WAR 10-14-2017-to-10-20-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(290) 09-23-2017-to-09-29-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...9-29-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(291) 09-30-2017-to-10-06-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...0-06-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(292) 10-07-2017-to-10-13-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...0-13-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

Sorry for the delay folks, I'm playing musical shifts today....HC

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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/middle-east/truly-gordian-knot-awaits-trump

EXPERT COMMENTARY

‘A Truly Gordian Knot’ Awaits Trump

OCTOBER 13, 2017 | FABRICE BALANCHE

The end of the Islamic state puts the United States in an uncomfortable geopolitical situation.

When it comes, the United States will enter a new phase of the conflict. The Syrian regime is back in full force in the east of the country, and the Iranian corridor from Iran and Iraq to Lebanon through Syria is now becoming a reality. The United States therefore faces a cruel dilemma and has the obligation to urgently define a post-IS strategy.

The province of Deir al-Zour is the top priority

Since last spring, the Syrian army – supported by the Russians and the Iranians – has made marked progress in Eastern Syria. Bashar al-Assad’s regime now controls more than 50% of the territory and 70% of the population. However, the latest advance of the Syrian army and its allies (Hezbollah and other Shiite militias) occurred largely in desert areas, which explains the speed. Nevertheless, the lifting of the siege of the city of Deir al-Zour, which IS encircled for more than two years, is a great victory for Bashar al-Assad. From this city, he hopes to reconquer the whole province, specifically its rich oil fields (50% of the Syrian production before the war). In addition, this province is a key piece in the construction of the Iranian corridor.

In the rest of Syria, we saw a relative lull in the fighting until Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (the former al-Nusra Front) launched a new offensive against Hama, Latakia, and Aleppo, from its stronghold of Idlib this September. This offensive resulted in a strong reaction from Russian and Syrian aviation, which are now bombarding the province, but this does not seem to be the beginning of the re-conquest of the Idlib area. Instead, the Syrian regime and its allies are focusing on reducing the last rebel enclaves around Damascus and annihilating IS in the eastern Hama province.

However, at the end of the day, Damascus’ top priority remains the province of Deir al-Zour. The Syrian rebellion in western Syria is no longer powerful enough to constitute an existential threat. Now, the regime wants to take advantage of IS’ weakening position and prevent the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from snapping up any of its territory. The U.S. coalition command constantly reminds us that its goal is the eradication of IS in all of Syria up to the Iraqi border, to the displeasure of Damascus. On October 5, the Syrian Army quickly advanced on Mayadin, a small city on the Euphrates River, instead of cleansing IS from Deir al-Zour city because the regime and its foreign sponsors were afraid to see the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces take the city before them.

The military and geopolitical balance favors Damascus

The military balance seems to be in favor of the Syrian regime. However, the lengthening of communication lines makes the Syrian army vulnerable. In early October, the Islamic State counterattacked in the desert, temporarily cutting off the road between Deir al-Zour and Palmyra. Consequently, the progress of the Syrian Army in the Euphrates Valley was delayed, and the SDF are taking advantage of these difficulties to gain ground and to get closer to the rich oil fields of al-Omar (east of Mayadin) and the Iraqi-Syrian borders. If the SDF managed to seize the border before the Syrian army, that could impede the construction of the Iranian corridor.

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/wp-c...ilitary-Situation-in-Syria-October-4-2017.jpg
Courtesy of Fabrice Balanche and The Hoover Institution

However, would the United States take the risk of a direct confrontation with the Islamic Republic and possibly Russia? This is the most difficult question that will come after ISIS. Will the U.S. maintain American forces in eastern Syria after the elimination of IS?

In less than a year, IS might be eliminated from Syria. Soon, al Qaeda will become the new target in the Idlib area. Russia, Iran, and Turkey are preparing a huge offensive against this jihadist stronghold. However, it is not clear if the United States wishes to participate in the operation. First, the operation would clearly contribute to strengthening the Bashar al-Assad regime. Second, the territory is narrower than in eastern Syria, which increases the risk of incidents between the different actors. Finally, it is not certain that the three sponsors of the Astana conference – Russia, Iran, and Turkey – want to allow the United States into this operation, thus justifying a continued U.S. presence in Syria. On the contrary, these three countries are in a hurry to see the U.S. army withdraw.

The United States faces a Gordian knot in Syria

Whether the U.S. presence in Syria is maintained is crucial to the future of the country and the Middle East. If the United States decides to remain for a long time, they must first prepare for a major crisis with Turkey. U.S. protection of the Kurdish PYD (a PKK outshoot) exasperates Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, because that allows the construction of a Kurdish statelet on the Turkish southern border. This will only accentuate its rapprochement with Russia and Iran.

Finally, American troops could be harassed in the future and suffer heavy losses, as happened in Beirut in 1983 when a truck bomb driven by a member of Hezbollah exploded in front of the U.S. Marines’ HQ, killing 241 soldiers. There was no significant military response, and American and French contingents (the same day a truck bomb destroyed the French HQ causing 56 deaths) quickly left Lebanon.

The United States can also choose to withdraw after the victory against IS, calculating that it is better to leave Syria as a winner than to enter in an uncertain confrontation with Iran and Russia. Moreover, staying in Syria means that the United States will have to support the reconstruction of eastern Syria and to deal with tribal and ethnic conflicts in which there is only ‘bad guys’. The American withdrawal would mean the abandonment of local allies to their fate. Therefore, the Kurds – who form the backbone of the U.S.-allied SDF – will move closer to Moscow in order to protect themselves from the threat posed by Erdogan. As for the Arab tribes in the Euphrates valley, they will have only to negotiate their rapprochement to Damascus.

If the United States chooses to withdraw from Syria, Washington’s loss of credibility in the Middle East and the world would be terrible. The American president will be confronted soon with a truly Gordian knot: an inevitable dilemma in this complicated conflict.

THE AUTHOR IS FABRICE BALANCHE

Fabrice Balanche, an associate professor and research director at the University of Lyon 2, is a visiting fellow at The Hoover Institution. Balanche, who also directs the Research Group on the Mediterranean and the Middle East (GREMMO), has spent ten years in Lebanon and Syria, his main areas of study, since first engaging in fieldwork in the region in 1990. Today, he is frequently called upon as an expert consultant on Middle East development issues and the Syrian crisis. His... Read More

 

[Housecarl]

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https://apnews.com/679f2348b4334d51...-move-into-al-Qaida-dominated-Syrian-province

Turkish troops move into al-Qaida-dominated Syrian province

By SARAH EL DEEB and SUZAN FRASER
Yesterday

BEIRUT (AP) — Turkish armored vehicles have rolled into northwestern Syria to impose a “de-escalation zone” in a province dominated by al-Qaida-linked militants, an incursion that the Turkish leader said was meant to secure his country’s border.

The Turkish military said it began an operation late Thursday to set up “observation points” in Idlib, without providing further details or saying how many troops were involved.

Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper said around 30 armored vehicles and more than 100 commandos and special forces are taking part in the operation, with more troop movements expected in the coming days. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the deployment of nearly 16 armored vehicles, five tanks and a military force came days after Turkey sent reconnaissance missions to the area.

The deployment appears to be focused on establishing a Turkish military presence between the northwestern Idlib province and an adjacent Kurdish enclave.

Turkey didn’t address the details or scope of the deployment, saying only that it was working to prevent a “terror” corridor from forming along its border. Turkey considers Syria’s main Kurdish militia a terrorist group because of its links to the Kurdish insurgency in Turkey’s southeast.

In what appears to be part of the agreement to facilitate the first phase of the deployment, the Observatory and fighters in the area said the Turkish vehicles were escorted by fighters from an alliance led by an al-Qaida-linked group. That suggests the main focus at this point is to deter the Kurdish forces.

Some of the Turkey-backed Syrian fighters had ties with al-Qaida-linked groups and are likely keen to avoid immediate confrontation.

“We said we would come suddenly,” said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking in Ankara Friday.

Erdogan said his country, with a 911-kilometer (566-mile) border with Syria, has to take precautions.

“We are the ones that are under harassment and threat. No one has the right to tell us why did you do this?” he said.

A rebel fighter in the area said the troops deployed from a border crossing into the Idlib province to be stationed between the Kurdish-held Afrin enclave and an area held by Syrian rebels.

A Kurdish militiaman confirmed the deployment of Turkish troops, saying they were stationed in three separate points along a “front” between Afrin and Idlib. He said the deployment was “not wide.”

Both the rebel fighter and the Observatory said the Levant Liberation Committee, an insurgent coalition allied with al-Qaida, escorted the Turkish troops. The fighter and the Kurdish militia member spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk to the press.

It’s not clear if the insurgents are on board with Turkey’s plans. Brief clashes broke out along the border ahead of the deployment, amid reports of divisions within the insurgent coalition.

Syria expert Charles Lister told Syria Deeply earlier this week the Turkish operation appears to be first focused on establishing its own internal security, deterring Kurdish threats, minimizing refugee flows, and forming a Turkish protected area in northern Idlib. A slow and “methodical” campaign to undermine the al-Qaida-linked alliance may follow, Lister said.

“The situation is complex,” said Mustafa Sejari, a spokesman for the Almutassim Brigades, a Turkish-backed Syrian force. He identified three major threats to the area: the Kurdish “separatists,” the Syrian and Russian air campaign against the rebels, and the continued domination of the province by al-Qaida-linked militants.

“The presence of Turkish soldiers on the ground gives the area some immunity and stops the bombing,” Sejari told The Associated Press in a series of text messages.

Last week, Turkey announced an operation with Syrian opposition forces in Idlib to implement a de-escalation zone in the province. Turkey sent forces into northern Syria last year to battle the Islamic State group and to stem the advance of the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who are also battling the extremists.

___

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/kurds-high-alert-iraqi-forces-mass-kirkuk-171013081422969.html

Kurds on high alert as Iraqi forces mass near Kirkuk

13 Oct 2017

The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) has deployed thousands of troops around the disputed oil city of Kirkuk for fear of an attack by Iraqi government army and militia, a senior official said.

"Thousands of heavily armed peshmerga units are now completely in their positions around Kirkuk," a top aide to KRG President Masoud Barzani posted on social media on Friday.

"Their order is to defend at any cost," Hemin Hawrami wrote on Twitter.

According to the AP news agency, as many as 6,000 Kurdish troops have been deployed in the Kirkuk area.

The alert came after the Kurdish authorities accused the Iraqi government of massing forces in readiness for a reported offensive to seize Kurdish-held oil fields around Kirkuk, as tensions soared after a vote for independence last month.

They accused the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) - paramilitary units dominated by Iran-trained Shia militia - of massing fighters in two mainly Shia Turkmen areas south of Kirkuk in a bid to provoke a confrontation.

Sources in Kirkuk also confirmed to Al Jazeera the movement of Iraqi forces on two fronts in Kirkuk, in the south and west of the city.

In some areas, Iraqi forces have moved two to three kilometres from Kurdish peshmerga positions, Al Jazeera's Charles Stratford reported from Erbil.

"Certainly the KRG government is very worried," he said. "Some Kurds describe Kirkuk as their Jerusalem, and they are saying that they are not going to give up this city."

Strategic area
Hawrami urged the international community to intervene and call on Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to "order PMF to pull back if he can or if they listen to him".

"No escalation from our side. Just defend and roll them back if they attack," the senior adviser to Barzani said.

The surge in tensions comes two weeks after Kurdish voters overwhelmingly backed independence in a non-binding referendum that the federal government condemned as illegal.


WATCH: Kirkuk's inclusion in Kurdish vote angers Iraq (03:07)
Polling was held in the three provinces that have long formed an autonomous Kurdish region as well as neighbouring areas, including Kirkuk, that Kurdish forces seized from the Islamic State of the Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group during the fightback against the armed group's 2014 offensive through areas north and west of Baghdad.

Kirkuk province is the location of northern Iraq's main oil fields and, even though far more crude is now pumped from the south, it is bitterly disputed between Baghdad and the Kurds.

While the majority of the population in Kirkuk are Kurds, it also has a significant Arab and Turkmen residents, who feel more secure under the protection of the KRG than the Iraqi central government, Al Jazeera's Stratford said.

He pointed out that many Arabs had voted during the Kurdish referendum and supported the split from Baghdad, but he added that there are also those who are loyal to the central government.

Baghdad continues to reject decades-old Kurdish ambitions to incorporate Kirkuk and other historically Kurdish-majority areas in their autonomous region.

http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2017/9/26/63971e43c0a14a2d8c7d5910d6a3fd10_6.jpg

NTERACTIVE: Kurdish Region Referendum infographic - updated post referendum. [Al Jazeera]
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

MORE ON IRAQ

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34 minutes ago
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yesterday
Kurd fighters in Iraq briefly block roads to Mosul
2 days ago

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/colu...uelan-government-in-exile-sets-up-shop-in-d-c

Venezuelan ‘Government in Exile’ Sets Up Shop in D.C.

OCTOBER 13, 2017 | VANESSA NEUMANN

Today, Friday the 13th, the Organization of American States puts its stamp of approval on Venezuela’s embattled political opposition when it swears in Venezuelan Supreme Court judges, allowing them to operate here in Washington, D.C, rather than Caracas. Far from symbolic, it is the beginning of the establishment of a parallel government-in-exile and sets up a geopolitical proxy fight, where the key players include Russia and China.

The magistrates were selected this past July by the National Assembly, in the wake of that same Assembly’s annulment by the Maduro regime. The Venezuelan government installed a separate, unconstitutional Constituent Assembly that holds supererogatory powers, technically above even those of the presidency. More than 43 countries have condemned Maduro’s Constituent Assembly: most of the Western Hemisphere, the entire EU, the Nordics, the Balkans, Morocco, and Japan. The only ones in favor are the usual suspects for the Maduro regime: Cuba, Russia, China, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and El Salvador.

The National Assembly, by contrast, is considered Venezuela’s legitimate government authority: in December 2015 elections, the opposition took two-thirds of the seats, giving them the super majority needed to rewrite the constitution and call a referendum on the presidency. Maduro’s puppet National Electoral Commission (CNE in Spanish), quickly discarded three legislators to eliminate the super majority and started “inabilitating” opposition leaders, declaring them unfit to hold political office or run for election on some arcane technicality, while Venezuela’s security services indicted and imprisoned others.

Meanwhile, the magistrates the National Assembly designated have been targeted by the Maduro dictatorship: one “disappeared,” several others have sought asylum in various foreign embassies in Caracas, and the OAS will be swearing in and hosting the rest today.

Conferred legitimacy by the Venezuelan people and the international community, these OAS-based Supreme Court magistrates will have the moral (and still constitutional) authority to certify or not the results of governorship elections two days later, on October 15th, and approve or disapprove foreign investment deals in Venezuela’s oil and gas sector, which are currently heavily mortgaged to Russia and China. This new Supreme Court-in-exile may well challenge those countries’ interests and invoke the “odious debt” doctrine they most fear; if the international community legitimizes this new Supreme Court-in-exile (which it is, by letting them operate out of the OAS), that “odious debt” stance could make the deals unenforceable in international courts such as ICSID, when Maduro and his cohorts are out of power.

That risk will certainly make lenders – and their lawyers – think twice before getting further into bed with the Maduro regime. The world’s biggest asset managers, as well as the intelligence community, will be watching closely. Because of the close ties between the Maduro regime and Lebanese Hezbollah, so will Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The legitimacy of these oil and gas deals are at the very heart of Venezuela’s political volatility. When Maduro’s puppet Supreme Court said it would take over the National Assembly’s powers (what Latin Americanists call an autogolpe) at the end of March to sign deals, the streets lit up in protest, resulting in more than 150 dead civilians and nearly 1,000 political prisoners. The deal in question involved financing from Rosneft – after PDVSA quietly mortgaged its U.S. asset Citgo to them, around last Christmas. In August, Rosneft announced that it had lent a total of $6 billion to PDVSA, and calculations by Reuters based on government announcements are that Russia and Rosneft have lent Venezuela at least $17 billion since 2006, which Venezuela sorely needs: it was more than a week late making last month’s $185 million interest payment on its 2027 sovereign bond – and not for the first time. The banking world is placing bets on whether it will default on its $3.5 billion in bond payments due in October and November. Not surprising then, that Maduro praised Putin as “the world’s true leader” on PBS NewsHour last week.

But not everyone is delighted: some Russians in oil and gas think Rosneft’s deals with PDVSA are bad business, and on the American side, the suggestion has been made, though not very credible, that the U.S. will sit back and let Russia sink itself with its Venezuelan debt.

Here’s the problem with that argument: Russia is a pass through; the money is really Chinese, and Venezuela will not sink China.

It is no secret China is Rosneft’s biggest market or that China lent Russia $25 billion to build a gas pipeline from Siberia, or that they share the Yamal LNG project in Russia’s Arctic region. There is more to the story though. CEFC, a Chinese company little known even in the oil industry, paid $9 billion last month for a 14.16% stake in Rosneft from a joint venture between Glencore and Qatar Investment Authority. CEFC and Rosneft have also sealed a strategic cooperation deal to jointly develop oil and gas projects in Siberia. Oil industry watchers expect CEFC to also get involved in Rosneft’s retail business, which includes 3,000 filling stations, more than 1,00 gasoline tankers and 150 crude storage facilities.

China has a vested interest in tightening its grip on Venezuela. From 2007 to 2014, China lent Venezuela $63 billion (53% of all its loans to Latin America) in energy-backed loans: loans to be repaid in future oil deliveries. The de facto mortgage, taken when oil was at $100 a barrel, is far more difficult to service with the price at half that. To repay Beijing today, Venezuela must now ship two barrels of oil for every one it originally agreed to.

While Russia and Venezuela ask for favors from their Chinese ‘papa’ partly in response to U.S. sanctions, having Venezuela be beholden to Russia, who in turn is beholden to China, suits the Chinese down to the ground. The Chinese can leave the geopolitical Sturm und Drang to the Russians, who have an appetite for it, while Russia and China extend their control over strategic assets, which they are acquiring for what Venezuelans call “the price of a skinny chicken.”

The question, as the OAS-based parallel Supreme Court gets sworn in, is whether those chickens will come home to roost.

 

[Housecarl]

Well this doesn't bode well.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-ch...tution-likely-to-include-xis-theories-2017-10

Xi Jinping is testing his power over China by trying to amend the constitution to include his name

Reuters
Ben Blanchard and Philip Wen, Reuters
3h 1,132

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's ruling Communist Party has agreed to amend the party constitution, expected to embed President Xi Jinping's political thought, ahead of next week's five-yearly party congress in which Xi will further tighten his grip on power.

The party's Central Committee, the largest of its elite ruling bodies, on Saturday passed a previously announced proposal to amend the constitution which will now be put to the Congress for formal approval.

A lengthy communique released by the party via state media offered praise for the past five years under Xi's leadership, especially success in the fight against corruption, but did not say what wording would be inserted into the party constitution.

A key measure of Xi's power will be whether he manages to have his name "crowned" in the party constitution, elevating him to the level of previous leaders exemplified by Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory.

Xi's more recent predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, both had the party constitution amended to include their guiding thoughts, but without their names directly attached.

Jiang has his "Three Represents," which embraced private entrepreneurs, written in, while Hu, Xi's immediate predecessor, had his economic doctrine of "scientific development" included.

The party has been pushing Xi's "Four Comprehensives," which refer to China working "comprehensively" to build a moderately prosperous society and strengthen reforms, rule of law and party discipline, as well as the "Four Greats", which focus on party building and national rejuvenation.

The four-day Central Committee plenary meeting also approved reports by the party's corruption watchdog of investigations into several former senior officials who have been sacked or jailed for graft, including Sun Zhengcai, once a contender for top leadership who was expelled from the party last month.

Since assuming power five years ago, Xi has mounted a sweeping campaign against deep-rooted corruption, with more than one million people punished and dozens of senior officials jailed.

The party has vowed that the campaign, overseen by close Xi ally Wang Qishan, will never end.

The Congress will open on Wednesday with a speech by Xi, the party's head, details of which are a closely guarded secret ahead of time but will focus more on ideology than concrete policies.

Last October, the party gave Xi the title of "core" leader, a significant strengthening of his position ahead of the Congress, at which a new Standing Committee, the pinnacle of power in China, will be constituted.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-co...s-brought-about-nationalism-in-central-europe

Refugees, Communism and Nationalism

Outside pressures and historic experiences are feeding anxieties across Central Europe.

By Sintia Radu, Staff Writer | Oct. 13, 2017, at 2:56 p.m.

Refugees, Communism and Nationalism

As Austria prepares for legislative elections on Sunday, observers are debating whether Central and Eastern European political currents are tilting toward the right. Yet experts warn this is not a new trend, but rather a consistent problem in a region troubled by a growing number of populist governments that seem to want to push back against EU values.

On Oct. 15 Austrians will hit the polls again, one year after the victory of Alexander Van der Bellen, a pro-EU independent backed by the Green Party, over Norbert Hofer, the right-wing nationalist. Yet this time, Austrians will need to return to the voting booth in a country witnessing growing Islamophobia that could bring a far-right party into a coalition government.

The battle involves the People's Party (OeVP), a conservative party that leads the opinion polls; the center-left Social Democrats (SPOe), the other party in the current coalition government; and the Freedom Party (FPOe) of right-wing populists. The most likely outcome is for the People's Party to win and join forces with the far-right Freedom Party to form a coalition government that will lead the country.

The early elections were called in May, due to political battles over reforms inside the current coalition, and have already sparked controversies. The center-left chancellor and leader of the Social Democrats, Christian Kern, has been accused of discrediting his main challenger, Sebastian Kurz of the People's Party, through several social media sites by spreading xenophobic and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, according to The Guardian. Such charges come in an already turbulent political climate – both parties have suggested they are considering a coalition with the FPOe.

Yet the country's history with far-right extremism is not new, experts say. The Freedom Party has been around for decades, in various forms, including in another coalition government in the late 1990s, despite EU criticism.

"So what Austria is showing us is two things: this is a recurrent problem, and the problem seems to be getting worse, not better," says Erik Jones, professor of European studies at Johns Hopkins University.

But, while its voice might be getting stronger, FPOe is not as bad as others, other analysts say.

"It's really not a fascist party; it's more of a populist anti-immigrant (party) with some folks in it with pretty ugly views," says Doug Bandow, senior fellow specializing in foreign policy and civil liberties at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "No one believes it will take power. It's a question of where it falls within a multi-party election."

The region is no stranger to such ideologies. In Hungary, Viktor Orban, the leader of the national conservative Fidesz, took power seven years ago and adopted a strong rhetoric against EU principles, appealing to religion and the working class resentful of losing national sovereignty over Brussels policies. He has been criticized for nepotism, limiting the freedom of the press, and trying to shut down a university with alleged connections to Brussels.

Poland's government, a country hailed for its democratic views and economic policies during the economic crisis, is now headed by the Law and Justice party (PiS) that wants to reassert itself in a Europe led by Germany.

https://www.usnews.com/dims4/USNEWS...0aa7d9293be/171013-europerefugees-graphic.png

In the Czech Republic, nationalistic and anti-Islamic rhetoric has flourished among political leaders in a country whose president has played on people's frustrations with the EU while also adopting strong anti-immigration policies stirred by the refugee crisis.

Less conflicting situations with anti-EU messages can be found in Slovakia where the prime-minister, a former Communist, initially fought requests of accepting the EU's quota of immigrants. In Romania, the social democratic government was criticized by Brussels for legislative proposals encouraging corruption that sparked massive protests in Bucharest in January.

In most of these countries, experts say, today's nationalist or populist movements are a response to a history of influence, occupation and even oppression from outside forces.

"Countries like Germany, France, or Britain have not only had the democratic experience since War World II, but they'd also worked together in the Cold War period," says Bandow. "They had the creation of the EU, they had the U.S. as a partner which has helped bring countries together. They had many thing to moderate their politics that the Central and Eastern Europeans haven't."

The smaller countries in Central and Eastern Europe also have reacted strongly to the refugee crisis that peaked in 2015. Public anxiety over migrants helped amplify the political voices in the countries speaking out against EU quotas, contoured a criminal profile of the immigrant, and made countries such as Hungary raise fences at its borders.

"The 2015 experience had a huge impact. There were millions of people, overwhelmingly young men, and it had a lot of consequences, such as crimes against women," Jones says. "That's not a characteristic of most of the immigrants but they had been high-profile enough that it caused an extraordinary reaction."

The recent influx of refugees into Central Europe is something new and threatening, analysts say. Immigrants have previously avoided the region because the countries were comparatively poor and run by Communist governments that closed the borders to the outside world, says Bandow.

"For them (Central Europeans), mass immigration is rather new and threatening especially when it's – from their perspective – from groups that are themselves rather threatening."

With few policy alternatives to deal with refugees, political extremism becomes even more appealing, experts say.

"We've seen a breakdown of the traditional political parties and the weakening of the traditional left," Jones says. "So these populist movements flourish because the other alternatives become less attractive and less effective."

Experts argue that there is a fundamental difference between the expressions of nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe compared to that in the West.

"In the West, you have a rejection of policies and practices rather than institutions per se," says Mabel Berezin, an expert in nationalism in Europe and a professor in the department of sociology at Cornell University. "In Poland and Hungary, you have these people, the far-right, actually running the countries."

Central European governments may be less prone to being run by far-right parties if the EU responded more promptly to some of the main concerns by the region's leaders, such as issues related to security and the financial challenges remaining from the 2008 global financial crisis.

"So far those problems have not been adequately managed," Berezin says. "So you are getting a lot of backlash because a lot of those problems pose disruption in the ordinary living of the ordinary people."

While it's hard to predict what the future holds for both Austria and the region, analysts are skeptical and suggest a more politically unstable continent is possible, whose countries need to work closely together, but pay more attention to their individual needs.

"A stronger Europe is very unlikely to happen," Bandow says.

Sintia Radu covers international affairs for U.S. News & World Report. You can follow her on Twitter @sintiaradu.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://thebulletin.org/decades-making-iranian-drone-program11185#.WeEUjAuXZb0.twitter

COLUMNISTS
12 OCTOBER 2017

Decades in the making: The Iranian drone program

Ariane Tabatabai
Comments 1

This summer, Iran’s drone program became the latest component of the country’s defense sector to make headlines. In August, an unarmed Iranian drone reportedly came within 100 feet of an American fighter jet in the Persian Gulf. Earlier in the summer, the United States downed two Iranian drones, which it said, were flying in close proximity to US-backed ground forces in Syria. In June, Pakistan too stated it had shot down an Iranian drone flying in its airspace.

These incidents put the Iranian drone program on Western observers’ radars as a new potential threat associated with the Islamic Republic. But Iran’s drone program actually started decades ago and serves a number of military and civil purposes. As Tehran deploys its drones more regularly, for more purposes and in more locations, policy-makers will have to understand the program’s nature, scope, strengths, and limitations if they want to effectively respond to it.

How it started. The Iranian drone program is one of the oldest in the world. It started in the 1980s during the devastating Iran-Iraq War, in which Iran found itself isolated and the target of indiscriminate Iraqi missile and chemical weapon attacks. After the eight-year-long war, the country started or resumed many defense projects, including its controversial chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons efforts and ballistic missile program. Tehran was no longer able to procure weapons and equipment from its traditional allies, particularly the United States—with whom it no longer had diplomatic ties as a result of the hostage crisis, during which revolutionaries stormed the US embassy in Tehran and took its staff hostage for 444 days. To compensate, Tehran began to develop its own indigenous defense sector. As part of these efforts, Iran built an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) program, which has since become one of the most comprehensive in the world.

Military applications. Today, Iran’s UAV program and capabilities often make the headlines because of their military applications. Given Tehran’s use of its drones beyond its borders, this focus on the military dimensions of the drone program makes sense. Iranian drones have been spotted from Pakistan to Syria and on to the Persian Gulf. But Iran’s drones don’t just get attention when they’re discovered aloft. The country makes sure to display its defense sector’s progress routinely; the drone program has become a centerpiece of its military technology exhibits. This allows Iranian leaders to show their domestic constituents that their security is provided for and that, while the region is increasingly volatile, Iranians have nothing to fear. These public drone displays also show foreign adversaries that sanctions and pressure don’t slow Iranian progress.

In 2012, Iran claimed it had downed and reverse-engineered a US Sentinel stealth surveillance drone, which had been used across the border in Pakistan to spy on Al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden. That claim is fairly dubious, as are the statements the country has issued since suggesting that Iran’s drone program is ahead of the United States'. Its unlikely drone pontifications aside, however, Iran has developed a panoply of military UAVs that merit attention.

Iran’s UAV toolkit includes surveillance drones such as the Mohajer, which was used during the Iran-Iraq War, as well as armed drones, including the long-range H-110 Sarir, equipped with air-to-air missiles. The country also has developed surveillance and attack drones, such as the Karrar, turbo-jet-propelled drone, which can carry a single bomb, and Hazem, a rocket-propelled surveillance and attack UAV. Perhaps its most notable drones, however, are the Shahed 129, which can carry out 24-hour surveillance and strike missions, and one of the most recent additions to the arsenal, the Fotros. The Fotros has a reported range of 2,000 kilometers, can remain aloft for up to 30 hours, and is equipped with air-to-ground missiles.

These drones serve the country’s intelligence, surveillance, and counterterrorism efforts and are used in military operations, including the Iran-Iraq War and the Syrian civil war, in which Tehran has supported President Bashar al-Assad’s efforts to crush the opposition. Iran’s UAVs fit well with the country’s defense doctrine, which focuses on contending with adversaries—including the United States—whose conventional capabilities surpass its own. And drones represent a low-cost way of grappling with adversaries without putting Iranian lives on the line.

Domestically, Iran has used its drones in reconnaissance, surveillance, and target identification missions to support its counterterrorism efforts in border areas, where it’s faced a variety of terrorist groups for decades. These efforts have only accelerated—and are likely to continue to increase—since the 2017 twin attacks in Tehran perpetrated by the Islamic State (ISIS).

All this puts Iran in a fairly exclusive club. But the country’s ambitions transcend its borders. It hopes to become a UAV supplier for its allies, and Tehran doesn’t discriminate between states and non-state actors. Both the Assad regime and Hezbollah have benefitted from Iran’s drone program.

Civilian applications. Iran’s drones aren’t limited to military applications. But the country’s significant civilian uses of drones are often overlooked in Western discussion of the Iranian UAV program, even though the most interesting and underappreciated components of Iran’s UAV program lie in non-military realms.

The country has sought to develop a fairly comprehensive civil drone program, allowing it to tackle a range of challenges, including, for example, sea rescue, a mission the Par undertakes thanks to the life preservers it carries and can drop to people stranded on the high seas. Iran also uses drones to tackle environmental challenges, including ecosystem degradation and water scarcity. Under Massoumeh Ebtekar, the former head of the Department of Environment, that ministry entered an agreement with the Ministry of Defense under which some provinces leveraged the country’s drone program to assess habitats, gather data on wildlife, patrol protected areas, identify individuals in violation of fishing and hunting laws, and monitor and fight fires.

Iran’s UAV program is likely to continue making headlines in the West—and in the United States in particular—for its military applications, but the country is rapidly developing a comprehensive civilian program aimed at tackling challenges domestically and abroad. Even though it is now decades old, the Iranian drone program continues to suffer shortcomings, some inherent to the technology—such as the trade-off between range and autonomy—and others stemming from the defense sector’s need to develop the right infrastructure and trail to support UAVs.

Nevertheless, the country is investing in and will continue to build its program and position itself to become an international UAV supplier. While the military components of the program will continue to challenge US national security interests, its growing civilian emphasis can serve as an interesting case study for governments and businesses outside Iran.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-travel-ban-chad-boko-haram-684078

WORLD

AFTER TRUMP TRAVEL BAN, CHAD PULLS TROOPS FROM BOKO HARAM FIGHT IN NIGER

BY CONOR GAFFEY ON 10/13/17 AT 8:07 AM

President Donald Trump’s decision to place Chad on his revised travel ban shocked experts and former U.S. officials who warned it could have major consequences for the fight against terrorism in Africa.

And it appears Trump’s controversial decision may have already damaged alliances on the continent—which is threatened by a range of militants, including affiliates of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State militant group.

Chad has pulled hundreds of troops from neighboring Niger, where they had been stationed to assist in a regional fight against Boko Haram, the Nigerian militant Islamist group, Reuters reported.

Chad’s government has not given any explanation for the withdrawal, which took place over the past two weeks. But in the wake of Trump’s pronouncement on September 24, Chad’s communications minister Madeleine Alingué said that the decision “seriously undermines Chad’s image and the good relations between the two countries, notably in the fight against terrorism.”

The Trump administration said that Chad did not “adequately share public-safety and terrorism-related information” and that multiple terrorist groups were active in the country and the surrounding region.

The White House did however acknowledge Chad as an “important and valuable counterterrorism partner” and said that it had shown a “clear willingness to improve” in the areas of immigration and border management.

Chad has played a leading role in fighting terrorism in West Africa, particularly in forcing Boko Haram into retreat. The militants controlled territory equivalent in size to Belgium in early 2015, but has lost almost all of its land since then, largely due to Nigerian military offensives and a regional force launched in 2015 that is headquartered in Ndjamena, the Chadian capital.

The country is well-known for having one of the strongest militaries in the region. Chad’s longtime president, Idriss Déby —who has long been accused of political repression—has made national security a priority of his administration and even had a war of words with Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau.

Chad also assisted African and French forces with dislodging Al-Qaeda-linked militants and separatists from northern Mali in 2013, after a 2012 rebellion had seen the Malian government lose control of the region.

Residents in Niger’s Diffa region said that the Chadian withdrawal had already led to increased banditry. Boko Haram have periodically launched attacks in southeast Niger, just across the border with Nigeria.

A parliamentarian in Diffa, Lamido Moumouni, told Reuters that residents had complained since the withdrawal. “They have come to rely on the forces so there is a perception that security will be lacking,” he said.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougla...e-thing-about-chinas-leadership/#5e074c474d8d

OCT 15, 2017 @ 12:27 PM

The Surprising Ascent Of Xi Jinping Tells Us One Thing About China's Leadership

Douglas Bulloch , CONTRIBUTOR
I write about the political economy of China and its major industries
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

- Perhaps the most surprising thing about China is the lack of surprise expressed when surprising things happen.
- And while we all speculate about who's in and who's out, who's up and who's down, we should instead be focussed on what's right out in the open: that the nature of leadership itself has changed in China.

Five years ago, when Xi Jinping strode out onto the dais at the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of China, newly elected as their General Secretary, he cut an impressive figure. The previous holder of the office, Hu Jintao, was something of a bloodless technocrat, and the General Secretary before that, Jiang Zemin, was beginning to look very old. All transitions in China are important and symbolic, but this transition seemed particularly portentous. China's rapid development was beginning to show signs of strain and the vigorous, not to say "charismatic," figure of Xi Jinping seemed to step out on to a larger stage than that offered merely by the Communist Party.

As the world got to know him, about his time on a farm in the United States, about his famous wife and about his online fan club in China who called him "Xi Da Da" they gradually watched his incremental approach to the acquisition of power unfold. Initially some experienced China experts dismissed the echoes of Mao, assuring the rest of us that China was allergic to charismatic leadership and had carefully immunized party structures against the return of personality politics. Others welcomed Xi's centralizing tendencies as a necessary prelude to difficult reforms.

Always, however, the dominant presumption was towards the positive. Yes, China has problems, but they also have solutions. The 3rd Plenum reforms made all the right noises, and the 13th Five Year Plan met with approval if also with some impatience. So when a year or so ago rumors began circulating that Xi Jinping might not nominate a successor at the 19th Congress, the stock response was simply to refer to China's longstanding practice of nominating a successor from among the next generation of leaders. This was just how things were done. Well, as they say on Fleet Street, up to a point, Lord Copper.


Grandmother's Footsteps

Perhaps the most surprising thing about China is the lack of surprise expressed when surprising things happen. So little is really understood about how decisions are taken behind the tightly maintained veil of ignorance that surrounds the highest echelons of party deliberations, that there is a certain premium on seeming wise in retrospect. Hence even the most authoritative source in China is only as reliable as the assurances they are able to offer after the event. Rarely does anyone admit that they didn't see it coming.

Just a few short years ago, for example, the suggestion that a new, relatively unknown leader, might emerge in China and become so dominant that he would simply stay on beyond the standard two terms would have seemed outlandish. Now it is the widespread expectation and the conversation has moved on. The second largest economy on earth selects its leaders by a process no one understands and this is fast becoming a settled fact of the international order.

In other words, a radical deviation in the practice of leadership succession in China, one that might have upended any number of investment strategies or political negotiations in the past, somehow ends up being treated as the most normal thing in the world. Xi Jinping is (probably) here to stay.

Just another boiling frog?

In the run up to the 19th Congress, this creates peculiar patterns of speculation. Who will stay on the Standing Committee and who will go? Who will be purged and who will be promoted. Once, there were at least assumptions about how all this works. Now we're all just spectators waiting to learn the results of hidden struggles we can neither see nor really comprehend.

And while we all speculate about who's in and who's out, who's up and who's down, we should instead be focussed on what's right out in the open: that the nature of leadership itself has changed in China. Now the routine comparisons with Mao and Deng, which were once thought controversial, just trip off the tongue. Rarely does anyone mention that both Mao and Deng are remembered not simply because they were dominant figures, but because they engineered enormous upheavals within China and the wider world. Nor is it as if Xi has hidden his ambition. With his anti-corruption drive, his deliberate stalling of economic reforms, his crackdown on capital movements and his mercantilist "Belt and Road Initiative" he has advertised his strategic aspirations and yet been welcomed into the inner sanctum of globalization at Davos.

Imagine if you will a frog in a pan of water, slowly boiling on a stove. You've heard the story before, and you know how it ends, so you call it a cliché and marvel at the humble hack who raises it. But consider again that moment in 2012 when Xi Jinping strode out onto the dais looking every bit the sleek authoritarian he has now become. Who looked ahead then and saw that frog, rather than boil, transform into the Red Prince that now holds China, and the world, in his thrall? And who didn't realize that, in truth, they were the frog still loitering unknowingly in the ever warming pan?

 

[Housecarl]

Huge explosion from truck bomb rattles Somalia capital, UPDATE 276 Dead
Started by fairywell‎, Yesterday 08:51 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-bomb-rattles-Somalia-capital-UPDATE-276-Dead

The Winds of War Blow in Korea and The Far East
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-of-War-Blow-in-Korea-and-The-Far-East/page69

First Footage Emerges Of Armed Clashes Between Kurdish And Pro-Baghdad Forces Near Kirkuk
Started by Possible Impact‎, Yesterday 02:20 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...dish-And-Pro-Baghdad-Forces-Near-Kirkuk/page3


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-to-deepen-iran-power-struggles-idUSKBN1CK0RQ

OCTOBER 15, 2017 / 10:35 AM / UPDATED 10 HOURS AGO

Trump hostility set to deepen Iran power struggles

Parisa Hafezi
6 MIN READ

ANKARA (Reuters) - Iranians quickly closed ranks against a hawkish new U.S. approach to Tehran, but Iran’s powerful hardliners are set to exploit the latest dispute with Washington to weaken domestic rivals who are open to the West, analysts and insiders say.

President Donald Trump’s warning on Friday that he might ultimately terminate a landmark 2015 nuclear deal sets the stage for an eventual resurgence of political infighting within Iran’s complex power structures, officials said.

If the accord signed by Iran and six major powers does start to fall apart, anyone who strongly promoted it, such as pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani, could face a career-damaging backlash.

That could leave Iran’s security hardliners unchallenged at home, enabling greater Iranian assertiveness abroad that could worsen tensions in the Middle East, analysts say.

For the moment, solidarity within the Islamic Republic’s faction-ridden political elite is the priority.

“What matters now is unity against the foreign enemy,” a senior official told Reuters on condition of anonymity, like other figures contacted within Iran because of the sensitivity of the matter.

“Our national interest is a priority for all Iranian officials.”

But Rouhani and pragmatists and reformist allies who promoted the deal, which lifted sanctions in return for Tehran rolling back technologies with nuclear bomb-making potential, may become increasingly politically vulnerable at home.

“GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY” FOR ROUHANI‘S CRITICS

Trump on Friday defied both U.S. allies and adversaries by refusing to formally certify that Tehran is complying with the accord even though international inspectors say it is.

“The growing tension with America is a golden opportunity for hardliners to clip Rouhani’s wings,” said a Rouhani ally, who was involved in the 18-month nuclear talks.

Iran’s top authority, hardline Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, guardedly backed Rouhani when he opened the door to nuclear diplomacy with world powers, but has repeatedly expressed pessimism about Washington remaining committed to it.

For Rouhani the stakes are high: His rapprochement with the world won him enhanced popularity at home and prestige abroad, dealing a setback to Khamenei’s hardline allies, who oppose both detente with the West and domestic liberalization.

Now the tables may be turning.

“Hardliners will use Trump’s threat as a Sword of Damocles over Rouhani’s head ... While enjoying the economic benefits of the deal,” said Tehran-based political analyst Saeed Leylaz, referring to the lifting of tough oil and banking sanctions.

“Rouhani and his detente policy with the world will be weakened if the deal does not survive,” another senior Iranian official said.

“And of course an aggressive regional policy is inevitable.”

Under Iran’s unique dual system of clerical and republican rule, the elected president is subordinate to the unelected Khamenei, who has in the past reasserted control when infighting threatened the existence of the Islamic Republic.

Trump’s policy will play into the hands of hardliners eventually, said an ally of Khamenei. “What matters is the Islamic Republic and its interests.”

TIT-FOR-TAT STEPS

In reaction to Trump, Rouhani signaled Iran would withdraw from the agreement if it failed to preserve Tehran’s interests.

The survival of the deal now is up to the U.S. Congress, which might try to modify it or reimpose U.S. sanctions on Iran. But even if the Congress refuses to consider sanctions, the deal could still be in jeopardy if Washington and Tehran resort to tit-for-tat retaliatory steps.

“As long as both sides only exchange words, business will continue as usual,” said Leylaz.

Since the lifting of sanctions, Rouhani has started to repair an economy ravaged by a decade of restrictions on its vital oil industry and issued warm welcomes to global investors.

But major European investors could think twice about involvement in Iran if tension mounts with the United States and uncertainty grows over survival of the accord.

“If European companies don’t have the comfort of a political agreement endorsed by the Americans they will say stop,” said a senior French diplomat.

Among European firms that have announced big deals in Iran since the deal took effect are planemaker Airbus AIR.PA, French energy group Total TOTF.PA and Germany’s Siemens SIEGn.DE.

Video

REGIONAL CHAOS

Trump enraged Tehran by saying that the Revolutionary Guards, which have fought Iran’s regional proxy wars for decades, was Khamenei’s “corrupt personal terror force and militia”. Rouhani said Iranians would always stand by the Guards.

Several officials agreed that Trump’s hostility would not change Iran’s regional behavior, determined by Khamenei. But if Trump somehow made good on his threats, “then Iran will adopt a harsher and aggressive regional policy,” said one of the officials familiar with Iran’s decision-making policy.

Iran and its rival Saudi Arabia accuse each other of fuelling regional tensions. The Sunni Muslim kingdom is at odds with Tehran’s revolutionary Shi‘ite leaders in struggles across the Arab world, including Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon.

On social policy, Rouhani’s scope to loosen restrictions on individual freedoms and rights would be crushed by hardliners if he loses political prestige. Hardliners control the judiciary, security forces and state media.

“Whenever pressured abroad, the regime increases pressure at home to silence any opposition,” said a former moderate official.

Additional reporting by Jonathan Saul in London and John Irish in Paris; Writing by Parisa Hafezi, Editing by William Maclean and Giles Elgood

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...orts-two-key-rebel-leaders-dead-idUSKBN1CL06I

OCTOBER 15, 2017 / 7:55 PM / UPDATED 36 MINUTES AGO

Philippine army says unconfirmed reports two key rebel leaders dead

Reuters Staff
3 MIN READ

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippine armed forces said on Monday that unconfirmed battlefield reports indicate the military had killed two leaders of the pro-Islamic State alliance holed up in a southern city for nearly five months.

Isnilon Hapilon, the anointed “emir” of Islamic State in Southeast Asia, and Omarkhayam Maute, one of two brothers at the helm of the militant alliance, may have been killed in a battle to retake Marawi City, but the authorities still needed confirmation, said Colonel Edgard Arevalo, a military spokesman.

“We have received field reports stating that Isnilon Hapilon and Omarkhayam Maute are dead. But we cannot issue any official statement yet pending the confirmation of such report,” he said in a text message to reporters.

“Our units in the frontline are continuing with their offensives to neutralize the remaining terrorists and rescue their hostages to end the crisis in Marawi.”

The deaths of two key rebel leaders, if confirmed, would be a major boost for the military, which has been criticized for its slow progress in retaking Marawi, the country’s only Muslim majority city.

The leaders have been central to the rebels regrouping, re-arming and recruiting after previous clashes over the past two years on the southern island of Mindanao.

Another leader, Abdullah Maute, was reported by the army to have been killed in August, though no body was found to prove his death.

The military has several times reported the possible deaths of the leaders, their escape, or presence in the Marawi battle zone, but has not had solid proof.

The rebel alliance is comprised of fighters from the Maute group, Abu Sayyaf, and aided by foreigners from countries that include Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and some Middle East states. Child soldiers and teenagers are among the gunmen.

The ease at which the rebels took control of Marawi and their ability to endure more than 130 days of air strikes, has caused fears in the Philippines and the region that Islamic State’s radical ideology and its advanced recruitment methods are more prevalent than was previously imagined.

The clashes have killed 813 rebels, 47 civilians and 162 military since insurgents seized the heart of Marawi on May 23, according to the Philippine government.

Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Michael Perry

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/10/17/three-theater_strategy_112484.html

Repair and Rebuild: Balancing New Military Spending for a Three-Theater Strategy

By Mackenzie Eaglen
American Enterprise Institute
October 17, 2017

Key Points

• The Pentagon must resolve near-term readiness issues, expand its force structure, and invest in technological breakthroughs to sustain simultaneous operations across three theaters.
• The Army must be large enough to support stability operations in the Middle East and lethal enough to win decisively in any conventional conflicts in Europe and Asia.
• Over the next five years, AEI’s plan would spend $672 billion above the Budget Control Act caps.

Read the PDF. (125 pages)

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....The comments are worth looking at as well....HC

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://breakingdefense.com/2017/10...gades-trained-vs-new-russian-tactics-forscom/

All Active Combat Brigades Trained Vs. New Russian Tactics: FORSCOM

By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
on October 17, 2017 at 2:19 PM
5 Comments

AUSA: In February 2014, when Russian troops seized Crimea, almost no one in the US Army had trained for great power war. But since then, the head of Forces Command told me, every active-duty combat brigade has gone through at least one high-intensity wargame at the famed Combat Training Centers on Fort Irwin, Calif. and Fort Polk, La. 80 percent have gone through twice, and several, three times.

It’s the revived Russian threat that, more than anything, is driving the Army to change: accelerating acquisition, rewriting doctrine*and overhauling training. While the Army had looked ahead and begun work on what’s now called the Decisive Action Training Environment (DATE) back in 2011, “things really changed in February, 2014,” Abrams told me at the Association of the US Army conference here. It was that year the first high-intensity wargames (called “rotations”) began.

“80 percent have been through two,” Gen. Robert Abrams told me, “and we’ve got probably four or five that have been through three.” Even troops headed for Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria get trained on big-war skills before they go – in stark contrast to the past decade of training intensively for counterinsurgency in a particular district. On the flipside, the new training mixes some of the crucial lessons of irregular warfare into the conventional battle.

But you can’t just dust off Cold War training manuals in an era when Russian propaganda, proxies, and Little Green Men strike before the tank divisions invade, and when old-school Katyusha rockets strike targets that drones have pinpointed. “A lot of people have wrongfully assumed that we’ve gone back in time to fight our previous threat models, sort of a high-end conventional force,” Abrams said. “That could not be further from the truth.”

A veteran of the training centers’ Cold War heyday in the 1980s – like Abrams himself –would recognize the terrain, the American armored vehicles mocked-up as Russian tanks, the friendly and “enemy” planes staging simulated airstrikes, he said. They wouldn’t recognize the quadcopters spying on US units, the Opposing Force (OPFOR) soldiers fighting out of uniform as guerrillas, the contractors roleplaying local civilians, the local officials and ostensibly friendly security forces. They wouldn’t recognize the cyber and electronic warfare attacks that can disrupt the high-tech networks, GPS navigation, and constant communications – to the point of micromanagement – that US troops have grown reliant on since 9/11.

All this complexity requires leaders to show much more initiative. “Before, in the ’80s and ’90s, it was very rote,” Abrams said. “You would get there on this day and on Friday, you would do a road march out, and you’d get an order for an attack, and you would go attack. And then, four hours after the attack was done, you’d do an After Action Review, you’d get another order, and you’d get ready do something else. It was all very lockstep.”

For example, almost every unit training at Fort Polk used to start on the east side of the base, at landing zone Geronimo, and then advance west. Units at Fort Irwin got to move either east to west or west to east, but other directions were all but unheard of. Now, said Abrams, units have to start in different places and move in different directions, including – and this is apparently a shocker in Combat Training Center culture – north to south. Instead of being standardized, the scenario is different for every unit that arrives.

Nor do you stick to the scenario. In the old days, “if you saw opportunities we did not allow you to deviate” from the scenario, said Abrams. Today, by contrast, “it’s much more continuous, it’s much more free-flowing.” If a commander sees an opening or picks up intelligence – perhaps from conventional scouts, perhaps from talking with the villagers – then he or she can go off-script and seize the opportunity. If that bypasses part of the planned training scenario, so be it, Abrams told me. The operations center staff at the training centers is now flexible enough to insert alternative ways to test any skills that were missed.

Not all commanders thrive in this environment. In one wargame, the brigadier sent one of his battalions ahead to scout some crucial passes before the main body attacked them. When the battalion got there, it found no enemy: The passes were unguarded. While the battalion commander’s orders were to scout, not seize, the larger purpose – what’s called “commander’s intent” – was clearly to get the brigade through the passes.

But the Opposing Force was messing with communications, which meant the battalion commander couldn’t easily check with his superiors. Instead of seizing the opportunity and the passes, Abrams said, “he sat for 10 hours wanting to reestablish good coms with his higher headquarters and make sure he wasn’t getting too far out in front.”

By the time the battalion commander felt confident enough to go ahead, the OPFOR had moved two companies into defensive positions. What could have been an unopposed cakewalk turned into an all-night fight.

“This is much, much more difficult than when I was a company commander, an operations officer, or a battalion commander,” Abrams said. When old soldiers complain about the changes, “I tell them all, hey, if you thought it was hard before, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

---

Comments 5

Don Bacon • 27 minutes ago
AUSA: In February 2014, when Russian troops seized Crimea
No. Russia was allowed by treaty to have troops in Crimea. They were already there when resulting from a US-sponsored coup in Kyev which endangered ethnic Russians Crimea held a referendum and declared its independence and was then annexed by Russia. So the whole "Russia threat" is concocted but serves as a good basis for retaining a land army to defend non-aroused Europeans from a fake threat.

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Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. Mod Don Bacon • 22 minutes ago
I don't believe Russia was allowed by treaty to post armed troops at public buildings or surrounding Ukrainian military bases, however. As for the referendum, assuming it was free and fair (hint: no), ever since 1861 the United States has been rather emphatic that regions of countries may not unilaterally secede without the rest of the country getting a vote.


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TDog Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. • 19 minutes ago
If I'm not mistaken, though, the Crimea had its own separate parliament and the US has no sovereignty over the Crimea or indeed any part of Ukraine.
Whether we say others have a vote would be immaterial as we actually had less say in Ukrainian politics than the Russians did. The ethnic Russians at least had a regional representative body that identified more with Moscow than Kiev. As inconvenient as it was, it was the machinery they put into place and agreed to.


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TDog • 22 minutes ago
Training for a conventional war against a major power may have its purposes, but it will all be for naught if we can not discern our opponents' - both current and potential - intentions and priorities. For example, training against Russian tactics that were used in the Crimea and Donbass regions is what most folks would call a day late and a dollar short. The tactics the Russians used there will have been tempered and matured by their experiences in the front lines and as such any lesson we derive from our observation of Russian tactics will not necessarily be the same one the Russians learned.
Of course, preparedness is always a good thing, but preparing for the wrong war in the wrong way can be more damaging than waiting to react. Another problem we has is that as we increasingly cut off channels of communication with other nations, especially China, we will find ourselves less likely to be able to discern their intent because we will have no primary sources to rely upon.
If you think analysts, pundits, and all these other so-called experts will be able to do that, remember that almost none of them predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall, the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein, or the Russo-Ukrainian conflict over the Crimea. In short, we'd have better luck flipping a coin and basing our decisions off of that than relying upon the vast majority of these self-declared experts. Like the military, you can't claim competence if you fail to do your job time and time again.


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leroy • 2 hours ago
Air power (I'd include cruise missiles from Navy ships and subs in that) reigns supreme on today's battlefield, especially U.S. stealth airpower. Fighters, fighter-bombers and bombers will destroy enemy tanks, artillery, rocket systems, ammunition dumps, SAMs, concentrations of infantry (they can't hide no more like in Vietnam thanks to things like IR and AESA), C4, fuel and supply lines, etc. and then tanks and infantry can move in, mop up and hold the ground. Given U.S. air supremacy - the ultimate high-ground - I don't see any opposing force offering much opposition. At least not opposition that we can't break. That goes for war-at-sea too (A2AD).


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[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.airforcetimes.com/flash...rm=Editorial - Air Force - Daily News Roundup

Flashpoints

U.S. airstrike kills dozens of ISIS fighters in Yemen

By: Shawn Snow   9 hours ago

WASHINGTON — U.S. forces launched a strike against two ISIS training camps in Al Bayda Governorate, Yemen, killing dozens of ISIS fighters on Monday, according to the Defense Department.

The aircraft conducting the strike was unmanned, according to a Pentagon official.

“ISIS used the camps to train militants to conduct terror attacks using AK-47s, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and endurance training,” according to a Defense Department news release.

The U.S. has launched more than 100 airstrikes in the war-torn country this year, according to Adrian Rankine-Galloway, a Pentagon spokesman.

However, the strikes targeting ISIS militants come as a bit of a surprise. In Yemen, U.S. forces have primarily targeted al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

It is not known at this time if the presence of the ISIS training camps in Yemen suggests the group is seeking a larger foothold in region as it continues to rapidly lose territory in Iraq and Syria.

“ISIS has used the ungoverned spaces of Yemen to plot, direct, instigate, resource and recruit for attacks against America and its allies around the world,” states the news release. “For years, Yemen has been a hub for terrorist recruiting, training and transit.”

Yemen’s instability is a result of a failed power handover in 2014 between Ali Abdullah Saleh and President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi that led to a civil war in the country.

The war has pitted Iranian backed Houthi rebels against predominantly Sunni supporters of Hadi.

Fearing an Iranian foothold in the region, a Saudi-led coalition has supported restoring Hadi to power. That military campaign has come under much criticism over civilian deaths from Saudi airstrikes.

The U.S. military has been supporting Saudi efforts with intelligence and logistic support. However, some members in Congress are seeking to end that support.

Congressman Ro Khanna, D-Calif., is leading a bipartisan effort with Thomas Massie R-Ky., Mark Pocan, D-Wis., and Walter Jones, R-N.C., to end the U.S. military’s involvement and support of the Saudi-led war.

The group submitted a resolution in late September invoking the War Powers Resolution to give Congress a vote on ending U.S. support of Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, according to a press release from Khanna.

In early October, a U.S. MQ-9 drone was shot down in Yemen by Houthi rebels.

US MQ-9 drone shot down in Yemen
A U.S. MQ-9 drone was shot down in western Yemen on Sunday, officials at U.S. Central Command confirmed.
By: Shawn Snow

About Shawn Snow
Shawn Snow is the editor of the Early Bird and a reporter for Military Times


Top Headlines
Marine veteran crossed border into Iraq, still no communication

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After Kirkuk, Kurdish forces pull out of more areas in Iraq

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....

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http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/mi5-boss-warns-terror-attacks-11360039

MI5 boss warns terror attacks to get worse as Islamist threat at 'scale and pace not seen before'

Britain's top spy master Andrew Parker highlighted the chilling Islamic State threat is likely to get worse.

Chris Hughes
06:00, 18 OCT 2017

Video

Britain’s top spy master has warned the threat of terrorism on our streets is likely to get worse.

MI5 Director General Andrew Parker highlighted the chilling Islamic State threat by warning: “The threat now means operations are at a scale and a pace we have not seen before.

"We have seen a dramatic upshift in terror threats that are higher than at any other time in my 34 year career.”

And the veteran intelligence officer added: “We have not yet reached the high water mark.”

Speaking to reporters at a secret location in Central London, Cambridge University-educated Parker, 55, said his officers have smashed 20 potentially deadly attacks against the UK in four years.

Seven of those attacks, ranging from random stabbings to sophisticated bombings, had been foiled just in the past 12 months.

He confirmed there were record numbers of terrorism-related arrests, 379 so far by June this year, with 500 live MI5 counter-terror operations underway at any one time.

Those MI5 investigations involve around 3,000 people linked to suspected Islamist terror plots in Britain, some of whom have returned from Syria or Iraq.

And those terrifying plots range from lone-wolf knife-men to potential mass casualty assaults using explosives.

He said: “In 2017 with all that has happened and much that has not, it is clear that we are contending with an intense UK terrorist threat from Islamist extremists.

“That threat is multi- dimensional, evolving rapidly and operating at a scale and pace we’ve not seen before.

“But so too is our response.”

Parker added: “As well as those we are looking at today there is risk from returnees from Iraq and Syria and also the growing pool of 20,000 individuals that we have looked at in the past.

“And there will be violent extremists not yet known to us. Today there is more terrorism activity coming at us more quickly and it can be harder to detect.

“Islamist terrorism is an acute and enduring challenge.”

Speaking in his fourth year as Director General of Britain’s Security Service, Parker explained that the style of attack we are facing varies enormously.

MI5 has almost doubled in size since the 9-11 attacks, forced to embrace the new Islamist terror threat.

It is now 4,000 strong in employees, including spies and support staff but that figure will soar to 5,000 “over the next couple of years.”

Some attacks being plotted are low-tech and take little planning, similar to the murder of British soldier Fusilier Lee Rigby who was murdered in south London in 2013.

He was run over and stabbed repeatedly by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, southeast London.

Both men are now behind bars.

But Parker, who is MI5’s 17th Director General, stressed that some of the plots are highly organised and involve detailed planning, whilst some just take a matter of days.

He said: “The threat is evolving rapidly. The threat is more diverse than we have ever known. Plots vary from complex scheming to crude stabbings.”

And he warned that the “toxic ideology of ideological hatred” could drive terrorist killers towards adopting “crude but lethal attack methods.”

Using the Arab nickname for Islamic State he said the increased threat: “...is driven by Daesh's murderous strategy and online propaganda.

“Daesh directing mass casualty plots. Daesh encouraging particular extremists in the UK to kill.

“Daesh inspiring attacks generally by lone actors or small groups or anyone who will listen to their poisonous message.”

And he said the frequency of attacks was inspiring further copycat atrocities, sparking a self-perpetuating nightmare of terror threats.

He explained: “Terrorism breeds terrorism. Would-be attackers take encouragement from the acts of others and can be galvanised into taking action themselves.

“Acts of violence become normalised in their twisted way of thinking.”

This year alone Britain has suffered a string of attacks, varying in degrees of sophistication.

In March Khalid Masood drove a car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before stabbing to death a police officer, resulting in the death of himself and five others.

But in May the Manchester Arena bombing of the Ariana Grande concert killed 22 and injured a further 250 - a highly sophisticated suicide attack and the worst assault by a terrorist since the 7-7 bombings in 2005.

Suicide attacker Salman Abedi, 22, also died in the blast and many of his victims were teenagers and children.

Then in June, less than two weeks after the Manchester atrocity, London came under attack, this time with eight being killed and at least 48 injured in London Bridge.

This low-tech attack involved a van driving at speed across London Bridge, running into groups of people, before crashing and its occupants then stabbing local revellers.

All three terrorists were shot dead by police within minutes of the attack.

And last month a London tube train at Parson’s Green was targeted by a bungling alleged bomber whose device merely caught fire, injuring around 30 people with no fatalities.

But Parker said MI5 was also being tasked to tackle terrorism from Northern Ireland and espionage and threats from Russia.

He explained: “Of course alongside all of that work against Islamist terrorism MI5 remains a multi dimensional organisation.

“We continue to bear down on terrorism in Northern Ireland with our police partners and to work against espionage and other clandestine activity by Russia and other foreign states who seek to do Britain harm.”

And he warned: Those that wish our country harm can expect to meet MI5 and the police.

“And they will face the full force of the law and be brought to justice.”

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...-a-fictional-enemy-after-major-russian-drills

NATO Members Train to Nuke a "Fictional" Enemy After Major Russian Drills

The alliance is tight-lipped about the annual Steadfast Noon exercise and the very existence of its nuclear capabilities.

By Joseph Trevithick
October 17, 2017

NATO has quietly begun an annual exercise to practice how it might launch a nuclear attack during a crisis. The drills follow massive Russian war games along its borders with the alliance, including a test of new nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile, as well as increasing reports of electronic and cyber attacks likely originating in Russia.

On Oct. 16, 2017, NATO personnel in Belgium and Germany kicked off this latest iteration of the alliance’s main nuclear deterrence exercise, nicknamed Steadfast Noon. Publicly available U.S. military documents describe its main goal simply as “operations plan validation.” This year's iteration involves operations at Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium and Büchel Air Base in Germany, where the United States maintains stores of B61 nuclear bombs.

The North Atlantic bloc rarely highlights the event and generally omits it from publicly available lists of upcoming exercises. The drills involve an entirely “fictional scenario,” one anonymous NATO official told The Wall Street Journal.

It’s hard not to see the exercise in the context of the Kremlin’s increasingly revanchist foreign policy, though. Since Russian troops seized control Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014 and subsequently began actively supporting separatists seeking to break away from the central government in Kiev, NATO has adopted an increasingly more militarized posture along its eastern and southern frontiers. A proposed drawdown of American nuclear weapons on the continent has effectively been on indefinite hold ever since.

In September 2017, approximately 13,000 troops from Russia and Belarus, conducted drills along the same borders as part of the Zapad 2017 exercise. Zapad, which means “West,” occurs once every four years. Officials in Moscow insist it is defensive in nature, but it focuses on large scale, high intensity warfare, something that sounds a lot like practicing for a conflict with the western alliance.

In addition, the Russians followed up the massive conventional demonstration with a show of nuclear force, including intercontinental ballistic missile tests by its Strategic Missile Forces. One of these involved a weapon with an all-new warhead design that seems intended to defeat ballistic missile shields such as the one the NATO is presently developing. Though experts debate how serious the danger is, there is a real concern that the Kremlin has adopted a doctrine of “escalating to de-escalate,” as well, which could involve a limited nuclear strike, further underscoring the continued importance of deterrence.

On top of that, there have also been an increasing number of reported incidents of electronic and cyber harassment against alliance members and their other European partners. These almost certainly originate in Russia and highlight the tense nature of the situation despite the lack of any active conflict.

Video

We don’t know what exactly goes into the actual Steadfast Noon drills, regardless of whether the scenario is focused on Russian threats or not, but the main goal is undoubtedly to run through what can only be heavily regimented procedures. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has kept B61 nuclear gravity bombs at bases such as Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium and Büchel Air Base in Germany. There are approximately 150 to 200 of the weapons spread out between those bases, as well as additional locations in Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey, with the latter location becoming increasingly controversial.

The bombs are technically “tactical nuclear weapons,” though experts and advocates routinely debate the validity of this term and whether any nuclear weapon can be seen as a limited, tactical tool. Crews can set the tactical versions of the so-called “dial-a-yield” B61 to explode with the force of anywhere from 0.3 to 170 kilotons of TNT, that upper limit being more than eight times more powerful than the Fat Man bomb the United States dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. The United States is presently working on a new B61 Mod 12 version that will be a dual-purpose, tactical and strategic design that incorporates a GPS guidance system and a deep penetrating design.

Video

As well as keeping those weapons forward deployed, the U.S. government maintained agreements with all of the hosts, save Turkey, to potentially share those bombs in an emergency. After an American commander released the weapons to those countries, Belgian and Dutch F-16 fighter jets and German and Italian Tornado multi-role combat aircraft – described as “dual-capable” conventional and nuclear aircraft for treaty purposes – would deliver them onto the specified targets. There are no American aircraft stationed at either Kleine Brogel or Büchel.

For the alliance to conduct a nuclear attack, American personnel at these bases would need to receive and input the appropriate codes into the B61’s Permissive Action Link, a fail-safe device to prevent unauthorized use, before then signing control of the weapons over to European crews. A simultaneous authorization from the host country’s government is reportedly necessary, too.

The exercise likely has conventional components, as well, since any nuclear-armed jets speeding toward their targets could need to refuel on the way to and from their targets. Since the present European dual-capable aircraft aren’t low-observable in design, other elements would need to clear the way first, which could include physically destroying enemy air defenses or launching coordinated electronic or cyber attacks to disrupt those networks. NATO even has a specific term for the aerial companion missions, SNOWCAT, or Support of Nuclear Operations With Conventional Air Tactics.

Video

But the lack of fanfare surrounding Steadfast Noon, which by all accounts should be a very visible signal to potential enemies, highlights the alliance’s complicated relations with nuclear weapons. NATO has long had to tempter its clear desire to present a strong deterrent to potential opponents, especially an increasingly aggressive Russia, with consistent domestic political and public opposition to the presence of nuclear weapons in much of Europe.

That the B61 gravity bombs at Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium and Büchel Air Base in Germany are the property of the United States only makes the situation more complicated. The exercise is a “delicate balancing act,” another anonymous official told The Journal.

These issues aren’t new, of course. For decades during the Cold War, the U.S. military stockpiled and deployed a variety of nuclear bombs and missiles in NATO member countries to deter the Soviet Union, which did the same, along with its Warsaw Pact allies. France and the United Kingdom were the only other alliance members with their own nuclear arsenals. Aircraft carrying nuclear bombs was a key component of the doctrine, as Richard Crandall explained to The War Zone's Tyler Rogoway in 2016, telling him:

I was absolutely convinced I would have to nuke a Warsaw Pact nation, as that was about all we could hit with the F-111. We had a couple of targets in Russia where we would have had to recover with emergency fuel at one of the far northern bases in Norway. But really, we all knew the base would be gone and we would have to punch out. We also knew that we would not be the first nuke on the target. Every single target I ever saw had ICBMs and then SLBMs and then us on it, and then hours and hours later, the stateside B-52s and B-1s.

We always practiced World War III as starting conventional, usually with the Russians punching through the Fulda Gap. I remember looking at the plans and seeing that we had a handful of tanks to stop them, compared to thousands of Russian and East German tanks lined up just waiting to punch through. We would fall back, and back, and then stand down, load up the nukes, and then sortie. Exercise over.

Treaties and the final collapse of the Soviet Union meant that by the time the United States signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, with Russia in 2010, the B61s were the last of these U.S. weapons in Europe. And despite the fact that it is widely accepted that the bombs are there, both the United States and NATO decline to comment on them as a matter of policy.

“I think they are an absolutely pointless part of a tradition in military thinking,” former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers said in a National Geographic documentary released in 2013, becoming one of the more senior officials to ever acknowledge the bombs presence in NATO countries. “I would never have thought those silly things would still be there in 2013.”

Most recently, the stockpile of B61s in Turkey came under renewed scrutiny following a coup attempt in 2016 that involved many members of that country’s air force, including some of that service’s top leadership. Turkish authorities arrested the commander of Icirlik Air Base, where the U.S. keeps the bombs, in the aftermath of the crisis.

At the time, The War Zone’s own Tyler Rogoway highlighted the potential dangers of maintaining what many consider to be largely a symbolic stockpile in that country, writing:

The idea of a country stealing nuclear weapons from the US has long been a staple of pop culture fascination, but the reality is far less sensational. Still, an incident where American nuclear weapons security was directly threatened could be a massive geopolitical failure for the United States, and if they were to fall into someone else’s hands, even those of a close former ally, it would be devastating to American credibility abroad, regardless of if they can actually be used or not.

On the other hand, if their withdrawal were made public, some say it would set a bad precedent and offer disturbing symbolism for NATO. Then again, if the alliance is that weak, than we have much bigger problems, especially considering that there would still be around 150 American nuclear bombs deployed to four other NATO countries. Will 50 less make that big of a difference? No it won’t. That is unless the US plans to leave a standing contingent of fighters at Incirlik Air Base with crews trained and ready to fly these weapons into combat at a moment’s notice, which it doesn’t.

One alternative to keeping those bombs in Turkey, and elsewhere in general, would be to continue expanding ballistic missile defenses throughout NATO, which the alliance is already doing. Earlier in October 2017, before Steadfast Noon, NATO forces conducted a major ballistic missile defense exercise called Formidable Shield 2017.

The scenario for this drill involved the first-ever instance where the alliances ships practices using traditional air defenses to protect ship-based ballistic missile defenses, demonstrating an expanding layered, integrated defensive network. During the exercise, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Donald Cook fired an SM-3 Block IB interceptor at mock ballistic missile, while Spanish and Dutch warships knocked down incoming anti-ship cruise missiles with RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles. Separately, another Arleigh Burke, the USS McFaul, conducted a European test launch of the increasingly versatile SM-6 missile.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agencies had two of its specially modified Gulfstream II business jets on hand for the exercise, as well. Able to fly at high altitudes, these aircraft carry various sensors to help gather data on tests for future research and development that personnel on the ground or other lower flying planes would be unable to collect.

The issue here of course is that ballistic missile defense systems have yet to conclusively prove their capabilities in testing, let alone against a real world in-coming threat. In addition to often limited engagement envelopes, the interceptors rely on data from various space-, sea-, and land-based radars, as well as other sensors, which have vulnerabilities and deficiencies themselves at present.

These limitations have come to the forefront in light of the increasing threat of North Korea’s long-range ballistic missiles and growing nuclear weapons capabilities. Critics quickly debunked U.S. President Donald Trump’s assertion earlier in October 2017 that America’s ballistic missile defense shield could reliable take out threats 97 percent of the time.

Perhaps more problematic, even if the component systems work as intended, missile defense shields only protect against a select few nuclear delivery systems. Russia alone has nuclear capable aircraft and is developing ground-launched nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, as well, neither of which a ballistic missile interceptor would be well suited to protect against. As such, they would not be a complete counter to potential nuclear attacks as a whole and it would be hard to see how they could ever truly replace the deterrent capability of nuclear weapons.

Video

Another alternative to American nuclear weapons in Europe would be to allow other NATO members to develop their own national stockpiles. However, one of the main arguments for the U.S. military keeping the B61s across Europe in the first place is to give alliance members that sense of localized security without the need to actually expand the number of nuclear weapon states. Neither the United States nor countries such as Belgium and Germany seem inclined to change this status quo.

Given the available options, NATO members seem inclined to want to keep the bombs on their territory, even as they try to keep the fact out of the public eye. There are already reports that Italy and the Netherlands plan to integrate the B61 on their future F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in order to maintain their ability to perform the nuclear mission. There is the suggestion that this is one the reasons why Belgium is part of that program and the capability will likely be a consideration as Germany looks to replace its Tornados, as well.

Unless a truly viable alternative appears or the security situation in Europe changes dramatically, it seems likely that the B61s, and the need to train for the hopefully remote possibility that NATO members could need to use them, will continue to be an open secret.

Contact the author: jtrevithickpr@gmail.com

 

[Housecarl]

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https://jamestown.org/program/russias-military-explores-way-syria/

Russia’s Military Explores Way out of Syria

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 131
By: Roger McDermott
October 17, 2017 09:39 PM Age: 23 hours

Following recent Russian media coverage of the success of the Aerospace Forces (Vozdushno Kosmicheskikh Sil—VKS) in their operations in Syria, there are renewed indications that Moscow is seeking some kind of exit strategy. Despite earlier reports of a Russian withdrawal from Syria, which merely provided cover for a regular regrouping of its forces, Moscow is now openly talking about the operation in Syria ending. This seems rooted in the government’s assessment that its objectives on the ground have been met. These include the marked progress made by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) since the Russian intervention commenced in September 2015, perceptions of the problems the United States has faced in its regional strategy, and a number of additional factors, such as the need to rebalance Russia’s broader Middle East policy (TASS, October 16).

The clearest sign that Moscow is exploring possible exit strategies, without necessarily pulling out its forces from Syria, came during a recent bilateral exchange with Israel. Russian media reported, on October 10, that the issue was at the center of a meeting in Tel Aviv headed by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman. Specifically, Shoigu said a number of issues needed to be explored in relation to Syria’s future, since the Russian operation is nearing its completion. Shoigu noted that the VKS, working with the SAA, had inflicted serious damage to enemy forces. He called on Israel to deepen ties with Russia in military-technical cooperation and combating terrorism as well as to continue their bilateral dialogue on the regional situation (Izvestia, October 16).

Almost two years since President Vladimir Putin authorized Russian military operations in Syria—which has mainly focused on the VKS providing close air support for the SAA, alongside training and material assistance to the regime—Russia’s leadership is now undoubtedly convinced the gamble has paid off. Moscow’s role in the Middle East and its say in the future of Syria has been markedly boosted (see Stephen Blank, “The Foundations of Russian Policy in the Middle East,” Russia in the Middle East, October 5). This seems to be true at the geopolitical level, reflected in much of the commentary and official statements from Moscow concerning the Syria operations. Moreover, the Syria campaign has undoubtedly raised the combat readiness of the VKS by offering an opportunity to train Russian pilots in a combat environment. Nevertheless, there are also frustrations with other actors and concern about the strain on the VKS platforms.

The boisterous nature of Russian claims about their success in Syria was summarized by presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov, who characterized recent VKS accomplishments as marking “the beginning of the end” of the war in Syria. Peskov repeated the statistic that “92 percent” of Syrian territory is under government control. Whatever the reality vis-à-vis territorial control by Damascus, the situation on the ground has changed markedly since Russia’s intervention. Meanwhile, Moscow’s renewed effort to bring this phase to an end may be indirectly the result of Russian successes like the liberation of Deir-ez-Zor and sweeps of nearby villages (Nation-news.ru, October 17; RIA Novosti, October 13). Such coverage stands in sharp contrast to how the Russian media portrays US-led operations, including the assault on Raqqa (Kommersant, Vedomosti, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, October 15).

However, there are also underlying, albeit fairly low-key, strains on the VKS after two years of Syria operations. While the casualty levels for Russia’s forces in Syria are small, despite its deployment of special forces spotters, trainers for the SAA and, more recently, Military Police in designated areas of the country, there are examples of platform losses, which cause anxiety in Moscow. In an article in Gazeta.ru, retired air force and air defense colonel Mikhail Khodarenok considered the loss of an Su-24 bomber, on October 10, which crashed while taking off from the Russian airbase in Latakia. Both crew members were killed in the incident as they had no time to eject. Khodarenok considered the most likely explanations for the crash, though the defense ministry has released little reliable information to aid insight into the cause of the accident. Various hypotheses were advanced, including a possible onboard fire, a technical malfunction, engine problems or a collision with an obstacle—but so far, there is no clear conclusion. Whatever the actual cause, it certainly erupted quickly, with no time for the crew to react; and the defense ministry is being careful not to publish any details (Gazeta.ru, October 10).

In the course of combat operations in Syria, the VKS has suffered a few losses of platforms. Apart from the Turkish Air Force downing an Su-24 in November 2015, due to the latter’s violation of Turkey’s airspace, the VKS also lost an Mi-28N helicopter, which was later attributed to pilot error. Also, in December 2016, an Su-33 fighter crashed into the Mediterranean Sea while attempting to land on the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov. The aircraft fell short of the flight deck and ditched into the sea, with its crew safely ejecting. Such losses are small in comparison to the overall number of platforms and sortie rates over the past two years. Nonetheless, the presence of pilot error in the Mi-28N crash, the embarrassing loss of the Su-33, and now the accident involving the Su-24 bomber so soon after take-off from Latakia suggest at least some evidence of wear and tear with older assets and issues concerning technical support and training in the case of the other incidents (Gazeta.ru, October 10).

The intervention in Syria has clearly boosted the reputation of the Russian military, afforded valuable training for the VKS, and enhanced Moscow’s political clout in the conflict. But as the Syrian regime continues to look less precarious, Russia is increasingly considering how and when to suspend air operations. In this context, Shoigu’s discussions in Tel Aviv not only reinforce the impression that Moscow has largely benefited from the Syria adventure but that behind-the-scenes dialogue is occurring with Russia’s non-traditional friends in the region. The present reality thus stands in contrast with previous years’ state visits to Baghdad and Tehran to shore up the fledgling coalition that surrounded the Russian entry to Syria. During its two-year campaign, Moscow has defied predictions that it would be drawn into a quagmire: it has minimized casualties, aided Bashar al-Assad’s regime, experimented with various types of operational approaches and trained its VKS pilots in the theater. Now attention seems to be gravitating toward a post-conflict role.

 

[Housecarl]

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https://jamestown.org/program/moscow-treats-new-us-strategy-iran-great-opportunity/

Moscow Treats New US Strategy for Iran as Great Opportunity

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 130
By: Pavel K. Baev
October 16, 2017 06:09 PM Age: 2 days

The decision of United States President Donald Trump not to certify the fact that Iran is duly implementing the provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) had been expected, so all international political responses were carefully measured. Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for its part, expressed grave concerns about this “mistake” and declared Moscow’s firm commitment to preserve the integrity of the JCPOA, adding that Friday, October 13, is now loaded with “political associations” (RIA Novosti, October 13). These associations are, in fact, entirely positive and even joyful for the Russian leadership. It has been granted an opportunity to position Russia as an upholder of international law in the company of other parties to the 2015 “Iran nuclear deal” (China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the European Union) and in full agreement with the findings of inspections conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Furthermore, many measures that ensure punishment for Russia’s own violations of norms of international behavior are now compromised and weakened.

The most immediate impact of Trump’s new strategy of confronting Iran of course affects the Middle East, and here Russia may find its positions shaken. President Vladimir Putin has cultivated channels of dialogue with almost every party to the many conflicts in this region. But now the Russian head of state is in sharp disagreement with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who immediately embraced Trump’s decision and is also upset with the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah, which Russia had facilitated (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, October 12). The long-expected visit to Moscow of Saudi king Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud (see EDM, October 10, 11) was portrayed by Russian commentators as a breakthrough in Russia’s relations with the Arab World (Russiancouncil.ru, October 9). King Salman’s main message, however, was about the need for Moscow to distance itself from Tehran in the forthcoming crisis (Ezhednevny Zhurnal, October 9). Putin is not able to follow this advice and is actually preparing a trip to Tehran in a couple of weeks (RBC, October 12). The main reason for this “loyal friendship” is the dependency of the Russian military intervention in Syria upon combat support from Hezbollah and other Shia militias controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 10).

The vulnerability of this position is more than compensated for by the unequivocal support for Iran’s implementation of the JCPOA by the key European states. Meeting with Russian officials in St. Petersburg, Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament and former nuclear negotiator, was remarkably on the same page as Federica Mogherini, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, on the subject of rejecting Trump’s strategy (Newsru.com, October 13). European politicians are most concerned by the prospect of the US Congress reintroducing sanctions against Iran (Kommersant, October 14). Such a unilateral step might actually play into Moscow’s hands by undermining the legitimacy of the sanctions regime that severely affects the inflow of Western investments into Russia (RBC, October 12). Putin has long encouraged every dissenting voice and all non-mainstream political forces in Europe who find it opportune to argue for lifting sanctions against Russia, no matter Donbas and Crimea; and now, he can connect with the widespread resentment against Trump’s policies on the international stage.

Russia also stands to benefit from the damage that is about to be inflicted to global arms control. President Hassan Rouhani has already declared his readiness to expand Iran’s ballistic missile program, and Moscow is willing to overtly treat it as an unfortunate but entirely legitimate response to US pressure (RBC, October 13). More importantly, Trump’s disparaging dismissal of the JCPOA provides Russia with an opportunity to dismiss US accusations of Russian violations of the 1988 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty as a manifestation of the same cavalier attitude toward arms control (Russiancouncil.ru, October 10). Instead of disproving the technical evidence, it is much easier for Moscow to charge that Washington simply wants to negate all limitations and to achieve superiority in nuclear and global strike capabilities (Gazeta.ru, October 13). Putin and his top brass are ready to withdraw from the INF, which effectively bans the modernization of Iskander surface-to-surface missiles, but would much prefer to put the blame on the Trump administration, assuming that disgruntled Europeans would then refuse to provide bases for new US missiles as well as object to the replacement of old nuclear bombs.

An implicit but effective connection exists between Trump’s new strategy for Iran and his crude pressure on North Korea, and the Kremlin seeks to turn this interplay to Russia’s advantage (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 13). Putin has not been able to play any independent role in managing the Korean crisis (see EDM, March 28) and is probably more irritated than he can afford to show with the need to follow the firm lead from Beijing (Carnegie.ru, October 9). Moscow maintains that sanctions cannot work for compelling the North Korean regime to curtail its nuclear and missile programs, but China keeps tightening the sanctions regime in close coordination with the US (Russiancouncil.ru, October 12). Now, Russia can push the point that agreements with Washington are worthless because the US leadership is willing to break any deal that it finds disagreeable. Demonstrating that the United States cannot be a trustworthy partner in any security arrangement is a task Russian diplomacy is eagerly concentrating upon (Republic.ru, October 10). A greater goal is to prove that the confused “hegemonic power” relies primarily on its military might to uphold its declining influence—and fails to apply it effectively or indeed responsibly.

The belief that every US setback in the international arena is a net gain for Russia is fomented by malicious propaganda. This approach—damaging Western unity to create chances for Moscow to exploit the deepening divisions—might appear rational from the Kremlin’s point of view. It is, however, dangerous for Russia to position itself as a “principled” adversary of the US in such test cases as North Korea or Iran. Putin keeps talking about the benefits of cooperation against terrorism, but for Trump Russia’s friendliness toward Iran likely amounts to collusion with the main state-sponsor of terrorist networks across the region. If Moscow is recognized in Washington as the prime saboteur of US policies, the urge to punish it might come together with the need to expel the specter of the Russia investigation. Trump is going slow with executing the law on sanctions against Russia; but Putin’s activities could tempt his US counterpart to move faster.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

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https://jamestown.org/program/is-kaliningrad-on-the-brink-of-inter-ethnic-conflict/

Is Kaliningrad on the Brink of Inter-Ethnic Conflict?

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 132
By: Sergey Sukhankin
October 18, 2017 08:09 PM Age: 23 mins

Rather unexpectedly, Kaliningrad oblast—Russia’s westernmost, physically detached region on the Baltic coast—experienced a surge in inter-ethnic tensions arising from discrimination directed at the local Islamic community. On September 19, a Kaliningrad court opened a legal case initiated by the local Muslim community, which is suing the municipal administration for 100 million rubles ($1.74 million) for economic losses suffered as a result of the so-called “mosque incident” (Newkaliningrad.ru, September 19).

The infamous affair dates back to 1991, when local Muslims asked for permission to build a mosque. The Kaliningrad authorities agreed to the request only in 2005. However, this was not the end of the story. It took an additional five years before construction could start. Meanwhile, the project attracted rapidly growing anti-Muslim hysteria in local mass media; whereas the local authorities have continued to display a barely concealed unwillingness to support its actual completion (Openrussia.org, August 10). The mosque was even the target of a (thwarted) bombing attempt by a local citizen in 2011 (Rugrad.eu, December 25, 2013), causing shock among the Russian exclave’s more liberally-minded residents. Prominent political scientist Vladimir Abramov stated that such events could severely damage the reputation of the region in the eyes of Europeans.

Following years of controversy, the authorities decided to freeze construction. In 2014, a court ruled that all work had stop. This was a huge blow to Kaliningrad’s Muslim minority: by that time the building was already 80 percent complete, and as of 2010 none of the financing for the project was coming from the local authorities but from the Muslims themselves. Even advocacy in support of the mosque by such prominent politicians as Tatarstan’s President Rustam Minnikhanov had no effect (Islam.ru, May 12, 2014). The Muslim community ultimately tried appealing to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)—the first complaint from a Muslim community inside the Russian Federation ever registered by this international body (Rosbalt.ru, December 29, 2014).

The situation reached a boiling point later that same year, when the head of Kaliningrad’s Islamic community, Arshat Khasimov, warned that if the Russian authorities “want a Maidan in Kaliningrad like in Ukraine,” they will have one soon. He also stressed that the “exasperation among local Muslims is growing, and Muslims are filled with discontent.” He claimed that “for the time being, we [the leaders of Kaliningrad’s Muslim minority] are able to control these sentiments”; but if current injustices continue, the consequences could be severe (Club-rf.ru, October 2, 2014).

Indeed, it is difficult to believe that, given the number of Muslims currently living in Kaliningrad oblast (100,000 people, out of a total population of close to one million), to date not a single mosque has been erected there (Club-rf.ru, October 2, 2014). At the same time, there are approximately 150 Russian Orthodox churches, 30 chapels and 3 monasteries located in the oblast.

The conflict received new impetus in early 2016, when then-governor Nikolai Tsukanov, while commenting on the Kaliningrad mosque, blatantly (and without any appropriate context) pointed to “Islamic terrorism, radicalism and ISIS [the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria—a former name of the Islamic State organization].” His words provoked a wave of discontent among local Muslims. At the same time, the governor admitted that “all major confessions should have a right to practice [their religion]” (Newkaliningrad.ru, February 8, 2016).

Following Tsukanov’s departure in July of 2016, Kaliningrad’s Islamic community anticipated that the issues surrounding the completion of the first mosque in the oblast might finally be resolved. But these hopes turned out to be premature—the current political elites seem to be acting in the same fashion. In an interview this past summer, Imam Bekhan Suleymanov claimed that the local Muslim community was closely linked to the oblast and its history: “[local Muslims] had sacrificed their lives during the Second World War for the oblast to become a part of the USSR [Union of Soviet Socialist Republics] and now Russia.” But according to the imam, what Muslims have received in return was a lack of justice and total disregard for their requests, as “if they were not citizens of this country.” In the final analysis, he noted that, from his point of view, the main problem has nothing to do with a mosque per se; rather, the “existence of a Muslim community [in Kaliningrad] is a problem on its own” (Rugrad.eu, June 28).

Local media have repeatedly pointed out that the Slavic population of the oblast is resentful of the growing local Muslim community. Namely, various public religious celebrations are routinely attracting rising participation among Islamic adherents. And this has led to mounting concern among non-Muslim Kaliningraders (Newkaliningrad.ru, August 4).

The problem, however, appears to be much deeper and more complicated. The most recent events connected to the incomplete mosque have once again highlighted the growing rift between Muslims and non-Muslims across the Russian Federation. Unlike during the 1990s and the early 2000s, when anti-Islamic sentiment in Russia was driven by developments in the North Caucasus region, today the main root of public discontent is shaped by the rising number of guest workers coming from Central Asia (primarily Tajikistan). The most recent ugly episode, in which a Tajikistani national was severely beaten in Moscow, resulted in a wave of discontent within the guest laborer community, who took to the streets in a protest against the way Tajiks are treated by ethnic Russians (Politexpert.net, September 21).

The Kremlin’s current geopolitical grand strategy includes the pursuit of closer integration of Russia and the Eurasian territories of the former Soviet Union (see EDM, October 7, 2011; November 6, 2013). But by its very nature, this initiative will result in ever larger numbers of Muslim immigrants coming to Russia and settling in major Russian cities in search of jobs. Consequently, the level of ethnic tensions across the Russian Federation are almost certain to increase further (see EDM, February 18, 2014).

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ori..._term=Editorial - Military - Early Bird Brief

Raqqa win pulls US deeper into Syria conflict

Jack Detsch October 17, 2017
Comments 41

As US-backed forces take victory laps in the Islamic State’s (IS) self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa, the Pentagon is considering extending its presence deeper into Syria, a move that could bring US troops into contact with pro-regime forces.

Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the US-led mission fighting the terror group, told reporters that the international coalition is in talks with Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commanders about continuing the campaign into IS-held areas along the Euphrates River following today’s victory in Raqqa. He said the more than 600 US troops currently training and assisting the SDF won’t be staying in Syria “indefinitely,” but acknowledged that “there still is fighting that is left to be done.”

For now that fighting is taking SDF units straight to Deir ez-Zor, where an alliance of soldiers loyal to Bashar al-Assad, Russian troops and Iran-backed Shiite troops are trying to grapple territory back from IS and anti-regime rebels. And while the Pentagon is considering extending de-confliction agreements with Russia to cover a wider swath of Syria, former US officials say it will be difficult for the US military to avoid getting enmeshed in the politics of the wider war.

“You don’t want to deploy US forces willy-nilly and find them in the middle of conflict,” Robert Ford, a former US ambassador to Syria, told Al-Monitor. “It’s kind of a mission creep beyond going to get [IS]. They’re going to have to be dealing — as much as they don’t want to — with the politics of the Syrian civil war. It’s just unavoidable now.”

Dillon said the US-led coalition hasn’t heard anything from Russian forces about President Bashar al-Assad ending his tacit consent of the US troop presence in his country. After weakly protesting the US military operation as illegitimate and illegal since the beginning of Operation Inherent Resolve in 2014, however, the Syrian leader can be expected to make an increasingly forceful case as IS is eradicated. The US-led mission in Iraq and Syria ordered by then-President Barack Obama began three years ago.

Pro-regime troops and US forces have already been coming into closer contact over the past few months; indeed, the United States shot down a Syrian drone and a Syrian Su-22 fighter jet headed toward US-backed rebels in June. Still, US and Russian officials have maintained communication through a de-confliction line that extends from Al-Udeid air base in Qatar to Moscow’s command posts in Syria.

The potential for conflict grows as the United States shifts its focus from IS to other foes, notably Iran and its proxies. During a gaggle with reporters on the way to US Central Command on Friday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the Pentagon is “not changing” US military posture in Iraq and Syria from a counter-IS to a counter-Iran mission, but added that American officials “watch for Iran's destabilizing movements and activities everywhere.”

Yet the complexity of southern Syria, which some analysts worry could fall under Iranian control as a way for the Islamic Republic to solidify gains in the region, may incentivize the US to look toward rejiggering the anti-IS force.

“Iran is looking to solidify logistical supply lines across Syria and Iraq,” said Melissa Dalton, a former Pentagon official and now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It certainly benefits Iran to try and build some connectivity between the Shia militias it supported in Iraq and Syria. There’s that added incentive for Assad to solidify those gains even if there’s some intersection with US forces countering [IS].”

With the United States looking down the contested Euphrates River Valley as a possible battle space, there’s a question of whether the American troops in the country or US-trained forces "can be transformed into a presence against Iran,” Dalton said.

The Kurdish elements of the SDF may also increase the risk of conflict with the regime as they close in on the eastern side of the Euphrates River Valley, the site of Syria’s most important oil field. Meanwhile, Assad’s government retains formal claim to the Syrian Kurdish city of Qamishli, the site of another important oil field.

“It’s very difficult for Assad’s government to live comfortably alongside regions that aspire to an autonomous status and can thumb their noses at Damascus,” Ford said. “I see no sign that the government is more willing to employ reforms than they were before. As [IS] recedes, the likelihood of conflict between the Syrian government and other Syrian entities increases.”

And it remains unclear if the United States and Russia will agree to an extended dividing line in the region, especially if US troops pursue a broader mission, such as stalling Iranian gains. Experts also worry that it could exhaust extended special forces operators that have been committed more broadly around the world in recent years as train-and-equip missions expand.

“How much risk is the United States willing to expose its forces to on the ground?” Dalton said. “Iranian forces haven’t hesitated to kill and maim US forces in Iraq.”

The Pentagon has also faced heat from Congress. Earlier this month, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., refused to move ahead with confirmation hearings for Pentagon nominees until Mattis provided more details on the Donald Trump administration’s strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. While McCain has backed off of that threat, it’s not clear Congress is happy with US strategy in Syria after the Raqqa campaign.

"For far too long, the United States has approached the Middle East through the narrow vantage point of counterterrorism,” McCain said in a statement today. “What we need instead is a comprehensive strategy that takes all regional factors into account — a clear articulation of our interests and the ways and means we intend to secure them. The absence of such a strategy is acutely felt even as we celebrate this important success."

Found in:SYRIA WAR SPILLOVER, ISLAMIC STATE

Jack Detsch is Al-Monitor’s Pentagon correspondent. Based in Washington, Detsch examines US-Middle East relations through the lens of the Defense Department. Detsch previously covered cybersecurity for Passcode, the Christian Science Monitor’s project on security and privacy in the Digital Age. Detsch also served as editorial assistant at The Diplomat Magazine and worked for NPR-affiliated stations in San Francisco. On Twitter: @JackDetsch_ALM, Email: jdetsch@al-monitor.com.

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[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.militarytimes.com/flash...aunch-wave-of-attacks-in-afghanistan-kill-74/

Taliban launch wave of attacks in Afghanistan, kill 74

By: Amir Shah, The Associated Press  
1 day ago

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban unleashed a wave of attacks across Afghanistan on Tuesday, targeting police compounds and government facilities with suicide bombers in the country’s south, east and west, and killing at least 74 people, officials said.

Among those killed in one of the attacks was a provincial police chief. Scores were also wounded, both policemen and civilians.

Afghanistan’s deputy interior minister, Murad Ali Murad, called the onslaught the “biggest terrorist attack this year.”

Murad told a press conference in Kabul that attacks in Ghazni and Paktia provinces killed 71 people.

In southern Paktia province, 41 people — 21 policemen and 20 civilians — were killed when the Taliban targeted a police compound in the provincial capital of Gardez with two suicide car bombs. Among the wounded were 48 policemen and 110 civilians.

The provincial police chief, Toryalai Abdyani, was killed in the Paktia attack, Murad said.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement earlier Tuesday that after the two cars blew up in Gardez, five attackers with suicide belts tried to storm the compound but were killed by Afghan security forces.

Health Ministry spokesman Waheed Majroo said the Gardez city hospital reported receiving at least 130 wounded in the attack.

Hamza Aqmhal, a student at the Paktia University, told The Associated Press that he heard a very powerful blast that shattered glass and broke all the windows at the building he was in. The university is about 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) from the training academy, said Aqmhal, who was slightly injured by the glass.

A lawmaker from Paktia, Mujeeb Rahman Chamkani, said that along with the provincial police chief, several of his staff were killed. Most of the casualties were civilians who had come to the center, which also serves a government passport department, Chamkani said.

In southern Ghazni province, the insurgents stormed a security compound in Andar district, using a suicide car bomb and killing 25 police and five civilians, Murad said. At least 15 people were wounded, including 10 policemen, he added.

Arif Noori, spokesman for the provincial governor in Ghazni, said the Taliban attack there lasted nine hours. By the time the attackers were repelled, there were 13 bodies of Taliban fighters on the ground, Noori added.

And in western Farah province, police chief Abdul Maruf Fulad says the Taliban attacked a government compound in Shibkho district, killing three policemen.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for all three attacks.

Despite the staggering numbers, Murad said Afghan forces are confident in their “readiness to fight terrorists and eliminate them from Afghanistan.” He said the Taliban have suffered heavy defeats over the past six months at the hands of Afghan forces and were seeking revenge.

Later on Tuesday, an Afghan official said drone strikes killed 35 Taliban fighters in the country’s east, near the border with Pakistan.

Abdullah Asrat, spokesman for the governor of Paktia province, said drones fired missiles at four locations in Anzarki Kandaw, killing the insurgents and wounding 15 others. He said a commander of the Pakistani Taliban, Abu Bakr, and other senior insurgents were among the dead. He did not provide further details.

Chamkani, the lawmaker from Paktia, said the drones struck as the Taliban were collecting the bodies of 20 militants killed in a strike Monday on a militant base near the border.

Pakistani intelligence officials say Monday’s drone strike hit a militant compound on the Pakistani side of the border, but Pakistan’s army later denied any such strike on its territory. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the two accounts.

 

[Shacknasty Shagrat]

One pot cools down and another starts to boil.
SS

One Strategic Sentinel‏Verified account @StratSentinel 51m51 minutes ago

Syrian S-200 SAM engages Israeli aircraft over Lebanese airspace. No hits confirmed, jet retaliated striking battery
http://www.janes.com/article/75000/...li-aircraft-over-lebanon#.Wef4pHvCLaA.twitter …
https://twitter.com/stratsentinel?lang=en

 

[Shacknasty Shagrat]

Severeal sources are saying that an F-35 was hit but by a bird.
SS


Israel Is Hiding the Fact that Its State of the Art F-35 Warplane Was Hit by Syrian S-200 Missile – Reports
By South Front
Global Research, October 18, 2017
South Front 17 October 2017

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-18/did-syria-just-strike-israeli-f-35-jet

It looks that the Israeli “demonstration of power” during the recent visit of Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has turned into a total failure.

On October 16, Shoigu arrived Israel for meetings with Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The sides were reportedly set to discuss the situation in the region, including Syria, the fight against terrorism as well as military and technical cooperation.

At the same day, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that its warplanes targeted an anti-aircraft battery of the Syrian Air Defense Forces that had launched a missile at Israeli aircraft flying over Lebanon.

The IDF added that the Syrian missile didn’t hit any Israeli aircraft.

“The army targeted the battery with four bombs and, according to the IDF, the battery was damaged to the extent it was no longer operational. The army said the battery targeted was the same that fired at Israeli jets last March, prompting Israel make use of its Arrow anti-missile system for the first time,” the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on the issue.

The Syrian military confirmed the Israeli strikes and said that they caused “material damage.”

It’s interesting to note that, according to the Syrian Defense Ministry statement, Israeli warplanes violated Syria’s airspace on the border with Lebanon in Baalbek area. The incident took place at 8:51 am local time.

Could the Israeli Air Force intentionally provoke the reaction from the Syrian military in order to justify the strike on the Syrian air defense battery?

Furthermore, some pro-Israeli experts and media activists clearly linked the incident with the visit of the Russian defense minister to Tel Aviv saying that it was a nice demonstration of power to the Russian-Iranian-Syrian alliance.

However, something went wrong.

According to the available information, the Syrian Defense Forces used a S-200 missile against the Israeli warplane. This Soviet-made missile is the most advanced long range anti-aircraft system opearated by the Syrian military. Even in this case, it’s old-fashioned in terms of the modern warfare.

Despite this, the Syrian Defense Ministry said in its statement that government forces responded to the violation of the airspace and “directly hit one of the jets, forcing [Israeli aircraft] to retreat.” This statement contradicts to the Israeli claim that “no hit” was confirmed.

Few hours after the missile incident with Syria, the Israeli media reported that the Israeli Air Force’s F-35 stealth multirole fighter went unserviceable as a result of an alleged bird collision during a training flight.

The incident allegedly took place “two weeks ago” but was publicly reported only on October 16. However, Israeli sources were not able to show a photo of the F-35 warplane after the “bird collision”.

Furthermore, it is not clear if the F-35 can become operational again because its stealth coating was damaged. Thus, according to the Israeli version, the warplane reportedly became no longer operational after the bird collision despite the fact that the F-35 earlier passed the bird strike certification with great results (official info here). The F-35 is the world’s most expensive warplane. The price of developing the F-35 is now about $406.5 billion.

Israel is actively buying the world’s self-proclaimed most advanced fighter paying about $100 million for each plane.

So what did really hit the F-35?
https://www.globalresearch.ca/israe...s-hit-by-syrian-s-200-missile-reports/5613807

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...perpower/ar-AAtHeLG?li=AA4Zpp&ocid=spartanntp

Alarm in Russia as U.S. Becomes the Unpredictable Superpower

Bloomberg
Marc Champion
5 hrs ago

Russia may have got what it wished for with the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, but almost a year later Moscow’s foreign policy community shows more signs of alarm than triumph.

Alongside statements of neutrality toward the U.S. vote from officials and others at a Kremlin-sponsored gathering of foreign and domestic Russia-watchers this week, there’s deep concern that the role of an unpredictable, militarily adventurous superpower – played by Russia since 2014 – may be passing to the U.S.

Russia’s ability to influence the debate in Washington, let alone reset a damaged relationship, has vanished, according to current and former policy makers at the annual Valdai Club conference in Sochi. With an official investigation under way into alleged Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. presidential election, Russian diplomats have become too toxic even to talk to in Washington, said one official, speaking at a closed panel under so-called Chatham House rules.

“Russia has become a meme’’ for America’s internal political debate, just at the moment when “the U.S. has become the biggest factor for uncertainty in the world,’’ said Fyodor Lukyanov, the Valdai Club’s research director and chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. “No one can deliver such turbulence as the U.S.’’

Feeling ‘Helpless’
That has left Russian leaders feeling confused, apprehensive and even “helpless’’ after a brief period of optimism that followed Trump’s inauguration, said Lukyanov. Meanwhile, Moscow’s own “willingness to play risky games is much less than before.’’ In Syria, he said, Russia’s generals are pressing for an exit from active conflict. In Ukraine, Russia recently proposed a limited deployment of United Nations peacekeepers to the conflict zone.

Russian warnings of a potential war between superpowers triggered by events in smaller countries, as in World War I, were louder this year than at previous meetings and dominate the organization’s annual report. The risk of conflict on the Korean peninsula and fraying arms control treaties loomed large.

None of this has produced nostalgia for Barack Obama, or regret that Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election. Both figures continue to be reviled among Russia’s foreign policy elite.

Sergey Kislyak
“We don’t think in those terms,’’ said Sergey Kislyak, until earlier this year Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., who found himself at the heart of the campaign-meddling storm in Washington. Russia, he said in an interview, doesn’t bet on U.S. presidential candidates. “We aren’t naïve. We know the U.S. is like a supertanker: It takes a long time to make a U-turn.’’

Trump Constrained
Still, others were less sanguine. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he thought Trump still wants to do the right thing with Russia but is constrained by a rigid establishment. One panel celebrated the demise of the liberal, Western-dominated global order and looked forward to what might replace it.

Where two former State Department officials in a closed session lauded strong U.S. institutions and “the adults’’ in Trump’s administration for limiting his worst instincts, a Russian official saw that as part of a conspiracy to deny the election result.

That political inertia isn’t a strength, according to the Russian official, who described the Republicans and Democrats as two wings of the same party protecting the interests of an elite.

Still, Russia has little choice but to keep pushing for reconciliation with the West, according to Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council. The answer may come from Russia, which holds presidential elections next year, rather than the U.S., he said.

No ‘Second Breshnev’
After 18 years, President Vladimir Putin -- who has officially denied his government meddled in the U.S. election -- “has no interest in becoming a second Brezhnev,’’ said Kortunov, referring to the former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, whose long rule from 1964 to 1982 ended with economic stagnation. Reform requires reconnecting with European investment and would promote a change in foreign policy. At the same time, according to Kortunov, the appetite for change will depend on how secure the leadership in the Kremlin feels -- and there the U.S. plays a vital role.

Putin is due to address the conference on Thursday.

For all their denials, Russian leaders underestimate the fallout from their involvement in the U.S. election campaign and are beginning to calculate the cost, said Angela Stent, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington and former diplomat, who served on the U.S. National Intelligence Council from 2004 to 2006. “Now the unpredictability is coming out, I think they are a little scared.’’

To contact the reporter on this story: Marc Champion in Sochi, Russia at mchampion7@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net, Bill Faries, Larry Liebert

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/10/america-has-become-dispensable-iraq/141865/?oref=d-river

America Has Become Dispensable in*Iraq

The conflict in Kirkuk offers further evidence of Iran’s steady rise.

By Emma Sky
Author of "The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq", The Atlantic
Read bio
October 18, 2017

“When the fighting breaks out between Arabs and Kurds, whose side will the Americans be on?” This was the message that Masoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government and leader of the Kurdistan Democratic party (KDP), instructed his chief of staff to have me convey to senior U.S. officials in Baghdad in 2010. I was serving as the political adviser to General Raymond T. Odierno, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Nuri al-Maliki, then the prime minister of Iraq, and Barzani, concerned by rising tensions between Arabs and Kurds ahead of the 2010 national elections in Nineveh province, had asked General Odierno for help in preventing conflict. We had devised a system of joint check points to facilitate cooperation between the Iraqi Security Forces, the Kurdish Peshmerga, and the U.S. forces, and to ensure all forces remained focused on defeating al-Qaeda in*Iraq.

A key part of the plan was to ensure freedom of movement for Atheel Nujaifi, Nineveh’s Sunni Arab governor, who had been elected the previous year on an agenda to roll back the gains the Kurds had made in the province since 2005. Determined to test the new security arrangements at the earliest, Governor Nujaifi decided in early February 2010 to make a trip to the town of Tel Kaif, in a part of the province which the Kurds lay claim to. Over Kurdish objections, the U.S. forces decided that the visit should go ahead. In response, the Kurds brought down reinforcements and tried to prevent the trip from taking place. Crowds of Kurds gathered to block the governor’s convoy; in the resulting melee, shots were fired. The Iraqi police detained 11 Kurds for incitement, and on suspicion of attempting to assassinate Governor*Nujaifi.

I was awakened at 2 a.m. by a phone call from Murat Ozcelik, the influential Turkish ambassador to Iraq. He had received a report from Ankara that the Kurds had invaded Mosul, the largest city in Nineveh province. I investigated and soon discovered that there had been no invasion; instead, Kurdish forces had kidnapped a number of Arabs in Nineveh in retaliation for the arrest of the Kurds. President Barzani was furious. Every time he turned on his television, he saw footage of American tanks in a Kurdish village, and F-16s flying overhead. The Kurds had been highly supportive of the United States—not a single U.S. soldier had been killed by a Kurd. So why, he asked, had the Americans behaved this way towards*Kurds?

Back in 2010, we did not need to answer Barzani’s question. We could mediate a deal whereby the kidnapped Arabs were swapped for the Kurds accused of attempting to assassinate the Governor of Nineveh. We had close relations with the Turks, and convinced them to back off. For once, everyone seemed happy with this solution, and things calmed down. We were the indispensable*ally.

And then we weren’t. And Iran*was.

Iran increased its influence during the negotiations to form a government in Iraq after the tightly contested *2010 elections. Iraqiyya, led by Ayad Allawi, won 91 seats; Maliki’s bloc, the State of Law, came in second with 89 seats. After much heated internal debate, Vice President Joe Biden determined that Washington would support the incumbent, insisting that Maliki was “our man,” an Iraqi nationalist, and would permit a contingent of U.S. forces to remain in Iraq post-2011 when the security agreement expired. But despite considerable arm-twisting, the United States could not convince its allies to support a second term for Maliki. Sensing an opportunity, Qassim Suleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Council, pressured Muqtada al-Sadr, an influential and anti-American Shia cleric, to support Maliki on the condition that all U.S. troops would pull out of Iraq and that Sadrists would be given government*positions.

Thus it was that Iran ensured Maliki remained as Prime Minister. The Obama administration, in its rush for an exit from Iraq, gave up the American role of “balancer,” of moderator, of protector of the political process, withdrawing its soft power along with its*hard.

Secure in his seat for a second term, Maliki pursued a series of sectarian policies. He accused Sunni politicians of being terrorists, forcing them to flee the country; he reneged on his promises to the Sunni Awakening leaders who had fought against al-Qaeda in Iraq; and he arrested Sunni protestors en masse. This created the conditions that enabled ISIS to rise from the ashes of al-Qaeda in Iraq and proclaim itself the defender of Sunnis against the Iranian-backed sectarian regime of Maliki.

In 2014, ISIS took over Mosul, and all the U.S.-supplied vehicles and equipment that the Iraqi Security Forces left behind as they fled. It was only then that Washington re-engaged. But it was narrowly focused on leading a coalition in the tactical fight against ISIS. It did not address the strategic issues of the political dysfunction and contested governance of which ISIS is the*symptom.

Now, with the threat of ISIS now greatly reduced and with the 2018 elections on the horizon, Iraqi and Kurdish politicians are already positioning for the day*after.

Barzani calculated that the position of the Kurds was strengthened, as during the fight against ISIS they had received weapons directly from the international community and had extended the territory under their control to include Kirkuk. He believed that now was the best time to negotiate separation from Iraq, so he pushed ahead with the referendum on September 25, 2017—including in the disputed territories—over the protests of the Iraqi government, Turkey, Iran, the United States, the UN, and European*countries.

Barzani viewed Kirkuk’s annexation as essential for Kurdistan to achieve independence. But no Iraqi prime minister can afford to lose Kirkuk—particularly one seeking re-election next year. Kirkuk has vast stores of oil. While Kurds constitute its majority, the city has significant communities of Arabs and Turkmen, who are both Sunni and Shia. And many of them have made known they do not want to be part of an independent*Kurdistan.

Barzani’s gamble has not paid off. He believed that the referendum would serve as a rallying call for all Kurds and deflect attention away from his remaining in power beyond his legal term as president, and shield him from complaints about KRG corruption and mismanagement. What he failed to foresee was that his main rival the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), whose leader Jalal Talabani died recently, would purposefully set out to weaken him by doing a deal with the Iraqi government to allow Iraqi security forces to enter the city without opposition. And behind the deal was the hand of Qassim Suleimani. Not since 1996 has there been such betrayal by one Kurdish political party of*another.

Barzani was no doubt asking once again whose side the United States was on when the Iraqi army and Shia militias drove into Kirkuk province with M1 Abrams and Humvees, taking control of the airfield, oil fields, and the government building and pulling down the flag of*Kurdistan.

The United States stated that it would not take sides in what it viewed as a dispute between the Iraqi government and the KDP, instigated by Barzani. Washington is angry that despite its warnings, Barzani went ahead and carried out the referendum. And it insists that it continue to support a one-Iraq policy, and that the focus of all groups should remain on fighting*ISIS.

Barzani feels betrayed by America yet again. He has never forgotten how it let down his father in his moment of need in 1975, after the Shah of Iran suddenly cut support to the Kurds in return for Saddam Hussein’s recognition of Iran’s territorial demands. Mullah Mustafa Barzani had turned to America for aid, but Henry Kissinger refused and Kurdish resistance collapsed. Now when Barzani looked to the United States for support, he was told the current crisis was of his own*making.

Close up, this looks like a success for Haider al Abadi, the man America wants to win the 2018 elections because it believes he is “our man,” an Iraqi nationalist, and will permit a contingent of U.S. forces to remain in*Iraq.

But zoomed out, this appears to be yet another Iranian success. Iran is showing everyone in the region that it is the indispensable ally—not the United States. It is securing its corridors across Iraq and Syria, mediating between the different groups on the ground, while the United States occupies a shrinking space. Once more, Iran is playing the key role, helping to broker a deal between the PUK and the Iraqi government and guiding the Shia militias supporting the Iraqis. Iran has every interest in maintaining these militias—making it increasingly difficult for any Iraqi prime minister to demobilize them. And Turkey, which used to be a U.S. ally, is moving closer to Iran and*Russia.

A compromise of some sort could be reached on confederation for Kurdistan and a special status for Kirkuk. But that would require mediation. And it is unlikely to be from*Americans.

Why should this matter? Because the Iranian settlement will not bring stability to the region. It will endure long enough to defeat U.S. interests and allies. But left unchecked, Iran and its allies will sooner or later come into collision with Israel. And then the U.S. will be forced to take*action.


Emma Sky is the author of The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq. She served in Iraq from 2003 to 2004 as the governorate coordinator of Kirkuk, and from 2007 to 2010 as political adviser to General Raymond T. Odierno, the commanding general of US Forces in Iraq. Full bio

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/arti...il&utm_term=0_b02a5f1344-52262d874f-122460921

Expert Commentary

Long-Term Solutions vs. Short-Term Revenge

October 19, 2017 | Seth G. Jones

On Saturday, a truck bomb struck the Somali capital of Mogadishu killing more than 320 people and injuring more than 500 others. While no group officially claimed responsibility for the brutal attack, Somali officials and counterterrorism experts have pinned the responsibility on al Shabaab, an al Qaeda linked organization that has carried out several attacks inside Somalia as well as in neighboring Kenya, Uganda, and Djibouti. Since its creation in 2008, al Shabaab has posed a significant threat to the Horn of Africa region. The group pledged allegiance to al Qaeda in 2012 and remains al Qaeda’s affiliate in East Africa. The Cipher Brief spoke with Seth Jones, Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the*RAND Corporation, to discuss the current threat posed by al Shabaab as well as how the U.S. should respond to the most horrific terrorist attack in Somali history.

The Cipher Brief: How likely is it that the attack in Mogadishu over the weekend was al Shabaab affiliated?

Seth Jones: It certainly fits the description of al Shabaab’s broader campaign and the type of attacks that the group has conducted in the past, not just in Mogadishu, but throughout the region in places such as Uganda and Kenya. They are involved in a long, drawn out insurgency, and as part of that insurgency, have conducted ambushes, raids, targeted assassinations, and major truck and other bombings.

TCB: Is there any possibility it could be linked to another group? For example, the ISIS faction that broke off from al Shabaab that’s now operating in and around Puntland?

Jones: ISIS does have cell structures in Somalia. For the last two years, they have made a pretty serious effort to peel off individuals from Al Shabaab, but generally, it has not been successful.

More recently, as part of the group’s broader guidance from one of their senior committees, ISIS is no longer encouraging people to come to Iraq and Syria, but instead advocates for pushing foreign fighters to other areas of strategic importance such as Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, and Somalia.

ISIS has an interest in the region, but it is just not big and has pretty small in numbers in Somalia. But obviously ISIS has the capabilities to conduct a number of attacks, and this would be a pretty serious break though since ISIS has not done much in Somalia.

TCB: Can you explain al Qaeda involvement? My understanding is that al Shabaab, or at least certain factions, have affiliated themselves with al Qaeda. But are there still al Qaeda operatives who operate independently of al Shabaab in Somalia?

Jones: Al Shabaab has an organizational structure and its emir and its previous emirs have pledged their loyalty to al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri. So the organization is tied to al Qaeda at the senior level since they’ve pledged bayah, or loyalty.

In practice, however, like any organization, al Shabaab has people who have closer relations with al Qaeda and who have more of an interest in the broader, global caliphate that al Qaeda still aims to establish, but for many others that, their participation is really due to local Somali issues. So obviously there’s a lot of variation within al Shabaab about how important an al Qaeda relationship is.

In terms of the actual relationship and communication, the most significant ties have been with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Yemen, especially with organizations in al Shabaab like Amniyat, which is their external operations segment.

TCB: How can the U.S. respond to an attack like this?

Jones: Obviously, this would not be the first attack that al Shabaab has perpetrated in Mogadishu, and it’s not the first attack that al Shabaab has perpetrated killing large numbers of civilians. They’ve done it at the Westgate Mall in Kenya and they’ve done it at Garissa University. Those killed were foreigners at a high end shopping mall in the first incident and university students in the second.

Part of the focus must be on continuing to wage a political and military campaign against al Shabaab to make sure that there are the resources in place to weaken them on multiple fronts. There are also more immediate steps that can be taken. If one wants to get into holding the people involved in the attack responsible, you can start to identify who was involved in masterminding the plot within al Shabaab, who was involved in helping pull together the resources to get it in place, and then target them. But that’s not a long-term solution for fixing the problem, that’s more of a shorter term revenge response.

TCB: Is that the kind of intelligence analysis assistance the U.S. typically would give the Somali National Army?

Jones: Yes. There are lots of actors involved in combatting al Shabaab, including the Somali National Army. The U.S. has also orchestrated strikes itself against the group. It has the capability to strike with drones against targets in Somalia, and it’s done that.

There are also other African forces countries in Somalia, including the Kenyans, the Ethiopians, Ugandans that, at least in the areas where their militaries operate, that have conducted some attacks against al Shabaab. So lots of countries could respond along those lines.

But in terms of the U.S., the U.S. certainly has the capability to provide that kind of information to the Somali Army, conduct strikes itself, or conduct tandem operation with other forces.

TCB: Do you think the current U.S. strategy is sufficient? The focus on airstrikes, some training of the local forces, and also intelligence assistance?

Jones: The problem for the U.S. is that it’s being stretched pretty thin on the counterterrorism and counterinsurgency front. Obviously it has interests in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, and Yemen. Four members of the U.S. forces recently died in Nigeria. Somalia is another battleground.

I actually think that the military resources in Somalia are probably sufficient. al Shabaab, at this point, is not plotting attacks against the United States’ homeland, at least not meaningfully. The number of Americans that at one point went to Somalia to fight with al Shabaab has come way down from previous years.

The problem from a U.S. standpoint is that the primary element of U.S. strategy in Somalia is military. There is no U.S. embassy in Somalia. The diplomatic and the development components are pretty small and largely ineffective. There’s a strong argument for increasing those focuses on Somalia, which can address deeper rooted problems in the country.

Al-Shabaab Somalia

The Author is Seth G. Jones
Seth G. Jones is director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation, as well as an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University's School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He served as the representative for the commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations. Before that, he served as a plans officer and advisor to the commanding general, U.S. Special Operations Forces, in Afghanistan... Read More

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Al Shabaab: A Persistent Threat
Bennett Seftel

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....So will they recapitalize their manpower in this theater or will they focus elsewhere?...

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/i...-holds-only-3-percent-of-iraq/article/2637810

ISIS down to 6,500 fighters, holds only 3 percent of Iraq

by Jamie McIntyre | Oct 17, 2017, 5:07 PM

Video

As the campaign against the Islamic State begins to draw to a close, the terror group is down to an estimated 6,500 fighters, with only about 100 left in Raqqa, its former self-proclaimed capital in Syria, the U.S. military declared Tuesday.

"ISIS in Iraq and Syria are all but isolated in their quickly shrinking territory," said Col. Ryan Dillon, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.

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The assessment came on the day Raqqa was declared liberated by the commander of the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led militia that has been slowly clearing the city of Islamic State fighters over the past four months.

The U.S. military stopped short of declaring the battle for Raqqa over, but said the Islamic State was on the "verge of a devastating defeat" at the hands of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a mix of Kurdish and Arab fighters.

"We are aware of the reports that ISIS has been defeated in Raqqa," Dillon told reporters at the Pentagon. "However, clearance operations continue, and we expect our Syrian Democratic Force partners to hit pockets of resistance as the final parts of the city is cleared."

Dillon said about 350 Islamic State members had surrendered over the past few days, bringing the total number who surrendered to roughly 400, a sign he said that it was a broken force.

"Today in Syria, ISIS is losing its grip," Dillon said, while stressing the group is not yet defeated.

The focus now shifts to an area in Syria the U.S. military has dubbed "the MERV," short for the Middle Euphrates River Valley.

"Once Raqqa is complete, it will be up to the commander whether or not he reallocates forces to continue to push down into the Middle Euphrates River Valley where there still is ISIS-held territory," Dillon said.

Dillon also downplayed reports of an Iraqi government assault on the Kurdish-held town of Kirkuk, insisting that there has been a "peaceful handover" of the military airport. He also denied reports that Iranian militia, known as Popular Mobilization Units, have taken over the city.

"As far as the Popular Mobilization Units in the area, you know, we have not seen in and around Kirkuk any of these units going in to re-establish security and/or inside of Kirkuk itself," Dillon said.

The tensions between the Kurdish factions in the north and the central government in Baghdad over the future of the oil-rich region and the desire by most Kurds for an independent state has threatened the unity of efforts against the Islamic State, Pentagon officials have said.

"We continue to monitor the situation and our leaders, talking with counterparts in both the Iraqi security forces and the Peshmerga, urged all sides to avoid escalation," Dillon said. "These tensions distract from our unified fight against ISIS, which remains a very real threat here in Iraq."

And Dillon says even when the Islamic State is defeated militarily, the war will not be over.

 

[Housecarl]

November Sierra....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/world/middleeast/islamic-state-territory-attacks.html

MIDDLE EAST | NEWS ANALYSIS

With Loss of Its Caliphate, ISIS May Return to Guerrilla Roots
By MARGARET COKER, ERIC SCHMITT and RUKMINI CALLIMACHI
OCT. 18, 2017

Its de facto capital is falling. Its territory has shriveled from the size of Portugal to a handful of outposts. Its surviving leaders are on the run.

But rather than declare the Islamic State and its virulent ideology conquered, many Western and Arab counterterrorism officials are bracing for a new, lethal incarnation of the jihadist group.

The organization has a proven track record as an insurgency able to withstand major military onslaughts, while still recruiting adherents around the world ready to kill in its name.

Islamic State leaders signaled more than a year ago that they had drawn up contingency plans to revert to their roots as a guerrilla force after the loss of their territory in Iraq and Syria. Nor does the group need to govern cities to inspire so-called lone wolf terrorist attacks abroad, a strategy it has already adopted to devastating effect in Manchester, England, and Orlando, Fla.

“Islamic State is not finished,” said Aaron Y. Zelin, who studies jihadist movements at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “I.S. has a plan, and that is to wait out their enemies locally in order to gain time to rebuild their networks while at the same time provide inspiration to followers outside to keep fighting their enemies farther away.’”

Even with the news on Tuesday that American-backed forces said they had captured Raqqa, the capital of the group’s self-declared caliphate, European counterterrorism officials were worrying about sleeper cells that may have been sent out well before the battlefield losses mounted.

In Iraq, where the group that became the Islamic State took root, security officials are bracing for future waves of suicide attacks against civilians. And even if governments are able to head off organized plots like the Paris attacks of 2015, officials around the globe concede that they have almost no way of stopping lone wolf assaults inspired or enabled by Islamic State propaganda that lives online.

“It is clear that we are contending with an intense U.K. terrorist threat from Islamist extremists,” Andrew Parker, the director of Britain’s MI5 intelligence service, said in a speech on Tuesday. “That threat is multidimensional, evolving rapidly, and operating at a scale and pace we’ve not seen before.”

American and European counterterrorism officials acknowledge that they do not know the exact capabilities the Islamic State retains, or how much the appeal of the group’s ideology has been dented by its string of heavy military defeats.

Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, predicted last month that the loss of territory would precipitate a loss of credibility. “We’ll continue to see reduction in territory, reduction in freedom of movement, reduced resources and less credibility in the narrative,” he told a Senate hearing.

Others are less sanguine. They point to a speech by the Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammed al-Adnani, before his death in an American drone strike last year, urging the group’s followers to fight on as a lean, agile insurgency instead of the bureaucratic juggernaut it had become.

“True defeat is the loss of willpower and desire to fight,” he said. “We would be defeated and you victorious only if you were able to remove the Quran from the Muslims’ hearts.”

The group’s ability to weld religious fervor to the political resentments of disenfranchised Sunni Muslims in Shiite-dominated Iraq already saved it once, when it appeared broken by the American military surge in Iraq in 2007 and 2008.

By the time American forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011, intelligence officials estimated that the Islamic State’s predecessor, then called the Islamic State of Iraq, was down to its last 700 fighters. The group was considered such a minor threat that the reward offered by the United States for the capture of its leader plummeted from $5 million to $100,000.

It took less than three years for those beaten-down and diminished insurgents to regroup and roar across Iraq and Syria, declaring an Islamic caliphate from the Mediterranean coast of Syria nearly to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. It became both the world’s wealthiest terrorist group, and the most feared.

Even with the loss of most of that territory, the organization is far from defeated, and remains far stronger today than it did when American troops pulled out of Iraq.

The group currently has from 6,000 to 10,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria, the United States-led coalition said on Friday. That is eight to 14 times the number it had in 2011.

“That’s the relevant comparison,” said Daniel L. Byman, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy, who tracks jihadist groups. “This is a very strong group which has a lot of sympathizers, its ideas are embedded and it has networks. It has a lot to draw on even as it loses its physical territory.”

The group has also developed a powerful social media network that with no physical presence allows it to spew propaganda, claim responsibility for terrorist attacks, and not just inspire attacks but also help plot and execute them remotely.

A large share of its attacks in the West in recent years have been carried out by men who communicated online with ISIS, taking detailed instructions through encrypted messages, but never meeting their terrorist mentors.

The first major attack in the United States claimed by ISIS, a foiled shooting at a Texas community center in 2015, was directed this way, according to a recent assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The Islamic State may also have undercover operatives or sleeper cells outside the Middle East. Senior American officials said last year that the group had sent hundreds of operatives to Europe and hundreds more to Turkey.

And the group has continued to sow chaos even as it has lost territory. In 2017 alone, it has claimed responsibility for three terrorist attacks in Britain that killed 37 people, the Istanbul nightclub bombing on New Year’s Eve that killed 39 people, and strikes in more than seven other countries.

As the group was losing Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, in August, it sent a van tearing through crowds in the heart of Barcelona, killing 13 people and loudly declaring its continued relevance.

It is also premature to assert that the Islamic State is running out of territory. While its footprint has shrunk in Iraq and Syria, it still controls close to 4,000 square miles along the Euphrates River Valley on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border. American and Iraqi military commanders believe the group’s core leaders have gone to ground in the largely barren areas along the border.

At the same time, ISIS branches in North Africa and Asia are still launching operations, and its camps in eastern Afghanistan remain largely intact, despite recent American airstrikes.

Some areas that were previously declared liberated have seen a return of ISIS fighters. In Libya, where the group was routed from a 100-mile stretch of coastline in late 2016, the militants recently posted a video showing their fighters manning a new checkpoint. And far from its roots in the Middle East, the group continues to grow in other corners of the world, including in the Philippines, where a local affiliate held the town of Marawi for months, and in West Africa, where the militants continue to grow their ranks, encroaching on areas formerly under Al Qaeda’s grasp.

If the Islamic State does decline, other jihadist organizations are poised to fill the vacuum.

Al Qaeda, whose appeal to young fighters had been largely eclipsed by the tech-savvy new caliphate of the Islamic State, is vying for a comeback.

“The reason that the I.S. gained a big following quickly was that it appealed to the hotheads, those looking for instant gratification,” said Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies who monitors terrorist groups. “That caliphate model is all gone, but Al Qaeda remains.”

The older group has been urging followers to pivot from the Islamic State’s focus on the battlefields of the Middle East and instead put an emphasis on attacks in the United States and other foreign lands.

It has also been promoting a younger, charismatic new leader: Hamza bin Laden, 27, the son of Osama.

A version of this news analysis appears in print on October 19, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: As Caliphate Crumbles, ISIS May Revisit Insurgent Roots.


RELATED COVERAGE


Raqqa, ISIS ‘Capital,’ Is Captured, U.S.-Backed Forces Say OCT. 17, 2017

‘Game Over.’ Iraqi Forces See Beginning of the End for ISIS OCT. 6, 2017

Captured ISIS Fighters’ Refrain: ‘I Was Only a Cook’ OCT. 1, 2017

Not ‘Lone Wolves’ After All: How ISIS Guides World’s Terror Plots From Afar FEB. 4, 2017

How a Secretive Branch of ISIS Built a Global Network of Killers AUG. 3, 2016

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesc...-deal-without-the-united-states/#62b2b1c03c94

OCT 17, 2017 @ 06:00 AM

The Iran Nuclear Deal Without The United States

James Conca , CONTRIBUTOR
I write about nuclear, energy and the environment
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Three months ago, on the two-year anniversary of the Iran Nuclear Deal, President Trump reluctantly certified that Iran is complying with the international nuclear agreement that prevents Iran from attaining an atomic weapon.

But not anymore.

Trump told the world last Friday that Iran is not in compliance with the Deal, even though they are, and that the Deal needs to be renegotiated, even though our allies, and even our enemies, do not agree.

Many of us were surprised that we got so much out of the Deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It really stopped Iran’s weapons program cold and will keep it that way for the foreseeable future.

As long as we don’t scuttle it.

The Deal has to be recertified by the United States President every 90 days by declaring that Iran is in compliance. Trump has been annoyed at having to do this. By not certifying, we will begin to stop the intense scrutiny of Iran that is so important to preventing them from acquiring a nuclear weapon. We won’t know if and when they stop complying because we will have removed ourselves from the process.

Iran is actually meeting the terms of the nuclear deal hammered out in Switzerland two years ago by the United States-led P5+1 Group (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, United States, plus Germany). According to the United Nations’ nuclear watch dog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran shipped nearly its entire fissionable stockpile to Russia last year, over 12 tons of enriched uranium that could have been used to make uranium atomic bombs. Iran then mothballed thousands of centrifuges necessary to enrich uranium for this type of atomic weapon.

Iran also removed the core of its heavy water reactor at Arak, and filled it with concrete. That reactor could have produced plutonium for the other type of atomic bomb, one that is more easily mounted on missiles, like the ones North Korea has. And Iran has allowed facility inspections like no other nuclear country has ever done.

This was a really sweet deal.

It's not that the Deal is perfect, just good. Iran will most likely still try to cheat on some things, and that is why the inspections are so key. That's why the Deal is so key. Without it, we're back to square one.

Trump’s action comes at a time when two-thirds of Americans feel that President Trump will get us into another major war, and half of Americans think he will use nukes when he gets the chance. Neither of these is good for America.

Worse yet, Trump’s action plays into the hands of Iran’s hardliners, who have been telling the world, and their own people, that the United States cannot be trusted. The decision not to recertify gives these hardliners more power in Iran, especially over moderate President Rouhani. The possibility of moving Iran away from its entrenched theocracy rests with moderates like Rouhani. And the moderates have staked their survival on the success of this nuclear deal.

Iran’s hardliners want to get their nuclear program back on track and destabilize the region even more. ‘It could very well mean war between the U.S. and Iran, or Israel and Iran or some combination of the two,’ said Wayne White, former senior State Department intelligence official for the Near East and South Asia in the Bush Administration.

Not re-certifying the Deal does not withdraw the United States from the Deal but punts the issue over to Congress, which has 60 days to decide whether to re-impose nuclear-related economic sanctions on Iran.

No one is fooled by the Administration’s repeated cry that Iran is violating the spirit of the agreement by being nasty in other ways. The Deal itself was only to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and to help bring it back into the global community so Iran wouldn’t want to produce one in the future. It wasn’t supposed to deal with other non-nuclear issues like terrorism, regional conflicts and human rights abuses, but was meant to remove nuclear from their equations before they get out of hand.

From the standpoint of Iran and our allies, not certifying the Deal or re-imposing sanctions by our Congress, would constitute a material breach of the Deal by the United States. But the Deal could survive without the United States, since Iran still feels that having nuclear weapons is not worth it. But Iran does want the respect that goes along with being able to build one if it wants to.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, emphasized that Iran would continue complying with the Deal if the other signatories agreed. Zarif said: ‘The Europeans have made it very clear to us and to the United States that they intend to do their utmost to ensure survival of the deal.’ The only thing that our withdrawal from the Deal would accomplish is to further isolate the United States and really damage our credibility to negotiate future agreements in good faith.

In a bizarre twist, since the Deal was codified through a United Nations Security Council resolution, re-imposing sanctions by the United States, or withdrawal from the agreement, would contravene international law and place the United States in legal jeopardy.

No one ever dreamed that the United States would be the one to deliberately sabotage this Deal, so the dispute resolution mechanisms in the agreement aren’t very clear on what to do now. Since the United States sits on the U.N. Security Council, and we sit on the Joint Commission of this JCPOA, we can veto anything and just stop the grievance process from going forward.

This would give Iran tacit approval to restart its nuclear weapons program, and remove the transparency and inspection measures that Iran has found so intrusive but which it had to agree to under the deal. As European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini put it, ‘We already have one potential nuclear crisis [in Korea]. We definitely [do] not need to go into another one.’

The rest of the world would definitely blame the United States and continue sanctions relief without us, putting us, again, at odds with our allies. Mogherini has already stated that the EU wants to be Iran's largest trading partner.

The world’s diplomats are very concerned about all this, and openly wonder how long they can trust the United States. In addition to the Iran Deal, Trump has pulled us out of the Transpacific Partnership, pulled out of the Paris Agreement on climate, is threatening to go his own way on the North American Free Trade Agreement, and is wavering on our promises to support our allies against Russia.

Without a strong and trusted United States leading the free world, much of that world will begin to drift and become unstable, even in Europe. That instability, plus Russia’s bold meddling in other countries, will allow Russia to expand its influence even more.

Everyone in the United States has forgotten what the world was like without American leadership. It would be a horrible lesson to have to relearn.

Dr. James Conca is an expert on energy, nuclear and dirty bombs, a planetary geologist, and a professional speaker. Follow him on Twitter @jimconca and see his book at Amazon.com

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://scout.com/military/warrior/Article/Are-Russia-and-China-Preparing-for-War-106163788

Are Russia and China Preparing for War?

By Eugene K. Chow The frozen tundra along Russia’s far-eastern border with China is becoming a hot zone as both nations deploy nuclear-capable missiles to

Staff - 9 hours ago Comments 1

The frozen tundra along Russia’s far-eastern border with China is becoming a hot zone as both nations deploy nuclear-capable missiles to the area. Are two of the world’s most advanced militaries preparing for war with one another?

In June, Russia armed [3] a fourth brigade in the far east with the deadly Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile system. There are now twice as many brigades equipped [4] with these nuclear-capable missiles on the Chinese border than any other Russian military district. The Iskander-M has a range of 250–310 miles, which puts China squarely in its sights.

South of the border, China has reportedly [5] moved the Dongfeng-41, an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads, to its northeastern-most province.

This story was originally published by The National Interest

Though the two nations appear to be close allies, conducting [6] joint military exercises in recent years, this region has been a significant source of tension in the past. In 1969, the Soviet Union and China nearly went to war with one another following deadly military clashes in the area.

By deploying Iskander-M missile brigades, some analysts suggest [4] that Russia is seeking to check the increasing military and economic might of its southern neighbor.

Perched along Russia’s eastern-most border are over 100 million Chinese to just 4 million Russians. Based on some estimates, as many as five million Chinese migrants have poured [7] across the border, sparking fears that they could become the region’s dominant ethnic group. Vladimir Putin has even warned [8] residents that their children could one day grow up speaking Chinese.

Many of the areas surrounding the border once belonged to the Middle Kingdom, and the area is particularly attractive to the rapidly growing nation’s insatiable factories. The region contains [9]almost all of Russia’s diamonds, a third of its gold, and major oil, natural gas and zinc deposits.

Although both sides have historic and economic interests in the area, and the military buildup could be interpreted as an aggressive power play, there is no risk of war. China vehemently denies[10] deploying an ICBM to its northern border, and Russia insists [11] that the two nations remain close allies. Furthermore, given the Chinese Dongfeng-41’s range and its flight trajectory, moving it closer to Russia would actually limit the areas within the country that it could target.

So why then are these two countries militarizing this sensitive border?

Far from preparing for war with one another, the military buildup in the region is the legacy of Sino-Russo tensions, Cold War military strategy and a lack of funding to build new Russian military infrastructure.

At the height of the Sino-Soviet split in the late 1960s, China feared a simultaneous Russian assault through Mongolia into Beijing and a multi-pronged invasion through northeastern China. Outmatched by Russia’s military at the time, China opted to use the country’s size and its overwhelming numerical advantage to halt such an attack. This resulted in constructing defensive positions and stationing millions of troops south of the border.

The Soviets worried that they would not be able to withstand a massive Chinese incursion, which would threaten strategic positions in the east and crucial points along the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Senior Soviet defense officials took the threat so seriously that some even considered [12] deploying nuclear mines along the border or conducting a pre-emptive nuclear strike.

Decades have passed and the threat of war has long subsided, but the military infrastructure for such an event remains in place.

According to Peter Wood, an Asian security researcher, the concentration [13] of Chinese troops aimed at preventing a Russian invasion from the north has not changed much since 1973. However, in a sign that China no longer perceives Russia as a threat, the military command responsible for defending this border was downgraded from the highest priority to the second lowest as part of a broader military reorganization in 2015.

The circumstances are similar on the Russian side of the border.

“The geographic deployment of Russia's Armed Forces is closely interconnected with historic circumstances of the collapse of the Soviet Union,” said [14] Russian military analyst Vasily Kashin.

During the Cold War, the Soviets stationed their most battle-ready brigades in East Germany and in Eastern Europe. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the most powerful military units left in Russia were those stationed in the far east for a war with China.

Russia lacks the resources to build new military infrastructure like barracks, airfields and warehouses, so it must rely on Soviet-era bases, explained Kashin. As a result, Iskander-M missile brigades are now stationed at the positions where China had once anticipated a Russian invasion with one brigade in Mongolia, another brigade near Inner Mongolia, and two along China’s northeastern-most border.

Rather than a sign of aggression, the fact that the two nations can modernize their militaries and upgrade missiles in what was once a highly contentious area underscores how close they have become since the end of the Cold War. This newfound trust spells trouble for the United States and its partners in the region as Beijing and Moscow share an aversion to American leadership in the Asia-Pacific.

This story was originally published by The National Interest

Eugene K. Chow writes on foreign policy and military affairs. His work has been published in The Week, Huffington Post, and The Diplomat.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://thediplomat.com/2017/10/3-m...i-jinpings-speech-at-the-19th-party-congress/

3 Major Takeaways from Xi Jinping’s Speech at the 19th Party Congress

Chinese president kicks off the national event with a 3-plus-hour speech.

By Charlotte Gao
October 18, 2017

All eyes at home and abroad were on Chinese President Xi Jinping as he kicked off the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 19th Party Congress — the most important Chinese political event, held once in every five years — during which the top Chinese leadership will be reshuffled.

On the morning of October 18, Xi took nearly three and a half hours to present the opening speech — known as a work report — under the title of “To secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and strive for the great success of socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era.” The work report is a chance for the Party’s top leader to showcase achievements since the previous Party Congress and outline future endeavors. While the comprehensive speech covers almost every field related to China’s development and the Chinese people’s well-being, the followings are the three major points particularly worth noting for observers interested in the CCP’s security policy.

1. China will create a world-class military

Xi, who also holds the position of chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), said China will keep strengthening the military and comprehensively promote national defense and military modernization, including “a modern army, navy, air force, rocket army, and strategic support force, and a strong and efficient command agency for joint operations.”

Xi also set the goals for Chinese military: by 2020, Chinese military should have basically realized mechanization, made significant progress in information technology, and made a big leap in strategic ability; by 2035, modernized national defense and military should be basically achieved; and by 2050, the Chinese military should be a world-class one.

“A military is prepared for war. All military works must adhere to the standards of being able to fight a war and win a war.” said Xi, “Our army is the people’s army; our defense is national defense. [We must] enhance the education on national defense education, consolidate the unity between the military and civilian, in order to achieve the Chinese dream of a strong military.”

In fact, since Xi came into office five years ago, he had repeatedly emphasized “the Chinese dream of a strong military” and the goal of fostering a military that can win wars.

With these goals in place for China’s military modernization, expect China’s national defense expenses will keep soaring in the following years.

2. Flexing muscles toward Taiwan

Although many analysts already anticipated that Xi would mention Taiwan during his speech — as Taiwan remains one of the most sensitive and critical issues for the CCP — Xi’s strong remarks this time still somewhat exceeded people’s expectations.

Regarding Taiwan, Xi said in his speech:

[We will] resolutely safeguard the national sovereignty and territorial integrity and will absolutely not tolerate the tragedy of the country’s split. Any activity aiming to split the motherland will be firmly opposed by all the Chinese people. We have a firm will, sufficient faith, and adequate capacity to defeat any intention of “Taiwan independence” in any form. [We will] never allow any person, any organization, any political party, at any time, in any form, to separate any piece of Chinese territory from China.

In addition, Xi stressed the importance of the “1992 Consensus”, or the “One China principle,” which Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen has been refusing to publicly recognize since she came into office last year.

Xi said the 1992 Consensus is the key to ensuring the peaceful development of cross-strait relations. “Only by recognizing the historical facts of the ‘1992 Consensus’, that both sides belong to one China, can the two sides across the Strait start to have a dialogue.”

Since Tsai came into office, the cross-strait relationship has been deteriorating. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office has stopped a regular dialogue mechanism with its Taiwanese counterpart, the Mainland Affairs Council. That was the only direct official pipeline between the two central governments across the Strait. Xi’s rhetoric has once again made it clear that recognizing the “1992 Consensus” is the precondition for the CCP to resume the dialogue mechanism. It’s also likely that Xi will add more pressure on Tsai after the Party Congress.

3. Dangling a carrot to Hong Kong

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China. Meanwhile, the tensions between Hong Kong and the mainland have shown signals of escalating. Some Hong Kong people have even called for independence from China, as The Diplomat has reported. An increasing number of analysts are starting to cast a doubtful light on the “one country, two systems” principle implemented in Hong Kong.

In his speech, Xi also specially discussed Hong Kong and the “one country, two systems” principle.

Compared to his remarks on Taiwan, Xi’s tone toward Hong Kong was significantly softer. He said the central government will support Hong Kong as well Macau to fully get involved in the overall development of the whole country, promote the mainland’s cooperation with Hong Kong and Macau, and put forward policy to facilitate Hong Kong and Macau citizens developing the mainland.

Despite the carrot, Xi didn’t forget to emphasize the central government’s authority in Hong Kong. “[We must] maintain the central authority in Hong Kong and guarantee Hong Kong’s autonomy at the same time. [We must] ensure that the ‘one country, two systems’ policy will not change or deform,” said Xi.