

“The thing about Somali piracy was that the vast majority of it happened on international high seas and outside territorial waters, where international law applies,” Millen told FP. “Contrast that to the Gulf of Guinea and Nigeria; those areas are not failed states, and they do have their own sovereignty.”

The U.N. Security Council, whose resolutions helped pave the way for an international response to the Somali piracy crisis, has urged international action to help Nigeria and other governments in West Africa contain the spreading threat of piracy, which is spooking shipping companies and further depressing coastal economies already hammered by cheap oil.

For crews laboring along the African coast, the hijacking epidemic represents a dangerous and growing reality. Hostages seized by the pirates are usually held on small islands in the Niger Delta and often beaten, subjected to mock executions, denied medical treatment, and fed limited rations, according to a report from Oceans Beyond Piracy.

The Polish skipper of MV Szafir, a Cyprus-flagged cargo ship, recounted an attack on his vessel last November that left him and his crew at the mercy of pirates, who kidnapped him and four others for ransom.

“They were aiming at us with machine guns,” said Capt. Krzystof Kozlowski. “Right between the eyes. There was not any possibility to do anything. We had to adjust to them; it was the only chance to survive.”

 

[Housecarl]

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Posted for fair use.....
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-spark-war-asia-17819

How to Spark a War in Asia

Both Washington and Beijing need to prevent their allies from creating security crises.

Ted Galen Carpenter
September 24, 2016

A major challenge for a great power is preventing allies and client states from creating unwanted security crises. No matter how close or friendly an ally might be, it has its own policy agenda, and that agenda may differ from that of its great power protector. Failure to rein in a client can be calamitous. Serbia’s pursuit of a stridently nationalist parochial agenda against Austria-Hungary in the years before World War I, for example, was a major factor in eventually entangling its patron, Russia, in the conflict.

Both the United States and China need to be cognizant of this danger as they conduct their overall policies in East Asia. North Korea’s provocative and disruptive behavior, especially Pyongyang’s multiple ballistic missile and nuclear tests, highlights the problem for Beijing. Chinese officials appear increasingly frustrated as their North Korean “ally” seems determined to engage in such conduct despite China’s pleas, requests, and warnings to refrain. It would not be surprising if apprehension is rising in Chinese leadership circles that Kim Jong-un’s regime might do something truly reckless that triggers a war on the Korean Peninsula. The problem is that unless Beijing is willing to adopt draconian measures, such as cutting off North Korea’s food and energy supplies, the influence it can exercise over its rambunctious ally is decidedly limited.

The United States faces somewhat more subtle dangers with two of its allies in East Asia, but the dangers are still very real. Taiwan is one of those allies--or more accurately a protectorate under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. U.S. officials had become accustomed to cooperative behavior from Taipei during the eight-year administration of Kuomintang President Ma Ying-jeou. Ma went out of his way to placate Beijing and always kept Washington in the loop regarding various initiatives.

There has already been a deterioration in cross-strait relations under the new government of Tsai Ing-wen of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party. Her government has taken a number of actions that have angered Beijing. One was to refuse to embrace the so-called 1992 consensus in which the two sides agreed that there was only one China, although they disagreed about the specific nature of that entity. Another was to have a rally in Taipei commemorating the Tiananmen Square massacre—the first time that such a commemoration had been held in Taiwan.

Now Taipei has taken action that further complicates the already delicate situation in the South China Sea. Even as Washington has repeatedly admonished Beijing not to enhance the islands and reefs that it occupies in that body of water, media reports indicate that Taiwan is pursuing an ambitious agenda. According to United Press International, relying on reports in China Times and other Taiwanese sources, Taiwan is now building anti-aircraft defenses on Taiping (also known as Itu Aba) Island, the largest island in the disputed Spratly chain claimed by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. That follows on the heels of an upgraded military airstrip. The latest construction apparently consists of four anti-aircraft gun blockhouse towers. To make matters even more ominous, the Taiwanese government apparently asked Google to blur out images of the site to conceal the military construction. At a minimum, Taipei’s conduct will make Washington’s next lecture to Beijing on maintaining the status quo in the South China Sea considerably more awkward.

The other small East Asian client that has the potential to make life difficult for Washington is the Philippines. So far at least Manila has not done anything irresponsible following the favorable ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. But President Rodrigo Duterte is the personification of a loose-cannon ally. Indeed, his intemperate language and behavior makes Donald Trump look like a model of dignity. Among the lowlights of his presidency thus far was labeling President Obama a “son of a bitch,” which cost him a summit meeting with the leader of his country’s patron and protector. Americans tended to focus on the crudity of the comment rather than the context, but the context was important. Duterte was emphasizing that he was answerable only to the Philippine people and that Manila’s foreign policy would not automatically follow Washington’s wishes. Although that statement might be primarily for domestic consumption, U.S. policymakers may be dealing with a leader stubbornly inclined to pursue his own agenda.

Basic norms of decency do not seem to limit Duterte’s behavior. His domestic conduct has been as alarming and reckless as his rhetoric. Chief among his offenses is his regime’s death squad-style killings of more than 2,400 accused drug traffickers—all without even a semblance of due process. One dare not assume that a leader willing to commit such crimes will behave in a responsible fashion on international issues that Washington deems important.

And although he has not yet done anything especially confrontational toward China, there is little doubt that he expects the United States to support him in whatever foreign policy he does adopt. Since we do have a long-standing bilateral security treaty with Manila, it might not be easy to extricate ourselves from a counterproductive, or even dangerous, commitment in the midst of a crisis. It’s not the most comforting thought that America’s security could be directly impacted by actions taken by the likes of Rodrigo Duterte.

Both China and America would benefit from a comprehensive reassessment of alliance policies. Do security ties to small, often volatile, sometimes uncontrollable, client states really benefit great powers? Or are they more often mousetraps leading to unwanted and unnecessary wars? Policymakers need to ask themselves such questions before the next crisis erupts.

Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor at the National Interest. is the author of 10 books and more than 600 articles on international affairs.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37460455

Mexico missing students: Unanswered questions two years on

By Katy Watson
BBC Mexico and Central America reporter
2 hours ago
From the section Latin America & Caribbean

Two years have passed since 43 students went missing on their way to a protest in the Mexican town of Iguala. The violence that night also left three dead and two injured.

At the time, their disappearance caused outrage. Protests in Mexico City turned violent. But while many are still angry, the events on the night of 26 September and the early morning of 27 September 2014 have faded.

New scandals have emerged, whether it is accusations of corruption, allegations of plagiarism or the political faux pas of inviting US Republican candidate Donald Trump to the country, President Enrique Pena Nieto now boasts the unenviable accolade of having the lowest presidential approval ratings for decades.

But the anger is still burning at the Raul Isidros Burgos rural teachers' college in Ayotzinapa, where the trainee teachers were studying.

Leaders 'corrupt'

Every dormitory is adorned with reminders of their missing peers. In the college's main square, pictures of the men are tied to the railings. The basketball court in the centre has 43 chairs laid out - a shrine to the disappeared.

At the college, I meet Maricarmen Mendoza, the mother of missing student Jorge Anibal Cruz Mendoza. In her hand is a poster which reads: "He was taken alive and we want him back alive."

As a mother, she says she still has hope and is convinced the students are somewhere. She is also convinced that there was government involvement at every level. She blames President Pena Nieto for all that has happened.

"They should have given us a response by now if they were good leaders but sadly we only have corrupt leaders," she tells me.

She says she won't give up looking.

"Sometimes me and my friends say it's a life for a life," she says, hinting that she would go to extremes to get her son back.

In January 2015, the attorney general at the time, Jesus Murillo Karam, said the government investigation had found the "historical truth", that the students had been burned at a municipal rubbish dump after being handed over to a drugs cartel by corrupt police.

But it was a scenario that has since been rejected by several teams of experts.

A year after their disappearance, a group of independent experts appointed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released a report saying the government investigation was deeply flawed. Their views have since been backed up by other independent investigations.

"A lot of time was wasted trying to justify what the attorney general called the historical truth," says Carlos Zazueta of Amnesty International in Mexico City.
He says the government has not learned from its mistakes.

"It's not that they don't know what they need to do, it's that they lack any will to do it. They have been trying to save face to manage the situation in terms of the political response," he says.

Grey line

History of investigations

January 2015: The government declared the "historic truth" of the facts - that the students had been burned at a rubbish dump after being handed over to drugs gangs by corrupt police

September 2015: Experts from the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights say government investigation deeply flawed.

February 2016: Argentine forensic experts conclude there's no biological or physical evidence to support government claim that the students were burned at rubbish dump

April 2016: Experts release second report that says government has hampered their investigation

July 2016: Special mechanism set up to monitor the case of missing students and follow up recommendations of the Independent Group of Experts.

Grey line

More than 100 people have been detained over the students' disappearance including Iguala's Mayor Jose Luis Abarca and his wife. But Mario Patron of the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Centre points out that none has been accused of forced disappearance. Instead they are detained on organised crime charges.

"It weakens the responsibility of the state," he says, adding that the municipal, state and federal levels of government are implicated in what happened that night.

And it gets worse. Many of those detained have accused authorities of torture.
"There is no consequence in this country for any breach of human rights," says Amnesty International's Carlos Zazuet.

"When they try to solve things, the methods they use breach human rights so that's the problem. It's systematic. It's the way they work, they don't seem to know any other way of working."

Just a few weeks ago, Tomas Zeron resigned as the head of Mexico's Criminal Investigation Agency. In April, the attorney general's office said he was under investigation after a team of experts presented photographic and video evidence that just a day before a charred bone fragment was found by a river, he had been at the same site - and had not reported his visit and never explained why he hadn't done so, despite saying it was not a secret.

It was a resignation that the parents of the missing students had long been asking for, but within hours he was appointed "technical secretary" of Mexico's National Security Council.

"It's a contradictory political message," says Mario Patron. "He resigns only to be given a role directly appointed by the president. We can't forget that there's an investigation under way with this civil servant and to give him a post while he is being investigated could be the build-up to a declaration of an acquittal."

What next?

In July, the Mexican government, along with the students' families agreed to a follow-up mechanism with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. They will monitor how Mexico complies with the group's recommendations.

These past two years have only served to show the systemic problem of corruption, of organised crime and of government intransigence in Mexico.
There's little faith that this year will prove more successful than the previous two.

More on this story

Mexico: Thousands of demonstrators demand President Nieto's resignation
16 September 2016
Mexico federal police 'saw Iguala students being taken away'
14 April 2016
Mexico reopens investigation into 43 missing students
21 October 2015
Mexico to try Iguala ex-mayor's wife
13 January 2015

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/25/politics/us-south-korea-naval-show-of-force/

US, South Korean missile destroyers in fresh show of force to North Korea

By Brad Lendon and Paula Hancocks, CNN
Updated 9:33 PM ET, Sun September 25, 2016

(CNN)The US and South Korean navies put on a show of force in the Sea of Japan on Monday, the latest in a string of displays of military might in response to North Korea's testing of nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles.

Monday's exercises saw the US guided missile destroyer USS Spruance join ships, submarines and planes from the South Korean navy in waters east of the Korean Peninsula.

The naval show of force followed last week's flight of US Air Force B-1 bombers along the Demilitarized Zone, the closest the powerful, combat-tested heavy bombers have ever flown to the line separating North and South Korea, according to a U.S. military source.

That flyover followed North Korea's announcement of the successful test of rocket engine. Earlier this month, B-1s flew over Osan Air Base, south of the South Korean capital of Seoul, in response to North Korea's fifth test of a nuclear warhead, a test Pyongyang said showed it's ready to mount warheads on missiles.

US-South Korea partnership

"We work side-by-side with our ROK partners every day; we are by their side today at sea, and we will remain by their side to defend against North Korea's unprovoked acts of aggression," Rear Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Korea and Task Force 78, said in a statement.

Notable in Monday's drills were the presence of the Spruance and South Korean destroyers equipped with the Aegis missile defense system. Touted by manufacturer Lockheed-Martin as "the world's most advanced combat system," Aegis can track more than 100 targets at a time and is the only naval system capable of intercepting ballistic missiles.

North Korea has increased its testing of submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) this year, its most recent in August flew around 300 miles (500 kilometers), which Pyongyang claimed as a success.

South Korea's intelligence agency NIS told lawmakers recently Pyongyang is progressing toward its goal of mounting a nuclear warhead to ballistic missiles "faster than previously estimated."

"Our ROK-US alliance will counter the North Korean nuclear development and SLBM threats with determination," Vice Adm. Lee Ki-sik, commander of the Republic of Korea Fleet, said in a statement.

North Korea says US is the threat

Pyongyang blames the US for the escalation of tensions surrounding its nuclear program.

"(North Korea) had no other choice but to go nuclear" to defend itself "from the constant nuclear threats from the United States," Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told the UN General Assembly on Friday.

Meanwhile, experts disagree on whether the repeated shows of force by the US can stop Pyongyang's nuclear testing. South Korean officials believe Pyongyang is already physically ready to carry out its sixth nuclear test.

The military displays show North Korea that "the United States won't be intimidated by their pursuit of nuclear weapons, much less the threat to use them," David Straub, a former State Department Korean affairs director, told CNN.

Shows of force are also "useful in reassuring the South Korean government and people that the United States has both the capability and the will to deter North Korea," Straub said.

But Victor Cha, Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the movement of military assets into the region is part of a US strategy that is "as predictable as it is ineffective."

"With each missile and nuclear test, Kim Jong-un appears to be gaining confidence and certainty that the world will recognize North Korea as a nuclear state and deal with it on those terms," Cha said in congressional testimony on September 14.

Andre Gerolymatos, coordinator of the Terrorism, Risk and Security Studies Program at Simon Fraser University, told CNN flyovers and exercises are "not sufficient to cause alarm" in North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

"Like all bullies he only understands force," Gerolymatos said.

READ: South Korea's assassination option
CNN's Nicole Gaouette contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

URGENT Breaking News: Russia Strikes Back - We Are at WAR
Started by China Connection‎, 09-23-2016 03:53 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-News-Russia-Strikes-Back-We-Are-at-WAR/page4

UNSC to hold emergency meeting Sunday, 11am NY time No-Fly Zone Syria Russia
Started by Possible Impact‎, Yesterday 08:28 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...y-11am-NY-time-No-Fly-Zone-Syria-Russia/page2

No-fly zone would ‘require war with Syria and Russia’ – top US general
Started by Hfcomms‎, Today 03:36 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...r-with-Syria-and-Russia%92-%96-top-US-general

Crisis & Chaos: Are We Moving Toward World War III? with George Friedman
Started by China Connection‎, Today 02:54 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ing-Toward-World-War-III-with-George-Friedman

--

Better Prep more-the Nukes are coming!
Started by Troke‎, Yesterday 09:30 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?500599-Better-Prep-more-the-Nukes-are-coming!


The New Cold War - CBS 60 Minutes
Videos

60 MINUTES OVERTIME
60 Minutes aboard the "deadliest engine of destruction"

60 MINUTES OVERTIME
The specter of nuclear annihilation has changed

60 MINUTES OVERTIME
Using nuclear weapons may no longer be unthinkable

For links see article source.....
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http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-risk-of-nuclear-attack-rises/

Risk of nuclear attack rises
What are the chances the next president would have to make a decision on whether to use nuclear weapons? It’s greater than you might think

Sep 25 2016
CORRESPONDENT
David Martin
COMMENTS 44

The following is a script from “The New Cold War” which aired on Sept. 25, 2016. David Martin is the correspondent. Mary Walsh and Tadd Lascari, producers.

President Obama’s nuclear strategy states that while the threat of all-out nuclear war is remote the risk of a nuclear attack somewhere in the world has actually increased. When that was written three years ago the risk came from a rogue nation like North Korea. Back then the U.S. and Russia were said to be partners but that was before Russia invaded Crimea, using military force to change the borders of Europe. And before its president, Vladimir Putin, and his generals began talking about nuclear weapons. For generations nuclear weapons have been seen as a last resort to be used only in extreme circumstances. But in this new Cold War the use of a nuclear weapon is not as unlikely to occur as you might think.

60 Minutes aboard the "deadliest engine of destruction"60 MINUTES OVERTIME
60 Minutes aboard the "deadliest engine of destruction"
Air-launched cruise missiles being loaded onto a long range B-52 bomber at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

David Martin: When you see it close up, it’s, it’s even bigger than you think it is.

Richard Clark: It is an impressive machine. About 185,000 pounds empty. But it’s built to carry weapons and gas.

Major General Richard Clark commands all of this country’s nuclear bombers.

David Martin: And these are the weapons?

Richard Clark: Yes sir. These are air-launch cruise missiles. It is the nuclear primary weapon for the B-52.

Clark told us these are training missiles so they are not armed with nuclear warheads.

A B-52 can carry 20 cruise missiles, six under each wing and eight in the bomb bay.

newcoldwarii-main.jpg
B-52 bomber CBS NEWS
Richard Clark: So this is the rotary launcher. And it holds eight air-launched cruise missiles within the internal bomb bay of the B-52. It’s a tight fit but the way it works is the launcher rotates, allows the weapon to release and send it on its way.

David Martin: It looks like the chamber of a revolver.

Richard Clark: Same idea. Just much bigger bullets.

As the most visible arm of the American nuclear arsenal these bombers are meant to send a message to an international audience.

Richard Clark: We can put this aircraft anywhere we want, anytime we want and both our allies and our adversaries take note.

David Martin: This is basically a nuclear show-and-tell?

Richard Clark: It’s not just a show-and-tell because it will deliver.

cu-gen-richard-clark.jpg
Major General Richard Clark CBS NEWS
Within the last two years B-52s have begun sending that message directly to Russia, flying missions not seen since the Cold War. It started after Vladimir Putin changed history by invading an independent country, Ukraine, and seizing its Republic of Crimea.

Phillip Breedlove: The fact that military force would be used to change an internationally recognized border in the central part of Europe that was new.

Now retired, General Phillip Breedlove was the supreme Allied commander in Europe when Russia took over Crimea. The invasion was carried out by so-called little green men – Russian soliders wearing uniforms without insignia – but looming in the background were nuclear weapons.

David Martin: Was there ever any indication that Vladimir Putin was prepared to use his nuclear weapons in any way?

Phillip Breedlove: Vladimir Putin said himself that he would considered raising the alert status of his nuclear force.

David Martin: He had considered it?

Phillip Breedlove: He said it himself.

Putin said he had given an order to his military to be prepared to increase the readiness of his nuclear forces if the U.S. and NATO tried to block his takeover of Crimea. “We were not looking for a fight,” Putin said in this interview. But “we were ready for the worst-case scenario.”

Phillip Breedlove: They see nuclear weapons as a normal extension of a conventional conflict.

David Martin: So to them nuclear war is not unthinkable?

Phillip Breedlove: I think to them the use of nuclear weapons is not unthinkable.

It says so in their military doctrine, signed by Putin in 2014, Russia “…shall reserve the right to use nuclear weapons . . . In the event of aggression . . . When the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.”

Putin has personally directed nuclear exercises which have increased in both size and frequency, according to Breedlove.

David Martin: More threatening?

Phillip Breedlove: Certainly they get your attention.

David Martin: More aggressive?

Phillip Breedlove: Clearly.

And the U.S. responded with more aggressive exercises of its own. One year after Crimea four B-52s flew up over the North Pole and North Sea on an exercise called polar growl the B-52s were unarmed but that little fin on the side of the fuselage identified them as capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Hans Kristensen: What I plotted here are the two routes for these planes.

Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the federation of American scientists, used Google Earth to show us the message that sent Russia.

Hans Kristensen: Each bomber can carry 20 cruise missiles a maximum of them so we’re talking about potentially 80 cruise missiles that could have been launched against targets inside Russia at this particular time.

Using the cruise missiles range of 1500 miles, Kristensen plotted his own hypothetical lines showing how far they could potentially reach into Russia.

David Martin: And the end points of those red lines?

Hans Kristensen: Yes, each of them go to a facility in Russia that could be a potential target for nuclear weapons.

David Martin: The Russians would look at that and see it as a dry run for an attack on targets inside Russia.

Richard Clark: I guess they can draw the conclusions that they need to draw.

David Martin: Eighty cruise missiles in your face.

Richard Clark: It’s a lot of fire power.

David Martin: Was that the message?

Richard Clark: That’s a message for sure.

The last time American nuclear bombers flew a mission like that was during the Cold War.

Richard Clark: This was a significant exercise for us. We’re training the way we might have to fight.

It was an unmistakable warning -- but Rear Admiral Steve Parode says there’s no indication the Russian military has changed its thinking about nuclear weapons.

Steve Parode: Disturbingly, in recent years there have been specific doctrinal and public statements made by other Russian leaders that indicate an evolved willingness to employ nuclear weapons in the course of conflict.

As director of intelligence for the U.S. Strategic Command, Parode spent the last two years gauging Russia’s nuclear intentions.

Steve Parode: I think that they feel that fundamentally the West is sociologically weaker and if they were to use a nuclear weapon in the course of a conflict between say NATO and Russia they might be able to shock the Western powers into de-escalating, freezing the conflict, into calling a cease fire.

David Martin: So they have a belief that they’re just tougher than us?

Steve Parode: Oh, that’s definitely true.

David Martin: And if they have to use nuclear weapons, we can’t, we can’t take it?

Steve Parode: I think that some people might think that.

Parode is not talking about the Armageddon of an all-out nuclear war which neither side could win. But the limited use of a few nuclear weapons which could convince the U.S. to back down.

David Martin: So, how would they shock us into surrender?

Steve Parode: They could strike a European target with a nuclear weapon, maybe an airfield they thought was vital to conflict between NATO and Russia.

David Shlapak: We’re looking at H-Hour. We’re looking at the, the moment before the conflict starts.

David Shlapak of the RAND Corporation directed a series of war games commissioned by the Pentagon in which Russia invaded the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia -- two of the newer members of NATO and because of their location on the Russian border two of the most vulnerable.

David Shlapak: When the fight starts, the Russians have about 400 to 500 tanks on the battlefield. NATO has none.

The red chips represent Russian forces. The blue and white are NATO.

David Martin: The relative size of the stacks kind of says it all.

David Shlapak: It does, it does. This is not a happy picture for NATO.

As the scenario unfolds, Russian forces in red are storming the capitals of Estonia and Latvia.

David Shlapak: They can get there between a day and a half and two and a half days – 36 to 60 hours.

To retake Estonia and Latvia the U.S. and NATO would have to conduct a major build-up of military forces to drive the Russians out.

David Shlapak: One of the things you would expect Russia to do would be to begin rattling the nuclear sabre very aggressively, to say, “We’re here. This is our territory now. And if you come and try to take it away from us, we will escalate.”

David Martin: Escalate. Use nuclear weapons?

David Shlapak: Use nuclear weapons.

Russia has more than 1,000 short range nuclear weapons while the U.S. has less than 200 at air bases in Europe.

Hans Kristensen: There’s one in Germany…

The locations of American nuclear weapons are officially secret. But here’s what they look like. Hans Kristensen says he discovered this photo on a U.S. Air Force website showing the inside of a shelter where nuclear bombs would be loaded aboard American and NATO jet fighters.

Hans Kristensen: Each vault can have up to four nuclear bombs. They hang right next to each other.

Hans Kristensen: It can - it sinks into the ground with the weapons, levels completely with the surface.

David Martin: And just out of a doomsday movie the nuclear weapon rises out of the floor.

Hans Kristensen: Right.

The bomb is called the B-61 and it’s being upgraded by adding a new set of tail fins that give it greater accuracy. That would allow the B-61 to destroy its target using a lower-yield nuclear weapon which would decrease the number of civilian casualties.

The air-launched cruise missile, says Major General Clark, can also be turned into a low-yield nuclear weapon.

Richard Clark: There is a variable yield option on this weapon, so we can change that yield within the weapon.

David Martin: You can dial in a yield?

Richard Clark: That’s what we call it, actually. Dial a yield.

David Martin: Does that make a nuclear weapon easier to use?

Phillip Breedlove: We do not plan to go there. We do not want to go there.

David Martin: But if you have this option which allows you to keep civilian casualties to a minimum and you’re really up against it, isn’t it easier?

Phillip Breedlove: I don’t think that any decision to ever use a nuclear weapon could be categorized as easy.

David Martin: Less difficult?

Phillip Breedlove: Less difficult. We could say that.

Russia is also developing low-yield weapons which this declassified CIA document says could “…lower the threshold for first use of nuclear weapons...” “the development of low yield warheads that could be used on high-precision weapon systems would be consistent with Russia’s increasing reliance on nuclear weapons…”

But “increasing reliance on nuclear weapons,” says Rear Admiral Parode, doesn’t mean Russia is eager to use them.

Steve Parode: I don’t perceive that they are, have become madmen with their fingers on the button. But I do believe they are more interested in considering how nuclear weapons could be used in conflict to either close a gap or to sustain the opportunity for victory.

David Martin: So what’s the scenario? What situation would get them to seriously consider the use of nuclear weapons?

Steve Parode: That is probably the greatest question I’m trying to answer today for Admiral Haney.

strategic-command-center.jpg
U.S. Strategic Command Center CBS NEWS
That’s Admiral Cecil Haney, head of the U.S. Strategic Command, the man who would carry out a presidential order to launch a nuclear weapon.

Cecil Haney: Thank you. I appreciate the update.

Low key and cerebral, Haney commands not only this country’s nuclear forces but its cyber weapons and space satellites as well.

David Martin: Is it riskier today?

Cecil Haney: Well I think today we’re at a time and place that I don’t think we’ve been to before.

It is Haney’s job to convince Vladimir Putin that resorting to nuclear weapons would be the worst mistake he could possibly make.

David Martin: When you look at what would work to deter Russia, do you have to get inside Putin’s head?

Cecil Haney: You have to have a deep, deep, deep understanding of any adversary you want to deter, including Mr. Putin.

David Martin: So how would you describe him psychologically?

Cecil Haney: Well, one I would say I’m not a psychologist. But I would just say he is clearly an individual that is an opportunist.

David Martin: Does it concern you that an opportunist has a nuclear arsenal?

Cecil Haney: It concerns me that Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons. It concerns me that Russia has behaved badly on the international stage. And it concerns me that we have leadership in Russia, at various levels that would flagrantly talk about the use of a nuclear weapon in this 21st century.

© 2016 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
David Martin
David Martin is CBS News' National Security Correspondent.

 

[Housecarl]

WAR DRUMS OVER SYRIA

http://www.drudgereport.com/i/logo9.gif

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.ft.com/content/cdd5f09c-831d-11e6-a29c-6e7d9515ad15

Russia accused of supporting ‘barbarism’ over Syrian conflict

Washington’s ambassador to the UN accuses Moscow of supporting ‘barbarism’ over Aleppo bombing

5 HOURS AGO by: Erika Solomon in Beirut and Geoff Dyer in Washington
The US accused Russia on Sunday of supporting “barbarism” over the bombing of the Syrian city of Aleppo as the west stepped up diplomatic pressure on Moscow.

Accusing Russia of supporting a Syrian regime offensive that has derailed a ceasefire agreement negotiated between Washington and Moscow, Samantha Power, US ambassador to the UN, said Russian and Syrian forces were “laying waste to what is left of an iconic Middle Eastern city”.

In a blistering speech to an emergency UN Security Council meeting, Ms Power said: “Instead of pursuing peace, Russia and Assad make war.”

While Moscow was likely to argue that it was pursuing terrorists in Syria, she said that “Russia is espousing fiction”. “What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counterterrorism; it is barbarism,” she added.

In theory, the US and Russia are still working to see if there is a way to revive the ceasefire plan announced two weeks ago — John Kerry, US secretary of state, has called for military aircraft to be barred from flying over contested areas. However, the fierce exchanges at the UN underlined the collapsing space for diplomacy.

Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the UN, said that the US had little influence over the rebel groups that it was backing in Syria. “Bringing a peace is almost an impossible task now,” he said.

The speech by Ms Power came as Europe and the US ramped up diplomatic pressure on Russia, accusing Moscow of supporting the Syrian regime’s offensive on Aleppo.

Sunday’s urgent meeting was held at the request of the UK, the US and France as fighting continued to rage around Aleppo and the rebel-held east of the city suffered a new bombardment, the latest in a spiral of violence that has left the planned ceasefire in tatters. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least 26 people had died in the new round of regime airstrikes on the city on Sunday.

Jean-Marc Ayrault, France’s foreign minister, told the meeting that Russia and Iran, which also backs the Syrian regime, would be accomplices to war crimes if they did not press President Bashar al-Assad to stop the violence.

He said the Syrian government “has clearly made the choice of a military escalation”.

“I am calling on Russia and Iran to pull themselves together and show responsibility, by putting a stop to this strategy,” Mr Ayrault said. “If not, Russia and Iran will be accomplices in war crimes committed in Aleppo.”

Foreign ministers from the US, the UK, France, Italy and Germany — along with the EU’s foreign policy chief — have accused Russia of violating a ceasefire intended to halt the fighting.

Moscow’s support for attacks carried out by Mr Assad’s forces “blatantly contradicts Russia’s claim that it supports a diplomatic resolution”, the US and European ministers said in a joint statement on Sunday. “The burden is on Russia to prove it is willing and able to take extraordinary steps to salvage diplomatic efforts.”

Mr Churkin told the security council that peace in Syria was “almost an impossible task now”.

More than 200 civilians have died in three days of near-constant shelling that has pounded rebel-held districts, according to medical professionals in the area. Aleppo — the biggest strategic and political prize of the conflict — is divided between regime forces on the west and rebels in the east, where a quarter of a million people are trapped under a government siege.

“We have exhausted all the options of civilian protection — we’ve even dug hospitals underground and in caves, as if we are living in the Middle Ages,” said Raed al-Saleh, head of the rescue group in Aleppo known as the “White Helmets”.

Aleppo residents say the latest bombing has even damaged these underground clinics, with what they call “bunker-busting” weapons.

Several hospitals have also been destroyed in strikes that have caused so much destruction that many roads and districts have been blocked by debris as aid workers struggle to reach people trapped under rubble. Medical workers said rescuers have had to walk on foot for several kilometres to reach bomb sites — and back out again with wounded survivors.

The ceasefire was brokered earlier this month by Moscow and Washington, which backs Syria’s opposition. But it collapsed last Monday, just seven days after it began, derailing a multi-step deal meant to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid, pave the way for political talks and initiate US-Russian military co-operation against jihadi forces in the country.

Russia and Mr Assad now appear determined to break a years-long stalemate and try to take Aleppo. If the regime succeeds, the offensive could be a turning point of the war — the city is the opposition’s last urban stronghold, and without it, they fear their uprising will fade into a rural insurgency ignored by the outside world.

Rebel groups said efforts by western powers to pressure Russia to help implement the ceasefire is worthless, arguing that Moscow could no longer be seen as a legitimate international broker of the deal.

“The negotiations process based on the current system is no longer meaningful in the wake of the bombing and killing and destruction that needs to stop completely,” rebel factions from northern Syria said in a joint statement. “We do not accept the Russian side as a party to oversee negotiations given that it is the regime’s partner in its crimes against our people.”

The warring sides were locked in fierce battles on Aleppo’s main supply routes on the northern and southern outskirts of the city at the weekend as regime forces tried to strengthen their blockade.

Activists and medical workers shared pictures on social media of clinics crammed so full of victims that they had been laid out for treatment along bloodied hallways. One of the most uploaded was a haunting photograph of their rescuers uncovering a woman and her two children buried alive in the rubble.

However, Damascus appears emboldened despite the international condemnation of the devastation in Aleppo.

“Our belief in victory is even greater now that the Syrian Arab Army is making great strides in its war against terrorism, with the support of the true friends of the Syrian people, notably the Russian Federation, Iran and the Lebanese national resistance,” Walid al-Moualem, the foreign minister, told the UN General Assembly on Saturday.

But even with Moscow’s help, Mr Assad’s forces will struggle to take the city. Rebels have for years dug fortifications and underground tunnels, meaning any ground invasion is likely to be long and costly.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/25/middleeast/jordan-writer-nahed-hattar-killed/

Jordanian writer who shared cartoon mocking ISIS killed outside courthouse

By Tim Hume and Jomana Karadsheh, CNN
Updated 10:00 AM ET, Sun September 25, 2016

(CNN)A prominent Jordanian writer facing charges for sharing a "blasphemous" anti-ISIS cartoon that outraged Muslim groups was fatally shot in Amman on Sunday, state news agency Petra reported.

Nahed Hattar, a member of the country's Christian minority, was shot three times outside a courthouse in the capital where charges against him were being heard.

Public Security Department personnel, who were near the scene of the attack, rushed Hattar to a nearby hospital, but he died from his injuries, Petra reported.

The security forces arrested the attacker and an investigation is underway, Petra reported.

Cartoon 'abusive to the divine entity'

Hattar, a political commentator and columnist, was remanded in custody last month after sharing a controversial cartoon on Facebook that sparked anger from Muslim groups.

Amman Governor Khaled Abu Zeid ordered that the writer be held for the "blasphemous" Facebook post, Petra reported.

Hattar was charged with the crimes of insulting religion, and inciting "sectarian strife and racism," for having posted the image, which was deemed as "abusive to the divine entity," Petra reported at the time.

The cartoon, which Hattar said was intended to ridicule ISIS beliefs, depicted a bearded man in bed with two women in heaven as he instructs God to serve him wine and food.

Hours after sharing the cartoon, Hattar explained on social media that it was aimed at criticizing the twisted view of paradise held by ISIS, according to Randa Habib, Amnesty International's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.

"No one listened," she tweeted after his killing Sunday.

The slain writer, who was released on bail earlier this month, had been "a controversial figure because of his blunt positions and passionate ideas. His killing is a low criminal act," Habib wrote.

Hattar had also attracted controversy for writing articles in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Follow
Randa HABIB ✔ @RandaHabib
#NahedHattar was a controversial figure because of his blunt positions and passionate ideas. His killing is a low criminal act #RIP
12:40 AM - 25 Sep 2016
74 74 Retweets 143 143 likes

Government condemns 'ignominious crime'

A gag order issued by Jordan's attorney general in August prevented coverage of the case.

The Prime Minister's office in Jordan denounced the killing on its official Twitter page Sunday.

Government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said he was confident the person responsible for "this ignominious crime" would receive "just punishment."

Jordan is a leading Arab member of the US-led coalition fighting ISIS in neighboring Syria and Iraq, carrying out airstrikes against the terror group and hosting coalition troops on its soil.

CNN's Ruth Hetherington contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ts-as-china-makes-show-of-force-in-key-strait

Japan Scrambles Jets After China Makes Show of Force in Key Strait

Ting Shi
Isabel Reynolds

September 25, 2016 — 7:58 PM PDT

- PLA Air Force sends 40 aircraft on ‘routine drill’ to Pacific
- Japan defense ministry says 2 jets may have been fighters

Japan scrambled jets Sunday after a fleet of Chinese aircraft flew into a strategically important strait near disputed islands in the East China Sea.

Japan sent out the jets after eight of the Chinese planes crossed back and forth over waters between Okinawa’s main island and Miyako-jima island near Taiwan, the Defense Ministry in Tokyo said in a statement. Two of the planes may have been fighter jets, the ministry said.

While the Chinese planes didn’t cross into Japanese airspace, it was the first time that Japan saw Chinese fighter jets in the Miyako Strait, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters in Tokyo on Monday. He said that Japan rejected China’s Air Defense Identification Zone that encompasses islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

“We cannot accept the implication that the airspace over the Senkaku islands, which are part of our territory, belongs to China," Suga said.

The People’s Liberation Army Air Force sent a fleet of 40 aircraft -- comprising H-6K bombers, Su-30 fighters and air tankers -- on what it called a "routine" drill through the Miyako Strait on route to the West Pacific for exercises, a defense ministry statement said. It quoted Air Force spokesman Shen Jinke speaking from "a certain airport in East China."

The fleet performed surveillance, sudden assault and aerial refueling exercises, as well as "routine warning patrols" in China’s Air Defense Identification Zone in the East China Sea, according to Shen. The exercises stemmed from the need "to safeguard national sovereignty, protect national security and maintain peaceful development," Shen said.

For background on China’s maritime push, click here

Last May, the PLA air force said it had flew warplanes through the Miyako Strait towards the West Pacific for drills. The size of the fleet over the weekend was uncommon, said Xu Guangyu, senior adviser at Beijing-based research group the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association.

"It’s not been seen often in the past," said Xu, a retired PLA major general. "The exercise aimed at enhancing open sea combat ability, and it’s part of the military’s reform to familiarize the troops with a battlefield environment. Americans and Russians both routinely conduct this type of exercise."

The movements in the East China Sea underscore the frosty relationship between Asia’s two biggest economies. One of the thorniest issues is the long-running dispute over sovereignty of the tiny islands.

In a speech in Washington earlier this month, Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada criticized China for its increasingly aggressive behavior in both the East China Sea and the South China Sea. She singled out Beijing for its reclamation of land around maritime features and expressed support for the U.S. Navy’s freedom of navigation operations.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.militarytimes.com/articl...lence-on-nukes-to-end-with-his-visit-to-minot

Carter's relative silence on nukes to end with his visit to Minot

By: Robert Burns, The Associated Press, September 26, 2016

As defense secretary to a president who famously envisioned "a world without nuclear weapons," Ash Carter has said remarkably little about them.

He has been quiet on a range of nuclear issues, including the Pentagon's $8 billion effort to correct an array of morale, training, discipline and resource problems in the Air Force nuclear missile corps, revealed by The Associated Press in the last three years. Nor has he publicly explained in detail the utility of nuclear weapons, in an age of attacks by non-state actors like the Islamic State, to build support for spending hundreds of billions on a new generation of them.

When asked, he has left no doubt that he sees nuclear weapons as the "bedrock" of U.S. security. But he rarely reveals the underpinnings of his thinking.

This is all the more notable because Carter, a physicist by training and policy wonk by reputation, cut his professional teeth on nuclear weapons during the Cold War. He probably knows more about them than any defense secretary since William Perry, a longtime nuclear expert, led the Pentagon a generation ago.

This quiet approach is expected to end when Carter visits Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota on Monday. There, he plans to deliver a speech on nuclear deterrence, the notion that a robust and ready U.S. nuclear force will make clear that the cost of hitting the U.S. would outweigh any benefit. It will mark his first visit to a nuclear weapons base since becoming defense chief in February 2015.

Minot is home to Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles that stand in underground silos, ready for nuclear war. A portion of the Air Force's B-52 bomber force, including a number equipped to carry nuclear bombs, also are at Minot.

Like the three other men who have run the Pentagon for President Barack Obama, Carter has plenty of other high-priority issues to consume his time and attention, including the war against the Islamic State group. Carter also has chosen to focus on what he calls the "force of the future" — a set of policy initiatives meant to modernize the way the defense establishment recruits and develops members of the armed services. And he has given a great deal of attention to Silicon Valley and other technology hotbeds that he sees as potential keys to translating civilian innovation into U.S. military advantage.

Nuclear weapons issues have taken a back seat, at least publicly.


Military Times
Navy kicks out 34 for cheating at nuclear training site


"Secretary Carter has not said much on nuclear weapons, but his actions speak volumes," says Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, an advocacy group that argues for nuclear reductions and against the administration's plan to commit hundreds of billions to build a next-generation nuclear arsenal. "He has been the Dr. No of nuclear reductions, defending every program contract and resisting every cut in the nuclear force."

A spokesman for Carter disputes that the Pentagon chief has been quiet about nuclear issues.

"He regularly speaks about the importance of the nuclear triad to our security, its importance in reassuring our allies and deterring potential adversaries, and the need to ensure that we maintain and modernize that capability," said Gordon Trowbridge, the Pentagon's deputy press secretary.

Carter has talked quite a lot about the nuclear weapons of other countries. He chastised Russia for nuclear "sabre rattling," endorsed the U.S. nuclear deal with Iran and criticized what he has called North Korea's nuclear "pursuit and provocations." But when it comes to America's own weapons, he has mostly limited himself to broad references to their importance.

Before this week, Carter had not given a speech about nuclear weapons nor visited a nuclear weapons base. His immediate predecessor, Chuck Hagel, visited two of the three Air Force bases that operate Minuteman 3 missiles, plus one of the two Navy bases for Trident nuclear submarines. Hagel also visited a B-2 bomber base to highlight his support for an Air Force's plan to build a new nuclear bomber.

ICBM launch site in Minot
An ICBM launch site is located among fields and farms in the countryside outside Minot, N.D., in this June 24, 2014. Defense Secretary Ash Carter is scheduled to visit Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota on Monday.
Photo Credit: Charlie Riedel/AP

Among Carter's most substantial remarks about nuclear weapons was his response earlier this month to a question from a student at the University of Oxford in England after Carter spoke about the American defense relationship with Britain. Carter was asked whether he worries that important nuclear issues are being ignored or neglected.

"Well, it's a blessing to be able to take the public's mind off the nuclear question," Carter began. He said he was thankful that nuclear issues are "not in the headlines."

He called deterrence the cornerstone of U.S. strategic defense policy because "we've never found another way to manage the unprecedented risk inherently posed by the technology of nuclear weapons." He added, "we're going to have nuclear weapons as far into the future as I can see. And they need to be safe, they need to be secure, they need to be reliable."

"Fortunately you don't see us using" nuclear weapons, Carter said in response to a question last week from a sailor at the Pentagon. "And that's a good thing." Nuclear weapons, he said, are "there in the background as a guarantor of our security."

During his long career as a national security specialist, Carter has written extensively about nuclear weapons issues. In a 1985 article titled "The Command and Control of Nuclear War" he dissected the intricate issue of how wartime decisions would be communicated to and executed by the nuclear force. He was the lead author of a report, "Crisis Stability and Nuclear War," in 1987, again examining nuclear command and control issues.

During Bill Clinton's first term in the White House, Carter served as assistant secretary of defense for nuclear security and counter-proliferation.

 

[vestige]

This quiet approach is expected to end when Carter visits Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota on Monday. There, he plans to deliver a speech on nuclear deterrence, the notion that a robust and ready U.S. nuclear force will make clear that the cost of hitting the U.S. would outweigh any benefit.

...as Brook Benton would say:

It's Just A Matter Of Time

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://breakingdefense.com/2016/09/preparing-for-the-next-war-in-korea/

Preparing for The Next War in Korea

By BOB BUTTERWORTH
on September 26, 2016 at 4:01 AM
Comments 80

Preparing for war can sometimes help prevent one, and those preparations are probably helpful if one does start. Perhaps it’s time to show North Korea what its forces would be in for, and to show our allies in the South that we are with them, seriously.

The best course may be through field exercises conducted jointly by US and South Korean conventional forces, demonstrating operational capabilities to be used in the face of nuclear strikes.

Often a second Korean War is imagined to end with US nuclear weapons destroying the North. True, this year United States has twice flown bombers over South Korea, perhaps to make sure that Kim remembers we have them. But it seems improbable that the US would use nuclear weapons in a war against the North, even if Kim Jong Un started the war by using atomic bombs.

The reason has little to do with postulated norms or taboos or risks of escalation. It’s just that we might well find there is nothing in our arsenal that is militarily appropriate. Presumably, we would want weapons with low yield, minimally persistent radiation, and enhanced electromagnetic effects, and that are targetable with tactical precision. The best available option in the near term would be a low-yield B61-12 delivered by a bomber, but radiation levels of the wrong kind could prove higher than desired. And if North Korea had some advanced Russian air defense systems, we might lose some pilots and aircraft.

Of course, we could develop nuclear weapons that are tailored to such specific eventualities, an option that in the past has attracted both US and Russian military planners. But the domestic political context in Washington is not likely to support this approach, because it would require reversing policy strictures against design and test that the government has observed for many years.

Moreover, there are many people who oppose making nuclear weapons more appropriate to a broader range of military objectives, fearing that such weapons are more likely actually to be used. In any event, nuclear explosions, however tailored and modernized, might not be the weapon of choice, considering the difficulties they would create for continuing operations and escalation control, as well as war termination and reconstruction.

The United States needs to be able to deal militarily with lesser nuclear powers without using nuclear weapons even if the other side does, a need that has long been recognized. At the end of 1993, Defense Secretary Les Aspin noted that “nuclear weapons can still be the equalizer against superior conventional forces. But today it is the United States that has unmatched conventional military power, and it is our potential adversaries who may attain nuclear weapons. We’re the ones who could wind up being the equalizee.”

Pursuant to President Clinton’s direction (PDD-18), the Defense Department set out to reinforce traditional non-proliferation activities with options for action when proliferation had already occurred. These options were developed under the rubric “counter-proliferation,” and they included developing general purpose forces that could operate under nuclear attack. In addition to meeting a wider range of contingencies, such forces can help ameliorate allied worries about shared views of regional deterrence (South Korea, for example, has posed sharp questions about American deterrence in the face of repeated North Korean attacks, particularly the 2010 sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeongpyeong Island).

If allies followed suit, equipping and training their own general purposes forces for conventional military operations in a nuclear environment, they might feel more secure about decisions affecting their strategic interests and more capable of responding to provocations. Those provocations, in turn, might become less serious when American military involvement is somewhat less immediate. While such diplomatic and military adjustments would take thought and care, the emphasis on non-nuclear forces and options could substantially reduce the uncertainties inherent in extended deterrence.

The “counter-proliferation” policy as envisioned in 1993 did not lead to a vigorous program. Questions arose almost immediately about the roles, missions, and budgets implied by the new initiative and how it was to be coordinated with policies and programs already ongoing under the rubric of nonproliferation. Semantic and ad hoc resolutions of these questions continue, but we still lack the military capability envisioned by Aspin.

As reported by the Defense Science Board in 2005, “the bottom line is that commanders and planners cannot be assured that today’s weapons platforms, command and control (C2), intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), and associated support systems will be available should a nuclear detonation occur.” The Board reported again, five years later, that “for nearly two decades, nuclear survivability via hardening of equipment and/or operational contingencies to enable “fighting through” [by General Purpose Forces] has been neglected.” After another year’s work the Board found that “the survivability, effectiveness, and adaptation of [General Purpose Forces] to [nuclear weapons effects] is at best unknown. If [General Purpose Forces] were subjected to a nuclear event in the foreseeable future, mission execution would depend upon combinations of luck and ingenuity in workarounds for failed equipment.”

Unless and until these deficiencies are corrected, the US military will present the president not with options and capabilities, but with a dilemma: use nuclear weapons that might not work, or conventional ones that will probably fail.

 

[almost ready]

HC, tell me if you want this deleted and I'll put it elsewhere. It's from Sputnik, so is admittedly from Russia but not proscribed. It is, however, important, as it is unlikely Sputnik would report it if it was not verified. True or not, the fact of the claim itself is an important development.

Damascus Has Audio of Daesh Talks With US Military Before Strike on Syrian Army



The Syrian intelligence possesses an audio recording of conversation between Daesh terrorists and US military prior to the Washington-led coalition's airstrikes on the government troops near Deir ez-Zor on September 17, the speaker of the People's Council of Syria said Monday.

"The Syrian Army intercepted a conversation between the Americans and Daesh before the air raid on Deir ez-Zor", Hadiya Khalaf Abbas said as quoted by the Al Mayadeen broadcaster. US warplanes hit Syrian government troops near the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor on September 17, leaving 62 military personnel killed and a hundred wounded. The Pentagon said initially that the airstrike was a mistake and targeted Daesh militants.

The head of the Syrian parliament, added during her visit to Iran that after the coalition's airstrikes on the government troops US military directed terrorists' attack on the Syrian army. Syrian Army Repels Daesh Attack Near Deir ez-Zor Airbase © AFP 2016/ GEORGE OURFALIAN Risky Consequences of Coalition’s 'Mistaken' Airstrike on Syrian Army The attack on government positions put to test a US-Russia brokered nationwide ceasefire that came into being in Syria earlier that week.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last Friday it was necessary to separate Daesh terrorists from "moderate" opposition forces in order to salvage the truce. Britain, Australia and Denmark confirmed their air forces' participation in the deadly airstrikes. The politician noted that the details would be made public later.

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160926/1045706456/us-airstrike-daesh-army.html



https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160926/1045706456/us-airstrike-daesh-army.html

*****

As we know, ISIS moved immediately after the bombings, creating the impression this was coordinated.

 

[Housecarl]

No problem Almost Ready. As far as I'm concerned it can stay here in the thread; if anything it at a minimum shows the "spin" that the Russians and Syrians are taking on things which is as important as anything else.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/25/obama-failed-asian-pivot-china-ascendant

Barack Obama’s ‘Asian pivot’ failed. China is in the ascendancy

Simon Tisdall
When the president came to power, he vowed to look east with his foreign policy. But as he prepares to leave office, the US looks increasingly impotent in the region

Sunday 25 September 2016 04.03*EDT

Tsai Ing-wen is new to the job and the strain is beginning to show. Elected president of Taiwan in a landslide victory, she took office in May, buoyed by high approval ratings. Yet in a few short months, Tsai’s popularity has plunged by 25%. The reason may be summed up in one word: China. Suspicious that Tsai’s Democratic Progressive party, which also won control of parliament, harbours a pro-independence agenda, Beijing suspended official and back-channel talks with its “renegade province” and shut down an emergency hotline.

More seriously, for many Taiwanese workers, China also curbed the lucrative tourist trade, which brought millions of mainland visitors to the island during the accommodating presidency of Tsai’s predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou. Cross-strait investment and business have also been hit.

Tsai faces contradictory pressures. The public wants the benefit of closer economic ties with China but Beijing’s intentions are rightly distrusted by a population that increasingly identifies itself as Taiwanese, not Chinese. Given President Xi Jinping’s ominous warnings that reunification cannot be delayed indefinitely, China’s military build-up and hawkish suggestions that Beijing may resort to force, Taiwanese ambivalence is wholly understandable.

This dilemma – how to work constructively with a powerful, assertive China without compromising or surrendering national interests – grows steadily more acute. It is shared by states across the east and southeast Asian region. From Indonesia and the Philippines to Vietnam, Japan, Seoul, Malaysia and Singapore, the quandary is the same. But the answers proffered by national leaders are different and sometimes sharply at odds.

The China dilemma is felt strongly in Washington. The US has striven in recent years to strengthen Asian alliances, increase trade and raise its regional military profile – Barack Obama’s so-called rebalance or pivot to Asia – in a bid to contain and channel China’s ambitions peacefully. But analysts say the pivot appears to be in trouble. For Europeans fixated on Syria and immigration, this may not seem especially worrying or relevant. That’s shortsighted. If Obama and future US presidents get China wrong, the resulting damage could be global, threatening the security and prosperity of all.

Obama is already badly off-track. His grand plan to promote interdependent economic self-interest across the Pacific Rim while excluding China – the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP (similar to the controversial US-Europe Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership or TTIP) – is in deep trouble.

Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, declared last week that the TTP was a crucial “pillar” of future US influence. “Success or failure will sway the direction of the global free trade system and [shape] the strategic environment in the Asia-Pacific,” Abe said.

His warning reflected alarm in Tokyo that a risk-averse Obama is again proving an unreliable partner and will fail to get the deal ratified by Congress. It has already been disowned by both his most likely successors, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Washington’s painfully obvious inability to curb China’s controversial island-building programme straddling the international shipping lanes of the South China Sea is seen as further evidence that the pivot is failing. Each week seems to bring news of another Chinese airstrip or newly fortified reef. Ignoring neighbouring countries’ rival claims, Chinese has effectively unilaterally annexed 80% of the sea’s area, through which passes $5tn of world trade annually. “Freedom of navigation” patrols by US warships, soon to be backed by Japan’s navy, have had little discernible impact while increasing the risk of direct military confrontation.

China has flatly rejected a precedent-setting UN court ruling that deemed its claim to own the Spratly Islands, also claimed by the Philippines, to be illegal. Beijing has taken a similarly intransigent stance in its dispute with Japan over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands in the East China Sea.

Some observers detect ulterior motives. China’s military construction on the Spratlys and “its effort to exhaust and eventually displace Japan in a contest for the Senkakus can be seen as an attempt psychologically and physically to isolate Taiwan and to prepare the battle space for China’s possible use of military force to unify the PRC and Taiwan”, an analysis by the International Institute for Strategic Studies said.

Perceived American weakness has led some allies to take matters into their own hands. It emerged last week that Taiwan’s military is also engaged in island fortification, at Itu Aba, its sole possession in the South China Sea.

More dramatically still, the maverick Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte, switched sides last week, announcing Manila would cease maritime co-operation with the US. China, he said, was the stronger partner. Duterte’s shift reflects his anger at American criticism of human rights abuses rather than a deep strategic rethink. But it will certainly hearten Beijing.

Other regional players are more cautious, an attitude encouraged by Beijing’s divide-and-rule tactics. Vietnam’s prime minister, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, meekly agreed in talks with Xi this month that “maritime co-operation through friendly negotiations” was the best way forward. But like China, Hanoi is rapidly building military capacity and cementing alliances with India, among others, in anticipation of less amicable times ahead.

Similar diplomatic hedging of bets was on display in Laos this month, when an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit deliberately avoided mention of the UN court ruling. This feeble anxiety to play down differences – and evident lack of confidence in US leadership – plays into China’s hands.

The China dilemma extends far beyond the South China Sea. Having made nuclear disarmament a top priority in 2009, Obama has failed dismally to halt North Korea’s accelerating pursuit of nuclear weapons. The threat was underscored by Pyongyang’s biggest ever test explosion earlier this month. China, the only country with real leverage, has helped impose additional UN sanctions on North Korea. But it has consistently balked at taking game-changing measures, such as cutting off fuel oil supplies, which could force Kim Jong-un to think again. Beijing also says it will block “unilateral” measures by other countries.

Obama’s impotence has intensified questions in Japan and elsewhere about the credibility of the American security umbrella, encouraging nationalists who argue that Tokyo should re-arm in earnest – or even deploy its own nuclear weapons. But their main concern is not North Korea – it is China.

Xi is not looking for a fight. His first-choice agent of change is money, not munitions. According to Xi’s “One Belt, One Road” plan, his preferred path to 21st-century Chinese hegemony is through expanded trade, business and economic partnerships extending from Asia to the Middle East and Africa. China’s massive Silk Road investments in central and west Asian oil and gas pipelines, high-speed rail and ports, backed by new institutions such as the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, are part of this strategy, which simultaneously encourages political and economic dependencies. Deng Xiaoping once said to get rich is glorious. Xi might add it is also empowering.

Western neoliberals are optimistic. They typically argue that market-based economic exchanges can produce a win-win situation for rival states. In this way, China’s rise may be peacefully accommodated, they say.

Xi must also calculate that time is on China’s side. “China’s economic development and military modernisation programmes have witnessed dramatic progress since the early-1980s,” said Karl Eikenberry in the American Interest. “China’s aggregate GDP in 1980 was the seventh largest in the world… By 2014, China’s GDP had multiplied 30 times to more than $9tn and is now the second largest in the world… The PRC’s military spending, less than $10bn in 1990, grew to more than $129.4bn in 2014, second only to that of the US.” On current trends, China’s 2035 GDP could be a third larger than the US, Eikenberry said.

Other regional players are more cautious, an attitude encouraged by Beijing’s divide-and-rule tactics. Vietnam’s prime minister, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, meekly agreed in talks with Xi this month that “maritime co-operation through friendly negotiations” was the best way forward. But like China, Hanoi is rapidly building military capacity and cementing alliances with India, among others, in anticipation of less amicable times ahead.

Similar diplomatic hedging of bets was on display in Laos this month, when an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit deliberately avoided mention of the UN court ruling. This feeble anxiety to play down differences – and evident lack of confidence in US leadership – plays into China’s hands.

The China dilemma extends far beyond the South China Sea. Having made nuclear disarmament a top priority in 2009, Obama has failed dismally to halt North Korea’s accelerating pursuit of nuclear weapons. The threat was underscored by Pyongyang’s biggest ever test explosion earlier this month. China, the only country with real leverage, has helped impose additional UN sanctions on North Korea. But it has consistently balked at taking game-changing measures, such as cutting off fuel oil supplies, which could force Kim Jong-un to think again. Beijing also says it will block “unilateral” measures by other countries.

Obama’s impotence has intensified questions in Japan and elsewhere about the credibility of the American security umbrella, encouraging nationalists who argue that Tokyo should re-arm in earnest – or even deploy its own nuclear weapons. But their main concern is not North Korea – it is China.

Xi is not looking for a fight. His first-choice agent of change is money, not munitions. According to Xi’s “One Belt, One Road” plan, his preferred path to 21st-century Chinese hegemony is through expanded trade, business and economic partnerships extending from Asia to the Middle East and Africa. China’s massive Silk Road investments in central and west Asian oil and gas pipelines, high-speed rail and ports, backed by new institutions such as the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, are part of this strategy, which simultaneously encourages political and economic dependencies. Deng Xiaoping once said to get rich is glorious. Xi might add it is also empowering.

Western neoliberals are optimistic. They typically argue that market-based economic exchanges can produce a win-win situation for rival states. In this way, China’s rise may be peacefully accommodated, they say.

Xi must also calculate that time is on China’s side. “China’s economic development and military modernisation programmes have witnessed dramatic progress since the early-1980s,” said Karl Eikenberry in the American Interest. “China’s aggregate GDP in 1980 was the seventh largest in the world… By 2014, China’s GDP had multiplied 30 times to more than $9tn and is now the second largest in the world… The PRC’s military spending, less than $10bn in 1990, grew to more than $129.4bn in 2014, second only to that of the US.” On current trends, China’s 2035 GDP could be a third larger than the US, Eikenberry said.

Yet for less sanguine analysts, this prospective disparity, this growing lack of balance, plus the expanding number of potential flashpoints in the South China Sea, Taiwan and elsewhere, point only one way – towards future military conflict between the US and China. The Pentagon now officially refers to the Chinese “threat”.
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This is the so-called “Thucydides Trap”, a reference to the Athenian historian’s account of the seemingly inevitable conflict between the rising city-state of Athens and the status quo power Sparta in the fifth century BC. Nowadays, the US is the status quo power and China the bumptious usurper.

Open conflict is not inescapable, but it is under active discussion. A recent study by the Rand Corporation made a detailed examination of who might “win” such a military showdown. It concludes that it would probably be catastrophic for both sides. Yet the study also suggests that, if war cannot be avoided, the US might be best advised to strike first, before China gets any stronger and the current US military advantage declines further.

The dilemma is clear: amid rising nationalism in both countries, China is not willing to have its ambitions curbed or contained and the US is not ready to accept the world number two spot. These two juggernauts are on a collision course. It’s unclear who or what can prevent a pile-up.

The other players in the conflict between Beijing and Washington

JAPAN
Faced by what it perceives to be a growing threat from China, Japan’s government, led by its conservative prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has sought greater freedom to project military force beyond the country’s borders. This is controversial, since it involves the “reinterpretation” of Japan’s postwar pacifist constitution. Concrete steps include joint naval patrols with the US in the South China Sea and direct help for coastal states such as the Philippines.

VIETNAM
The communist one-party regime in Hanoi is an unlikely partner for the US, given still painful memories of the Vietnam war. But Vietnam has been wooed by Obama and George W Bush as part of Washington’s attempts to control and channel China’s regional ambitions. Vietnam has been involved in deadly fishing grounds clashes with China, with whom it fought a war in 1979. It has also sought help elsewhere. Earlier this month, the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, offered a $500m credit line for defence co-operation. But Hanoi is also carefully hedging its bets by keeping diplomatic lines open to Beijing.

INDONESIA
The world’s most populous Muslim country, Indonesia has vast human and natural resources and is seen as one of the new 21st-century economic players. Anxious to balance development needs and national pride, President Joko Widodo recently visited the Natuna Islands in the southern South China Sea, scene of repeated, minor fishing boat clashes with Chinese vessels. Widodo vowed to defend “sovereign territory” against foreign encroachment. But, officially, Indonesia calls itself a “non-claimant” country and says it is not formally in dispute with Beijing. This suits both countries, at least for now. By sidestepping their differences, they can get on with business.

SOUTH KOREA
The Seoul government is more worried about its unpredictable northern neighbour than it is about China. Its defence minister said last week that South Korea has plans in place to assassinate Kim Jong-un and the North Korean leadership if the nuclear threat becomes critical. Seoul sticks close to the US, which maintains military bases in the country. But abiding South Korean distrust of Japan, Washington’s other key east Asian ally, dating back to the Second World War, has undermined attempts to present a united front to Beijing – with which Seoul maintains friendly relations.

INDIA
Like China, India is rapidly expanding its military capabilities, spending an estimated $100bn on new defence systems since Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014. Like China, its ambition is to project itself as a regional superpower looking both east and west. This potentially brings the two countries into conflict. They have long-standing border disputes in the Kashmir/Xinjiang and Arunachal Pradesh areas. In a forerunner to Obama’s pivot to Asia, George W Bush’s administration launched a strategic partnership with Delhi, partly as a counterbalance to China. For its part, Beijing maintains close ties with Pakistan, India’s historical foe.

RUSSIA
China and Russia are old enemies dating back to the cold war, but these days, they claim to be close friends. A visit to Beijing by President Vladimir Putin in June saw the launching of a number of trade and oil deals worth up to $50bn. China sees Russia as a valuable provider of raw materials but also as a political and military partner in relation to the US. In defiance of Washington, the two countries held large-scale war games in the South China Sea last week, practising taking over islands in disputed waters. Putin also values collaboration as a way of circumventing sanctions imposed by the US and EU after Russia’s invasion of Crimea.

 

[Housecarl]

ISIS launches chemical attack on US troops in Iraq
Started by*Ordinary Girl‎,*09-21-2016*03:11 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...launches-chemical-attack-on-US-troops-in-Iraq


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-usa-chemical-idUSKCN11W27W

World News | Mon Sep 26, 2016 | 2:43pm EDT

Islamic State 'dead set' on using chemical arms: Pentagon spokesman

By David Alexander | WASHINGTON

Islamic State militants are "dead set" on using chemical arms and are likely to try them again as Iraqi forces advance on Mosul, a Pentagon spokesman said on Monday, a week after a rocket with a possible chemical agent landed near U.S. troops.

The rocket fired Tuesday landed in an unpopulated area near Qayyara West base, several hundred yards from where hundreds of U.S. troops are working to prepare an airfield for an Iraqi offensive to recapture the city of Mosul. No one was hurt in the attack.

The shell initially tested positive for a mustard agent, but two subsequent tests have been inconclusive and the device is undergoing further tests, Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters.

"We fully recognize this is something that ISIL has done before. They've done it many times, at least a couple dozen that we know of where they have launched crude makeshift munitions that are filled with this mustard agent," Davis said using an acronym for the group.

An air strike by the U.S.-led military coalition destroyed an Islamic State chemical weapons factory on Friday near Qayyara, the second attack against a chemical arms facility this month.

Davis said Islamic State's ability to weaponize mustard agent has been rudimentary. The group typically uses a chemical powder bound together with oil, which leaves behind a telltale oil trace.

"It's not generally in a lethal concentration. It's more of an irritant than anything else, but again, not something we view as militarily significant," he said, noting that the gas form of mustard agent used in the First World War was far more lethal.

Even though Islamic State has not perfected the ability to weaponize chemicals, U.S. and Iraqi forces still have to be prepared for a chemical attack, Davis said.
"We recognize this is real. They're dead set on it. They would love to be able to use chemical weapons against us, against the Iraqis as they move forward," Davis said. "We are making every effort to make sure that we're ready for it."

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He said U.S. troops deployed to the region have the training and equipment they need to defend against chemical attacks and are working to ensure the Iraqis are prepared and properly equipped as well.
Davis said the United States has provided more than 50,000 gas masks to Iraq, with about 40,000 going to Iraqi security forces.

(Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...official/ar-BBwG5jx?li=AA4Zpp&ocid=spartanntp

Twelve Afghan soldiers killed in their sleep by fellow troops - official

Reuters
Sadar Razmal
1 hr ago

As many as 12 Afghan soldiers were killed in their sleep by comrades in an outpost near the northern city of Kunduz, an official said on Tuesday, in the latest so-called "insider attack."

Two soldiers with suspected links to the Taliban fled and joined the insurgents after carrying out the attack overnight, said Sher Aziz Kamawal, a senior police commander in Kunduz.

The outpost was among many forming a protective ring around Kunduz, which was briefly captured by the Taliban a year ago, the first time the movement had seized a provincial capital since losing power in 2001.

Insider attacks have plagued both Afghan and international military forces in the country, undermining trust and morale.

The Western-trained and backed Afghan government forces are battling various insurgent groups, including the Taliban, who say they are fighting to expel foreign troops and reestablish a fundamentalist Muslim regime.

(Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Nick Macfie)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201609270044.html

Japan, U.S. sign new logistics pact in line with wider SDF role

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
September 27, 2016 at 16:05 JST

Japan and the United States on Sept. 26 inked a new logistics agreement to allow the Self-Defense Forces to supply fuel and ammunition to the U.S. military in the event of threats to Japan's national security.

The new Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) is in line with the expanded role of the SDF brought about by the contentious national security legislation enacted last year.

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida signed the agreement along with U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy. Defense Minister Tomomi Inada was also in attendance at the signing ceremony held at the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo.

"This is an important agreement to allow for smoother cooperation that has been expanded due to the national security legislation," Kishida said.

Kennedy said the agreement was indispensable for effective cooperation between the U.S. military and the SDF.

The government plans to seek Diet approval of the new ACSA in the current extraordinary Diet session.

The opposition Democratic Party and Japanese Communist Party have criticized the government's failure to adequately explain the appropriate range of SDF rear logistic support to the U.S. military.

Public opposition to the national security legislation may have been why the Abe administration held off signing the new ACSA until after the July 10 Upper House election.

If the new ACSA is approved by the Diet, implementation could begin before the end of the year.

A high-ranking Foreign Ministry official said that the major area of logistic support being envisioned by the government is supplying fuel to the U.S. military.

The new agreement will allow the SDF to provide fuel to U.S. naval ships deployed to the Middle East to fight terrorism as well as U.S. aircraft ready to take off on combat missions.

The supplying of fuel in such circumstances would be permissible if the government determined there were situations threatening international peace and security or that may have an important impact on Japan's security.

In the past, special measures legislation had to be approved by the Diet before the SDF could provide fuel to the U.S. military, but under the new ACSA, no such Diet action will be needed.

The range in which the SDF can provide ammunition to the U.S. military will also expand greatly from the old ACSA. Under the former agreement, the SDF could provide ammunition only when Japan was under direct military attack or when such an attack was imminent.

However, the national security legislation passed in 2015 defined new situations under which the SDF could provide ammunition.

One would be a situation where an armed attack against a foreign country results in a clear threat to Japan's survival, or a so-called survival-threatening situation. Another would be a crisis in which Japan might face a possible attack if nothing was done. Such situations would allow Japan to provide logistic support to other militaries anywhere in the world.

The final scenario in which ammunition could be provided to the U.S. military would be a situation threatening international peace and security that the international community is collectively addressing under U.N. resolutions.

Japan could even provide ammunition to the U.S. Navy vessels on patrol in the open seas of the Sea of Japan as they prepare for a possible ballistic missile launch by North Korea.

Japanese officials feel, however, that it would be a rare case when the SDF is called upon by the U.S. military to provide ammunition.

(This article was written by Ryo Aibara and Kayoko Geji.)

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-defence-idUSKCN11X00G

World News | Tue Sep 27, 2016 | 10:55am EDT

Britain's fear of European army muddles EU defense plan

By Robin Emmott and Sabine Siebold | BRATISLAVA

Britain said on Tuesday it would oppose any EU proposals to combine European forces into a single army while it is still in the bloc, but France and Germany said no such plans existed and won support from NATO to strengthen EU defenses.

At a meeting of EU defense ministers in Bratislava, Britain's Michael Fallon said it was up to NATO, not the European Union, to defend Europe against a more hostile Russia and that some northern and eastern EU countries agreed.

France and Germany had hoped that Britons' decision to leave the EU, as well as London's need for goodwill in its exit negotiations, would leave the path open for common defense proposals that are meant to pull the remaining governments together. The proposals were presented on Tuesday.

But there appeared to be confusion about what was on the table. Italy, France and German have come forward with proposals to bring together the EU's disparate military assets, spend more, develop technology and rely less on the United States, which pays the lion's share of NATO's military outlays.

Fallon insisted he saw the makings of a EU army.

"There are member states who would like to see...a single set of forces. That looks and sounds to me like a European army, and we would oppose that," Fallon told reporters.

Britain's objections also center on proposals for a joint EU military headquarters, possibly in Brussels, fearing that would suck financial resources away from NATO, where allies have spent years cutting budgets following the global financial crisis.

"Europe is littered with HQs, what we don't need is another one," Fallon said.

Britain retains full voting rights until it leaves the European Union, although defense decisions will rely on majority voting. Fallon said Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania had voiced concern about Franco-German proposals, which was confirmed by an EU diplomat.

Italian Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti countered that a number of other EU countries, including Spain and the Czech Republic, backed the range of proposals being discussed.

EU diplomats said the military headquarters was one aspect of a strategy to be agreed at a summit of EU leaders in Brussels in December. The proposals also include increasing spending on military missions, jointly developing assets such as helicopters and drones, expanding peace-keeping abroad and working to counter state-sponsored hackers in cyberspace.

"NO CONTRADICTION"
Standing together, Germany's Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen and her French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian were at pains to stress there were no plans for army of European soldiers wearing the same uniforms.

"On the contrary," von der Leyen said. "It is about bundling the various strengths of European countries to be ready to act together quickly."

She cited how Europe had struggled to coordinate support during the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. In 2011, the British and French air campaign in Libya also showed Europe's limits, as they quickly became reliant on a NATO-led operation including the United States, Canada and Norway for refueling planes, logistics and military know-how.

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EU's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who has put forward her own proposals, said there was "nothing ideological" about what the bloc was trying to do.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who was also at the meeting, welcomed debate on strengthening European military cooperation. "There is no contradiction between a strong European defense and a strong NATO," he said.

Stoltenberg also said EU governments would need to spend more on defense. With Britain outside of the European Union, 80 percent of NATO spending would be provided by non-EU countries even though most EU members are part of the alliance, he said.

European military spending is a fraction of the United States' and only a handful of countries, including Britain, Estonia and Greece, spend generously on defense.

France is a major European military power and Germany has many military assets but has traditionally been cautious given its history in the 20th century's two world wars.

(Additional reporting by Tatiana Jancarikova, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-usa-japan-idUSKCN11X2C8

World News | Tue Sep 27, 2016 | 4:06pm EDT

U.S., Japan, South Korea consider more steps against North Korea: U.S.

The United States, Japan and South Korea have been working to cut off North Korean revenue streams from coal and overseas workers and are considering further joint action after Pyongyang's latest nuclear test, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday.

Daniel Russel, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia, said the three countries had been making progress in key areas, including disrupting North Korea's arms trade and de-flagging North Korean ships.

"We're focusing our efforts on cutting off sources of revenue for the regime's unlawful nuclear and ballistic weapons programs, including revenue generated through the coal trade and overseas by North Korean workers," Russel said in prepared testimony for a congressional hearing.

"Our three countries will continue to increase the costs on North Korea and target its revenue and reputation until it makes a strategic decision to return to serious talks on denuclearization and complies with its international obligations and commitments," he said

Discussions are also under way on a possible new U.N. sanctions resolution on North Korea after it carried out its latest and largest nuclear test on Sept. 9.

Russel said on Friday he was confident an agreement would be reached before long that would impose further sanctions and tighten existing ones.

He said it would aim to prevent North Korea's abuse of international infrastructure, including banking and shipping.

On Monday, the United States said it had sanctioned a Chinese industrial machinery and equipment wholesaler for using front companies to evade sanctions on North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

China, North Korea's main ally and neighbor, has been angered by North Korea's nuclear tests and has said it will work within the United Nations to formulate a necessary response.

However, China said on Tuesday it was opposed to any country using its own laws to carry out "long-arm jurisdiction."

North Korea's former Cold War allies have responded to Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests by kicking out North Korean workers and ending visa-free travel for its citizens, as well as by stripping flags of convenience from its ships.

A U.N. Security Council resolution adopted in March following North Korea's fourth nuclear test in January exempted North Korean exports of coal and some other minerals for "livelihood purposes" from a trade ban, which was seen as a loophole that would be difficult monitor.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Paul Simao)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-attack-idUSKCN11X1MB

World News | Tue Sep 27, 2016 | 4:14pm EDT

Syrian government launches Aleppo ground attack

By Tom Perry and Angus McDowall | BEIRUT

Syrian government forces and their allies attacked the opposition-held sector of Aleppo on several fronts on Tuesday, the biggest ground assault yet in a massive new campaign that has destroyed a U.S.-backed ceasefire.

The United States says the assault on Aleppo is proof that President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and regional allies have abandoned an international peace process to pursue victory on the battlefield after nearly six years of civil war.

Washington, which agreed a ceasefire with Russia this month that collapsed after a week, says Moscow and Damascus are guilty of "barbarism" and war crimes for targeting civilians, health workers and aid deliveries in air strikes.

More than 250,000 civilians are believed to be trapped inside the besieged rebel-held sector of Aleppo, where intensive bombing over the past week has killed hundreds of people, many trapped under buildings brought down by bunker-busting bombs.

One air raid killed 12 people from two families when it brought down a building on Tuesday, bringing the death toll in opposition districts to more than 30, said Bebars Mishal, a spokesman for the Civil Defence emergency service.

A video purported to be of the attack's aftermath showed emergency workers bringing an apparently lifeless, dust-covered body out of the wreckage in a cherry-picker crane.

Only about 30 doctors are left in rebel-held Aleppo, coping with hundreds of wounded each day who are being treated on the floors of hospitals that are bereft of supplies.

The World Health Organization called for the "immediate establishment of humanitarian routes to evacuate sick and wounded" from the besieged eastern part of the city.

Tuesday's assault saw pro-government forces, which include the Syrian army and allied militia from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, attempt to attack Aleppo's Old City near its historic citadel, as well as around several of the city's major access points.

Troops advanced from the countryside to the north and south, rebels said, leading to intense clashes. The military and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitoring group, said the army had made some gains, but this was disputed by rebels who said they had held them off.

A rebel official said insurgents had advanced against government forces in a separate battle further south, in Hama province.

The rebels took over several villages in Hama's northeastern countryside, building on gains they made nearby on Saturday, said Mohammed Rasheed, a spokesman for the Jaish al-Nasr rebel group.

The Observatory also reported the advance.

"FEROCIOUS CONFRONTATION"
Senior combatants on both sides said pro-government forces were massing in several parts of Aleppo, Syria's biggest city before the war, now divided into a western zone held by the army and a smaller, besieged area held by rebels.

The commander of an Iraqi Shi'ite militia fighting in support of Assad told Reuters a large force spearheaded by the army's elite "Nimr", or Tiger, forces had started to move in armored vehicles and tanks for an attack on rebel-held areas.

Quelling the uprising in the city would give Assad his biggest victory yet of the war and deliver a powerful blow to his enemies.

It is far from clear whether an all-out attempt to storm the rebel-held area is planned soon: that would require a massive assault by the army, backed by Lebanese and Iraqi Shi'ite militias, Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Russian air power.

The government's strategy in other locations such as Damascus and Homs has been to use years of siege and bombardment to force eventual surrender, rather than attempting to storm well-defended territory.

However, Assad's allies now openly say they have abandoned the peace process and are betting instead on military victory.

"There are no prospects for political solutions ... the final word is for the battlefield," the leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah Shi'ite movement, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, was quoted in a Lebanese newspaper as saying on Tuesday.

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The head of Iran's National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, was quoted on Tuesday as saying Aleppo's fate would be determined only "through a forceful confrontation".
Aleppo residents said the ferocious air attacks of previous nights had abated somewhat.

State television reported that the army had retaken al-Farafra district in Aleppo's Old City and engineering units were clearing mines in the area.

A senior rebel source said the army had taken some positions near that area, but had been forced to withdraw. Neither assertion could be independently confirmed. The army had also been repelled after heavy fighting in assaults on four other fronts, he said, describing it as the biggest wave of ground attacks since the offensive was announced last week.

Zakaria Malahifji, a politburo member of the Fastaqim group which is active in Aleppo, said the army had assembled infantry and heavy vehicles in a military buildup in the city.

"Until today, thank God, attempts to advance have been blocked," he added.

The senior rebel official said pro-government forces were mobilizing near the rebel-held Sheikh Saeed district on the city's southern outskirts, near the location of the heaviest fighting this summer in Aleppo.

"They are working to expand on any opening they create," said the official from an Aleppo-based rebel faction, citing reports from his fighters.

(Reporting by Tom Perry, Laila Bassam, John Davison, Ellen Francis and the Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Peter Graff)

 

[Lone_Hawk]

Bumping this up!

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nationalinterest.org/feature...ermine-whether-mosul-success-or-failure-17856

Six Factors Will Determine Whether Mosul Is a Success or a Failure

Without better preparations for the day after, the Mosul campaign could spark several wars within the war.

Zalmay Khalilzad
September 27, 2016

The Iraqi government, in coordination with Kurdish Peshmerga forces and with strong support from the United States, will begin operations to liberate Mosul from ISIS control as early as this week. Although the campaign is likely to succeed in wresting back control of Iraq’s second largest city, local and regional rivalries could quickly turn the tactical success into a strategic setback.
*
Without better preparations for the day after, the Mosul campaign could spark several wars within the war and cause great destruction in Mosul. Such a development would complicate stabilization efforts in Iraq, already marred by the virtually nonexistent reconstruction of devastated liberated Sunni towns, the minimal return of internally displaced persons (IDPs), and the fear of, and abuses by, Shiite militias. These factors point to continuing, and perhaps worsening sectarian tensions, with resurgence opportunities for ISIS or its successors.
*
Six issues in particular remain outstanding:
*
The Role of Shiite Militias. *Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi initially declared that Shiite militias would not have a role in the operation to retake Mosul. Abadi’s decision was motivated, in large part, by events in the aftermath of the Fallujah liberation earlier this year. When Shiite militias surrounded the city, the predominantly Sunni population accused the militias of committing atrocities against local civilians. Some 600 civilians remain unaccounted for. Aggression by the Shiite militias overshadowed ISIS enormities and provoked Sunni outcries, which led to revenge attacks against Shiite targets. Three months after its liberation, only 500 IDPs had returned to Fallujah, a city that was once home to 350 thousand. Were Shiite militias to enter Mosul or “screen” fleeing civilians, one could expect complications on a yet larger scale. Sunni-Shiite tensions in Mosul could spread across Iraq and foment more extremism.*
*
But Abadi is now backtracking on his initial pledge to curtail militia involvement, saying that he has no choice but to include them in the Mosul operation. In this, he is likely responding to pressure from Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani and Shiite parties in Baghdad that are allied with Iran. For Iran, events in Mosul are important in the context of Tehran’s desire to see ISIS defeated, but also as part of its broader ambition to weaken hostile Sunni groups. Important too is the future of the Tel Afar district west of Mosul. Besides being home to Shiite Turkomen, Tel Afar can potentially offer Iran an outpost straddling the junction of Iraqi, Syrian, and Turkish Kurdish regions. Control of the district would allow Iran to project power on behalf of the Assad regime in Syria and harass the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq.
*
During my recent visit to Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey, the leaders of all three expressed their concerns that Iran would use the occupation of Mosul by pro-Iranian elements to lay the foundation for a land corridor to Syria from which Tehran could destabilize or strike U.S. allies. Tehran may calculate that the involvement of pro-Iranian elements would counteract Turkey’s military deployment and secure the return of displaced Shiite Turkmen.
*
Turkey’s Role. *Iranian aggression is only one of several factors that may prompt Turkey to intervene. Turkey has an interest in defending Sunni Turkomen against atrocities by Shiite militias, and in ensuring that its Sunni Arab allies are not excluded from post-ISIS governance. Ankara is also wary of the PKK and Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) presence in the Sinjar region between Mosul and the Syrian border. Iraqi Turkomen representatives echoed this uneasiness, demanding last week that the PKK be expelled from Turkomen areas.
*
Turkish President Erdogan has made it public, to Baghdad’s consternation, that he is prepared to support the entrance of Sunni Arab forces to protect the Sunni Turkomen community. A key Turkish ally is former Governor Atheel al-Nujaifi. Against Baghdad’s will, Turkey established a military base across the Tigris in Bashika, where its soldiers are training the Hashd al-Watani (or National Mobilization), a force of Sunni Arab volunteers assembled by Nujaifi.*
Abadi’s call during his General Assembly speech for Turkish troops to leave Iraqi territory is a warning of problems to come if there is no agreement on Turkey’s role. Turkey may feel pressure to intervene if Iran-backed militias move into Mosul and Tel Afar. Forceful Turkish intervention could polarize the situation, produce Shiite backlash, and complicate any sincere stabilization efforts by local stakeholders.*
*
Tensions between Baghdad and the Kurds. *Although the Kurds and the Iraqi government are cooperating against ISIS in Mosul, the potential for subsequent conflict between the two sides cannot be ruled out. Iraqi Kurds have refrained from pushing for independence not only to prioritize the ISIS threat, but also because of their disagreement with Baghdad on the status of Kirkuk and other territories now under Kurdish control. In the aftermath of the Mosul campaign, Kurdish President Massoud Barzani is likely to push for a new relationship with the Iraqi government, either through immediate independence or a preceding confederal arrangement for a specified period. Lack of agreement between Baghdad and Erbil on a way forward will heighten competition for Sunni support.
*
Local Governance. There are significant divisions among local forces on how to handle Mosul’s governance. The current thinking in Baghdad envisions the governor Nawfal Hammadi and the provincial council assuming leadership in Ninewa, assisted perhaps by representatives of the central government and the Kurdish regional government. Whether this formula will be accepted and supported by Ninewa’s populace — displaced and/or brutalized by ISIS — remains to be seen. Part of the complication is that the Iraqi government and the U.S. military have integrated some Sunni tribal forces into the operation plans but the future remains uncertain for the volunteers working with former governor Nujaifi, who wants to have a role in Mosul’s administration, perhaps as the president of a future federal region. A meeting this week between Kurdish, U.S. and Iraqi commanders that supposedly put the final touches on plans appears to have ignored this point.
*
Reconstruction. There does not seem to be any serious plan for the post-liberation reconstruction of Mosul. The Obama administration has coordinated with international organizations to provide for Mosul’s civilians who are fleeing the city before the liberation gets underway, but it has not revealed any programs for addressing longer-term issues. Given Iraq's badly strained financial conditions due to the low price of oil and the ongoing emergency, it is critical to help Baghdad formulate a plan for reconstruction. The alternative might be a repeat of the neglect demonstrated in Fallujah and Ramadi. The untimely move by Iraq’s Parliament to remove the finance minister, Kurdish leader Hoshyar Zebari, is bound to worsen the economic hardship and might undermine ongoing loan arrangements with the IMF. It could also complicate relations between the Kurds and other factions in Iraqi Parliament.
*
Addressing the Root Cause. *For a battle so imminent, it is disturbing that these issues remain unresolved. And this is to say nothing of the need for a long-term arrangement that addresses the root causes of the sectarian conflict in Iraq. Delays in resolving these issues are particularly worrisome in the context of regional perceptions regarding the U.S. role. Many in the region believe that the Obama administration views the Mosul liberation as a legacy project, a box it wants to check before the November elections. Sunni Arabs in particularly fear that Iran is exploiting the Obama administration’s impatience by driving a hard bargain on key issues, especially on the participation of Shiite militias.
*
The solution is not to put off the defeat of ISIS in Mosul while these issues are debated, but rather, to recognize that procrastination in dealing with longer-term challenges could exacerbate Iraq’s terrorism and extremism problem. One idea favored by many Sunni Arab leaders and public is to turn Ninewa into a federal region. This idea was advocated by Nujaifi, as well as the provincial councils in Salahaddin and Diyala for their respective provinces even before the ISIS takeover, but former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki vehemently opposed the notion.*
*
Abadi, to his credit, appears more open minded, but his hands may be tied by two factors. One is that that Iran-backed hardliners oppose giving Sunni Arabs any sort of autonomy for fear of weakening Shi’a control. The other is a more general fear that if federalism spreads beyond Kurdistan, oil-rich Basra might follow suit, thus weakening the powers of the central government.*
*
Resolving these and other power-sharing issues, notably the balance between the center and the regions, is key to ending the civil war in Iraq. A formula can be found, for example, through revenue sharing. An all-encompassing national compact among Iraqis may not be possible at this point, because that will require elaborate agreements on power-sharing at the center and federalization, confederation or decentralization among local communities, but a start can be made.*

In conclusion, a successful campaign in Mosul has the potential to be an important milestone in the process of reconciliation, but only if the post-campaign period is given due attention by the planners. Otherwise, even victory in Mosul could ultimately mark the beginning of a new phase of the Iraqi civil war.*

Zalmay Khalilzad is a Counselor at CSIS. He was the U.S. Ambassador in Afghanistan, Iraq and the UN. He is the author of a new book: The Envoy: From Kabul to the White House: My Journey through a Turbulent World, St Martin's Press.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.businessinsider.in/SAARC...C-summit-in-Pakistan/articleshow/54558823.cms

Business Insider India

Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan join India in boycotting SAARC summit to be held in Pakistan

IANS
Sep 28, 2016, 11.08 AM

Following the diplomatic blitzkrieg launched by New Delhi, Pakistan is virtually getting isolated in the region with Bangladesh and Bhutan joining India in boycotting the annual SAARC Summit scheduled to be hosted by Islamabad in November.

"The growing interference in the internal affairs of Bangladesh by 'one country' has created an environment which is not conducive to the successful hosting of the 19th Saarc (South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation) Summit in Islamabad," sources quoted Bangladesh as saying in a message to current Saarc chair Nepal on Tuesday.

"Bangladesh, as the initiator of the Saarc process, remains steadfast in its commitment to regional cooperation, connectivity and contacts but believes that these can only go forward in a more congenial atmosphere," the message said.

"In view of the above, Bangladesh is unable to participate in the proposed Summit in Islamabad."

In its message to Nepal, Bhutan, while reaffirming its strong commitment to the Saarc process and strengthening of regional cooperation, noted that "the concern of the Royal Government of Bhutan on the recent escalation of terrorism in the region, has seriously compromised the environment for the successful holding of the 19th SAARC Summit in Islamabad in November 2016", it is learned.

"Further, the Royal Government of Bhutan shares the concerns of some of the member countries of Saarc on the deterioration of regional peace and security due to terrorism and joins them in conveying our inability to participate in the Saarc Summit, under the current circumstances," the message from Thimpu said on Tuesday.

Sri Lanka, it was learned, has said that the event would not be possible without India's participation.

India on Tuesday announced that it was pulling out of the Islamabad summit after the September 18 cross-border terror attack on an Indian Army base in Uri town of Jammu and Kashmir that claimed the lives of 18 soldiers.

The attack came amid large-scale violence in Jammu and Kashmir that left around 90 people dead in the wake of the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani on July 8.

In a statement, India said increasing cross-border terrorist attacks in the region and growing interference in the internal affairs of Saarc member-states "by one country" have created an environment that was not conducive to the successful holding of the 19th Saarc summit.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup said that India has conveyed to Nepal its decision not to attend the summit, for which Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scheduled to go.

"India remains steadfast in its commitment to regional cooperation, connectivity and contacts but believes that these can only go forward in an atmosphere free of terror.

"In the prevailing circumstances, the Government of India is unable to participate in the proposed summit in Islamabad," he said in the statement.

Pakistan has termed the boycott decision as "unfortunate".

The US has also said that it was pressurising Pakistan to act against terror safe havens within its borders.

"Well, I mean, clearly we've talked about that before is, while we've seen Pakistan make progress on some of the terrorist groups operating within its own borders and carrying out attacks within Pakistan's borders, that we continue to put pressure on Pakistan to respond to those groups who are, quote/unquote, 'seeking safe haven on Pakistan's borders', that -- who are intent on carrying out attacks elsewhere in the region," US State Department deputy spokesperson Mark Toner said in the daily press briefing in Washington on Tuesday.

The US is one of the nine observer members of Saarc, the others being Australia, China, the European Union, Iran, Japan, Mauritius, Myanmar and South Korea.

Toner said: "We want to see closer relations and a normalisation of relations, frankly, between India and Pakistan."

"It would be the -- to the benefit of the region. And we want to see deescalation in the political discourse between the two countries and greater communication and coordination between them," he said.

New Delhi has blamed the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed terror outfit for the September 18 as well as the January 2 Pathankot air base attack in Punjab.

On Tuesday, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar summoned Pakistani High Commissioner Abdul Basit and made a demarche that proved Islamabad's links to the attack.

Modi has said that India would revisit the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty that calls for sharing of the waters of the six rivers of the Indus basin with Pakistan while indicating that the most favoured nation (MFN) trade status granted to the neighbour in 1996 might be revoked.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.independent.ie/world-new...allout-assault-to-retake-aleppo-35085370.html

Syria in all-out assault to retake Aleppo

Published
28/09/2016 | 02:30

SYRIAN government forces have made their first all-out ground assault to retake Aleppo, making their deepest push into rebel-held areas since the war began.

Troops retook a central district from rebels as they attacked from four fronts on Monday, in their first such offensive inside the city since the opposition took hold in 2012.

They advanced towards the contested old quarter of Aleppo - home to the Umayyad Mosque, a Unesco world heritage site.

There was also fierce fighting to the south, where rebels are battling pro-government troops to reopen the only route out for the some 250,000 residents trapped on the eastern side.

Syrian and Russian warplanes have been bombing east Aleppo with an unprecedented ferocity over the past five days, killing more than 350 people.
Doctors say hospitals are overwhelmed and running out of supplies. Save the Children said operations were being conducted without anaesthetic.

A ceasefire brokered by the US and Russia, billed as Syria's "last chance", collapsed last week amid recriminations and accusations of violations from both sides. As it crumbled, Russia threw its military might behind the Syrian regime's drive to regain Aleppo.

Once Syria's industrial hub, Aleppo is so important to both sides that it is said whoever takes it, wins the war. A Western diplomat said with neither side strong enough, there could be a year of street-to-street fighting. "The only way to take eastern Aleppo is by such a monstrous atrocity it would resonate for generations," he said.

President Bashar al-Assad's Syrian army, which is thought to number about 15-20,000 around Aleppo, is bolstered by tens of thousands of troops from Russia, Iran and Iraq, as well as by Shia militias.

There are estimated to be a similar number of opposition fighters.

Irish Independent

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...l-battle/ar-BBwJdzM?li=AA4Zpp&ocid=spartanntp

U.S. to boost military presence in Iraq for Mosul battle

Reuters
Stephen Kalin and Yeganeh Torbati
1 hr ago

BAGHDAD/ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (Reuters) - The United States will send around 600 new troops to Iraq to assist local forces in the battle to retake Mosul from Islamic State that is expected later this year, U.S. and Iraqi officials said on Wednesday.

The new deployment is the third such boost in U.S. troop levels in Iraq since April, underscoring the difficulties President Barack Obama has had in extracting the U.S. military from the country.

"American President Barack Obama was consulted on a request from the Iraqi government for a final increase in the number of trainers and advisers under the umbrella of the international coalition in Iraq," Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a statement.

The new troops will train and advise Iraqi security forces and Kurdish peshmerga forces, primarily in the Mosul fight but also serve "to protect and expand Iraqi security forces' gains elsewhere in Iraq," U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said.

"We've said all along - whenever we see opportunities to accelerate the campaign, we want to seize them," Carter said.

Some of the 615 new service members will be based at Qayara air base, about 40 miles (60 km) from Mosul, Carter said. Iraqi forces recaptured the base from Islamic State militants in July and have been building it into a logistics hub to support their offensive into the northern city.

Other U.S. troops will go to Ain al Asad air base in western Iraq, where hundreds of U.S. personnel have been training Iraqi army forces.

Carter, who spoke to reporters while traveling in New Mexico, declined to name other locations where the new U.S. forces will be based.

Though Iraqi forces will be in the combat role, "American forces combating ISIL in Iraq are in harms way," Carter said, using an acronym for Islamic State. "No one should be in any doubt about that."

Three U.S. service members have been killed in direct combat since the launch of the U.S. campaign against Islamic State.

Abadi met Obama and Vice President Joe Biden last week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, though it was not clear whether the agreement was sealed there.

The United States currently has 4,565 troops in Iraq as part of a U.S.-led coalition providing extensive air support, training and advice to the Iraqi military, which collapsed in 2014 in the face of Islamic State's lightning advance toward Baghdad.

Iraqi forces, including Kurdish peshmerga forces and mostly Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias, have retaken around half of that territory over the past two years but Mosul, the largest city under the ultra-hardline group's control anywhere across its self-proclaimed caliphate, is likely to be the biggest battle yet.

The United States has gradually increased the number of U.S. troops in Iraq this year, and moved them closer to the front lines of battle. Obama approved sending 560 more troops to Iraq in July, three months after the United States said it would dispatch about 200 more troops there.

To send the new troops, the White House will raise its cap on U.S. forces in Iraq from 4,647, to 5,262 troops, a senior U.S. defense official said.

U.S. and Iraqi commanders say the push on Mosul could begin by the second half of October. Carter said the campaign to expel Islamic State from Mosul would intensify "in the coming weeks."

The recapture of Mosul, Islamic State's de facto Iraqi capital, would be a major boost for plans by Abadi and the United States to weaken the militant group.

Current U.S. troop levels in Iraq are still a fraction of the 170,000 deployed at the height of the nine-year occupation that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, sparking an al Qaeda-backed insurgency and throwing the country into a sectarian civil war.

Loath to become mired in another conflict overseas, the White House has insisted there would be no American "boots on the ground." While coalition troops were initially confined to a few military bases, Americans have inched closer to the action as the campaign progresses.

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin and Ahmed Rasheed; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Editing by Gareth Jones and Tom Brown)

 

[Housecarl]

I can recall this being a major discussion subject prior to 9/11/01......

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http://www.military.com/daily-news/...uture-fights-in-mega-cities-planners-say.html

Marines May See Future Fights in Mega-Cities, Planners Say

Military.com | Sep 28, 2016 | by Hope Hodge Seck

QUANTICO, Virginia --The Marines' fresh-off-the-presses operating concept deposits readers in the center of a military debrief, set at the base here in the year 2026.
Company- and field-grade officers are rehashing a major effort: Operation Littoral Resolve, the largest integrated naval force operation since the 1950 Battle of Inchon during the Korean War.

It's never made clear where this fictional offensive takes place, but the officers in the scenario describe operations in a dense coastal city, during which Marines must monitor social media patterns to get a sense of who's friendly and how to interact with the population.

In this world, drones are everywhere providing real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, various Marine Corps elements from dispersed small infantry elements to special operations teams to coastal riverine elements integrate seamlessly, and the emerging technology of today features prominently in the fight.

"Working from our F-35 feeds, we sent up our [unmanned aircraft system] killers to take out their crew-served positions and command posts," a Marine expeditionary unit company commander reports in the debrief, referring to the new Joint Strike Fighter. "The mortar section got fire capped and was able to drop precision rounds right where the squad leaders told us to put 'em. They tapped the app and had rounds on target."

Futuristic, yes, but also an educated projection of what fights 10 years from now will look like, according to the 32-page Marine Corps Operating Concept released Wednesday.

The document, intended to reboot the Expeditionary Force 2021 strategy of 2014, echoes the original document's interest in small-unit operations in a dispersed environment and naval operations, but devotes more attention to the role emerging technology, electromagnetic signature monitoring and increasingly pervasive surveillance where information is used as a weapon will play in the fight.

It also anticipates the challenge of operating in densely populated littoral mega-cities, where Marines must operate in close proximity to large numbers of civilians and loyalties are often unclear. The document also anticipates the possibility of conflict with a peer or near-peer enemy force, in which Marines have to monitor their own signature to ensure it's not giving them away.

Behind all these projections is the Ellis Group, a Quantico think tank composed of active-duty officers who provide guidance to the commandant. At weekly tabletop war games, members of the group said, they play out future combat scenarios. And, they said, they often lose.

"We start out with a future enemy threat and pit it against current capabilities and play it out and allow it to fail," said Maj. Edmund Clayton, a plans officer for the Ellis Group, "to look for the shortfalls and capability deficits, and incrementally add capabilities as we identify gaps in the war game."

Doug King, the group's director, said retired officers from the Corps' Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities were responsible for researching and crafting these conflict scenarios.

"When we get kicked in the teeth, we stop, we figure out why, and we add a capability or we change a tactic, and we come at it again," he said.

Out of these risk assessments come five critical tasks designed to evolve the Marine Corps for the future fight.

Under the task of integrating the naval force for fights at and from the sea, planners propose finding new ways to integrate Marine air-ground task forces aboard naval platforms, including finding places for them to deploy aboard guided missile destroyers and littoral combat ships in addition to traditional amphibious ships.

The service is also tasked with evolving the multi-capable Marine air-ground task force for large-scale fights, configuring in order to be able to allow a Marine expeditionary force and two Marine expeditionary brigades to deploy simultaneously for a major contingency. The document also advocates better teamwork with special operations forces and with unmanned technologies, such as drones and robots, in order to cover the battlefield better.

The third task requires Marines to find better ways to operate in an environment in which networks are contested, tasking commands to leverage networks and effective ISR to deliver rapid and precise fires and training troops how to operate in an environment in which the network is compromised or unavailable.

Commandant Gen. Robert Neller has frequently spoken about his concern that cell phones and GPS-enabled devices may prove a vulnerability for Marines, and said he wants to retrain on low-technology methods of land navigation and operation in anticipation of such a threat.

The document also tasks units with improving their ability to maneuver in a range of environments, from complex terrain in the mountains, arctic and jungle to densely populated urban areas. While much of Marine Corps training still happens at places like Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms in the Mojave Desert -- well suited to the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, Ellis Group plans officers said major exercise scenarios are already being adapted to simulate these mega-cities.

During the Marine Corps Integrated Exercise 2016, which took place at Twentynine Palms in August, Marines mapped out a discrete city block and flooded it with people: 100 roleplayers to simulate a neutral population, a significant Marine element to play an opposing force, and more roleplayers to stand in for police forces.
There were between 750 and 800 people in all, said Ellis Group plans officer Maj. Brian Davis, and Marines were forced to get supplies delivered from a ship 150 miles away or scavenge them locally, he said.

"It was a significant urban operation in a very confined area," he said.

The fifth and final task calls for Marine Corps brass to exploit the competence of the individual Marine, refining recruiting practices to ensure high-quality people enter the Corps and developing more complex and comprehensive training for all Marines, including more education on littoral operations, regional cultural learning and leadership development that pushes more key decisions down to skilled enlisted leaders.

It's a strategy that requires all Marines to buy into the overall operating concept and take ownership of what the Corps is trying to accomplish, even at the lowest operating levels. And efforts to engage those rank-and-file Marines in the conversation is evident from the outset, in the choice to begin a planning document with a dramatic command-debrief vignette, reminiscent of science fiction.

"We had this Tom Clancy-esque novel in the very beginning," Davis said. "But everything in there is talked about in the document."

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.

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http://breakingdefense.com/2016/09/armys-multi-domain-battle-jamming-hacking-long-range-missiles/

Air, Intel & Cyber, Land, Sea, Strategy & Policy
Army’s ‘Multi-Domain Battle:’ Jamming, Hacking & Long Range Missiles
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
on September 27, 2016 at 6:46 PM

An Army soldier sets up a highband antenna.

Days before the biggest defense conference of the year, one of the Army’s top thinkers is unveiling the service’s new push to expand its role beyond its traditional domain —*land — to air, sea, space, and cyberspace. Even as the US defense budget shrinks, the Army*is prioritizing new investments in downing drones, hacking networks, jamming transmissions, and even sinking ships at sea. Far from triggering inter-service rivalry, however, the Army’s ambitious concept seems to have buy-in from its sister services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Just look at the lineup for Tuesday’s panel on “Multi-Domain Battle” at the massive Association of the US Army conference. Besides Army brass like Training & Doctrine chief Gen. David Perkins, you have the
Deputy Defense Secretary*Bob Work, chief architect of the sweeping modernization scheme known as the Third Offset Strategy
head of US Pacific Command, Navy Adm. Harry Harris (via VTC);
Navy Undersecretary*Janine Davidson;
Marine Corps Commandant*Gen. Robert Neller;
Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. David Goldfein*and;
Australia‘s Army’s head of modernization, Maj. Gen. Gus McLachlan;
The Army first embraced what it called “cross-domain operations”*with the Army Operating Concept that Gen. Perkins promulgated in 2014. As it’s evolved since,*multi-domain battle concept “really has resonated with the deputy secretary and his priorities,” said Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the iconoclastic warrior-intellectual who works for Gen. Perkins as the Army’s chief futurist.

Graphic courtesy Sen. Dan Sullivan

Anti-Anti Access

The threat that drives Work’s Offset Strategy and which animates every member of that panel is the rise of China and Russia. These “peer competitors” are becoming both more aggressive and more powerful, McMaster emphasized, seizing territory from Crimea to the South China Sea even as they modernize their militaries. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Joe Dunford, has called Russia “our greatest potential threat” and called for a new strategic approach not hamstrung by artificial jurisdictional lines between geographic theaters, or even between war and peace — lines our adversaries do not respect.

Russia, China, and even lesser powers like Iran are investing in so-called Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD). These sophisticated networks of long-range missiles and sensors — backed by submarines, strike aircraft, mines, and other forces — are intended to detect and destroy US ships and aircraft that come within hundreds of miles. A2/AD danger zones already extend well into the territory of US allies like the Baltics, Poland, and Taiwan.

Read All Our AUSA 2016 Coverage Here

“We have recognized that we’re behind in some critical areas,” McMaster told reporters this afternoon. (Back in April, he went so far as to say future Army forces might be “outranged and outgunned.”) “All domains are contested in a way we have not seen since 1991.”

“That means the Army can no longer rely on other services’ capabilities to do things we had assumed they’d be able to do,” McMaster said. Soldiers and Marines in Afghanistan and Iraq relied on airpower to strike tough targets, eavesdrop on enemy transmissions, jam trigger signals for roadside bombs, and evacuate casualties — not to mention keep the skies clean of enemy aircraft. If A2/AD keep US aircraft out, even if only at the start of the conflict, ground troops in the war zone will be on their own.

On the flipside, the new threat also means the other services could use the Army’s help in their domains, just as the Air Force and Navy helped the Army on land in Afghanistan and Iraq. “The idea is that Army forces can play a foundational role in solving this Anti-Access/Area Denial problem set,” McMaster said, “increasingly projecting power outwards from the land.”

A2/AD is all about keeping US forces out, but if Army troops deploy on friendly soil before the shooting starts, they keep the door ajar. “If you’re already there, it’s not denied space, it’s contested from the beginning,” McMaster said.

It’s not just the ground the Army can contest. Defensively, Patriot and THAAD batteries are already crucial to keeping enemy airpower — bombers and ballistic missiles — from ravaging airbases and ports. Offensively, Army surface-to-surface ATACMS missiles, and the future Long-Range Precision Fires (LRPF) missile, can strike enemy missile launchers, radars, and command posts on the ground.

THAAD missile launch.
Now imagine adding some kind of anti-ship capability to hit targets at sea. This would be either anti-ship cruise missiles or exotic artillery rounds like the anti-ship Excalibur or the Hyper-Velocity Projectile (HVP), although McMaster didn’t specify which. Further imagine adding cyber and electronic warfare capacities to hack and jam the command networks that hold an A2/AD system’s disparate parts together.
“The artillery batteries of the future will have, integrated into the batteries, surface-to-surface, surface-to-air, and shore-to-ship capabilities,” McMaster said. (“Artillery” includes both howitzers and missiles in Army parlance, so it’s not clear which the future anti-ship weapon would use). The Army also has strengthened the artillery headquarters in its combat divisions, the better to coordinate complex barrages in multiple domains.

A soldier holds a PD-100 mini-drone during the PACMAN-I experiment in Hawaii.

Modernizing The Army

In the near term, the Army is focusing on self-defense with a new anti-aircraft system — specifically, an anti-unmanned aircraft system. Russian forces in Ukraine have used cheap drones to spot targets for heavy artillery, with devastating effect. But the US Army long since disbanded all the electronic warfare units that could jam the drones’ control links, and it disbanded most of its Short-Range Air Defense (SHORAD) units, investing instead in high-end missile defenses like Patriot and THAAD. Now, said McMaster, the Army is reprogramming existing radars to pick out these “low and slow” targets and investing in both new jammers and high-energy lasers to zap them out of the sky.

“We’re able to accelerate capabilities into the force in a way we haven’t been able to in the past,” McMaster said, citing new cooperation among Army requirements writers, acquisitions officials, lab researchers, and operational commanders. “What we have seen is high payoff.”

Other changes don’t even require new technology, just using what’s already in service differently. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army blanketed the countryside in signals. “We would broadcast on high power, omni-directionally and continuously,” McMaster said. Against an adversary able to detect, triangulate, and fire at US transmissions, he said, “we know that’s a bad idea.”

Army HEL (High Energy Laser) Mobile Demonstrator

Alongside all these excursions into air, sea, and cyberspace, the Army continues to invest in land systems, from new lightweight armored vehicles to precision-guided grenades to palm-top mini-drones. The current drive towards multi-domain battle is very different from the “transformation” era of the 1990s and early 2000s, McMaster said, “when we were very much captured by the Revolution in Military Affairs” and its dream of long-range, high-tech, bloodless warfare. Today, he said, “we are starting with close combat.”

Indeed, old-fashioned ground combat may only become more important as adversaries learn to counter our airpower. As enemies take cover in cities, forests, and other “complex terrain,” with jammers to blind our long-range sensors and missiles to keep our aircraft at a distance, “that means we’re going to fight close combat,” McMaster said. “We’re going to have to close with and destroy the enemy.”

 

[Housecarl]

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https://news.usni.org/2016/09/27/panel-nato-needs-capability-effectively-deter-russia

Panel: NATO Needs More Capability to Effectively Deter Russia

By: John Grady
September 27, 2016 3:11 PM

NATO’s challenge in deterring Russian aggression goes well beyond standing up four multinational battalions in the Baltic nations and Poland; it needs to have the capability to move reinforcements across a contested North Atlantic and Europe, three experts said in assessing the alliance’s recent Warsaw summit.

Speaking Tuesday at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think-tank, Jorge Benitez of the Atlantic Council said the positioning of the 4,000-soldiers “has to be backed up with other forces” to provide true deterrence. In addition to Moscow’s movement of an additional 30,000 soldiers into its Western Military District, the alliance can no longer assume, as it did in the Cold War, that the sea crossing and air space over the continent and land movements would not be contested.

He added that even with that backdrop this was “the first time [NATO] is deploying in former Warsaw Pact nations.”

Pointing to contested sea lanes, Benitez cited “greater activity of Russian subs,” noting “they are harder to find” as Moscow continues to modernize its military. The stepped-up patrols are not simply training exercises, but are “to demonstrate a capability.”

A needed counter to this been to reopen an air base in Iceland to monitor Russian submarine activity with Boeing P-8A Poseidons.

Luke Coffey of Heritage said the alliance “needs to get back to [exercising] maneuver warfare” that includes large-scale movements similar to the Return of Forces to Germany [REFORGER] exercises of the Cold War, but this time to the Baltic nations.

“We should get European nations serious” about the growing Russian threat, Marius Laurinavicius of the Hudson Institute added. “The lack of understanding in Europe” is much greater than in the United States, although the threat from Russia was not mentioned in the debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on Monday.

Passing resolutions saying something is going to be done is not enough. Implementation is the key to deterrence, he said.

Laurinavicius also called for a re-examination of where NATO and American forces are stationed in the alliance to ensure they can be effective in carrying out their missions.

The alliance also needs “to figure out where [Sweden and Finland] are” in this changed security environment between Moscow and NATO, Coffey said. Both countries are partners—not members—of the alliance.

Russian has not reacted publicly to the announcement of the movement of the battalions into Poland and the Baltic, Laurinavicius said, but has busied itself meddling in the U.S. election by hacking the Democratic National Committee, watching events unfold in Turkey and coming elections in Germany and France.

“Everything is going well for them” without making military threats against the Baltic nations. He added Russia’s goal remains destroying NATO and views the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union as a positive step in realizing that goal.

Benitez cited a number of positive steps taken by the alliance at its Warsaw meeting: increased emphasis on cyber and creating a position to oversee it as a domain; assigning NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control [AWACS} to the coalition fight against the Islamic State; making a long-term commitment to Afghanistan; and the Netherlands’ and Germany’s accepting the need to modernize or replace dual-use aircraft [F-16s] to meet nuclear missions.

Related:

Report: Russian Sub Activity on the Rise in North Atlantic

U.S. Naval Commander in Europe: NATO Needs to Adapt to Russia's New Way of Hybrid Warfare

Expert on NATO Calls for Permanent Alliance Military Presence in Baltics As Hedge Against Russia Military Action

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/africa/growing-instability-africas-top-two-oil-producers-1094

Growing Instability in Africa’s Top Two Oil Producers

September 28, 2016 | Kaitlin Lavinder

Africa’s long-time, largest oil producer is wavering. For six months in a row (March-August), Nigeria landed in the number two spot of the continent’s largest producers of crude, falling behind Angola, according to OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) data.

Oil production levels provide insight into the stability – or instability – of the two countries, which are heavily reliant on oil exports for federal revenue. In Nigeria, at least 90 percent of export revenues come from oil, and the oil industry provides the government with more than 70 percent of its income. In Angola, the oil and gas sector accounts for 95 percent of exports and 45 percent of GDP.

Nigeria’s lagging behind Angola this year points to three factors of instability in one of America’s strongest allies in Africa. The first is militancy in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria’s southeast. The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) – the main militant group – continue to blow up pipelines and attack other oil infrastructure. The group just last week attacked an oil pipeline near Bonny island.

Director of the CSIS Africa Program, Jennifer Cooke, tells The Cipher Brief it is largely this militancy that is to blame for the recent drop in Nigerian oil production. “Nigeria has gone from 2.2 million barrels per day to 1.4 million barrels per day, its lowest production level in a long time,” she says, adding, “That really is because of this insecurity – surgical attacks that have destroyed major pipelines and shut down oil export terminals.”

A second factor of instability is one which actually aims to bring about future stability: Nigerian President Muhammadu*Buhari’s crackdown on corruption in the petroleum sector. Due to both this crackdown and the drop in global oil prices, businessmen and politicians involved in the oil industry are seeing their profits wither away.

Matthew Page, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and leading Nigeria expert, explains, “The Nigerian political system has essentially been designed to divvy up oil rents. So when those oil rents disappear, the system begins to really grind to a halt.”

Lastly, Nigeria has yet to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill, creating an uncertain policy landscape for potential investors in Nigerian oil. A source working in Nigeria’s oil industry, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the work, tells The Cipher Brief, “The Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), which was supposed to revolutionize the industry and attract more investors, has been at the National Assembly (our Congress) for a long time, without much progress. This has inadvertently stalled critical investments in the sector.*All this [including the Niger Delta militancy] has led to Angola [taking] the lead position in Africa.”

This is not to say that Angola – another U.S. ally – is much more stable than Nigeria. Although it lacks any kind of militancy aimed at the energy sector and appears to have a more stable fiscal regime and investment climate, compared to its northern neighbor, the country is facing two potential crises – one political and the other economic.

Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos has promised to step down in 2018, terminating the reign of Africa’s second-longest serving leader. As with any similar power transition, the nation faces the risk of instability.

In addition, Angola’s state-owned oil company Sonangol faces a growing fiscal crisis in light of the downturn in oil prices. Sonangol’s 2015 financial reports show that profits are down 77 percent and export revenues dropped by 50 percent, says Mohammad Darwazah, Senior Middle East and Africa Analyst at Medley Global Advisors.

Darwazah tells The Cipher Brief this will “have a significant impact on the country’s economic future.”

If oil prices remain low, both Nigeria and Angola will face increasing instability, due to the governments’ reliance on oil income and the time gap in severing that reliance. For example, Nigeria under the Buhari administration has a grand plan to diversify the economy, but as Page notes, that’s easier said than done. It is made even more difficult by the fact that the country is trying to diversify during an economically tight time, when there is less capital to make investments in other sectors, comments Page.

Instability in these allies is not good for the United States. Cooke points out that “insecurity and instability in Nigeria has huge ripple effects across the West African region,” an area with substantial current and potential future American business presence.

Kaitlin Lavinder is a reporter at The Cipher Brief.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://warontherocks.com/2016/09/wh...turkeys-military-lessons-from-five-countries/

What Coup-Proofing Will Do to Turkey’s Military: Lessons From Five Countries

Danny Orbach
September 27, 2016

One month after the failure of the coup on July 15, Turkey decided to invade Syria. The historical record suggests this is a very bad idea. Here is why.

On August 24, 2016, 450 Turkish troops, supported by tanks, armored trucks, air, and artillery support, crossed the Syrian border as part of Operation Euphrates Shield. Initially, things seem to go well, though ominous signs already loom on the horizon. Pushed by Erdogan’s pride and anger, nationalist public opinion, and a strong urge to justify sunken costs, the Turkish army may get entangled in an endless counterinsurgency campaign. Unfortunately for Turkey, its military forces are undergoing a severe crisis that undermines its capacity to conduct such warfare. After the abortive military coup in July, the government engaged in a series of sweeping purges in its armed forces. More than 2500 officers, including at least 119 generals and admirals, were arrested or discharged, in addition to sweeping purges in the judiciary, police, schools, and universities. The regime also purged MIT, Turkey’s national intelligence agency, and as Gönül Tol maintained, its remaining agents are likely to invest more resources in fighting the elusive “Gülen conspiracy” than real terrorist threats.

The connection between the coup attempt in July and the military adventure in August is quite direct. One Turkish observer wrote that the anger on the coup brought Erdogan the public support needed for such an adventure. In The Washington Post, Erin Cunningham and Liz Sly offered convincing evidence that the operation was delayed for almost one year by officers who eventually participated in the coup. If this information is true, then their purge enabled Erdogan to overcome remaining resistance and launch the invasion. Unfortunately for Turkey, the ramifications of the coup on the future of its Syrian intervention may be even bigger. Turkey is going into a military adventure in Syria precisely when its army is least prepared for such a task. As we shall see below, purges and coup-proofing treatments might be dramatically detrimental to military effectiveness, both in counterinsurgency and conventional wars. To use a medical metaphor, they are similar to chemotherapy treatments: very effective in fighting cancer, but at the same time ruinous to essential bodily functions.

Coup-Proofing and its Ramifications: The Historical Experience

As a historian, the Turkish case tempted me to draw some comparative insights. I opened Caitlin Talmadge’s seminal The Dictator’s Army, which examines the influence of coup-proofing on military effectiveness. Three of Talmadge’s case studies* —South Vietnam (1965-1975), Iraq, and Iran (1980-1988) — faced considerable threats of military coups and therefore subjected their army to rigorous coup-proofing treatments. The results were disastrous. In all three cases, officers were usually promoted based on political or personal loyalty. Sometimes, talented officers were purged or marginalized if they were seen as lacking the requisite loyalties. *Because maneuvers could be used as a pretext for military takeovers, the three armies were poorly trained. Further, their command systems were both centralized and convoluted to ensure control and allow governments to spy on units. Finally, there were considerable deficiencies in intelligence and dissemination of information: pessimistic or critical reports might have branded an officer as disloyal. These deficiencies were usually absent in armies unafraid of coups (i.e. North Vietnam), as well as Iraqi, Iranian, or South Vietnamese units exempted from coup-proofing treatments (In the case of South Vietnam, some units were far away from the capital and therefore deemed unthreatening. Iran only gradually coup-proofed the remnants of its old army. In Iraq, certain units were exempted after the war with Iran took a disastrous turn).

Such practices might be efficient to prevent coups, but at the same time they reduce an army’s capacity to fight external foes. As both Caitlin Talmadge and Stephen Biddle maintain, the “modern system” of conventional warfare is based, among other things, on merit promotions, small-unit initiative, complex training, decentralized control, and information sharing. These are precisely the functions that coup-proofing harms the most.

Next, I examined the cases of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, familiar to me from my own research. The Japanese case adds a new dimension to Talmadge’s conclusions, as it shows how coup-proofing treatments might result in factional strife and distorted decision making. During the 1930s, a pervasive fear of coups inside the Japanese high command was a serious obstacle for merit-based appointments. Often, officers were appointed and demoted according to political allegiance alone. Kanaya Hanzô, a useless alcoholic, was commissioned in 1930 as the chief of the general staff for purely factional reasons. Lt. Gen. Nagata Tetsuzan, one of the most brilliant strategists that the Japanese army ever had, was declared by his factional rivals an “evil genius” and cut down in his office by a military assassin.

Following a failed revolt on February 26, 1936, the Imperial army had undergone extensive coup-proofing treatments. Scores of officers who belonged to the faction sympathetic to the conspirators were fired, including talented professionals. This infighting did not only preclude merit-based promotions but also distorted strategic decision-making. Recently, Andrew Levidis discovered new evidence on this that he discussed at a lecture at Harvard University in November of last year. He found that the decision to expand the conflict with China in 1937, a major cause of the Pacific War four years later, was strongly influenced by post-coup factional calculations. One faction was afraid that if it let troops out of southern China by downsizing the conflict there, its adversaries might use them to attack the Soviet Union instead. The war in China was therefore perceived as the lesser of two evils.

Nazi Germany is an interesting and different case in point. For most of the Third Reich’s history, Hitler and his minions had used relatively mild coup-proofing techniques. As Jasen Castillo and Dan Reiter both note, Hitler blunted the army’s teeth without excessively undermining military effectiveness. Unlike in the countries studied by Talmadge, German soldiers were thoroughly trained. Inter-factional rivalries, though present, were never as acute as in Japan. Apart from several top-brass positions, promotions in the Wehrmacht were largely based on merit and battlefield performance, not on loyalty to the Nazi Party (though “National-Socialist attitudes” did play a certain role). Hitler placed some limits on field initiative of top commanders through his famous “no retreat” orders on the Eastern front, but lower commanders had a larger degree of operational discretion. Commanders were usually unafraid to report delicate information, and many criticized Hitler’s decisions, sometimes to his face. The historian Harold C. Deutsch noted that between 1939 and 1940, for example, many top commanders criticized the impending attack on France. None of them was harmed, and many were even promoted. Instead of engaging in coup-proofing treatments likely to reduce military effectiveness, Hitler “vaccinated” his army through other means: bribery of generals, ideological inculcation, and establishment of parallel military organizations such as the SS.

That, however, changed after the abortive coup d’état on July 20, 1944.* That coup could happen, as a high Gestapo official complained, only because the conspirators were sheltered by their peers. “The army”, he bemoaned, “operated according to its own rules.” This document, found in a collection of Gestapo documents that were published in 1961 by Seewald Verlag, reveals that after the coup, hundreds of officers were purged by “honor committees” and many were executed, even if they had no links with the conspirators. Gen. Heinz Guderian, the noted Panzer leader who served as chief of the general staff after July 20, openly declared that future commissions to the General Staff would be based on National-Socialist convictions. Had the Wehrmacht not collapsed within months for other reasons, these coup-proofing treatments might have seriously reduced its war-making capacities.

Turkey: Ominous Signs Ahead

No country is the same as another, and it would be a folly to assume that Turkish events will unfold exactly according to theory or past precedents. We are not yet sure, for example, whether the post-coup measures in Turkey will include restrictions on training and field initiative as in South Vietnam, Iraq, and Iran.

We do see, however, ongoing purges in the armed forces. In its air force, the sheer number of the pilots purged may be causing severe personnel shortages. While, before the coup, Turkey had a normal 1.25:1 pilot-to-cockpit ratio, now they have a debilitating 0.8:1. The Turkish military analyst Metin Gurcan assumes that it will take the air force at least two years to fill up the vacancies (or ten years, according to a more pessimistic assessment). The special forces were also badly affected. The picture is not as dire in the Turkish army and navy, and the second army, which bears the main burden of Operation Euphrates Shield, is reportedly the least affected. However, the pilot shortage could diminish air support capabilities for the Turkish ground forces in Syria, and corresponding shortages in the special forces could also create problems for Turkish military commitments and ambitions. This problem may worsen, because denunciations and the witch-hunt feel to the ongoing investigations are likely to result in more dismissals.

These purges are a painful lesson for the Turkish army. It is very likely that in the future, promotions will be based on political allegiance, not merit. True, politicization of promotion is not new by itself. Admittedly, the old officer corps strongly preferred Kemalist candidates for promotion. But as there was a large pool of such officers in the army, the high command could choose the more talented ones. Unfortunately, Erdogan’s definition of loyalty is much more capricious. “The uprising,” he said, “is a gift from God to us because this will be a reason to cleanse our army.” Defense Minister Fikri Isik openly admitted that the purges are not limited to participants of the coup or even to Gülenists: Anyone who did not oppose the Gülenists strongly enough is likely to be demoted. Even loyal officers who are too independently minded or do not share Erdogan’s vision for a “new Turkey” may fall under this definition. The term “Gülenist” itself is now a code word for anyone with insufficient loyalty, to include people with no plausible connection to this movement. At the same time, officers who showed strong personal loyalty to Erdogan were promoted, including to key roles in Operation Euphrates Shield. President Erdogan may also interfere in the military education system in such a way that will prevent the Kemalist elite from replicating itself. There is already talk on opening the military institutions to graduates of religious seminaries. That, by itself, does not exclude promotion by merit. In the current circumstances, however, such graduates could be slated for promotion based on religious commitments and loyalty to Erdogan, regardless of their professional performance.

Erdogan’s reforms are also likely to create a fragmented military structure with a convoluted chain of command, yet another common result of coup-proofing. As Metin Gurcan reports, Erdogan intends to subordinate different branches of the armed forces to different ministries and make the chief of the general staff a weak coordinator directly subordinate to the president. Obviously, this move is likely to increase civilian control and make it difficult for conspirators in different branches of the armed forces to cooperate, but it could also give rise to factional strife. The elevation of loyalty to Erdogan as the primary criteria for promotion may incentivize opposing groups to compete for the president’s favor, leading to Japanese-style factional infighting. Information flows in the army must suffer as well. Erdogan will have to closely supervise the different branches of the armed forces to forestall future coups and prevent “Gülenist” incursions, resulting in a rigid and convoluted command and control procedures.

Erdogan has an alternative. Instead of terrorizing his army officers, he can woo, bribe, and seduce them, providing a measure of coup-proofing without an excessive cost to battlefield effectiveness. The Turkish president, however, chooses to apply treatments similar to South Vietnam, Iraq, and Iran’s. Tragically for Turkey, he also embarks on a dangerous cross-border adventure. Judging by the historical record, this is a very bad idea. If Turkey does not set modest goals and withdraw quickly after achieving them, the consequences might be serious indeed.


Dr. Danny Orbach is a senior lecturer for history and Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His books, The Plots against Hitler and Curse on this Country: The Rebellious Army of Imperial Japan, are forthcoming in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Eamon Dolan Books, and Cornell University Press.

 

[Housecarl]

Here we go again.....

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sudan-darfur-chemicalweapons-idUSKCN11Z0BX

World News | Thu Sep 29, 2016 | 12:26am EDT

Amnesty accuses Sudan of using chemical weapons in Darfur

Sudan's government has carried out at least 30 likely chemical weapons attacks in the Jebel Marra area of Darfur since January using what two experts concluded was a probable blister agent, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

The rights group estimated that up to 250 people may have died as a result of exposure to the chemical weapons agents.

The most recent attack occurred on Sept. 9 and Amnesty said its investigation was based on satellite imagery, more than 200 interviews and expert analysis of images showing injuries.

"The use of chemical weapons is a war crime. The evidence we have gathered is credible and portrays a regime that is intent on directing attacks against the civilian population in Darfur without any fear of international retribution," said Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International's director of Crisis Research.

Sudanese U.N. Ambassador Omer Dahab Fadl Mohamed said in a statement that the Amnesty report was "utterly unfounded" and that Sudan does not possess any type of chemical weapons.

"The allegations of use of chemical weapons by Sudanese Armed Forces is baseless and fabricated. The ultimate objective of such wild accusation, is to steer confusion in the on-going processes aimed at deepening peace and stability and enhancing economic development and social cohesion in Sudan," he said.

Amnesty said it had presented its findings to two independent chemical weapons experts.

"Both concluded that the evidence strongly suggested exposure to vesicants, or blister agents, such as the chemical warfare agents sulfur mustard, lewisite or nitrogen mustard," Amnesty said in a statement.

Sudan joined the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1999 under which members agree to never use toxic arms.

A joint African Union-United Nations force, known as UNAMID, has been stationed in Darfur since 2007. Security remains fragile in Darfur, where mainly non-Arab tribes have been fighting the Arab-led government in Khartoum, and the government is struggling to control rural areas.

Some 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur since the conflict began in 2003, the U.N. says, while 4.4 million people need aid and over 2.5 million have been displaced.

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The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2009 and 2010 on charges of war crimes and genocide in his drive to crush the Darfur revolt.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Tom Brown)