WAR 10-21-2017-to-10-28-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

Sorry for being late folks, due to work I've been running all over the place and only able to reply on my "smart phone" the last couple of days....HC

----------

(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****

(293) 10-14-2017-to-10-20-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...0-20-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

----------

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/arti...il&utm_term=0_b02a5f1344-0a5a731bbf-122460921

‘The Enemy is Everywhere’: Afghans Mourn Dead As Attacks Mount
October 22, 2017 | Ali M. Latifi

KABUL, Afghanistan*– On an otherwise ordinary Friday evening, a stranger entered the Imam Zaman mosque in West Kabul, just as worshippers were completing the evening prayer.

Unnoticed in the crowd, he detonated the explosives hidden in his vest, killing at least 50 people –*including a 14-year-old boy in the eighth grade –and injuring another 50. By the next morning, the strange man was identified as Abu Ammar al-Turkmani. He had been sent to the mosque, full of worshippers from Afghanistan’s Shi’a minority, by the local branch of the Iraq and Syria-based so-called Islamic State group.

The bombing marked the*second*time in a less than a month that a Shi’a place of worship had come under attack in the Afghan capital.*It’s also one of six attacks against security forces and civilians by armed groups over the last week, leading the parliament to call top security officials in for*questioning, as they have several times in the*past*when insecurity begins to spike.*The attacks come as the United States sends a few thousand more troops mostly as trainers and advisers to Afghan forces to bolster the roughly 11,000 U.S. forces stationed there, and calls into question whether the modest boost in numbers will have an impact on security.

In the Dasht-e Barchi neighborhood where the mosque bomber hit, it felt personal. The memories of a Sept. 29*blast*targeting another Shi’a place of worship in the Qalai Faetullah neighborhood of Kabul were still fresh, so residents pitched in to take care of their own.

Some began to drive the injured to a nearby hospital. Others began to take up arms, according to local residents who spoke to The Cipher Brief. Hours after the attack, locals were stopping and searching passing cars themselves.

“Everyone in there were our family and our friends, we knew them all,” Abdullah, a fruit seller near the mosque, said the following morning. A few meters down the road, a makeshift black banner hung from the Barchi Business Center, with the handwritten words: “Mourners of Imam Zaman martyrs.”

The Imam Zaman mosque was also the second attack on a place of worship on Friday. In the afternoon, a bombing in a*mosque*in the central province of Ghor left at least 30 people dead.

No group claimed responsibility for the Ghor bombing, but Mohammad Iqbal Nizami, spokesman for the provincial police chief, said the*target*appeared to be a local commander, Abdul Ahed, a former militia leader who had since allied with the government.

Located along a principal arms and drug smuggling route, Ghor is home to more than*130*separate armed groups who control 70 percent of the mountainous province.

Both attacks came after a particularly bloody week in Afghanistan. According to the United Nations, six attacks across the East, west and south of the country over the last week have taken a particularly heavy toll on the lives of civilians and the Afghan National Security Forces.

“This week alone, hundreds of Afghan civilians going about their daily lives, including practicing their religious faith, have fallen victims to brutal acts of violence,” António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, said in a*statement.

Equally troubling is that Friday’s attacks brought the number of attacks on mosques since August to five. An Aug. 1 attack targeted a Shi’a mosque in the Western city of Herat. At least*33 people were later killed when a suicide bomber and a gunman stormed the Jawadia mosque. And the first attack on a Kabul mosque came on Aug. 25, when*30*people were killed in another ISIS-claimed bombing targeting the Shi’a minority.

Nader, a shop worker in Kabul’s Chicken Street shopping district, echoed a commonly held sentiment while watching television coverage of the Imam Zaman attack.

“What is this country coming to, we aren’t safe in a mosque and we aren’t safe on the streets, the enemy is everywhere now,” he said.

Ali M. Latifi is a Kabul-based freelance correspondent. He has reported for the Los Angeles Times, The New York times and Al Jazeera English, with a particular focus on Afghan refugees in Greece and Turkey.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.longwarjournal.org/arch...uicide-bomber-kills-15-afghan-army-cadets.php

Taliban suicide bomber kills 15 Afghan army cadets

By Bill Roggio | October 21, 2017 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio
Comments 2

The Taliban killed 15 Afghan army cadets in a suicide attack that targeted their bus outside of a training center in the capital of Kabul today. The suicide attack was the latest in a series of bombings and assaults by the Taliban and rival Islamic State that have killed scores of Afghan soldiers, policemen, and civilians over the past week.

The Taliban has killed at least 36 policemen, 55 soldiers, and 20 civilians, and captured 16 more soldiers in four separate attacks in Farah, Ghazni, Kandahar, and Paktia this week. Meanwhile, the Islamic State killed more than 70 civilians in two suicide attacks at Shia mosques in Kabul and Ghor province yesterday.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed that one of the group’s suicide bombers attacked the cadet’s bus earlier today. The Afghan Ministry of Defense confirmed that 15 Afghan soldiers were killed and four more were wounded, according to Khaama Press.

Zabihulla-M @ZabihullaM4
#ãäÕæÑí:#ÊÇÒå: ää ۳ ÈÌې �å ˜ÇÈá ˜ې ÏãÇÑÔÇá Ýåیã äÙÇãí ǘÇÏãۍ ãÎې Êå ÏÏÝÇÚ æÒÇÑÊ ÇړæäÏ ۱۵ ÇÝÓÑÇä �å ÝÏÇíí ÈÑیÏ ˜ې ææŽá Ôæá ګڼ ÔãíÑ ټ�íÇä Ïí.
Follow

Zabihulla-M @ZabihullaM4

#Flash
Today at 3pm a martyr attack killed 15 MoD personnel & wounded multiple in front of Marshal Fahim Academy of #Kabul
7:32 AM - Oct 21, 2017
2
2 Replies
8
8 Retweets
13
13 likes

The Taliban has used this method of attack in the Afghan capital numerous times in the past. Most recently, at the end of July, a Taliban suicide bomber struck a bus carrying employees from the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, killing 36 civilians and wounding 40 more. The Taliban, which is sensitive about killing civilians, claimed all of those killed and wounded were “intelligence services employees.”

Resolute Support, NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, claimed that today’s bombing in Kabul “shows the insurgents are desperate and cannot win.”

Resolute Support
✔
@ResoluteSupport

This attack in #Kabul shows the insurgents are desperate and cannot win against #ANDSF on the battlefield (2/2)
5:58 AM - Oct 21, 2017
15
15 Replies
17
17 Retweets
36
36 likes

However, the Taliban has sustained offensive operations in all areas of the country and has experienced battlefield successes against a struggling Afghan military. Earlier this week*in Paktia, the Taliban launched a complex suicide assault on police headquarters and a training center in the capital of Gardez. Paktia’s police chief was among those killed. In Farah, Ghazni, and Kandahar, the police and soldiers were killed or captured as the Taliban took control of three district centers or overran a military base. The Taliban controls and contests more districts in Afghanistan than perhaps any time since the US military ousted them from power in 2002.

In addition to the Taliban operations, the Islamic State continues to maintain the capacity to launch deadly suicide attacks in multiple areas of the country despite a concerted US and Afghan military offensive against the group’s stronghold in Nangarhar.

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

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/dipl...rs-massive-military-shake-meet-threats-worlds

China's leadership reshuffle 2017

China has the world’s biggest military force. Now Xi Jinping wants it to be the best

Big changes in the wings for China’s military hardware and top brass

Minnie Chan
minnie.chan@scmp.com

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 19 October, 2017, 8:02am
UPDATED : Monday, 23 October, 2017, 3:52pm
Comments 266

The Chinese military will embark on a massive hardware upgrade and top personnel shake-up under President Xi Jinping’s orders for the PLA to become a world-class fighting force in the next three decades.

Laying out his ambitious plan for the People’s Liberation Army in a report to the Communist Party’s national congress on Wednesday, Xi said the PLA must modernise by 2035 and become a top-ranked military by 2050.

“A military force is built to fight. Our military must regard combat readiness as the goal for all its work and focus on how to win when it is called upon,” Xi said.

He said technology was at the core of combat strength and the PLA needed to apply information technology and modern warfare strategies to advance.

Video

Xi also said the military’s ongoing overhaul should include changes to the PLA’s top brass, better integration between the civilian and military sectors, and stronger border defence forces.

7 things you need to know about Xi Jinping’s vision of a ‘new era’ for China

Military specialists said Xi was urging the PLA to ramp up equipment and troop changes and promote more young generals to put the military on a par with its Western counterparts.

The PLA has been through an upheaval this year, with its seven military regions trimmed down to five theatre commands and the navy benefiting from a major build-up.

The changes come as China continues to bicker with its neighbours over claims in the South and East China seas and is extending its military presence abroad, setting up a base in Djibouti.

Beijing has also been driven to modernise by the US’ military deployment in the Asia-Pacific and Washington’s defence ties with China’s neighbours.

Beijing-based military expert Zhou Chenming said the 2050 goal suggested Xi felt China faced the looming threat of a security crisis.

“After several decades of peace with the end of the cold war, China is now facing a lot of security challenges, and Xi foresees that a war could happen at any time. But the PLA’s fighting capacity still lags behind those of the world’s superpowers like the United States,” Zhou said.

Military analysts also said the powerful Central Military Commission, which Xi chairs, was destined for big changes. Nearly 90 per cent of the military delegates to the party congress are new faces while two CMC heavyweights have been ousted.

The road ahead for China – in Xi Jinping’s words

In the past two months, General Fang Fenghui, former head of the CMC’s Joint Staff Department, has been replaced by General Li Zuocheng, a decorated veteran of the Sino-Vietnamese war; and General Zhang Yang, former head of the commission’s Political Work Department has been sacked and his position filled by Admiral Miao Hua, formerly the PLA Navy’s political commissar.

Military sources said Xi would probably put his own men in key CMC positions to push through his reforms.

Among the front runners for advancement are Li; CMC vice-chairman Xu Qiliang; General Zhang Youxia, a former CMC member who oversaw equipment development and space projects; and General Wei Fenghe, former commander of the newly establishment Rocket Force.

Hong Kong-based military observer Liang Guoliang said Xi might promote more generals like Li with real combat experience or other young innovative senior officers to the CMC.

“Xi understands that China’s military strategies created by Mao Zedong, such as partisan tactics and the human wave strategy, are all outdated. Only new generals are willing to come up with new thinking to meet the military’s modernisation,” Liang said.

Related topics
China's leadership reshuffle 2017
China's leadership reshuffle 2017: All articles
China's leadership reshuffle 2017: Xi's agenda
China's leadership reshuffle 2017: Big picture

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://thestrategybridge.org/the-b...tive-analysis-of-western-and-islamic-precepts

#WritingContest2017

Terrorism and Just War: A Comparative Analysis of Western and Islamic Precepts

Russell Worth Parker October 22, 2017
Earlier this year,*The Strategy Bridge*asked university and professional military education students to participate in our first annual writing contest by sending us their thoughts on strategy.

Now, we are pleased to present one of the essays selected for honorable mention, from Russell Worth Parker of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.

Introduction
The years since 2001 leave the United States in a strategic fog. What began as an effort to destroy Al Qaeda in Afghanistan spread to South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Levant in a war that seems long on how and short on why. Civil war in Syria and continued unrest in Iraq made the fertile crescent ready ground for the rise of the Islamic State. Subsequent population displacement in extant warzones and radicalization of native populations gave rise to attacks in Europe. Even the United States, long reliant on geography as a bulwark, has seen militant Islamic violence, revealing the shallow thought behind the bumper sticker notion that we have to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here, and reinforcing the impetus for an ever widening, vaguely defined war reliant on aging authorizations disconnected from classic Just War Theory.

The Just War Theory historically relied upon in the modern Western way of war has not been tested under a similarly constant, low intensity, yet grinding state of conflict. Regardless, philosophical legitimacy has become a strategic factor, and capitalizing on it requires understanding moral and legal justifications for warfare in both Western and Islamic thought. Examination of Western and Islamic jurisprudence offers answers to three key questions that may inform policy makers and strategists seeking to establish moral legitimacy in a war that has no visible end:
What are the essential tenets of Western Just War Theory?

Is there an Islamic parallel to Western Just War Theory and if so, what are its essential tenets?

Finally, are atrocities of Islamic militants countenanced under an Islamic Just War Theory?

Understanding Western precepts of Just War Theory, analogous concepts within Islamic jurisprudence, and analyzing militant Islamic movement actions against them may offer strategists and policymakers philosophical means from which to attack the legitimacy of militant Islamic movements and thereby weaken their critical popular support.

What are the Western Tenets of Just War?

St Augustine By Justuvus an Gent, c 1474 (Wikimedia)

The Western theory of Just War finds genesis in Augustine’s deliberations on Christianity and warfare. Just War Theory sets forth standards, both jus ad bellum (rules governing if a war may be fought) and jus in bello (rules governing how a war is fought), standards which must be met if a war is to be considered just.

Christian philosophers have posed numerous notions designed to restrain recourse to and prosecution of war. Augustinian jus ad bellum was intended to guide medieval leaders in their approach to war. According to Stephen E. Lammers, the key jus ad bellum criterion for prosecution of a Just War demand war be publicly declared by competent authority, fought with the right intention, fought for a just cause, fought for a proportionate reason, fought for a just peace, and a last resort.[1]

Modern ideas of morality and proportionality, as well as motives for waging war have shifted the balance of concern away from jus ad bellum considerations, leaving jus in bello as the guiding principle in the western way of warfare. Lammers identifies two essential considerations for jus in bello under the Christian ideal: discrimination (avoiding targeting noncombatants and ensuring precision of military action) and proportionality (both of response and effect thereof).[2] This is especially important in irregular warfare, where the objective may be the populace as much as any geographic objective.

Western Just War Theory places a premium on avoiding the intentional targeting of, and unintended collateral damage to, non-combatants. Western emphasis on the use of precision weapons or simply foregoing a strike to avoid collateral casualties supports this claim. Where discrimination proves strategically impossible, Just War Theory demands a response be proportionate to the action that compels it. Proportionality dictates a military operation not cause greater harm than the act it was designed to counter/prevent. Examples may be seen in the Coalition decision not to push into Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War or rules of engagement designed to minimize civilian deaths or damage to structures. One may even argue the use of atomic bombs in World War II illustrates proportionality, since casualty estimates for an invasion of Japan exceeded 1,000,000 Allied lives, with similar estimates for Japanese military and civilians. While the actual casualties suffered between Hiroshima and Nagasaki reached 200,000, they represented only 10% of invasion estimates.[4]

The jus in bello considerations of Just War Theory are critical to the Western way of war. Sixteen years of warfare have made clear that militant Islam follows different norms, but are those methods representative of the religion that the enemy claims to represent or are do militant Islamic forces ignore Islamic parallels to Western notions of Just War?

Is There an Islamic Parallel to Western Just War Theory?

Shari’a law is interpreted by Islamic scholars from the teachings of Mohammed in the Qu’ran. Those judgments constitute authority amongst the followers and adherents of those scholars. This aspect of the culture is used well by militant Islamic movements and much less so by the West.


Qu’ranic laws related to Just War largely parallel the Christian jus ad bellum requirements, with a critical difference. As Sohail Hashmi explains, “There is no analogue in Islamic texts to Aquinas' Question 40: ‘Are some wars permissible?’ The Islamic discourse on war and peace begins from the a priori assumption that some types of war are permissible—indeed, required by God—and that all other forms of violence are, therefore, forbidden.”[5] Professor John Kelsay synthesized the key elements required by Sunni Islam for a war to be just. There must be Just Cause (Shi’ite Scholars offer examples such as self-defense or war to expand the reach of Islam, geographically and/or culturally).[6] There must be an invitation to the enemy to accept Islam and a declaration of Muslim intent to fight if the acceptance is not forthcoming.[7] The declarant must possess Right Authority.[8] The war must be fought in accordance with Islamic values.[9] The editors of The Crescent and the Cross: Muslim and Christian Approaches to War and Peace offer additional analogues to western Just War concepts: right intention, reasonable prospect of success, last resort, and proportionality.[10]

If Islamic views of jus ad bellum are essentially expressed in the preceding five ideals, what then of jus in bello? Islamic scholars are in basic agreement about Qu’ranic jus in bello. The Qu’ran says, “Fight in the way of God those who fight against you, but do not transgress. God does not love the transgressor.”[11] One Qu’ranic scholar defined transgression as “initiation of fighting, fighting those with whom a treaty has been concluded, surprising the enemy without first inviting them to make peace, destroying crops or killing those who should be protected.”[12] To satisfy Islamic jus in bello requirements and avoid transgression Muslim combatants must utilize discrimination and proportionality.[13]

According to Robert Jeffrey Williams, the Qu’ran clearly mandates discrimination by commanding, “Believers, show discernment when you go to fight for the cause of God, and do not say to those that offer you peace: ‘You are not Believers’…therefore show discernment; God is cognizant of all your actions.”[14] Similarly, the Qu’ran proscribes the killing of “the very old, the infant, the child or the woman.”[15] Jurists agreed on prohibiting the intentional killing of women and children. Islamic jurists appear to concur that male non-believers who reject an offer to convert to Islam are just targets in war. The presence of innocent Muslims in a target area posed a problem that remains unresolved.[16]

Islamic Just War Theory mandates attacks be proportional in both response and effect. This requirement adds a religious component to the question of which types of weapons are acceptable for use. Again looking at the debate amongst early Islamic jurists, the agreement is unanimous that “when two armies face each other, the Muslims could inflict harm on the disbelievers by throwing arrows, stones, striking with swords, stabbing with lances, or throwing boiling water upon them.” Modern weapons have progressed far beyond this stage, but the intent seems clear; conventional weapons in direct combat are an acceptable manner in which to engage non-believers. Modern students of Islam, informed by extant capabilities for existential destruction cite the Qu’ranic prohibition on the use of fire as a weapon.[17] As a result, pious Muslims proscribe nuclear weapons because they use fire to burn the enemy, “cause destruction on the earth,” kill many innocents, and the results could be suicidal.[18] Ancient jurists seem less clear regarding the use of fire, but it is clear that for an Islamic military action to be just, it must be proportional in response to an action.

Are Militant Islamic Atrocities Justified under Islamic Just War Theory?

Sayeed Qutb on trial in Egypt (Wikimedia)

“Genuine Islam condemns terrorism as clearly as the Bishops in Ireland condemn the IRA.”[19] Mainstream Islam denounces indiscriminate terrorism, but as surely as some Christian subsets use the Bible to spread hate and intolerance, Islam is vulnerable to similar treatment. Movements like those embodied by Al Qaeda and the Islamic State do just that, citing Sayeed Qutb’s dictate in Signposts that “Muslim leaders who govern through non-Islamic systems such as capitalism or communism…should be declared unbelievers and become the targets of revolutionary jihad.”[20] This is the justification for their violations of Islam’s clear jus ad bellum and jus in bello restrictions. Understanding the disparities may allow strategists to divine plans to deconstruct and invalidate militant Islamic arguments and actions.

In addressing specific inadequacies of militant Islamic positions on warfare, it is important to explore the specific Islamic rules of rebellion, and their jus ad bellum strictures. Militant Islamic movements perceive their actions as revolutionary and assert Sayeed Qutb’s revolution against Western influence and perceived corruption of Islamic purity as justification for horrific acts. Whether a Muslim could rebel against an unjust ruler was determined via a three-fold test: Had there been an act of rebellion against the unjust ruler (an “express violation of law”)? Was the rebellion in keeping with Islamic juridical rulings? Was the rebel group of substantial size and organization?[21] Furthermore, rebellion is allowed when the struggle is to regain what has been stolen, be it property, territory, or rights.[22]

Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and associated movements, have issued proclamations and committed acts against unjust rulers as they define them. The increasingly global reach and organization of groups like the Islamic State clearly meets the size and organization requirement for a just Islamic rebellion. As to the second requirement, however, the fundamental underpinnings of both organizations lay with self-styled Islamic jurists of varied pedigree, a critical flaw. The elemental question is whether militant Islamic actions are in keeping with Islamic juridical rulings. The answer must be no; they are de facto illegitimate and unjust. Militant Islam’s justification for, and prosecution of, war against the West fails to meet much more prevalent Islamic juridical requirements for jus ad bellum and jus in bello.

Osama Bin Laden’s justification for rebellion against Muslim leaders and attacks against western targets found genesis with Sayeed Qutb. Qutb specifically addressed rebellion against Muslim leaders when he introduced the idea of takfir (declaring a ruler, or any other Muslim, an unbeliever based on his actions).[23] However, militant Islamic groups should be evaluated under the same jus ad bellum standards used by Islamic scholars since the 12th Century and synthesized by scholars such as Kelsay. Through that lens, militant justifications for their actions are illegitimate violations of basic Islamic tenets of warfare.

Osama bin Laden being interviewed by Hamid Mir (Hamid Mir/Wikimedia)

The Western ideals of Just War Theory mandate just causus belli before hostilities between sovereign states commence. Under Western ideals, a war waged by a non-state actor is violative of the requirement for failure to establish Just Cause. Under Islamic Just War Theory, Just Cause is generally recognized as self-defense or a battle for the expansion of the faith. Bin Laden offered the notion that his actions were a form of Muslim self-defense, even referencing proportionality when he said, “Americans should expect reactions from the Muslim world that are proportionate to the injustice they inflict,” but his actions gave lie to the weakness of his arguments. Fighting ideas with violence is hardly proportional, even if one invokes power imbalance as justification.[24] In 1995, Bin Laden laid out his position against King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, claiming Saudi Arabia was uncommitted to Sunni Islam, could not defend itself (thus relying on non-Muslims for protection), and wasted public funds. Simultaneously Bin Laden called for war against Americans on Saudi soil. One year later he issued a “Declaration of War Against the Americans Who Occupy the Land of the Two Holy Mosques,” in which he offered his movement as a means to defend Saudi oilfields from “USA Crusader military forces.”[25] Bin Laden’s claim to wage a war of self-defense fails on its merits, though. Kelsay defines Islamic self-defense as that waged “in defense of a political entity identified with Islamic values,” presumptively a sovereign government.[26] Ignoring any requirement for sovereignty, and using the most expansive and accommodating definition, one may view militant Islamic movements as Islamic political entities, but there is no credible Islamic militant claim to a genuine war for state survival, thereby invalidating any claim to a right of violent defense.

Right Authority originally referred to the Abbasid Caliphate assertion that only the head of an Islamic sovereign could initiate war. This requirement was due to the fact that only a Muslim leader could ensure that all Just War requirements, both jus ad bellum and jus in bello, were properly executed. In a theocratic state there is little distinction between religious and state leaders, therefore the requirement remains in an altered state, allowing religious leaders to make a case for war. Lacking a true state, militant Islam lacks any of the authority required to have Right Authority. The Islamic State represents the most credible effort to establish a state, but its credibility wanes with territorial losses. In the late 90s, the unrecognized Taliban state supported Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Since 2001, no state has supported or endorsed Al Qaeda or its actions on the world stage. Since Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are Sunni movements lacking Islamic religious authority in the eyes of the Shi’a, neither may lay claim to represent the ummah (the Islamic world) unless the non-Islamic world discounts the religious belief of the majority Shi’a Islam. Wahhabist Sunni Islam does not maintain this Right Authority requirement, merely requiring a leader be present to make the decision to wage offensive jihad.[27] Without religious authority, militant Islamic movements lack the authority to issue the religious orders they repeatedly transmit to the Islamic world congregation. This requirement makes the leadership of self-proclaimed Caliph Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi of the Islamic State that much more pernicious, given his educational credibility. However, if one or more associated militant Islamic groups did represent a unified Muslim world and were recognized as a sovereign state with all rights appurtenant, it would be in gross violation of Article 51 of the universally applicable Charter of the United Nations, mandating self-defense is allowed only against “armed attack.”[28]

The self-appointed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (AP)

The fourth jus ad bellum requirement in John Kelsay’s analysis is that of the mandate to wage war according to Islamic values. This is connected to jus in bello, as it requires the contemplation of what form military action will take and what the subsequent results of that action, before it is initiated. Why militant Islamic groups fail to meet this requirement will be made more clear by following treatment of the two jus in bello Islamic concepts.

Right intention is not one of Kelsay’s requirements, but other Islamic scholars recognize it. Islam requires that its warriors fight only for God, not aggrandizement, glory, or booty. Again, offering maximum credence to militant Islamic philosophy, it is possible to acknowledge that they believe they fight for God. A statement by Osama Bin Laden regarding the House of Saud and demanding the return of “Islamic law, and…real shura (consultative government)” lends credence to this notion.[29] In an impartial analysis, one must acknowledge that from the perspective of militant Islamism, Bin Laden may have possessed right intention. Nonetheless, a world composed of civilized cultures cannot ignore the violence that accompanies militant Islam in order to accept a separate set of rules for its adherents. From the perspective of Islam as a whole, militant Islamic groups may be seen as fighting to sow disorder and are lacking in Right Intention.[30]

Continued...

 

[Housecarl]

Continued...

Perhaps the simplest jus ad bellum element to analyze is that of the Prospect of Success. Lone wolves aside, there has been no global militant Islamic uprising. In 2014, the Islamic State experienced stunning initial success in establishing quasi-governmental operations in Syria and Iraq, but much of that has been reversed. The rationale for militant Islamic attempts at a seemingly impossible task may lie in an Islamic test for an action’s legitimacy absent a religious decree: “...try it and see; if it works, then divine baraka [power/influence] was present and the leader’s rule is approved by God.”[31] Perhaps the current Islamic State campaign of terror is a grand experiment in horror, and its current decline may be exploited as indications of a divine decision regarding the validity of the movement. However, if the measure of success is militant Islamic sovereignty over Mecca and Medina, there seems no prospect of success. Though Saudi Arabia is home to Wahhabism, one of the most severe schools of Islamic belief, and support for militant Islam flows from the oil producing states, petro-dollars enriched the oil producing states to astronomical levels and the trappings of modernity are entrenched.[32] Militant Islamic groups cannot hope to turn back the tide. Nor is there hope for a militant Islamic group or coordinated movement of groups to win a conventional military war against better trained, better equipped Western forces with superior equipment, tactics, and war-fighting skills. Bin Laden called for “using fast-moving, light forces that work under complete secrecy.”[33]

Both Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have used this tactic to some effect; the former by forming a network encompassing the northern half of Africa, the Levant, and the Middle East; the latter by effecting a sudden, rapid attack throughout Eastern Syria and Western and Northern Iraq. Still, the best hope for either would have to be to simply outlast the Western presence in the Middle East, an increasingly unlikely notion for any form of militant Islamic government meaning militant Islamic groups fail to meet the requirement for Prospect of Success.

Last Resort is yet another area where militant Islamic groups fail. It is a troublesome requirement, as Qu’ranic rules prohibit Muslims from surrendering to oppression.[34] Muslim scholars have made it clear that last resort does not mean the exclusion of any military action regardless of the result. Such a notion would be counter to the demands of the jus ad bellum requirement for reasonable chances of success.[35] However, the militant Islamic default to violence diminishes any claims to Last Resort.

The final jus ad bellum requirement in Islam is that of Proportionality. Proportionality requires the harm suffered is proportional to the good achieved. Since 9/11, countless Muslims died either as a direct effect of militant violence or a collateral damage suffered in a response. From the perspective of a militant Islamic group, the good achieved thus far seems to be Western deaths, symbolic strikes against the Western power structure, and the slow bleed of Western resources and corresponding diminution of will. To cite a glaring example, the 9/11 attacks did inflict damage on both the American psyche and economy, but they ultimately resulted in a massive loss of life in Muslim countries, the unseating of the Taliban, the elimination of an Al Qaeda power base in Afghanistan, the occupation of Iraq and subsequent ongoing bombing campaign against the Islamic State, and unprecedented number of American forces in Muslim countries.

Militant Islamic groups fail to meet seven out of eight Islamic jus ad bellum requirements for just war, a fact that should be capitalized upon by planners, especially information operations professionals. However, given the battle has been joined, those who would make sense of the current conflict must analyze it under the jus in bello requirements of proportionality and discrimination.

The true distinction of proportionality is the form a rebellion, or act of warfare, takes. Islamic rebellion is just if kept within the bounds of proportionality.[36]*During the U.S. Civil War Francis Lieber, legal adviser to General Henry Halleck, offered the opinion that soldiers fighting an irregular war cannot be just if they do not ascribe to the same code as the regular soldiers they are fighting.[37] His ideas were rooted in Western notions of just war, but, as we have seen above, Islamic ideas of just war follow so closely with western requirements that his analysis has value. Lieber’s work is a good point from which to analyze acts of terror committed in the name of Islam. As noted, Islamic Just War Theory requires Just Cause, two examples of which may be self-defense or the expansion of Islamic influence. In Lieber’s analysis, irregular warriors do not represent a sovereign and thus lack right authority. [38]Tactics employed in irregular war may fail to meet the discrimination and proportionality requirements for jus in bello under Islamic or Western analyses.[39] Many Christian and Muslim leaders agree: “What is missing from modern Islamic organizations engaged in irregular war is any real discussion of the in bello limits to be placed on the means to be used.”[40] Herein lies the problem. Classical Islam embraced the debate of whether an irregular warrior could fight a just war. Modern militant Islam seems to have discarded that debate in enthusiastic acceptance of the notion that he or she must.

The second World Trade Center tower explodes into flames after being hit by an airplane, New York September 11, 2001, with the Brooklyn Bridge in the foreground.(Sara K. Schwittek/Reuters)

Under the jus in bello analysis, proportionality deals with response and effect of that response. Here again, militant Islam fails. Taking the 9/11 attacks as the most glaring example, Al Qaeda ignored the requirements for proportional action in warfare and attacked civilian targets posing no military threat. Though the Pentagon was a clearly military target, the taking of non-military lives aboard American Airlines Flight 77 invalidates any claims to proportionality in that attack. Furthermore, the use of airplanes carrying thousands of gallons of aviation fuel against civilian targets is an arguably clear violation of the Islamic proscription against the use of weapons of mass destruction, one Bin Laden would have repeated, saying of weapons of mass destruction, “Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so.”[41]

Discrimination in targeting is the second element required for actions taken in war to be just under Islamic rules. Muslims are prohibited from using poison or weapons of mass destruction, killing wounded, or mutilating dead bodies.[42] It is here that militant Islamic groups notoriously violate the rules of the religion they claim as their motivation for waging war time and time again.

Bin Laden claimed ultimate responsibility for the 1993 killing and subsequent mutilation of American soldiers in Somalia, a less direct but morally culpable violation of the Qu’ranic prohibition on the mutilation of bodies.[43] Mutilation of the dead is unlawful under Islamic jus in bello tenets. The use of suicide bombers against the USS Cole, the World Trade Centers, and the Pentagon, in violation of the Islamic prohibition against suicide, is yet another example of the ideological bankruptcy of militant Islamic groups.

This total disregard for target discrimination should come as no surprise considering Bin Laden’s 1998 statement calling for an attack on all Americans: “The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilian and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it.”[44] Clearly, militant Islam discounts the Qu’ranic prohibition on the intentional killing of women and children, regardless of their religion. This is one area that virtually all Muslim jurists have agreed upon, and Al Qaeda’s conscious decision to issue a fatwa countering the rule is a clear violation of the most basic Islamic rules of jus in bello.

Conclusion
Simply put, militant Islamic groups broadly fail to meet the Islamic standards for Just War. Though morally bankrupt and ideologically unsound according to Islamic jurisprudence, these movements kill others for supposedly failing, weakening, and/or ignoring Islam as they profess it. As the Islamic State falls back in Mosul and Raqqa, they will rise again elsewhere. The Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan portends a prolonging of that fight. However, clear-eyed analysis of the ideological illegitimacy of militant Islamic groups may offer strategists and planners means to attack their philosophical foundations, thus weakening their recruiting efforts, delegitimizing their actions for fence sitters, and cementing broad popular opinion against them. Planners must understand the enemy at their fundament and be able to attack them accordingly.

Russell Worth Parker is a career United States Marine Corps Special Operations Officer, currently assigned to Headquarters, US Special Operations Command. He is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado and the Florida State University College of Law. He is currently a candidate for a Master of Arts in Conflict Management and Resolution at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Special Operations Command, the United States Marine Corps, the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, or the United States Government.

Have a response or an idea for your own article? Follow the logo below, and you too can contribute to The Bridge:

Enjoy what you just read? Please help spread the word to new readers by sharing it on social media.

Header Image: Mosque (Times Higher Education)

Notes:
[1] Stephen E. Lammers, Approaches to Limits on War in Western Just War Discourse, in Cross, Crescent and Sword: The Justification of War in Western and Islamic Traditions, 58 (John Kelsay & James Turner Johnson, eds.,1990).
[2] Id. at 57.
[3] ScienceDaily.com, Operation Downfall.
[4] The Avalon Project at Yale Law School, The Avalon Project.
[5] Sohail Hashmi, Interpreting the Islamic Ethics of War and Peace, Princeton University Press.
[6] John Kelsay, Islam and War: A Study in Comparative Ethics 39 (1993). One example of justification for expansionism came from Iran in 1985; “We, [Iran] have repeatedly shown in our foreign and international policy that we have been and are intent on expanding the influence of Islam in the world and lessening the domination of the world devourers. Now, if the servants of the United States cite this policy as being expansionist and motivated to establish a great empire, we will not fear it but welcome it…We are intent on tearing out the roots of corrupting Zionism, Capitalism, and Communism in the world. We have decided to rely on God Almighty to destroy the regimes which are based on these three pillars, in order to spread the regime of the messenger of God.” Harfiyah abdel haleem, Oliver Ramsbotham, Saba Risaluddin & Brian Wicker, ed., The Crescent and The Cross: Muslim and Christian Approaches to War and Peace 112 (1998). See Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran 2:251 (1956). “War becomes a necessity to stop evil from triumphing in a way that would corrupt the earth.”
[7] John Kelsay, Islam and War: A Study in Comparative Ethics 35 (1993). See Yasir S. Ibrahim, M.A. thesis, A Translation of Al-Tabari’s Book of the Disagreement Among Muslim Jurists: The Book of Jihad, at 9 (1998). Ibrahim points out: “There is unanimous agreement [among Muslim jurists (fuqaha’) that the Messenger of God did not wage warfare with his enemies from among the disbelievers before [first] making the call [to embrace Islam]…”
[8] Id. at 35.
[9] Id. at 36.
[10] Harfiyah abdel haleem, Oliver Ramsbotham, Saba Risaluddin & Brian Wicker, ed., The Crescent and The Cross: Muslim and Christian Approaches to War and Peace 113 (1998). Fighting is to be “fi sabil illah” (in the way of God). War cannot be waged for personal glory or the simple expansion of territory (though if expanding geographic boundaries of Islam is the purpose of conquering territory it is acceptable.) War that is under taken without a clear calculation of the measure of success is in violation of this precept. Last resort is problematic, because of the implications of waiting till the last possible moment to defend the faith. Haleem et al. link last resort to Kelsay’s requirement that an “adversary be given the chance to accept Islam or pay a tax.” Jus ad bellum requirements of proportionality differ from jus in bello. Here proportionality means that the harm done by war is proportionate to the good achieved.
[11] Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran 2:190 (1956).
[12] Harfiyah abdel haleem, Oliver Ramsbotham, Saba Risaluddin & Brian Wicker, ed., The Crescent and The Cross: Muslim and Christian Approaches to War and Peace 116 (1998).
[13] Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran 2:190 (1956). See Harfiyah abdel haleem, Oliver Ramsbotham, Saba Risaluddin & Brian Wicker, ed., The Crescent and The Cross: Muslim and Christian Approaches to War and Peace 117 (1998). The Qu’ran specifies that only combatants may be attacked. Mohammed himself proscribed the killing of women, children, the elderly, and animals or the destruction of an enemy’s crop. Furthermore, Muslims are not to fight those who are not fighting or to attack non-combatants at all. Haleem et al. explain that “…wars and weapons of destruction that destroy civilians and their towns are excluded by the Qu’ran and the word and the deed of the Prophet, these being the only binding authority in Islamic law.” Id. at 2:194. The Qu’ran directs believers “whoever attacks you, attack him just as he has attacked you. Be conscious of Allah and know that he is with those who are conscious of him.” In more modern times, Iran has submitted an opinion to the International Court of Justice maintaining that “the right to self-defense as provided by Article 51 of the Charter, cannot be invoked to justify the use of nuclear weapons. The right to self-defense is limited by the general principles of necessity and proportionality”
[14] Robert Jeffrey Williams, Ph. D. Thesis, A Socio-Historical Analysis of Warfare (Jihad and Qital) In Primitive Islam, (1994).
[15] Id. at 157.
[16] Yasir S. Ibrahim, M.A. thesis, A Translation of Al-Tabari’s Book of the Disagreement Among Muslim Jurists: The Book of Jihad, at 9 (1998). Some advocated killing anyone able to fight, to include those who may someday be able to fight, such as wounded young men. Other jurists recommended killing any and all non-believers. Still other jurists were proponents of sparing women and children, though in early Islam sparing could mean enslavement.
[17] Harfiyah abdel haleem, Oliver Ramsbotham, Saba Risaluddin & Brian Wicker, ed., The Crescent and The Cross: Muslim and Christian Approaches to War and Peace 117 (1998).
[18] Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran 2:60 (1956). Id. at 2:19. Suicide is prohibited by the Qu’ran.
[19] Harfiyah abdel haleem, Oliver Ramsbotham, Saba Risaluddin & Brian Wicker, ed., The Crescent and the Cross: Muslim and Christian Approaches to War and Peace 121 (1998).
[20] Steve Coll, Ghost Wars 113 (2004).
[21] Harfiyah abdel haleem, Oliver Ramsbotham, Saba Risaluddin & Brian Wicker, ed., The Crescent and the Cross: Muslim and Christian Approaches to War and Peace (1998).
[22] Id. at 125.
[23] Mohammed Bazzi, Bin Laden uses 19th Century Ideas to Justify Killing Infidels, Sun-Sentinel.com (2001).
[24] Frontline, Osama Bin Laden v. The U.S.: Edicts and Statements.
[25] Id.
[26] John Kelsay, Islam and War: A Study in Comparative Ethics (1993).
[27] Abdulaziz Sachedina, Justifications for Violence in Islam, J. Lutheran of Ethics (2003), at .
[28] D. J. Harris, Cases and Materials on International Law 1060 (5th ed. 2003).
[29] Nida’ul Islam, Interview With Mujahid Usamah Bin Laden.
[30] Harfiyah abdel haleem, Oliver Ramsbotham, Saba Risaluddin & Brian Wicker, ed., The Crescent and the Cross: Muslim and Christian Approaches to War and Peace (1998).
[31] James Turner Johnson, The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions 165 (1997).
[32] John L. Esposito, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam 48 (2002).
[33] Frontline, Osama Bin Laden v. The U.S.: Edicts and Statements.
[34] Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran 4:75 (1956).
[35] Harfiyah abdel haleem, Oliver Ramsbotham, Saba Risaluddin & Brian Wicker, ed., The Crescent and the Cross: Muslim and Christian Approaches to War and Peace 115 (1998).
[36] Harfiyah abdel haleem, Oliver Ramsbotham, Saba Risaluddin & Brian Wicker, ed., The Crescent and the Cross: Muslim and Christian Approaches to War and Peace 123 (1998).
[37] John Kelsay, Islam and War: A Study in Comparative Ethics 78 (1993).
[38] Id. at 79.
[39] Id. at 79.
[40] Harfiyah abdel haleem, Oliver Ramsbotham, Saba Risaluddin & Brian Wicker, ed., The Crescent and the Cross: Muslim and Christian Approaches to War and Peace 125 (1998). The same scholars continue and say “Neither the Charter of Hamas, nor the Neglected Duty, which represents the thinking of Islamic Jihad, has much to say on the subject, though they have given much attention to ad bellum considerations. Perhaps this is only to be expected of all such organizations wherever they are. After all, their leaders and ideologues are not normally scholars of theology or ethics, although they often deploy religious texts to very persuasive effect. Yet surely such discussion of the means used is crucial, given the publicity given in the media and elsewhere to the atrocities allegedly perpetrated by such organizations, especially against innocent non-combatants.”
[41] Frontline, Osama Bin Laden v. The U.S.: Edicts and Statements.
[42] Hilmi M. Zawati, is Jihad a Just War? War, Peace, and Human Rights under Islamic and Public International Law 42 (2001).
[42] Peter L. Bergen, Holy War, Inc. 83 (2001).
[44] Frontline, Osama Bin Laden v. The U.S.: Edicts and Statements.
Tagged: Just War Theory, Islam, Terrorism, Information Environment

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nationalinterest.org/feature...ans-influence-the-middle-east-22835?page=show

A Blueprint for Minimizing Iran's Influence in the Middle East

America needs a better strategy for containing and checking Iran, and that strategy is needed now.

John AllenMichael O'Hanlon
October 21, 2017
Comments 9

President Donald Trump would be making a serious mistake were he to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—the 2015 nuclear deal between various world powers and Iran—in coming months. This action, which Trump has threatened if Congress does not act soon to toughen our overall Iran policy, would be a much more serious blow to American interests and to U.S. global leadership than Trump’s previous treaty-related decisions. Yes, he questioned alliances as a candidate, but he and his national-security team have recommitted to virtually all of them since January. Yes, he pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership before the Senate could consider ratifying it, but Hillary Clinton had promised to do the same. Yes, he pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord, another mistake. But that decision could be rescinded by a future American president, and the pact restored, with only limited harm done in the interim. By contrast, a unilateral abrogation of a painstakingly negotiated multilateral nuclear deal, blessed by UN Security Council resolution, would be a serious affront to international law, a sword in the side of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and a repudiation of the views of our core allies. Worse, it would probably be an irreversible decision, giving Iran carte blanche to resume many nuclear activities without constraint, and without any plausible way to restore the multilateral economic sanctions that had made Teheran cry uncle and negotiate the deal in the first place.

All that said, let’s take up Trump at his word, and address his challenge. He is far from wrong to voice serious concerns about Iran’s behavior throughout the broader Middle East. Many other Americans will reasonably wonder how we can reach an amicable agreement with Iran on nuclear matters while seemingly closing our eyes to Iran’s lethal adventurism throughout the region. The latter Iranian behavior, which is ongoing and unrelenting since the JCPOA was signed in 2015, also makes the nuclear deal’s “sunset provisions” even more troubling, since there is no sign that Iran is becoming less dangerous with time.

In fact, let’s be even more blunt and even more stark: over the last generation, no foreign government has more American blood on its hands than Iran’s post–1979 revolutionary theocracy. It orchestrated the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon in 1983 and the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996. In Iraq since 2003, Iran’s Quds Force has provided weaponry to both Sunni and Shia insurgents who have killed hundreds of Americans. Teheran’s ongoing efforts to foment trouble virtually wherever Shia live in the Middle East—from Eastern Saudi Arabia to Iraq and Syria to Yemen and Bahrain and beyond—have worsened wars that have killed more than five hundred thousand and displaced more than fifteen million since 2011. Its ongoing lethal support for Hamas and Hezbollah put Israel at constant peril.

So yes, we need a better strategy for containing and checking Iran, and it is needed now. If we are successful, Trump’s mistaken threat may to blow up the JCPOA may be overtaken by events in what could become a win-win for the president as well as his critics.

First, let’s take stock of where we are today in Iran policy. The United States keeps vigilant military presence in the Persian Gulf waterways to ensure the free flow of oil, lest Iran be tempted to interfere. It collaborates with security partners of the Gulf Cooperation Council to build up their regional defenses against Iran as well. And it helps Israel stay strong and secure against possible threats from Iran’s allies Hamas and Hezbollah. All these elements of a security policy aimed at Iran are sound.

However, the United States and allies struggle on other fronts. Both President Obama and President Trump have prioritized the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria over more comprehensive efforts to stabilize the two countries. Iran has profited from the security vacuum. The Yemeni civil war is yet another humanitarian catastrophe in the Middle East. The Saudi-led Arab coalition is stuck there in a quagmire. The longer that goes on the greater the human cost that provides ongoing opportunities for not just Iran but also Al Qaeda and perhaps the Islamic State. The United States must begin to assert itself with the key actors to move the peace process forward. And Washington takes too minimalist of a role in helping strengthen key countries like Jordan and Egypt, which might be vulnerable to spillover effects from the region’s wars that Iran helps stoke.

As such, a security strategy to contain and challenge Iran regionally needs to include the following elements:

- Pledge to maintain a U.S. military presence in Iraq for a longer period of time and extend the aid package for the country. Ideally, this commitment should have the support of the Gulf states and NATO allies.

This type of commitment actually dovetails well with NATO’s adaptive aspirations to help stabilize fragile states in the region. Iraq has suffered a generation of war and misrule, and years of low oil prices as well. Now, with Islamic State-held cities mostly liberated, the imperative of a successful rebuilding effort that engages all three major sectarian groups and prevents a return to civil war or the arrival of an Islamic State 2.0 is acute. A stronger, more stable Iraq will be much better positioned to resist domination by Iran. Given the stakes, and America’s previous investment, aid levels comparable to those given Afghanistan or Egypt are in order. Engaging in this way can also enable the United States to help Baghdad keep an eye on the Iran-backed Shia militias as they are partially disbanded and partially worked into Iraqi Security Forces in coming months.

- On Syria, an even tougher proposition, no single strategy is in order.

Still, the United States and like-minded states—as well as global-aid agencies—need to help provide security and economic assistance to regions free of Assad’s rule as well as the Islamic State. Some of these regions should be treated as temporary autonomous zones and help govern themselves as well. Additionally, more western and GCC military strength and support for moderate insurgents is needed in northwest parts of the country, such as in and around Idlib, where the Al Qaeda affiliate, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra, is still active. Otherwise, either the latter group or Assad’s forces backed by Russia and Iran will be the likely victor.

- Jordan, under severe threat with 1.4 million Syrian refugees enmeshed in its small population of 8 million, needs more help too.

In addition to a better strategy to wind down the Syrian civil war, Jordan requires more financial support, especially for the kinds of economic development that will provide jobs to its young and reduce their receptivity to the kind of extremism that breeds terrorism, chaos and opportunities for Tehran.

To be sure, this is only a partial list. But Trump’s unwise threats to the Iran nuclear deal can nonetheless help serve a broader purpose, or at least be prevented from creating another crisis, if we turn our minds in such directions.

John Allen and Michael O’Hanlon are senior fellows at the Brookings Institution.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://inkstickmedia.com/afghan-talibans-nuclear-umbrella/

The Afghan Taliban’s nuclear umbrella

How the Afghan Taliban came to rely on Pakistan, and what it means for Iran and North Korea

Words: Phil Walter
Photography: Union of Concerned Scientists
Date: 23rd October 2017

On May 11, 1966, the 11-member executive committee of India’s ruling congress party called for India to begin work on nuclear weapons to counter the threat of the People’s Republic of China. In 1974 India tested its first nuclear bomb. In December 1971, Pakistan lost East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to India in a war, and one month later Pakistan’s government decided to begin a secret nuclear weapons program. Pakistan acquired the capability to detonate a nuclear explosive device between 1984 and 1985.

In December 1979, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) invaded Afghanistan.

Two weeks later, US President James Carter allocated $30 million to support the Afghan resistance fighting the USSR. US President Ronald Reagan*increased this amount and by 1987, with matching funds from Saudi Arabia, the Afghan resistance received approximately $630 million annually. US support for the Afghan resistance flowed through Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, which used its position to promote Pakistani interests. US efforts supporting the Afghan resistance were successful, and the USSR departed Afghanistan on February 15, 1989. The departure of the USSR and subsequent failure of the government of Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah contributed to the rise of the Afghan Taliban who, with Pakistani support, assumed control of Afghanistan in 1996.

During the time the Afghan Taliban ruled Afghanistan, they permitted Osama bin Laden and his violent extremist group al-Qaeda to establish a safe haven there. It is this Afghan Taliban-supplied safe haven that provided Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda the freedom to plan and execute the 9/11 attacks. Following the 9/11 attacks, the US invaded Afghanistan, the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda fled, and the US and its allies and partners have been attempting to stabilize Afghanistan ever since. According to faculty research conducted at the Harvard Kennedy School, since the war in Afghanistan began, the United States has spent*trillions of dollars on efforts there. These efforts entailed committing as few as*2,500 to as many as 98,000 US armed forces members, of whom*2,216 have died, and 20,049 have been wounded.

Thanks to Pakistan’s continued support, the Afghan Taliban remain a potent fighting force. As of May 2017, the*Afghan Taliban controls 11 districts and influences 34 of Afghanistan’s 407 districts (approximately 11 percent). In addition to funding, Pakistan provides the Afghan Taliban physical safe havens from which to operate. It is in Pakistan’s interest to continue to support the Afghan Taliban for a variety of reasons, including the ability to respond to an Indian invasion, guarantee safe haven for Islamist proxies that Pakistan supports, prevent India from projecting power in South Asia, and obstruct India’s ability to support separatists in the Pakistani province of Balochistan.

All of the preceding puts the United States and its allies and partners operating in Afghanistan in a precarious position. As of this writing, US President Donald Trump agrees with former US President Barack Obama in believing that the US must stay the course in Afghanistan to ensure the Afghan Taliban do not assume power, which would contribute to Afghanistan once again becoming a safe haven for violent extremist organizations like al-Qaeda. However, the US cannot depend on the Government of Pakistan to locate, close with, and destroy the Afghan Taliban safe havens within its own borders. And despite US success in pressuring its enemies in limited wars through major cross-border offensive operations in the Korean War, Vietnam War, and the First Gulf War, similar options are seemingly not available in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater.

Of note in US cross-border offensive operations in limited wars is that North Korea, Cambodia (used as a safe haven by North Vietnam), and Iraq did not have nuclear weapons when the US crossed into their respective territories. If the US wanted to move from Afghanistan into Pakistan to destroy Afghan Taliban safe havens and pressure the Afghan Taliban into peace negotiations, the presence of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons would have to be part of the US calculus. While opinions vary regarding Pakistan’s ability to secure its nuclear arsenal, the fact remains that in such a case as the one I’ve just described, the Afghan Taliban is operating under a nuclear-armed Pakistani guarantee to come to its defense, which, in effect, is a nuclear umbrella.

It can be agued that the Afghan Taliban, operating under a nuclear umbrella provided by Pakistan, have now joined the ranks of other movements such as the Ukrainian Separatists, who operate under a nuclear umbrella provided by Russia. While there are many factors that contribute to the inability of the US and its allies and partners to succeed in Afghanistan, significant among these factors is a traditional military task of locating, closing with, and destroying the enemy. While destroying the enemy is key to any successful military campaign, as long as the Afghan Taliban are permitted by a nuclear-armed Pakistan to maintain safe havens in their sovereign territory, and the US and its allies and partners refrain from attacking due to nuclear weapons concerns, the conflict will, at best, continue to be a stalemate.

Since fear of China drove India’s nuclear weapons program which, in turn, motivated Pakistan to follow suit, and it is highly unlikely that any of these states will give up their nuclear arsenals, a permanent stalemate in Afghanistan is fait accompli. Observing the ways in which nuclear-armed states can limit US policy options, pondering what additional instability a nuclear-armed Iran could sow as its umbrella would protect the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps exporting revolution, or North Korea as its umbrella enables it to further threaten South Korea, Japan, and the US, is a worthy effort.

Phil Walter has served in the military, the intelligence community, and the inter-agency. The views expressed here are those of the author alone and do not contain information of an official nature. He can be found on Twitter @philwalter1058 and his personal website is www.philwalter1058.com.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.atimes.com/japans-nuclear-weapon-allergy-psychosomatic/

Is Japan’s nuclear weapon allergy psychosomatic?

By Grant Newsham
October 23, 2017 1:19 PM (UTC+8)
Comments 5

Despite murmurings of a nuclear armed Japan nobody quite believes it will happen. A longstanding tenet for Japan watchers is that Japan is allergic to having nuclear weapons, owing to having been bombed with them twice – in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

However, as is often the case with commonly accepted wisdom, maybe this isn’t so certain. Indeed, on closer examination, Japan’s nuclear allergy might be psychosomatic.

Japan’s aversion to nuclear weapons perhaps has less to do with the weapons themselves, and more to do with the catastrophe Japan suffered during World War II. And the 1941-1945 war was only a follow-on to a costly, bloody quagmire in China starting in 1931.

The US firebombing raids on Tokyo were no less horrific than the nuclear attacks in August 1945, and no Japanese city of any consequence was spared. Ground combat in the Pacific was equally ghastly.

Japan suffered around 3 million military and civilian deaths during the war. Adjust for population size and this would be as if the United States suffered around 6 million dead – versus the 300,000 military personnel killed and near zero civilian casualties.

After the war ended, there were victory parades in the US and the GI Bill that put veterans into college and houses. Post-war Japan was in shambles and was a place people could starve to death.

It’s easy to forget all this – and it does put Japanese attitudes towards defense (not just nuclear weapons) into a certain perspective. One fairly asks what would be American attitudes towards defense if the US experienced something similar?

Japanese resistance to developing a military that can actually fight – versus one that’s good for parades, canned exercises, and snow festivals may have some elements of laziness and pathological dependence on or cynical manipulation of the US.

But the horrific experience of World War II should not be forgotten.

As for nuclear weapons, Japan likes to portray itself as uniquely victimized. However, this is perhaps more a natural human trait to shift responsibility or even excuse failure. The Japanese are not alone.

After World War I, many Germans claimed to have been ‘stabbed in the back’ (by the Jews), and bullied by the victorious Allies at Versailles, which was really to blame for Hitler’s rise (not the German public).

And some Americans claim failure in Vietnam was owing to the biased media and anti-war protesters at home, not from bad policy or a poorly fought war.

And it’s not just the word nuclear that causes allergy symptoms to flare up in Japan.

Until just a few years ago, the word ‘amphibious’ was taboo in Japanese political, academic, bureaucratic, and even military circles – where even mentioning it ruined the careers of certain Japanese officers.

Why so? It conjured up images of Japanese forces going overseas and attacking people – and everything else that came with that in the 1930’s and 1940’s – i.e. 3 million dead, horrific suffering on the home front, and enemy occupation.

These days, however, amphibious is back on the approved vocabulary list and the Japan Self Defense Force is developing amphibious forces, seen as a necessary capability to defend Japanese islands from China.

Not even the leftist Asahi newspaper objects very much. All it took was a real threat to appear.

One senses ‘nuclear’ could also go onto the approved list before too long.

Building nuclear weapons and developing a capability to deliver them isn’t hard if Japan wishes to do so. One observer familiar with both nuclear weapons and missiles commented to me a couple months ago:

“If they want a simple atomic bomb, no sweat. If they want a boosted atomic bomb, maybe a slight bit of sweat. If they want a full fledged hydrogen bomb, some sweat but no insurmountable obstacles.

Japan does build and launch rockets and is experienced with nuclear reactors, so politics aside they should have no problem fielding a nuclear armed ICBM in a very few years if the desire is there. It is hard to think of any critical technology they couldn’t develop quickly if they didn’t have it already.”

So, suppose the Americans back off their commitment to defend Japan (or are perceived as doing so), or a North Korean missile hits Tokyo, or maybe the Chinese grab the Senkaku Islands.

In such circumstances Japan just might make a miraculous recovery from its nuclear allergy.

 

[Housecarl]

Deeds not words....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...erts-for-b-52-bombers/?utm_term=.6524720d4183

Checkpoint

The Air Force hasn’t used nuclear ‘alert pads’ since the Cold War. Now they’re being upgraded.

By Dan Lamothe October 23 at 5:59 PM
Comments 60

The U.S. military is building new flightline facilities that will enable the Air Force to position pilots and aircrews directly alongside its nuclear-capable B-52 bombers, but officials deny the move is part of any plan to put the warplanes on indefinite alert in response to tensions with North Korea.

The construction at Louisiana’s Barksdale Air Force Base includes building renovations near long-vacant “alert pads,” where during the Cold War aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons once sat ready on a continual basis. So-called “strip alerts” were discontinued in 1991 after the Soviet Union’s collapse.

In an interview published Sunday by Defense One, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein called the construction a step toward ensuring the military is prepared for all possibilities. The service is “not planning for any specific event, but more for the reality of the global situation we find ourselves in and how we ensure we’re prepared going forward,” he said.

The effort comes as the Pentagon mulls a multibillion-dollar modernization for its aging nuclear arsenal, and as it grapples with North Korea’s steady advancements in fielding a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile.

U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the military’s nuclear weapons from its headquarters in Nebraska, denied that any discussions are underway to place B-52s on alert. A spokesperson said that reports suggesting otherwise were mischaracterized.

“The day we are not prepared is the day something can happen,” said Bekah Clark, a spokeswoman for Strategic Command. “So are we preparing for the worst? Absolutely. But we were preparing yesterday, and the day the before that, and so on. And we’ll be preparing tomorrow, too.”

The Air Force, likewise, downplayed that possibility. The service is neither planning nor preparing to put B-52s on alert, said Capt. Mark Graff, a spokesman. Ongoing efforts to upgrade alert facilities, munition storage areas, dining halls and other infrastructure are necessary to “maintain a baseline of readiness,” he said.

“We do this routinely as part of our organize, train and equip mission so our forces are ready to respond when called upon,” he said.

The Pentagon’s current arrangement for nuclear weapons calls for intercontinental ballistic missile facilities to be kept on alert, along with a number of submarines that carry nuclear missiles at sea. The 2010 New START Treaty signed by the United States and Russia allowed them to keep some heavy bombers, but forbid them from putting them on alert status during peacetime.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/201...ange-strike-capabilities/141971/?oref=d-river

Japan Needs Long-Range Strike*Capabilities

By Jeffrey Hornung
October 23, 2017

Ballistic-missile defense systems alone can’t ward off regional threats. Tokyo needs firepower to deter its enemies.

There is a term to describe the mindset of Japanese people who put so much faith in Japan’s peace constitution that they are complacent about security threats. They are said to suffer from*heiwa-boke. With North Korea demonstrating increasingly sophisticated missiles and threating to sink the country with nuclear weapons, heiwa-boke*is a luxury the country can no longer afford. A serious national debate is long overdue about what Japan needs to ensure its*survival.

Japan’s effort to meet regional missile threats rests largely on a two-tiered ballistic missile defense, or BMD, system. The sea-based tier consists of destroyers equipped to intercept missiles in midcourse, outside the earth’s atmosphere. The land-based tier consists of Patriot missile batteries designed to intercept missiles in their terminal phase. Overall, Japan’s BMD system is advanced, but there are limits to what it can do. According to unclassified sources, the PAC-3 interceptors that Japan deploys in its Patriot systems have a range of about 12.5 miles, making them useful only if they happen to be placed quite near an incoming missile’s target. The destroyers and their Aegis combat systems, by contrast, can potentially protect the entire country, but the ships must be in the right place at the right time. Whether any of this covers a specific area in Japan depends on when and where the missile drops. Worst of all—for the U.S. and consequently Japan’s value for regional missile defense—the missiles North Korea fired in August and September over Hokkaido flew at a speed and lofted trajectory that put them out of reach of Japan’s BMD*completely.

To fill in the gaps, Japan could proceed with plans to purchase the land-based Aegis Ashore system and deploy more advanced missile interceptors for Japan’s sea-based and land-based systems, adding range, altitude and accuracy. While these capabilities would not protect all 127 million Japanese, especially if North Korea fires multiple missiles or uses multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, it would provide a much better chance at interception than the current*system.

But Japan is also legally constrained in how it can act. When the country passed legislation in 2015 enabling Japanese forces to exercise collective self-defense, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attached strict conditions on its use. Japan is allowed to exercise force, and to the minimum extent necessary, only when its survival is threatened — either by direct attack or an attack against a country with a close relationship to Japan — and there are no other means to repel the*attack.

The North Korean missile threat illustrates how difficult it is for Japan to actually exercise collective self-defense. Within seconds of a launch, Tokyo would have to determine the missile’s likely trajectory; if it appeared to be aimed not at Japan but elsewhere, its political leaders would have to discuss whether the situation fulfilled the conditions of collective self-defense. Could they realistically reach this conclusion fast enough to intercept the missile? And even if so, can Japan legally shoot down a missile unilaterally in the name of collective self-defense before any other country acts? Probably*not.

To boost its deterrence capabilities, Japan should consider being even more proactive. It should, in fact, contemplate acquiring the capability to strike enemy territory with long-range strike capabilities. Under the notion that Japan should not simply wait around to die if an enemy were preparing to attack, the Ichiro Hatoyama administration argued in 1956 that having capabilities that could strike enemy missile sites was*theoretically*within the constitutional right of self-defense. This interpretation even applied to Japanese strikes against another country before a missile is launched at Japan. Subsequent administrations have adhered to this interpretation, meaning Japan can constitutionally possess long-range strike capability. As a matter of policy, however, its governments have not tried to acquire them. It may be time to move beyond the*theoretical.

Assuming Japan needs long-range strike capabilities and plans to stay true to its commitment to self-defense, the government would need to clarify that the missiles would not be used preemptively. Yes, the technology is the same. So is the legal basis. The difference lies in the optics and reality of the situation. “Preemptive” looks offensive because it is extremely difficult to prove Japan is acting*in “self-defense” when an attack on Japan has not yet occurred.*The premise for initiating an attack also complicates the matter—being able to determine with absolute certainty that a launch is imminent, that the missile will strike Japan, and there are no other means to defend Japan. Easier said than*done.*

It would be politically difficult for Abe to acquire strike capabilities. He would be criticized for trampling on Japan’s pacifist constitution. The domestic opposition would likely argue that long-range missiles are “war potential” prohibited by the constitution. And countries such as China would probably complain that Abe is remilitarizing*Japan.

But the government has a responsibility to protect the lives and property of its citizens. Facing a country like North Korea, which has threatened Japan’s very existence, leaders must do everything within their grasp to protect the country. If the existing BMD system has gaps, any means for Japan to strengthen its deterrence capabilities should be welcomed. The heightened threats from North Korea could be viewed as a call for new*action.

For most of the past seven decades, Japanese political leaders could only improve security policies as fast as the pacifist public allowed. This worked during the Cold War when the technology of the Soviet Union did not change rapidly. After that era, Japan’s security policies continued to adapt to meet new challenges, albeit slowly. But North Korea’s swiftly advancing military capabilities have drastically changed the threat environment. Japan no longer has the luxury to be complacent about its security threats. It should consider making strike capabilities a top*priority.


Based in Washington, Jeffrey Hornung is a political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. He specializes in Japanese security and foreign policies, East Asian security issues, maritime security, and U.S. foreign and defense policies in the Asia-Pacific region, including its security alliance.

 

[Housecarl]

Co-Prosperity Sphere 2.0......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-c...d-in-chinese-party-charter-idUSKBN1CT1IW?il=0

#China Party Congress 2017
October 24, 2017 / 4:26 AM / Updated 6 hours ago

Pressure on as Xi's 'Belt and Road' enshrined in Chinese party charter

Brenda Goh, John Ruwitch
4 Min Read

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vast “Belt and Road” infrastructure project was unexpectedly included in the ruling Communist Party’s constitution on Tuesday, giving it greater policy heft and added pressure to succeed.

The party’s amended charter, approved at the close of its twice-a-decade congress, pledged to “pursue the Belt and Road initiative”, a further sign of Xi’s expanding power and evidence that the ambitious “Silk Road”-like initiative will endure beyond Xi’s tenure.

It also underscores how the Communist Party has increased its attention to foreign policy and reflects Xi’s growing desire for China to take a global leadership role, analysts said.

“Everyone knows that the Belt and Road is very important to Xi, it has his personal stamp and authority,” said Peter Cai, a non-resident fellow at Sydney-based think tank Lowy Institute.

“But to have major policy, especially an external engagement policy, to be written into a party constitution, at least in recent memory, it is something quite significant,” he said.

First mentioned during a speech Xi gave to university students in Kazakhstan in 2013, the plan is a vehicle for China to take a greater role on the international stage by funding and building global transport and trade links in more than 60 countries.

Xi has heavily promoted the initiative, inviting world leaders to Beijing in May for an inaugural summit at which he pledged $124 billion (£94 billion) in funding for the plan.

Local Chinese governments as well as state and private firms have rushed to offer support by investing overseas and making loans.

Some critics argue that China is exporting excess industrial capacity to spread its influence, and that the initiative, which has seen developing countries take on heavy debt, needs higher standards of governance and transparency.

“China has made commitments and pledges to many developing countries and it will take that length of time, 10 years or more, to complete the initiative,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia Pacific chief economist at IHS Markit.

“This has also strengthened China’s soft power globally, so it wouldn’t make sense for China’s point of view to suddenly pull away from all of this,” he said.

Other analysts said its inclusion could be a double-edged sword that adds pressure for the initiative, which remains broadly defined and leaves much to interpretation, to succeed.

“The danger of having given it greater visibility is that actually there are going to be more of those efforts to play to the policy in a political way rather than considering carefully the costs and benefits of each portion of what one is doing,” said Dali Yang, a professor at the University of Chicago.

Video

Many private investors have jumped on the bandwagon to describe their projects as Belt and Road-related, while local governments have rolled out individual Belt and Road plans.

The heads of Chinese firms including China Communications Construction Co and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation [SASAAI.UL] told Reuters during the week-long congress that they would place greater focus on developing their overseas businesses in support of the Belt and Road initiative.

The party congress saw Xi cement his power ahead of a second five-year term and put him in the same company as the founder of modern China, Mao Zedong, with the enshrinement of his political thought into the country’s constitution.

Additional Reporting by Matthew Miller in Beijing; Editing by Tony Munroe and Nick Macfie

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/africa...pursuing-isis-recruiter-when-ambushed-n813746

NEWS
OCT 24 2017, 1:53 PM ET

U.S. Soldiers in Niger Were Pursuing ISIS Recruiter When Ambushed

by KEN DILANIAN, COURTNEY KUBE and MAC WILLIAM BISHOP

The U.S. Special Forces unit that came under attack in Niger earlier this month had been pursuing a senior militant, multiple U.S. officials told NBC News.

The officials did not provide the name of the target, whom one of the officials described as an ISIS recruiter. The soldiers did not succeed in catching him.

Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Monday that the Green Berets set out on a reconnaissance mission, and that the intelligence suggested there was a low risk of contact with the enemy. He also said the military was investigating whether the mission changed as it unfolded.

One theory, said an official with direct knowledge of the military's investigation, is that the soldiers were gathering information about the target, and, after learning his whereabouts, decided to pursue him. A big question would then be whether the unit got authorization, and whether the risks were assessed.

Video

It's also possible that the 30 Nigerien troops the Americans were accompanying decided to pursue the target, one official said.

NBC News reported Monday that military officials believe the unit was set up, and that residents in a village they visited provided information about their location to the militants who later ambushed them.

It was unclear, the officials said, whether the villagers tipped off the target the Americans were pursuing.

The Niger mission was carried out under the broader auspices of Operation Juniper Shield, a program initiated under the Obama administration and reauthorized under the Trump administration, according to multiple U.S. military officials. Juniper Shield is intended to "disrupt or neutralize" terror organizations affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State operating across North and West Africa, primarily through the killing or capturing of members of its senior and intermediate leadership.

A subset of this operation, Juniper Micron, is focused specifically on supporting the French counterterror and stabilization mission in Mali, Operation Barkhane.

Related: Niger Ambush Was Partly Result of 'Massive' Intelligence Failure, Says Official

The primary target of all of these missions is a terrorist organization based in Mali and Libya known as Al-Mourabitoun.

Al-Mourabitoun isn't well known by the American public or policymakers, but the group and its affiliates have an extensive history of activity across West Africa and the Sahara. Al-Mourabitoun has been tied to a string of deadly attacks that have killed hundreds since the group's formation in 2013.

Those attacks have grown in sophistication while increasing in lethality and frequency.

Among them: a January suicide bombing against a military base in Gao, Mali, that killed 77; a March 2016 attack on a beach resort in Ivory Coast that killed 21; a January 2016 attack targeting foreigners in Burkina Faso that killed 30, including American missionary Mike Riddering.

The group also seized a gas facility in Algeria in an attack that left 39 hostages dead in January 2013.

"We have seen Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and their affiliates expanding their reach from Northern Mali into central and southern Mali recently," said a spokesperson for Special Operations Command Africa, when asked whether there had been an increase in activity by Al-Mourabitoun or related groups in the area over the past several months.

On Oct. 4, the team of Green Berets, officially known as an Operational Detachment Alpha or ODA, was on its second field operation in Niger, according to two of the military officials. Part of 3rd Special Forces Group, it had recently replaced its predecessor, 10th Special Forces Group, for a six-month rotation in country. 10th Group had completed more than 20 similar missions in support of Juniper Shield with its Nigerien partners before its departure.

ODAs are U.S. Army Special Forces units that work with foreign militaries to build partnerships and enhance capabilities, often by conducting joint training missions or acting as a "force multiplier" by adding critical skills, such as intelligence coordination or directing air support.

Two of the American officials told NBC News that at least part of the mission on Oct. 3 and 4 was an intelligence-directed operation. The team was trying to verify a piece of single-source intelligence and had set up a meeting with an individual who promised further information.

Military officials told NBC News on Monday that they suspected that meeting may have been a set-up.

The target of the intelligence activity was the immediate circle of leadership surrounding a militant named Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, a veteran insurgent originally from Laayoune in Western Sahara, according to two sources.

"We can't discuss specific targeting details for operational security reasons," an official from Special Operations Command Africa told NBC News.

Al-Sahraoui is affiliated with the insurgent group Al-Mourabitoun, which was led for many years by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, aka the "Marlboro Man." Belmokhtar has been reported killed numerous times, most recently in Libya in June 2015 from a U.S. airstrike.

Al-Mourabitoun — or at least one of its affiliate brigades — now appears to be led by al-Sahraoui, who on May 14, 2015, released an audio message pledging allegiance to ISIS. Several days later, Belmokhtar issued a message rejecting this pledge and affirming the group's loyalty to Al Qaeda. However, Belmokhtar was reported dead in an apparent U.S. airstrike a month later, but the group has not acknowledged that he was killed and there is no way to independently confirm his fate.

ISIS publicly accepted al-Sahraoui's pledge of allegiance in 2016.

Because of the varying accounts of who is in charge of Al-Mourabitoun, and precisely what its goals and loyalties are, the subgroup operated by al-Sahraoui is sometimes referred to by other names: One of these is the Islamic State of the Greater Sahel, abbreviated ISGS — or sometimes ISIS-GS.

When asked whether the Pentagon had details about the perpetrators of the ambush against the Americans on Oct. 4, Dunford confirmed ISIS was a primary suspect.

"It was an ISIS affiliated group," the general said. "ISIS and Al Qaeda try to leverage local insurgencies and connect those insurgencies globally."

"Is this a dangerous area? Yeah," Dunford said. "We're there because ISIS and Al Qaeda are there."

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.voanews.com/a/haley-africa-violenvce-could-become-us-security-threats/4084028.html

AFRICA

Haley: Africa's Violence Could Become US Security Threat

October 24, 2017 12:18 PM
Eskender Frew
Solomon Abate

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA —
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley warned that Africa's violence and humanitarian disasters could spread into larger security threats to the United States. In order to stem the growing conflicts, the U.S. envoy is traveling to South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo in one of the first visits to the continent by a senior member of the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump has said little about Africa since taking office but the killing of four U.S. soldiers during an ambush by Islamic State-affiliated fighters in Niger earlier this month has focused attention on Washington's expanded military presence and counter-terrorism operations against militants in Africa.

After meetings on Monday with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and a senior African Union official, Haley told reporters she hoped this was the beginning of “a stronger relationship with the AU and our African partners.”

“The United States very much sees Africa as a very important part of the world. We see great opportunities in Africa. We see challenges in Africa, but we want to support and help in those situations. But most importantly, we want to see how we can partner together. Whether if that is through economic development, whether it is through strategic practices, whether it is through political solution," she said.

Haley said she also plans to meet with South Sudan President Salva Kiir and Congolese President Joseph Kabila to “deliver a strong message that their governments need to stop making the work of aid workers and peacekeepers more difficult.”

“Our goal is that we should have one voice and one voice is that we have to see peace in South Sudan, we have to see that women are being taken care of. We can’t see any more death. We can’t see any more famine. We’ve got to start seeing the situation get better and I think the pressure is only going to continue until President Kiir makes a difference in that area,” she said.

South Sudan plunged into conflict in December 2013 after a dispute in the capital Juba between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his deputy at the time, rebel leader Riek Machar.

Haley said that the possibility of freezing U.S. aid to South Sudan with a hope it would expedite the peace process must be viewed carefully.

“When you look at South Sudan, you have to really think hard before you pull U.S. aid. Because, he [Kiir] doesn’t care if his people suffer, and that is the concern we have as we don’t know that that will make a difference. About pulling the US aid, that is a conversation we will have. And we are trying to see exactly what will move president Kiir,” she said.

Just to the southwest, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been in turmoil since the 1990s. The DRC has never witnessed a democratic, peaceful transfer of power. Instead, this mineral-rich country in the heart of Africa has been plagued by dozens of armed groups vying for power and control, with rape used as a weapon of war, and children recruited as soldiers.

Ambassador Haley said that the U.S. was hoping that President [Joseph] Kabila would do the right thing according to DRC’s constitution and have free and fair elections sooner than later as his legacy.

Articles
1 New Details Emerge About Attack That Killed US Soldiers in Niger
2 Villagers Suspected of Luring US Soldiers into Niger Ambush
3 Campaign Launched to Bring Gambia's Jammeh to Justice
4 China Set to Spend Billions on 'One Belt One Road,’ But Some Want Focus on Poverty
5 Turkish President Attacks Washington

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.stripes.com/news/mattis-allies-eye-faster-military-movement-across-europe-1.494134

Mattis, allies eye faster military movement across Europe

By JOHN VANDIVER | STARS AND STRIPES
Published: October 24, 2017

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and military leaders from across NATO will consider command structure reforms to enable the more rapid deployment of forces in Europe when allies meet in Brussels next month.

Measures under review include establishing two new headquarters — one focused on securing transit routes by sea and another to deal with guarding supply lines across land in Europe, according to an internal NATO report obtained by the German magazine Der Spiegel.

Allies are also adapting national legislation to allow military equipment to transit faster across borders and are working on improving national infrastructure, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said.

“Fast-evolving security challenges mean new demands on our command,” Lungescu said. “So work is underway to ensure that the NATO command structure remains robust, agile and fit for purpose.

NATO declined to comment on what was detailed in the Der Spiegel report, which outlined specific reforms under review. However, command and control issues will be on the agenda when defense ministers convene Nov. 8 and 9 in Brussels, NATO said.

“NATO is making progress in all these areas but we are not complacent. We are focused on military mobility as a matter of priority,” Lungescu said.

NATO’s moves are in response to concerns about a more aggressive Russia. Still, military officials have acknowledged the odds of direct confrontation between NATO and Moscow are remote.

For the past three years, U.S. Army Europe boss Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges has repeatedly called for allies to establish a military zone that would enable convoys to cross national borders freely during peacetime. Often, U.S. forces on convoy get delayed by varying customs rules that they must comply with as they move between countries.

Such barriers could theoretically be lifted or ignored during wartime, but in a developing crisis militaries would likely need to mobilize under peacetime conditions.

“Anybody that thinks, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be able to drive anywhere’ — not true,” Hodges recently said. “Anybody who thinks you’ll be able to fly anywhere at night — not true. Everything we do prior to declaration of Article 5 is going to be done in peacetime conditions.”

Article 5 is NATO’s collective defense provision, which states an attack on one member requires a response from all.

“The ability to deploy forces quickly across the alliance is important for NATO’s collective defense,” Lungescu said.

Allies see a beefed-up presence in Eastern Europe as a deterrence to possible Russian aggression. Moscow has called NATO’s efforts a provocation.

One of the new NATO commands under consideration would be U.S.-based, focused on maritime challenge and modeled after the Cold War-era Supreme Allied Command, according to Der Spiegel, drawing on the internal NATO memo. It would deal with the safe passage of soldiers and supplies to Europe.

The second new command would manage and safeguard supply lines on the Continent. Germany and Poland are possible locations for the headquarters, Der Spiegel said.

The NATO report highlighted several alliance weak points.

“NATO’s ability to logistically support rapid reinforcement in the much-expanded territory covering SACEUR’s (Supreme Allied Commander Europe) area of operation has been atrophied since the end of the Cold War,” the report said.

As NATO works on new command and control capabilities, it will evaluate infrastructure in Eastern Europe. This would be consistent with efforts by U.S. European Command and USAREUR during the past two years to chart bridge and rail networks in the Baltics and Poland.

“NATO is gathering more information on infrastructure, such as the weight that roads, bridges and runways can carry,” a NATO official said, speaking under customary anonymity. “We are also looking at making sure air, rail and sea lift is readily available and in sufficient numbers.”

vandiver.john@stripes.com
Twitter: @john_vandiver

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-lawmakers-say-ethnic-cleansing-taking-place-in-myanmar/4084676.html

USA

US Lawmakers: Ethnic Cleansing Taking Place in Myanmar

October 24, 2017 7:07 PM
Nike Ching
Michael Bowman

STATE DEPARTMENT / CAPITOL HILL —
U.S. lawmakers are pressing the Trump administration to declare that ethnic cleansing is taking place against the Rohingya Muslim population in Myanmar — a majority-Buddhist nation also known as Burma, which has seen improved ties with Washington in recent years.

Meanwhile, the State Department is assessing further punitive options, including economic sanctions, against individuals and entities associated with violence and atrocities against Rohingya Muslims.

"What we've seen inside Rakhine state is a collection of serious atrocities," Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Southeast Asia Patrick Murphy told VOA on Tuesday in a briefing, being careful about the wording.

"All options are on the table on how best to describe this," he added, referring to a question about whether Washington will consider defining the violence against the Rohingya as "genocide" or "ethnic cleansing."

Murphy, along with U.S. Ambassador Scot Marciel, traveled recently to parts of the northern Rakhine state and saw firsthand the situation there.

While the State Department has identified and announced new and ongoing actions to punish those who have committed atrocities, senior officials declined to refer to violence against the Rohingya Muslims as "ethnic cleansing" on Tuesday, before a complete review is announced.

"I'm not in a position ... to characterize it today, but to me this very closely resembles some of the worst kind of atrocities that I've seen during a long career," said Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Affairs Mark Storella at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, when pressed by lawmakers about whether he viewed the plight of the Rohingya as ethnic cleansing.

"This is ethnic cleansing, it's pretty clear," said Senator Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat. "Yes, I think it's genocide."

The United Nations said last week that 589,000 Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar to Bangladesh since Aug. 25, the day the latest round of violence broke. Subsequent clashes and a military counteroffensive have triggered the exodus of Rohingya villagers to Bangladesh.

Reputable international nongovernmental organizations have reported new satellite images reveal nearly 300 villages were partially or completely destroyed by fire since Aug. 25 — more than half of the approximately 470 Muslim villages in northern Rakhine state.

"Genocide is a legal term, it's defined by the treaty — the Genocide Convention. Ethnic cleansing is not a legal term. It is a phrase we use to describe certain kind of atrocities," former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Affairs Tom Malinowski told VOA.

"Therefore, those determinations [ethnic cleansing] are not quite as serious," said Malinowski.

However, a determination of "ethnic cleansing" by Washington would carry a very strong political implication, as the U.S. continues its support of Burma's civilian government, which is under the leadership of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Aung San Suu Kyi and her government allies have little control over Burma's still powerful military.

"The United States has developed good relations since the transition to democracy in Burma, but using the phrase doesn't carry any particular obligation," Malinowski told VOA.

Participating countries of the "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide" are advised to prevent and punish actions of genocide in war and in peacetime.

State Department officials said individuals associated with Rohingya violence include Burmese security forces, Rohingya militants, local vigilantes, and the like.

The State Department has cut off travel waivers allowing current and former senior military leaders into the United States. All military units and officers involved in operations in northern Rakhine state are ineligible to receive American assistance.

The current crisis, now under way for two months, has exacerbated longstanding challenges for the Rohingya minorities, who lack basic rights, including recognition as a nationality and citizenship.

The United States has provided $104 million in humanitarian aid for displaced populations in both Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh since this fiscal year.

The State Department separately has called on the Myanmar government to address the matter, while promising U.S. support for the country's transition to democracy.

"The Government of Burma, including its armed forces, must take immediate action to ensure peace and security; implement commitments to ensure humanitarian access to communities in desperate need; facilitate the safe and voluntary return of those who have fled or been displaced in Rakhine State; and address the root causes of systematic discrimination against the Rohingya by implementing the Rakhine Advisory Commission's recommendations, which includes providing a credible path to citizenship. We are ready to support these efforts," according to a statement released by State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert.

Esha Sarai contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/...rban-warfare-troops-philippines-fight-against

Australia to send 'urban warfare' troops to Philippines in fight against IS

Australia's announcement comes as the government of the Philippines declares victory against IS militants in the southern city of Marawi.

By Myles Morgan
One Day Ago

Australia will send approximately 80 troops to the Philippines to train its military in urban warfare and counter the "brutal tactics" used by terrorists.

Defence Minister Marise Payne announced the training during a visit to Manila for talks with her south-east Asian counterparts on Tuesday.

"The ADF will provide mobile training teams that will begin providing urban warfare counter-terrorism training in the Philippines in the coming days," Senator Payne said.

"This training will be conducted on Philippines military bases. It will involve a range of skills related to combat in urban environments. It will involve information sharing and experience sharing."

Video

The Philippines has declared an end to five months of fierce urban warfare in the southern city of Marawi held by pro-Islamic State militants.

Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana thanked Australia for its contribution of two spy aircraft and intelligence sharing.

"From the start, Australia has been providing invaluable support," he said during a joint appearance with Senator Payne.

"The fight against global terror cannot be addressed by one country alone and we are very much appreciative of Australia's support for our counter-terrorism program."

An Australian Navy patrol boat will visit the Philippines next month to train naval counterparts.

Senator Payne said both nations will expand reconnaissance, surveillance and information sharing with each other to "combat this terrorist threat over the long term".

"All of the nations in the region and further afield have to learn from what's happened here recently."

There are fears that the Philippines and other south-east Asian nations could become a beacon for IS militants and returning foreign fighters as the self-declared caliphate loses territory in Iraq and Syria.

Australia and the Philippines will also co-host a summit on post-conflict rehabilitation.

Australia will also provide assistance to the Philippines on countering IS militants propaganda on social media.

The ADF is providing similar training to the military and security forces of Iraq and Afghanistan


RELATED STORY: Marawi: How IS-allied militants seized a Philippines city

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use....
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1204343/one-last-chance-for-pakistan/

“ONE LAST CHANCE” FOR PAKISTAN

by Michael Krepon | October 24, 2017 | No Comments
Quotes of the week:

“Pakistan is now hoist on its own petard. Calling off cross-border terrorism in Kashmir would insure that militancy within Pakistan intensifies, while continuing to support cross-border terrorism would alienate Pakistan even further internationally.”
— P. R. Chari, “Nuclear Restraint, Risk Reduction, and the Security-Insecurity Paradox in South Asia,” 2004

“Each country, as a result of history, has found itself in the unfortunate position of functioning as an objective constraint on the hopes, visions, and ambitions of the other.”
— Ashley Tellis, India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture, 2001

The Trump administration has joined its predecessors in warning leaders in Islamabad and Rawalpindi of dire consequences by continuing to harbor groups that are active in Afghanistan, Jammu and Kashmir and occasionally, with spectacular destructive effect, in major Indian cities. U.S. threats have been articulated for so long that Pakistan’s national security community might be forgiven for not taking Team Trump’s “one last chance” warning seriously. After all, Washington still needs Pakistan’s help to arrive at a political settlement in Afghanistan and to provide logistical support for U.S. troops stationed there. And besides, nothing in diplomacy is forever.

Even so, this particular fork in the road matters: it’s an opportunity for Pakistan to improve its fortunes. Pakistan’s national security establishment, which is far from monolithic, has to recognize that it has less running room for policies toward India and Afghanistan that haven’t served national interests. But asking for fundamental change is asking for quite a lot, as U.S. policy makers have themselves discovered in Afghanistan. How often do nations fundamentally change badly mistaken policies, rather than re-tooling them?

Pakistan’s national security managers have yet to turn against the leadership of groups like the Lashkar e-Toiba and Jaish e-Muhammad (or whatever they are calling themselves now) because they have perceived utility in dealing with India. Despite their baggage, these outfits are cost-effective offsets to India’s conventional military power. And besides, they haven’t carried out spectacular strikes against India for almost ten years, their leaders can always be placed under periodic house arrest, and they might even be tamed by entering mainstream Pakistani politics. Hope springs eternal.

This line of reasoning can only be inferred by outsiders because the argument used for foreign consumption is threadbare. Ever since 2002, we’ve heard that taming these wild men will happen but will take time. Everyone knows that the Pakistan Army has the resolve and capability to deal with outfits that are perceived enemies of the state, like the Pakistan Taliban. The surest indicator that anti-India groups, along with the Haqqanis and the Afghan Taliban, aren’t viewed as enemies of the state is that they haven’t been treated as such.

The first impulse of Pakistan’s national security managers will be try to finesse Washington’s latest “test.” Pervez Musharraf successfully managed maximal U.S. pressure applied by the George W. Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks by agreeing to terms, only to parse them later.

Successive U.S. administrations have offered carrots to help Pakistan to choose wisely, feeding into the transactional nature of bilateral relations. U.S. generosity toward Pakistan – something that is strongly contested there — has been discredited in Washington. Long gone is the ambitious Kerry-Lugar-Berman approach during the Obama administration. The idea back then was to shore up civilian authority and to induce shifts in military practices. The Obama administration didn’t make much of a dent on either account. Congress has now seen fit to reduce large sums from Coalition Support Funding and denied Pakistan preferential terms for big-ticket military purchases.

U.S.-Pakistan relations now seem to be in a post-transactional phase. The Trump administration is calling on Pakistani leaders to do the right thing for their national wellbeing. This is exactly the right message, but it still entails doing what Washington wants. Those who remain wedded to Pakistan’s failed policies toward India and Afghanistan can deflect this message and avoid substantive debate by arguing that Pakistan must continue to resist dictation. The extent to which they resort to form will reflect the absence of change in Pakistan’s national security policies. If, however, this argument is muted, something interesting may be afoot.

Support for Pakistan on Capitol Hill, think tanks and the U.S. media has cratered. Pakistan blames the India lobby for this state of affairs, but this is far too facile an explanation. For sure, the India lobby is now very powerful, but so, too, is the Israeli lobby – and Egypt continues to receive help from the U.S. Treasury and the Pentagon. The key difference is the policies adopted by Egypt and Pakistan toward a friend of the United States. Egypt signed a “cold” peace treaty with Israel, while Pakistan’s national security establishment has been committed to the dead end policy of enduring enmity with India.

If Pakistan’s national security leaders were to seek a genuine peace with India, Washington would do an about face. But as long as Pakistan’s national security establishment resists change, Pakistan bashers in Washington will set the tone of debate. Their agenda is clear: they seek Pakistan’s isolation and punishment. Without changes in Pakistan’s national security policies, bashers will continue to hold the high ground.

Noted U.S. analyst Ashley Tellis now goes so far as to argue that it is worthless to call for talks between India and Pakistan because reconciliation is futile until there is a sea change in the Pakistani establishment’s hostility toward India. Ashley would even extend this argument to the utility of talks to reduce nuclear dangers that are now growing along several fronts.

Shall we also apply this standard – to reject diplomacy until there is a sea change in the national security policy of problem states – elsewhere? Shall we object to negotiations with North Korea because U.S. and DPRK national security objectives are so far apart? Shall we also demand fundamental change in Russian and Chinese national security policies as the price for the resumption of negotiations? In circumstances where nuclear dangers are growing, the rejection of diplomacy between states that are one incident away from a serious crisis is a senseless invitation to ugly headlines. The avoidance of conflict and uncontrolled escalation are, in and of themselves, sufficient reasons to engage in diplomacy.

I take Ashley’s point: Talks are unlikely to result in breakthroughs until Pakistan’s national security establishment changes course. And absent fundamental change, talks become intermittent activities broken off by provocations. Ashley is also correct in noting that whenever New Delhi has sought to turn the page, it has been rebuffed by irreconcilables in Pakistan who aid and abet strikes against Indian diplomatic or military outposts. This has already happened on three occasions during Prime Minister Modi’s tenure.

Nonetheless, breakthroughs aren’t the only reason for diplomacy – they are the culmination of patient diplomacy. When nuclear dangers are growing on the subcontinent, Washington’s rejection of diplomacy can’t be a serious policy option. Instead, it makes sense to link Washington’s standard talking point calling for the resumption of dialogue with the public message that Pakistan’s national security establishment will be held responsible for the actions of groups operating on its soil that seek to foil diplomacy.

This is a tough spot for Pakistan’s national security leaders. Donald Trump is advised by distinguished military officers who know a great deal about Afghanistan and about the particulars of Pakistan’s behavior there. I wouldn’t bet on Team Trump to be as forgiving as the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Nor would I bet on sea changes in Pakistan’s national security policies. But the tide is clearly turning. It’s up to Pakistan’s national security establishment to recognize this, and to begin to act on this recognition.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use....
https://www.voanews.com/a/afghanistan-laudes-indias-role-us-new-south-asia-strategy/4084292.html

ASIA

Afghanistan Lauds India’s Role in US New South Asia Strategy

October 24, 2017 2:03 PM
Anjana Pasricha

NEW DELHI —
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, on a visit to New Delhi, praised the role outlined for India in Washington’s new South Asia strategy, which calls on New Delhi to help bring economic stability and development to the war-torn country.

Calling the strategy a “game changer” during a speech at a research organization in the Indian capital, Ghani said it was a tribute to New Delhi that Washington had “singled out India in this new engagement.”

During talks in New Delhi, the Afghan leader and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed a "firm resolve” to end the menace of terrorism, and they also emphasized the need to close cross-border sanctuaries to terrorism, according to an Indian Foreign Ministry statement.

The Afghan leader later said Pakistan has come to a key juncture and needs to make a choice, as he referred to accusations the country provides safe havens to terror groups.

India and Afghanistan also reviewed a new development partnership launched last month under which New Delhi is creating 116 new projects in the country, in areas such as health, agriculture and education. The foreign ministry said they are a “significant step” in building on cooperation between the two countries.

The new projects are part of a longstanding partnership with Afghanistan, under which India has given the war-torn country about $2 billion in aid.

New Delhi, which has trained Afghan defense and security personnel, told Ghani it is ready to extend further assistance, depending upon the needs of Afghan forces.

Ghani’s visit to New Delhi came a day after he met U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who made a brief, unannounced stop Monday in Kabul during his ongoing tour of Asia and the Middle East.

While in Kabul, Tillerson said New Delhi is providing important economic activity and that “we think they can be a very positive influence on creating the right environment for the future of Afghanistan.”

One of the issues on the table Wednesday when Tillerson is scheduled to meet with Indian leaders will be the enhanced role Washington envisions for New Delhi in bringing economic stability to Afghanistan.

The focus of the talks between Tillerson and Indian leaders will not be restricted to South Asia, however, as both India and Washington seek to build on growing strategic ties.

Washington has said it wants to “dramatically deepen” cooperation with New Delhi and that it sees India as playing a key role in stabilizing not just South Asia, but the Indo-Pacific region.

In a speech last week, Tillerson said India and the U.S. serve as "the eastern and western beacons" for an “international rules-based order, which is increasingly under strain.”

The U.S. is seeking a growing partnership with India, with an eye on balancing an increasingly assertive China, according to analysts.

 

[Housecarl]

Recall the old problem with "body count math"?....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use....
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/isis-jihadis-have-returned-home-by-the-thousands

News Desk

ISIS Jihadis Have Returned Home by the Thousands

By Robin Wright
October 23, 2017

Over the past few months, as the size of the Islamic State’s caliphate rapidly shrunk, the Pentagon began citing the number of enemy dead as an important barometer of longer-term success. “We have killed, in conservative estimates, sixty thousand to seventy thousand,” General Raymond Thomas, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, told the Aspen Security Forum, in July. “They declared an army, they put it on the battlefield, and we went to war with it.”

A high kill rate, which once misled the U.S. military about its prospects in Vietnam, has eased concerns in the U.S. today about future attempts at revenge from isis’s foreign fighters. “We’re not seeing a lot of flow out of the core caliphate, because most of those people are dead now,” Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie, Jr., the director of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, confidently told reporters this month. “They’re unable to manifest the former activities they did to try to pose themselves as a state.”

Yet the calculus is pivotal now that the isis pseudo-caliphate has collapsed: Just how many fighters have survived? Where are they? What threat do they pose? Between 2014 and 2016, the perpetrators of all but four of the forty-two terrorist attacks in the West had some connection to isis, the European Commission’s Radicalization Awareness Network said, in July.

A new report, to be released Tuesday by the Soufan Group and the Global Strategy Network, details some of the answers: At least fifty-six hundred people from thirty-three countries have already gone home—and most countries don’t yet have a head count. On average, twenty to thirty per cent of the foreign fighters from Europe have already returned there—though it’s fifty per cent in Britain, Denmark, and Sweden. Thousands more who fought for isis are stuck near the borders of Turkey, Jordan, or Iraq, and are believed to be trying to get back to their home countries.

Dozens of governments face similar challenges. Earlier this year, President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that ten per cent of the more than nine thousand foreign fighters from Russia and the former Soviet republics who went to Syria or Iraq have come home. (In private, other Russians have given me higher numbers.) The report, titled “Beyond the Caliphate: Foreign Fighters and the Threat of Returnees,” notes that countries in Southeast Asia, such as the Philippines, and in North Africa, such as Libya, are particularly vulnerable. Not only are citizens returning to these nations, so are other foreign fighters who have been forced out of the caliphate and are unable or unwilling to go home. Hundreds of jihadis are believed to be searching for new battlefields or refuge in Muslim countries.

The Islamic State’s future may increasingly depend on the returnees, the report warns. “As the territorial caliphate shrinks and is increasingly denied an overt presence, its leadership will look to supporters overseas, including returnees, to keep the brand alive,” it says. For the jihadis themselves, the psychological impact of their past isis experience and their uncertain futures may be as pivotal as any ideological commitment in determining what they do next. isis “has tapped into deep veins of disillusion with traditional politics and mistrust of state institutions,” the report notes.

“Most returnees will be unlikely to experience anything in their lives at home that matches the intensity of their experience as a member of IS, whether or not they were fighting on the front line,” “Beyond the Caliphate” adds. “Returnees may be particularly vulnerable to contact from people who were part of the network that recruited them, or appeals for help from ex-comrades in arms. It seems probable that the influence and involvement of returnees will grow as their numbers increase.”

Over all, since 2011, more than forty thousand people, from more than a hundred and ten countries, travelled to join isis—in addition to the local Syrians and Iraqis who became fighters. Among these jihadis were seventy-four hundred from the West—five thousand of them from Europe.

So far, the numbers of isis fighters from the United States have been comparatively low. More than two hundred and fifty Americans tried to leave the country to join the caliphate in Syria or Iraq. About half—a hundred and twenty-nine—succeeded, the report says. Some were blocked. Only seven of those who made it to to the battlefield have returned. As of August, the United States has charged a hundred and thirty-five people for terrorism offenses linked to isis; seventy-seven have so far been convicted.

In Europe, the potential threat from returnees has already been visible. “The terrorist attacks in Brussels in May 2014 (Jewish Museum) and March 2016 (airport and metro station), as well as the multiple attacks in Paris in November 2015, were all atrocities perpetrated to some degree by returnees,” according to the Radicalization Awareness Network. In Paris, at least six of the perpetrators had returned from Syria, while three out of the five Brussels attackers were returnees. Terrorist attacks don’t require a lot of manpower.

U.S. officials counter that the fall of Raqqa, the Syrian city that served as the caliphate’s nominal capital, diminished isis’s ability to plot and coördinate attacks abroad. isis has lost more than a hundred and twenty of its leaders. It is now in survival mode. Most of the fighters still in theatre—estimated to be somewhere between six thousand and ten thousand—have fled to desert refuges in the Euphrates River Valley.

Among those who are left, the networks created—either formally by isisor informally among the fighters, through language or national ties—will be critical to the future. Initially, the leaders of the embryonic isis, including its caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, emerged from networks forged when they were imprisoned together in Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib prisons, both of which were run by the U.S. military in Iraq. A decade later, the caliphate was born.

The co-sponsors of “Beyond the Caliphate” have ample experience in tracking terrorism. The Soufan Group, a nonprofit organization, is headed by Ali Soufan, a Lebanese-American and a former F.B.I. agent. Once the only Arabic speaker in the largest F.B.I. field office, in New York, he was the first to warn about Al Qaeda’s intention to launch a major attack on the United States. It was, at the time, little heeded. The Global Strategy Network is headed by Richard Barrett, the former director of global counterterrorism operations at Britain’s M.I.6 and the former coördinator of the U.N. Al-Qaeda Taliban Monitoring Team.

To put the numbers in perspective, Soufan told me on Sunday, isis amassed more than four times as many fighters as the Afghan Arabs—Arab men who joined the fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989. After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, the remnants of the Afghan Arabs, led by Osama bin Laden, went on to form Al Qaeda—and launched the deadliest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.

“The total number then was only about ten thousand, and look what havoc they caused,” Soufan said. ”Compare that to more than forty thousand today—with their ability to communicate today.”

Tracking the isis jihadis was initially tough. They sneaked, or were smuggled, across borders. They didn’t declare their intent; they wore black masks in isis videos and social media. Their accents were often the only clue to where they came from. The accent was one of the main pieces of evidence in identifying Mohammed Emwazi, better known as the notorious isis executioner “Jihadi John.” Like the Nazis, however, isis kept meticulous records of its personnel, their applications, their histories, and their deployments, the report notes. Thousands of pages were recovered in the military campaigns after isis fled key cities, U.S. officials told me. Captured computers and cell phones, laden with data and contacts, have helped the U.S.-led coalition build a global profile of isis members and sympathizers. Nineteen thousand names have been shared with Interpol to put on a watch list.

In looking ahead, the report concludes that “anyone who wishes to continue the fight will find a way to do so.” Some may opt to join one of the three dozen isis “provinces.” The group’s wings in Egypt’s Sinai, Libya, and Afghanistan are now among the most active. isis still has a psychological edge, too, despite losing most of its territory. In August, the Pew Research Center released a poll on global threats. Respondents in thirty-eight countries ranked isis at the top of the list—followed by climate change, cyberattacks, the global economy, refugees from Syria and Iraq, and the growing influence of the United States, Russia, and China.

Robin Wright is a contributing writer for newyorker.com, and has written for the magazine since 1988. She is the author of “Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World.”Read more »

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use....
https://www.realcleardefense.com/ar...lement_of_national_military_power_112534.html

STAYING POWER: The Missing Element of National Military Power

By William Adler
October 26, 2017

The U.S. Military possesses considerable conventional power and reach, but it currently lacks the endurance to prevail in a protracted war against a near-peer opponent. The destructiveness of modern unlimited conventional warfare will rapidly exhaust the existing base force leaving few military options for the nation.
*
Incremental improvements in doctrine, global basing, and force structure are all steps in the right direction, but they are fundamentally insufficient to allow the United States to prevail in a large-scale conventional war. Political and military leaders seek solutions in sterile funding debates, vociferous force size comparisons and acquisition deliberations, but then fail to address one of the elements critical to success in warfare – endurance. The ability to regenerate expended war-fighting capability is essential to maintain military staying power in a protracted war. The United States must build this kind of endurance into future force design and emphasize those military means that can be regenerated quickly and affordably to preserve military options.

The United States must transform its military and support network from the cumbersome model that defines it today into a resilient and agile information age model that combines endurance with lethality. Getting this transformation right will rely on accepting three premises. First, assume that the nature of warfare is still grounded in the destruction of lives, material, and ideas. The side which can dominate this cycle of destruction can control the pace and direction of the conflict. Then, anticipate that the enemy will continuously disrupt the digital, physical, and economic systems essential for reconstitution of fighting forces. Finally, accept that full national mobilization, of the sort that occurred in the United States during the Second World War, is unlikely to happen for the next war. By filtering conceptual thinking through these assumptions, force planners and policymakers can pursue the right mix of high-volume, low-cost options to build the high-endurance, resilient military formations the United States needs for the future.

Future War - Relentless Destruction
Warfare in this century will remain a contest grounded in relentless destruction. Geographically, warfare will extend from the points of physical contact between belligerents to spaces Americans tend to regard as sanctuaries and strategic support areas. The future of interstate war will involve the conventional expressions of violence on the land, the sea, and in the air with conflict in space and cyber-space domains. Advances in the speed and range of target identification and engagement will make platforms, like aircraft carriers, submarines, and support vessels, vulnerable to a broader range of opponents.* General Mark Milley, the U.S. Army's Chief of Staff bluntly emphasizes a vision of future warfighting where the levels of attrition may rival the Second World War.

Any conflict against a determined and capable opponent will fully stress all areas of the logistics chain that underpins contemporary American military power. The intensity and pace of combat will rapidly overwhelm the logistics systems intended to reconstitute or extend the endurance for forward-deployed forces. In fact, studies like the Rand Corporation’s highly publicized report concerning a theoretical Russian invasion of the Baltics, only reinforce this idea. Combatant commanders will find themselves in a race with opponents to achieve military objectives. Supporting the forward warfighters will involve tremendous effort and expense as the battleground extends to the homeland and the military-industrial base.* *

For some perspective on this challenge, consider the significant logistical obstacles involved to send only one trained Armored Brigade Combat Team to Europe. The process to prepare and deploy trained personnel and serviceable equipment can take weeks and requires considerable civilian and military coordination to accomplish. For a naval perspective, the U.S. Navy is grappling with the cost and complexity involved in the process to recover and repair two recently damaged destroyers, the USS Fitzgerald and the USS McCain. Returning these ships to full use is projected to cost approximately 600 million dollars and will take over a year to complete. The deployment of forces from the homeland and the repair of damaged naval vessels are indicative of actions required in wartime to regenerate combat power and extend the endurance of war-fighting commands. Both efforts are challenging in an uncontested environment, but when opposed by a capable adversary they will become combat operations in themselves.

The Homeland-Disrupted
In any future war adversaries like China, Russia, and even North Korea will subject the United States homeland to attack. These attacks will involve the use of the cyber-electromagnetic spectrum. The use of digital tools and relative ease of access to targets will allow adversaries to extend offensive operations into the increasingly networked cyber substrate that ties together the critical structures of modern logistics systems. These actions will disrupt the communications, financial, and transportation networks that are essential to the regeneration of all national military capabilities. Even now, in a period of relative peace, the military struggles with the complex process to manage the distribution of parts for thousands of critical systems. Imagine the challenges involved to secure and expand production for an aircraft program like the F-35 with its complex and multinational supply chain. Enemy actions in wartime will make peacetime decisions based on profit and efficiency look tragically foolish.

The strategic support structure in the homeland will also be vulnerable to lethal actions by state and non-state actors in the event of a major interstate war. The range and precision of advanced conventional weapons will make an extension of combat to the homeland more likely. Production facilities, distribution networks, and crucial resource stockpiles are vulnerable, and their protection will demand the allocation of valuable resources. No competent adversary will allow a critical shipyard to conduct a surge of construction and repairs if they possess the means to disrupt that process.

Some may dispute the likelihood of attacks on the homeland. One argument against the value of such escalation is that such actions might harden national resolve in the face of adversity. Nevertheless, public resolve will not immediately convert to military power that is sufficient to match the pace of attrition inflicted on forces overseas. The U.S. forces directly in the fight cannot rely on an immediate surge of support from the homeland to regenerate combat power.

The Chimera of Mobilization
In the United States the mass national mobilization, which harnessed the power of the nation to confront the crisis of the last century, is unlikely to occur again. The economic expansion that enabled the United States to wage an industrial era global war in the twentieth century was the product of unique economic, technological, and political circumstances. The capacity to affordably produce the sophisticated military equipment required to fight an industrial age war of attrition is not present in the withered U.S. industrial base. For example, the Congressional Budget Office's recent analysis of the U.S. Navy's 2017 shipbuilding plan identified that shortfalls in skilled labor and available shipyards in the United States hinder the acceleration of the proposed shipbuilding program.* Therefore it is likely that an adversary, operating close to their base of support could put American shipping out of action faster than the domestic base could regenerate lost capability. Adapting American manufacturing and logistics practices to support the pressing demands of a major war is possible, but it requires political decisions on force structure and funding made years in advance.

Fortunately, some military and political leaders are seriously considering the ability of the domestic manufacturing base to support the nation. In July 2017, the president signed a Presidential Executive Order directing an assessment of the industrial base as it relates to defense manufacturing and supply chain security. The executive order is some of the most recent evidence that concerns about the linkage between national security and the industrial base are gaining emphasis among some policymakers. The findings are likely to confirm the idea that in a crisis any significant national mobilization would likely take years to implement fully. However, any capable opponent will fight to remove options and exhaust the force before national mobilization can provide relief. However, the accelerated adoption of emerging capabilities can provide the force with additional possibilities to gain and maintain the initiative on future battlefields.*

A High Endurance Military- Creating Staying Power
The Joint Force that evolves in the next decade must be versatile, lethal, and able endure the shocks of sustained combat. The country must be able to regenerate expended capabilities quickly and at a bearable cost. Continuing to emphasize delicate and extravagantly expensive low-volume systems is self-defeating. Instead, the Department of Defense must accelerate the exploration of the capabilities and promise provided by the convergence of robotics, artificial intelligence, and advanced computing. Some of these technologies are in the field now, and the military, in coordination with private industry is steadily exploring the utility of advanced unmanned platforms as surveillance, exploration, and war-fighting systems. The imperative, across domains, must be developing capabilities that enable warfighters to overwhelm, exploit, and outlast adversaries.

The potential utility of these systems on contemporary battlefields and training environments is not yet fully realized. Unmanned systems are frequently less expensive, and importantly, more expendable than manned platforms. These systems also do not suffer from some of the more limiting emotional attributes of their human creators. Military unmanned systems are theoretically free to pursue the destruction of the enemy without regard for their well-being. If the unmanned system is damaged or destroyed their replacement places less strain on the logistics system and bears negligible political consequences. There will be no wall of remembrance for robots killed in the next war.

Naturally, there is uncertainty, and there are legitimate and practical concerns involved in the race to capture the high-ground with this technology. Ethical concerns and questions of control are integral to each stage of technological progress. There are also legitimate and necessary debates on force balance to address in the coming years. However, as the Americans contemplate the tradeoffs and the mix of manned and unmanned systems, its adversaries are advancing.

While they do not match the performance and flexibility of manned counterparts in many circumstances, further advances in technology will close that gap. The military requires sustained and reliable funding to advance the development of intelligent munitions and improve manned-unmanned teaming for all services. *Furthermore, these platforms provide the promise of extending the capability of proven manned systems on the ground, in the air, and the sea. But there is a political cost.

Expanding the production and fielding of advanced robotic systems may not offer the same political appeal as traditional big-budget projects that can provide lucrative programs and jobs to congressional districts. Consider the U.S. Navy’s development and launch of the Sea Hunter drone intended for anti-submarine warfare. Researchers are currently expanding the portfolio of missions for the small vessel. The Sea Hunter is only a fraction of the cost the highly criticized Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), but these vessels could augment or enhance the effectiveness of the LCS and other surface combatants. Also, expanded production of these and similar unmanned systems is unlikely to require the financial commitment associated with larger vessels. However, shifting emphasis to lower cost platforms will not initially support the interests of the private sector. That tension must be reconciled to move past the current force model.*

The next frontier in force development is growth in the field of applied Artificial Intelligence (AI). These capabilities are already on display in experiments with semi-autonomous and fully autonomous systems. What autonomy will bring to the future fight is a low-cost, yet lethal, way to amplify the efforts of more traditional manned systems. The goal should be to apply sustained destructive and disruptive force against the enemy's military, infrastructure, and support base.* Expanding the application of advanced AI is inexpensive and sustainable when compared with the cost of regenerating many current war-fighting capabilities.

Reliable communications in the future will increasingly depend on progress in advanced computing technology. The U.S. government must lead this effort to harness the potential of quantum computing for future information sharing and modeling. If the United States loses this race and fails to protect the security and resilience of communications networks, then none of the advances in robotics and artificial intelligence will matter very much. The disruption of tactical and national level communications is likely early in any conflict. Therefore the development and fielding of advanced communications enabled by leadership in the field of evolving quantum technology must be a sustained priority.*

Advances in quantum computing and cryptography promise to open new ways to revolutionize communications. Quantum computing may enhance the security of digital communications for military and civilian purposes. This technology may also secure critical links between unmanned platforms and their control stations improving the reliability of these systems in a hostile environment. It may also create new approaches to protecting the infrastructure and the logistics chain that the military relies upon.

Harnessing this technology can also reduce demand on the supply chain by expanding the potential of additive manufacturing, or 3D printing. The military is already eagerly probing the ways 3D printing can reduce reliance on the logistics system for the repair or replacement of some items. In the future, advances in computing will unlock new possibilities for reshaping and protecting the logistics chain, increasing the overall resilience of the nation.*

The United States must reshape the military to incorporate low cost, high volume capabilities that enable greater endurance on a fluid twenty-first-century battlefield. Soon, the United States will face peer or near-peer competitors able to challenge the nation across all domains. The future is uncertain, and war is not inevitable, but at some point, the military may be called on to face a capable and determined peer adversary. When that time comes, the contest will test the nation's wherewithal in all areas. Prevailing will require a highly lethal, resilient, force using advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and computing science to endure from the first shot to the last. The race for military endurance and dominance in these emerging fields is a race the United States must win.

LTC William Adler is a Military Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College. His previous duty position was as a Combined Arms Battalion Commander in the 1st Armored Division, at Fort Bliss Texas. The views and ideas expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. government.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://warontherocks.com/2017/10/time-to-step-back-from-the-war-on-terror/

Time to Step Back from the War on Terror

Erik Goepner and Trevor Thrall
October 26, 2017

President Donald Trump has expanded every aspect of the war on terror he inherited from his two predecessors. In his first nine months Trump has ordered a renewed surge in Afghanistan, increased the tempo of drone strikes, and granted the military greater autonomy. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the Taliban now control or contest more districts than at any point since 2001. And last week four American soldiers died in Niger, an increasingly active front in the war on terror. Americans are now fighting — and dying — in at least eight different countries across the Middle East and Central Asia. The deaths of American forces are a particularly sobering reminder of the war’s high costs and should prompt people to ask whether the costs are worth it.

Unfortunately, the evidence of the past 16 years clearly indicates that the answer is no. Enough time has now passed since 9/11 to reach two important conclusions. First, the threat posed by Islamist-inspired terrorism does not justify such a mammoth effort. Second, the aggressive military strategy the United States has pursued since 2001 has not only failed to reduce the threat of terrorism; it has likely made things worse.

The attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, were unprecedented. Twice as many people died on 9/11 than in any other terror attack in history. America’s immediate response — to attack al Qaeda and invade Afghanistan — made more sense at the time than it does today, based on the severity of the attack, lack of clarity from the intelligence services, and fear among the public. Many at the time reasonably believed that terrorism represented a major new threat to the United States. A decade and a half later, however, a more dispassionate examination of the threat suggests those initial assessments were wrong.

The 9/11 attacks remain an outlier. No other attacks like them have ever occurred, and mass casualty terrorist attacks rarely take place in the West or North America, much less the United States. The second-worst attack on U.S. soil is still the Oklahoma City Bombing, where Timothy McVeigh — decidedly not an Islamist-inspired terrorist — took the lives of 168 in 1995. And the second-worst attack in North America occurred more than 30 years ago when Sikh (again, not Islamist-inspired) extremists bombed a plane originating from Toronto, Canada and killed 329. The fact is that terrorism, including large-scale attacks, almost always occurs in failed or war-torn states.

And neither al Qaeda nor Islamic State has launched a successful attack in the United States since 9/11. Though every death is tragic, when compared to the 15,000 Americans who are murdered each year by “regular” Americans, Islamist-inspired terrorism hardly registers as a threat.

The persistence of Americans’ inflated view of the threat stems from a misperception of the goals of groups like al Qaeda and Islamic State. Americans tend to believe al Qaeda and the Islamic State are at war with the United States. It’s true that Al Qaeda has attacked the homeland of the “far enemy” (i.e., the United States ) and ISIS does dedicate some effort to radicalizing U.S. citizens. But these groups’ fundamental goals are more internal: They are engaged in a generational struggle for power in the Middle East and Central Asia. Al Qaeda aims to “rid the Muslim world of Western influence, to destroy Israel, and to create an Islamic caliphate stretching from Spain to Indonesia” and, similarly, ISIL wants to establish an Islamic caliphate.

These groups’ central problem is the presence of the United States in the Middle East, not its existence. Osama bin Laden’s outrage at Arab states for requesting that U.S. forces, rather than a Muslim force, remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991 reveals this point. After Operation Desert Storm, bin Laden railed against the continued presence of U.S. military forces in Saudi Arabia, home to Mecca and Medina, Islam’s two holiest sites. As long as the United States continues to intervene, it will continue to draw the ire of Islamist groups. Most fundamentally, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, and other similar groups seek power and influence over their own neighborhood.

America’s improved homeland security system may be another reason for the low threat level. The 9/11 hijackers legally entered the United States using their real identities. They conducted their pilot training here, with one living with his American flight instructors. Two even successfully argued their way back into the country, assuring U.S. customs and border agents that they were authorized pilot training students. Since then, the United States has started pre-screening all passengers before they fly into, within, or out of the country, and 72 fusion centers have been established to facilitate information sharing. The risk of terror in the most important potential safe haven — the United States — has been substantially reduced. Homeland security improvements have not reduced the risk of terrorism to zero, of course. Nothing can. But they have made conducting large-scale terrorist attacks significantly more difficult. These efforts should have been the extent of America’s response to 9/11.

Instead, the United States adopted an aggressive strategy focused on military intervention. America invaded two countries, toppled three regimes, and conducted military operations in eight nations The plan, in the words of the Bush administration’s national security strategy, was to “destroy terrorist organizations of global reach.” Though Presidents Bush and Obama talked about the need to rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq and weaken the conditions that gave rise to terrorism in the first place, the American strategy has in practice emphasized killing as many jihadist fighters as possible.

Donald Rumsfeld raised questions about this military-centric strategy as early as 2003, asking whether the current situation was such that “the harder we work the behinder we get.” American military commanders have understood the difficulties posed by irregular warfare against insurgents and terrorists, leading to the adoption of an updated counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq in 2007 and later in Afghanistan. Despite this innovation, General Stanley McChrystal, the former head of Joint Special Operations Command who led U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010, answered Rumsfeld’s question in the affirmative six years later. Calling it “COIN mathematics,” McChrystal noted that military attacks likely create more insurgents than they eliminate “because each one you killed has a brother, father, son and friends, who do not necessarily think that they were killed because they were doing something wrong. It does not matter — you killed them.”

Scholarship has also weighed in, concluding that “repression alone seldom ends terrorism” and “military force has rarely been the primary reason for the end of terrorist groups.” Most commonly, terrorism ends when groups eventually implode for lack of support or become politically integrated. To date, American efforts to create political solutions have been overrun by the dynamics generated on the battlefield.

The recent battlefield successes against ISIL in Syria and Iraq have led some (including Trump) to argue that the military approach is working and should be expanded. This is mistaken on two levels. First, the “victory” over Islamic State has not created conditions conducive to peace and stability in the long term. In both 2001 and 2003, decisive military victories gave way to escalating insurgency and terrorism. Most observers agree, moreover, that ISIL will not disappear after military defeat, but rather melt away into the population to continue the fight. Second, the military campaign that defeated ISIL in Raqqa and Mosul was effective only because the terrorist group adopted a strategy of taking and defending territory. To date, neither American airpower nor other military means have proved useful against small and dispersed groups of terrorists or insurgents.

U.S. efforts have not materially reduced the terror threat in the Middle East and may well have increased it. Sixteen years after 9/11, the United States has not defeated Al Qaeda, and Islamic State has arisen and spread throughout the Middle East. In 2000, the State Department identified 13 active Islamist-inspired terrorist groups, fielding a total of roughly 32,000 fighters. By 2015 the number of groups had climbed to 44 and the number of fighters had ballooned to almost 110,000. Terror attacks in the countries where America has intervened increased 1,900 percent after the war on terror began as compared to the 15 years prior to 2001. The terrible irony is that although Islamist terrorist groups pose little threat to the United States, American intervention to confront them may have inadvertently made things worse for everyone else.

In spite of mounting evidence for the failures of the war on terror, Trump is doubling down. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis recently noted that the United States would be expanding its war on terror in Africa even as it again prepares to surge forces into Afghanistan. Trump has promised victory in Afghanistan and a quick defeat of ISIL, but he has offered little on how this strategy will change or accomplish U.S. objectives. History suggests these efforts will do little to change the facts on the ground in Afghanistan or elsewhere, and even less to make Americans more secure.

Instead, continued U.S. action is likely to fuel grievances, amplify instability in the region, and generate more anti-American sentiment. Evidence for growing anti-Americanism in the region since 9/11 is plentiful. Survey data from the Pew Research Center reveal a steady increase in anti-American views after the invasion of Iraq. Several studies, as well as survey data, make it clear that Middle Eastern publics have almost uniformly negative views of American drone strikes, one of the most popular tools of the war on terror. Even worse, the Arab Barometer found that between 53% and 74% of citizens in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Yemen, Tunisia, and Algeria felt that U.S. intervention justified “attacks on Americans everywhere.” Finally, a recent study of Arab Twitter discourse found deep levels of anti-Americanism among Arabs and concluded that: “levels of anti-Americanism are primarily driven by the perceived impingement of America on the Middle East, and specifically by United States intervention in the region.” Sadly, the jihadist leadership appears to have a firmer grasp on this dynamic than Americans do. In a 2005 letter to ISIL founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Ayman al-Zawahiri (the current al-Qaeda leader) wrote, “The Muslim masses … do not rally except against an outside occupying enemy, especially if the enemy is firstly Jewish, and secondly American.”

As we argued in our recent Cato Institute policy analysis, the United States should step back, withdraw military forces, and instead focus on incentivizing local actors towards stability, capability, and transparency. The removal of U.S. military personnel will require local governments to professionalize their bureaucracies and security forces — a difficult task, to be sure, but one the United States has not managed despite 16 years of direct effort. Curtailing the flow of billions of U.S. dollars and weapons into failed states should also help reduce corruption and limit the available spoils of war. The terror threat to the American homeland does not warrant a continued military presence in the Middle East or South Asia, and the military-centric strategy has failed to achieve the stated objectives of successive administrations. Fortunately, the United States has the luxury of not needing to win any war on terror.
*
Erik Goepner commanded military units in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he is now a visiting research fellow at the Cato Institute. A. Trevor Thrall is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Defense and Foreign Policy Department and associate professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/j5jmb4/mexican-drug-cartels-have-weaponized-drones

Great, Mexican Drug Cartels Now Have Weaponized Drones

“Potato bomb” quadcopters give narcos more options for perpetrating crimes they're perfectly capable of pulling off some other way.

David Axe
Oct 25 2017, 11:45am

Police in Mexico pulled over four men in a pickup truck near the city of Salamanca in Guanajuato state on October 20 and got a nasty surprise. Along with an AK-47 assault rifle, the men had in their possession an unmanned aerial vehicle fitted with a "large explosive device" and a remote detonator.

That's right: a weaponized drone.

Police didn't say whether they suspected the men of ties to drug cartels. But Guanajuato is currently contested by several drug gangs, including the Sinaloa cartel, Los Zetas, and Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación, or CJNG, according to Dr. Robert Bunker, a fellow with Small Wars Journal, a military trade publication.

In any event, it was inevitable that cartels would borrow a tactic from the Islamic State terror group and add bombs to off-the-shelf drones. "This has been expected for some time now," Bunker told Motherboard.

Imagine cartel members assassinating each other, or law-enforcement officials, by steering an explosive-packed quadcopter toward the target's head. ISIS, for its part, has deployed exploding "suicide drones" in attacks on Syrian and Iraqi troops and members of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition.

Read more: The Islamic State Is Pioneering an Entirely New Type of Drone Warfare

ISIS set up factories in Iraq and Syria to modify mortar bombs—basically, small artillery shells—to fit on small drones. During intensive fighting in the Iraqi city of Mosul in February, ISIS's drones were "the main problem" for coalition troops, Captain Ali, an Iraqi officer, told War Is Boring.

The cartels, for their part, have been using so-called "potato bombs"—hand-grenade-size improvised explosive devices—in attacks on each other and authorities. Bunker said the explosive the police found alongside the drone in Guanajuato is "consistent" with a potato bomb.

For years cartels been using commercial UAVs to smuggle drugs. It's a small step to smuggle a potato bomb or other explosive and detonate it. "That cartels would weaponize [drones], just like ISIS has done, is not surprising," Peter W. Singer, author of Wired for War, told me.

The cartels could also draw inspiration from online-retailer Amazon and its delivery drones. "As both Islamic State and Amazon have shown, small drones are an efficient way of carrying a payload to a target," said Nick Waters, a former British Army officer and independent drone expert. "Whether that payload is your new book or several hundred grams of explosive is up to the sender."

But don't panic, Waters and other experts said. Drug cartels were plenty dangerous before they weaponized flying robots. Potato bomb-hauling drones might just give narcos more options for perpetrating crimes they are perfectly capable of pulling off some other way. "Considering their already impressive traditional capability, I think this will probably be another tool rather than a game-changing capability," Waters said.

You should be "no more worried than you should be by cartels also using machine guns, car bombs, machetes, etc," Singer said.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/i-fought-a-war-against-iran-and-it-ended-badly/

I Fought a War Against Iran—and It Ended Badly

My colleagues and I tested a hypothetical conflict in a wargame. We need to make sure it never becomes reality.

By Harry J. Kazianis • October 26, 2017

Is war with Iran inevitable? Camped out here in Washington just two blocks from the White House, I can tell you one thing: it seems possible.

The chatter between talking heads, foreign policy professionals, and members of the press feels very much like the run-up to war with Iraq back in 2002. And we all know that turned out oh-so-well.

That’s why I’m scared to death.

Amidst President Trump’s repeated declarations that the nuclear pact with Tehran is the “worst deal ever,” the White House has decertified an international agreement that most experts—even a conservative Republican like me, shocker, I know—think was working.

But if it isn’t apparent by now, nuking the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, has almost nothing to do with Iran’s compliance with the agreement—and my fellow Republicans need to come clean and admit it.

Killing the Iran deal is really about satisfying what has become an obsession in many neoconservative circles: the desire to see the slow unwinding of a regime we despise that has foreign policy goals we despise even more.

To be fair, I have no love for any nation that chants “death to America” and “death to Israel”; however, considering the sheer number of foreign policy problems Washington faces at the moment—specifically, a rogue regime in North Korea that won’t come to the bargaining table until it has the ability to hit the East Coast of the United States with a nuclear warhead—to say we have bigger fish to fry is an understatement. Bluntly stated, Iran is not exactly Team Trump’s worst problem at the moment, and obsessing over it will only weaken America’s ability to tackle the North Korea challenge, a rising China, a lingering ISIS, a resurgent Russia, and many other national security challenges. *

The good news is that war does not appear on the immediate horizon. But as history teaches, when two rival states—with very different national security and foreign policy goals—clash, bad things can happen, and fast.

So let’s say Tehran and Washington do exchange blows at some future date. What would that look like? Take it from me: a war with Iran is not going to be anything like recent conflicts in Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq again, Libya, Syria, and so on. Oh no. Iran, you see, has a formidable military that could impose some serious losses on U.S. forces.

Back in 2013, a group of my colleagues did a series of wargames on what would happen if Iran and America ended up in a conflict. Held at a secret location in think-tank land here in D.C., we sketched out the various possible pathways to conflict, what each side’s war aims and strategy would be, and how such a conflict could end. While the game was conducted off the record, considering where U.S.-Iran relations seem to be headed, my fellow wargamers have allowed me to share the details of one of three scenarios in an effort to promote a better understanding of the risks involved if the bombs really do start falling.

In the most intense of our three-day wargaming scenarios, we looked at a situation in 2020 where U.S.-Iranian relations had been souring for several years. Both sides are jockeying for position over a geopolitical chessboard stretching from Lebanon all the way to Afghanistan. In this scenario, Tehran is becoming increasingly upset over U.S. naval forces building up and exercising in the Persian Gulf. To make its displeasure known, Iran decides to test a salvo of intermediate range missiles that fly far into the Indian Ocean—with an ICBM test looming in the next few months. The situation then gets infinitely more complex when U.S. intelligence is tipped off that a second barrage of missile tests is being prepped, and destroys them in mid-flight thanks to U.S. missile defenses in the area.

Our wargame begins when Tehran responds, deciding to conduct large-scale naval exercises near the Strait of Hormuz. Iran also declares a naval exclusion zone, which essentially closes the important waterway for what would be a week of training drills—all to show off Tehran’s growing military power and ability to roil oil markets.

America is now in a bind. In just the first day of the strait closure, the price of oil skyrockets by 10 percent. Oil traders are now predicting the return of $100 crude and potentially a 1 percent dip in global economic growth if Iran continues for a month or more. If the closure goes on longer, a global recession is not impossible to imagine.

So Washington delivers an ultimatum to Iran: end your naval activities near the strait or we will end them for you. Tehran is given 24 hours to leave the area or face military action.

Tehran, sensing an American bluff, stands firm, and actually increases its naval activities throughout the Persian Gulf.

And with that, war between America and Iran begins.

Washington opens the conflict with a series of massive cruise missile strikes from U.S. nuclear attack submarines operating in the region that wipes out the vast majority of Iran’s surface combatants in the strait. Oil tankers begin to move freely through the area once more. Oil markets rally, and, at least for a few hours, most experts think the crisis is over.

Then Iran decides such an action cannot be allowed to stand, and decides to make a statement that not only is its military powerful, but it can cause serious damage to U.S. naval assets in the region. They counterattack with a massive volley of anti-ship missiles pointed at the ultimate symbol of U.S. military might: America’s only aircraft carrier operating in the region. Firing over 100 missiles, the carrier’s defenses are overwhelmed and the 100,000-ton vessel is destroyed, with over 2,000 sailors and airmen lost.

Iran doesn’t stop there. To make clear that it won’t tolerate any further U.S. military operations against its forces, Iranian conventional attack submarines—purchased from Russia—launch a series of attacks on U.S. surface combatants in the Persian Gulf. While Tehran loses two of its prized subs, one American Littoral Combat Vessel is sunk, with over 62 sailors killed.

How does America respond? As the game had fixed time limits, we never found out. With only a five-day window in our wargame, things were just heating up. But the wargamer who played the U.S., a senior Pentagon official, explained to me recently what his next moves would have been:

I would have taken the nation to war—plain and simple. This would be our chance to finally rid the Middle East—and indeed the world—of the Iranian menace. I would have launched a massive air campaign to destroy Iran’s air defenses with stealth aircraft followed-up with a large-scale attack on Tehran’s nuclear programs. Depending on the situation, and how Iran responded, an all-out invasion with the goal of regime change, could not be ruled out.​

Now, to be fair, my colleague playing the role of the U.S. is an admitted Iran hawk, and we disagree completely about the importance of Tehran’s aims and how much they should be countered in present U.S. foreign policy thinking. But if this short wargame shows anything, it’s that it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to dream up a situation where Washington and Tehran come close to the brink of war quite quickly. Indeed, it isn’t out of the question that America could soon face what could be the ultimate foreign policy nightmare—crises with both Iran and North Korea at the same time. Now that would make for one heck of a wargame—and a tragic reality.

*
Harry J. Kazianis is director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest and executive editor of its publishing arm, The National Interest. Previously, he served as editor of The Diplomat, a fellow at CSIS, and on the 2016 Ted Cruz foreign policy team.


Hide 8 comments
8 Responses to I Fought a War Against Iran—and It Ended Badly
MEOW says:
October 25, 2017 at 11:39 pm
I have a better war game. Since we have no real beef with Iran tell both Israel and Iran if they want to slug it out we plan to sit this one out. Keep our service people safe and our wealth at home. It is that simple.

Robert Levine says:
October 26, 2017 at 12:27 am
Depending on the situation, and how Iran responded, an all-out invasion with the goal of regime change, could not be ruled out.
Wonderful. That’ll only need a few hundred thousand American troops to sustain the resulting puppet government – assuming that the Russians don’t mind us permanently occupying a country on their back porch.

Anne Mendoza says:
October 26, 2017 at 12:34 am
Of course, war with Iran will not end well. When have any U.S. wars in the Middle East ended well? Even those we thought we won didn’t end well or at all.
The U.S. is not strategic so we don’t know what winning is except that it isn’t losing.

Fran Macadam says:
October 26, 2017 at 2:25 am
And “tactical” nukes, followed by pre-empstive strikes against Russian allies, then Russia itself? With China then taking sides when North Korea decides to enter the fray?
The “Axis of Evil” destroyed, along with the last world empire, in a “Sampson Option?”?
Well at least the world’s population won’t have been decimated by a flood, but by nuclear conflagration,

David says:
October 26, 2017 at 4:04 am
Readers are encouraged to read up on Millennium Challenge 2002, which was a $250 million DoD wargame in which Iran’s asymmetrical attacks inflicted far more damage to US (Blue) forces than was “acceptable” (!) hence they refloated sunken US ships and made the Iranian (Red) forces play “by the rules.” In reality, Iran is not going to play by US rules, nor does real war allow for inane “do-overs,” refloating ships, of bringing the 20,000 dead on the Blue side (from the first day of battle alone) back to life.
On a related note, who else remembers the nearly 500 US military suicides in 2011? The rate was higher than combat losses in Iraq and Afghanistan that year. And wargamers contemplate invading and occupying IRAN? Insanity.

Tiktaalik says:
October 26, 2017 at 4:16 am
“Bluntly stated, Iran is not exactly Team Trump’s worst problem at the moment, and obsessing over it will only weaken America’s ability to tackle the North Korea challenge, a rising China, a lingering ISIS, a resurgent Russia, and many other national security challenges. ”
“This would be our chance to finally rid the Middle East—and indeed the world—of the Iranian menace. ”
Wow, there is one rogue state for sure, but it’s neither NK, nor Iran

Centralist says:
October 26, 2017 at 7:10 am
https://web.archive.org/web/20060504005348/http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,95496,00.html
Made me think of this. The US has a lot of strengths in warfare and two glaring weaknesses. The biggest weakness is our own arrogance, the second in forgetting that victory has a high cost. Iran is not dictator state, it military is dedicated to it and the people are proud. They are a lot more like us then we want to admit.

Cheryl Benard says:
October 26, 2017 at 10:19 am
The premise of this war game is with all due respect, quite simple-minded and far too linear. What is actually happening is that Iran is already waging war against us, and winning every day in very intelligent ways. The most stunning right now: they are grabbing territory, respect and influence out from under our noses in Iraq, where one of the largest foreign policy and military investments of the U.S. is being handed to Iran while we let the Kurds, loyal allies and formerly an anti-terrorist, pro-Western line in the sand, get pounded. That is the war and yes, we are losing, through our own stupidity, inaction and blindness.

 

[jed turtle]

Thank you for the awesome work you do keeping us informed!

 

[brudog]

Thank you for the awesome work you do keeping us informed!

+100!!

 

[Housecarl]

Thank you for the awesome work you do keeping us informed!

+100!!

You're all welcome.....

------

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2017/10/26/army-rd-spending-geared-toward-a-big-war

Army R&D Spending Geared Toward a ‘Big War’

10/26/2017
By Jon Harper
Comments 1

The Army’s future research-and-development spending will be focused on technologies needed to fight a large-scale conflict against advanced adversaries such as Russia, according to defense budget experts.

After more than a decade of focusing on counterinsurgency needs, the Army is now preparing for “the big war,” Robert Levinson, senior defense analyst with Bloomberg Government, said during a recent briefing for industry and media.

Cameron Leuthy, senior budget analyst with Bloomberg Government, said the Army’s future years defense program plan demonstrates this trend.

The service’s research development, test and evaluation budget is projected to increase 25 percent between fiscal years 2017 and 2022, to $10.24 billion. Priorities include air and missile defense, cybersecurity, electronic warfare, high-energy lasers, advanced munitions, active protective systems and future vertical lift helicopter technology, according to Bloomberg Government slides.

Analysts see “continued drive in that direction … for the big state-on-state kind of conflict that the Army needs to deter,” Levinson said.

Under the service’s five-year plan, from fiscal years 2018 to 2022, funding for advanced aviation development would increase 1,234 percent, to $173.5 million; armored systems modernization would grow 368 percent, to $133.2 million; electronic warfare development would jump 24 percent to $21.1 million; and lower-tier missile defense capabilities would rise 85 percent, to $65.3 million, Levinson and Leuthy calculated.

The service is looking for leap-ahead capabilities, Leuthy said.

The Army plans to invest a disproportionate amount on science and technology efforts relative to the other services, he noted. Spending on basic, applied and advanced technology development would constitute 25 percent of the Army’s research budget in fiscal year 2018, compared with 12 percent for the Navy and just 7 percent for the Air Force.

“They’re really looking down the road,” Levinson said. “They’re investing their RDT&E to get to those technological breakthroughs that will allow them to create a program of record that’s … going to give them a leap in capability.”

Army leaders recently designated the next-generation combat vehicle, which could someday replace the Abrams tank and Bradley fighting vehicle, as their second highest modernization priority.

“I think what you’re going to see is investments in … automotive technology, composite material technology, alternate weapon systems that could be used on the future ground vehicle,” Leuthy said.

“But you’re not going to see a program of record … over the FYDP. It’s going to be early stage R&D.”

Waiting until leap-ahead technology is ready before going full-bore after a new tank would be wise, Levinson said.

“The Army we think is being smart in saying, ‘Let’s not invest in a brand new program that’s not going to give us a whole lot of new capability,’” he said.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.fpri.org/article/2017/10/chinas-19th-party-congress-coronation-qualifications/

China’s 19th Party Congress: A Coronation, With Qualifications

June Teufel Dreyer
October 26, 2017

As most of China returned to work after the long Golden Week holiday, heightened security measures were put into place in Beijing, the nation’s capital. All police leaves were cancelled, and thousands of additional security personnel were brought into Beijing to guard against what the media delicately refer to as “social instability.” Identification cards were checked not only in and near public buildings, but even in subway stations. All Airbnb contracts were cancelled, and drone flights prohibited. Media censorship, scarcely lax before, became yet more vigilant. A film with a sensitive theme had its opening postponed. Heavy industry was ordered to scale back production to ensure blue skies, and funds were injected into the stock market to guard against fluctuations.

The reason for these extraordinary measures was the every-five year meeting of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This iteration, the Party’s 19th, saw over 2,200 delegates converging on Beijing to “elect” a new Central Committee of the party. Despite the aura of secrecy about what would be announced, most analysts agreed that final decisions were likely to have been made at a prior gathering weeks before.

Outside China, views on the meeting varied, from Harvard professor Graham Allison’s adulatory essay entitled “Behold the New Emperor of China”—with no hint of sarcasm evident—to Oxford don Stein Ringen’s description of a ruthless dictatorship. Australian analyst Kevin Carrico, predicting a lengthy set of ritualistic speeches, said the congress would be much ado about nothing.

All about Xi
To be sure, the major issue, Party General Secretary Xi Jinping’s re-appointment to a second five year term, was uncontested. Although rumbles of discontent were noticeable little more than a year ago, they were quickly silenced. Xi set up several “leading small groups” to take charge of specific policy areas, with himself head of each and, in the course of a campaign to root out corruption at levels high and low (“tigers and flies”). Claiming 1.5 million victims so far, the campaign seemed to have eliminated all potential rivals. These ranged from provincial leaders to military men through the justice ministry. Two leading generals were charged with abuse of office, which generally means taking bribes in exchange for promotions. The party secretary of the provincial-level city of Chongqing was found guilty of leaking confidential CCP information, seeking benefits for his relatives’ businesses, and accepting huge amounts of money and gifts.The justice minister was found to have “serious discipline problems”—a euphemism for corruption—removed from her position, and expelled from the Party as well. These moves have not always been met with supine compliance: the erstwhile party secretary of Chongqing was alleged to have been active in plans for a counter-regime coup d’état.

Xi had also encouraged a cult of himself: portraits of Xi, often with his photogenic spouse Peng Liyuan, adorned a variety of pictures and ceramic plates for sale in open-air shops, typically edging out those of perennial favorites Mao Zedong and the Buddha. He put forth his plan for a “China Dream” for national power and prosperity, published a widely-distributed (though not necessarily widely bought or read) book of his thoughts, and paid unannounced—albeit well-publicized—visits to dumpling shops to mingle with awed ordinary patrons, apparently relishing, at least for a time, being called “Xi Dada,” or Daddy Xi. Already a year ago, in October 2016, a Party meeting had officially designated Xi a “core” leader, a level of reverence previously according only to Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. What could possibly go wrong?

As is the case with leaders worldwide, Xi’s opening speech to the assembled delegates promised a rosy future. The past five years had seen great progress: even greater triumphs lay ahead. By the middle of the 21st century, China would be a “prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful country. “ The People’s Republic would be wealthier, cleaner, and militarily more powerful, moving to center stage in the international order.

While the coronation was not in doubt, speculation had been rampant on a number of other issues. First, since Xi was expected to retire after the end of his second term, would he, as rumored, seek to stay on longer or—in a signal that he did intend to step down—indicate his choice for a successor?

If so, would the delegates ratify the individual? This had not always been the case: in 2007, Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, made it clear that he preferred someone from his own faction, the Communist Youth League (CYL or tuanpai), Li Keqiang, to succeed him. But Li came in second to Xi, who did indeed receive the top post when Hu retired in 2012. Li had to settle for premier, the highest position in state government, where Xi proceeded to all but ignore him. Failure to ratify Xi’s choice seemed an unlikely scenario this time: he had essentially dismantled the CYL, absorbing the China Youth University of Political Studies, its flagship institution for training future league officials, into the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and renaming it the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Second, who would be the other members of the CCP’s inner sanctum, the Standing Committee of the Politburo (PBSC)? This group, seven during the just-ended party congress, has had as few as five members and as many as nine in the past. The organizations in which PBSC members have served and with whom they are thought to be affiliated have been a matter of intense scrutiny. Under an informal, but generally observed, rule—commonly referred to as the “seven up eight down” rule—that is meant to provide periodic infusions of new blood into the leadership, those who are 68 or older at the time of the Party Congress, and would therefore be 73 at the end of their five-year terms, are expected to retire; those who are 67 or younger may stay.

Under Xi’s first term, all the members of the PBSC save for Li Keqiang were considered allies of Xi. But assuming the “seven up eight down” rule were observed, all but Li would be required to resign. The 25-person Politburo, from which the new PBSC is normally derived, contained a more diverse group of individuals. And among the five scheduled to retire was the 69-year old redoubtable Wang Qishan who, in addition to being close to Xi, had run his anti-corruption campaign. Were Wang to be kept on and the 7 up 8 down rule ignored, that would be taken as a signal that Xi himself planned to stay on after 2022.

So as well would his failure to appoint a younger person, i.e. one who would be young enough to serve a full ten-year term as president, when appointed in five years. One of the few such persons in the Politburo eligible to do so was the aforementioned discredited Party Secretary of Chongqing, Sun Zhengkai. His successor in Chongqing, Chen Min’er, is 57 and therefore able to serve a full ten-year term. But he was not yet a Politburo member, meaning that promotion directly into the PBSC would have been abnormal.

Finally, and to some most crucially, there was the matter of amending the CCP’s constitution. This is typically done as or after a leader retires, according to a carefully considered hierarchy. Marxism Leninism comes first, then Mao Zedong thought, meaning that Mao was not accorded the status of “ism,” and Deng Xiaoping theory, a level considered below thought. The next leader, Jiang Zemin, reportedly tried hard to get his name included, but had to settle for the Theory of Three Represents, and Hu Jintao for his signature phrase, the scientific outlook on development.

A True Coronation?
In the end, Xi succeeded in enshrining his name and status in the party constitution at a level equal to Mao’s: the newly approved formula is Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development, and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. A phrase that cries out for an acronym.

However, Wang Qishan has retired not only from the Standing Committee of the Politburo, but also from the Central Committee, thus leaving the seven up eight down rule intact. Another confidante of Xi, Zhao Leji, has entered the select group and took over Wang’s responsibilities as head of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

The number of PBSC members remains at seven, though none is below the age of 60, meaning eligible for a full ten year term after the 20th Party Congress five years hence. Xi has thus not designated a successor, reinforcing suspicions that he intends to break the two-term rule by staying on past 2022. Conceivably, Chen Min-er could be promoted into the PBSC mid-term, but this would be highly unusual. The new members have worked with Xi before, though not all—for example, the reform-minded former head of Guangdong province—are considered closely associated with him or his programs.

In short, the new configuration represents a de-institutionalization of the leadership structure, leaving Xi Jinping firmly at the top. Supporters point out that this concentration of power will allow faster progress toward implementing the restructuring of an ossified system. Critics argue that the result represents a regression toward fascism—some have used the character for Xi’s surname to transliterate references to Hitler—under a leader who will permit no dissent. Also that such a strongly top-down system is unsuited to the technologically complex system that China has become. Moreover, if Xi’s efforts at reform should fail, his critics will hold him directly responsible.

So, the outcome of the Congress was something only slightly less than Allison’s coronation. Although the speeches were indeed as boring as Carrico predicted, the Congress was not quite anticlimactic. And has perhaps fallen a bit short of Ringen’s ruthless dictatorship. Chinese politics will continue to surprise.


June Teufel Dreyer is a Senior Fellow in FPRI’s Asia Program. She is Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida.Read More

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/10/abadi-visits-ankara-turkish-support-baghdad.html

Abadi, Erdogan meet to form Kurdistan game plan

Amberin Zaman
October 25, 2017
Comments 41

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi made a lightning visit to Ankara today*to shore up regional support for Baghdad’s efforts to reclaim full control over the beleaguered Iraqi Kurdistan Region. The*campaign could turn very bloody should the Kurds resist.

Abadi met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has emerged as a key ally in those plans. In a joint news conference, the two men repeated their objections to the*Kurdish independence*referendum, which was held Sept.*25 and approved by a crushing 93% of voters.

Erdogan said,*“From the beginning we have always expressed that we supported territorial integrity in Iraq, and we will continue to do so.” He added,*“We did not get a positive response to [our] warnings,*so we decided to impose sanctions.”

Abadi said, “With the referendum, they tried to break up our territory. They tried to redefine our borders.”

Turkey has in fact not yet taken any real*measures against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) beyond holding showy military drills on its border, taking two Iraqi Kurdish news channels off the air and shutting its airspace to Kurdistan Region-bound flights — an empty gesture as Baghdad had already sealed that space to all international flights Sept. 29.

Turkey’s borders with the Iraqi Kurds remain open. A pipeline carrying Iraqi Kurdish crude to export terminals in Ceyhan, a Turkish port in the southern Mediterranean, is*still functioning.

Turkey has left much of the initiative to Iran, the Kurds’ other big detractor. Tehran duly cut a deal with a faction of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two main parties governing the Kurdistan Region. Within two weeks, Iraqi forces backed by Shiite*militias regained control of much of the territory Kurdish peshmerga fighters had captured from the Islamic State in 2014, most critically*the oil-rich province of Kirkuk. Washington, which said it would remain neutral in the spat, has sat on its hands, effectively greenlighting Iraqi advances.

Iraqi forces are now keen*to swoop on Fish-Khabur, a critical wedge of territory where the Iraqi, Turkish*and Syrian borders meet.

It remains unclear whether Ankara would back further military action against the Kurds at its border, but Turkish officials have made no secret of their desire to see Baghdad reimpose federal authority over its border areas and*has floated various plans.about this.

Erdogan said today that Turkey wanted to help Baghdad resume exporting Kirkuk's oil via an old dual pipeline that would take at least two years to refurbish, industry experts say. The plan would demand*Kurdish acquiescence, and it's not been forthcoming. Baghdad may yet resort to force.

Indeed, until yesterday, an attack seemed imminent as Iraqi forces continued to advance north toward*Iraqi Kurdish territory from Rabiya and Zumar. But the Iraqis are now holding their fire to allow*time for a transfer of power that many think*will take place within Iraqi Kurdistan. Ankara and Washington are said to favor this arrangement.

It*is thought to be staked on the stepping down of Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzan, who would hand*power to his nephew, Prime Minister*Nechirvan Barzani. There is widespread speculation that this*could happen in the coming days, if not hours.

The first signs of a climbdown emerged Tuesday, when the KRG declared that it was prepared to “freeze” the referendum and resume talks with Baghdad.

Under the proposed scheme, the new Kurdish leadership is meant to share control over its borders for the first time since 1991*and over oil revenues, another*first since 2014,*when the Kurds began exporting their oil independently of Baghdad through the Turkish pipeline and independence finally seemed within reach.

Many blame the fiercely proud elder Barzani for the current debacle. It has left the Iraqi Kurds deeply humiliated, further divided*and in their weakest negotiating position since a failed autonomy deal with Baghdad in 1975.

In turn,*Barzani*has pinned responsibility on the PUK for selling out, as he sees it, to Iran. Others say it's Washington’s fault. The United States emboldened Iran and Baghdad in its zeal to stop the referendum. The wisest course of action, this argument goes, would have been for Washington, having registered its objections, to pipe down.

There is a face-saving way out for the president. Barzani’s term, which some members of the opposition say was extended illegally*for a second time*in 2015, will expire again Nov. 1.*He has said on numerous occasions that he has no plans to stay on. Barzani could present his exit as his own choice.

But Iraqi Kurdistan would then be left without a president, as the Kurds’ regional parliament voted this week to delay by eight months parliamentary and presidential elections that were scheduled to be held concurrently on Nov 1. Further complicating matters, Iraqi Kurdistan does not have its own constitution, and the opposition Change Movement [Gorran]*is continuing to boycott the chamber because of the dispute over the presidency.

Can Nechirvan save the day? Bilal Wahab is a Soref fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who writes about Kurdish governance. He told Al-Monitor, “Within [the Barzani-led Kurdistan Democratic Party] realm, Nechirvan would be a pragmatic actor because he is the least associated with the referendum.” The savvy prime minister kept a low profile throughout the referendum campaign and is widely believed to have urged his uncle to call it off. He negotiated many of the multibillion-dollar energy deals and is as much at ease with Washington and Moscow as he is with Ankara and Tehran.

Wahab cautioned, however, “While this formula may stave off the immediate crisis, the question of who represents the KRG in future negotiations with Baghdad will remain unresolved unless Gorran is brought on board. And this entails a whole new round of deal-making.” Other presidential hopefuls are known to be waiting in the wings. Then there’s the rarely mentioned yet widely known rivalry between Nechirvan and his cousin Masrour, the KRG’s powerful intelligence chief*who is Massoud Barzani’s eldest son. How would this play out should Nechirvan be handed the reins? The Barzanis have rarely displayed disunity and least of all in public. But either way,*Iraqi Kurdistan has entered uncharted waters.
Found in:
Kurdistan state efforts, Defense/Security cooperation

Amberin Zaman is a columnist for Al-Monitor's Turkey Pulse who has covered Turkey, the Kurds and Armenia for The Washington Post, The Daily Telegraph, The Los Angeles Times and the Voice of America. She served as The Economist's Turkey correspondent between 1999 and 2016. She was a columnist for the liberal daily Taraf and the mainstream daily Haberturk before switching to the independent Turkish online news portal Diken in 2015.*On Twitter: @amberinzaman

Recommended Articles:

Iran's media unconcerned with Iraq-Saudi Arabia rapprochement


US welcomes Kurdish backpedaling


Pentagon says Iraqi flight ban won’t impact US military assistance to Kurds

Iraq
Amid crisis with Erbil, Baghdad launches Kurdish TV programming

Iran
How Iran is winning game of chess in Kirkuk

Turkey
Kurds in Turkey mourn losses of those in Iraq