WAR 11-25-2017-to-12-01-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(296) 11-04-2017-to-11-10-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...1-10-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(297) 11-11-2017-to-11-17-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...1-17-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(298) 11-18-2017-to-11-24-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...1-24-2017___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

============

Egypt mosque attack leaves at least 200 dead, 130 wounded - UPDATE post 10, 300 dead
Started by Buick Electra‎, Yesterday 07:45 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-200-dead-130-wounded-UPDATE-post-10-300-dead

The Winds of War Blow in Korea and The Far East
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-of-War-Blow-in-Korea-and-The-Far-East/page76

Saudi Arabia’s Top Cleric: Fighting Jews Forbidden, Hamas a Terror group
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ing-Jews-Forbidden-Hamas-a-Terror-group/page2

Afghan War Intensifies - U.S. F-22 Raptor Stealth Fighters Target Narcotics Production Facilities
Started by intothatgoodnight‎, Today 03:25 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ghters-Target-Narcotics-Production-Facilities

==========

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...s-troops-in-syria-u-s-officials-idUSKBN1DO2II

NOVEMBER 24, 2017 / 12:50 PM / UPDATED 21 HOURS AGO

Pentagon likely to acknowledge 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria: U.S. officials

Idrees Ali
3 MIN READ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is likely to announce in the coming days that there are about 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria, two U.S. officials said on Friday, as the military acknowledges that an accounting system for troops has under-reported the size of forces on the ground.

The U.S. military had earlier publicly said it had around 500 troops in Syria, mostly supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces group of Kurdish and Arab militias fighting Islamic State in the north of the country.

Two U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Pentagon could, as early as Monday, publicly announce that there are slightly more than 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria. They said there was always a possibility that last minute changes in schedules could delay an announcement.

That is not an increase in troop numbers, just a more accurate count, as the numbers often fluctuate.

An accounting system, known as the Force Management Level (FML), was introduced in Iraq and Syria during former President Barack Obama’s administration as a way to exert control over the military.

But the numbers do not reflect the extent of the U.S. commitment on the ground since commanders often found ways to work around the limits - sometimes bringing in forces temporarily or hiring more contractors.

The force management levels are officially at 5,262 in Iraq and 503 in Syria, but officials have privately acknowledged in the past that the real number for each country is more than the reported figure.

The Pentagon said last December that it would increase the number of authorized troops in Syria to 500, but it is not clear how long the actual number has been at around 2,000.

Obama periodically raised FML limits to allow more troops in Iraq and Syria as the fight against Islamic State advanced.

As that campaign winds down, it is unclear how many, if any, U.S troops will remain in Syria.

Most of them are special operations forces, working to train and advise local partner forces, including providing artillery support against Islamic State militants.

One of the officials said that the actual number in Iraq is not expected to be announced because of “host nation sensitivities,” referring to political sensitivities about U.S. forces in Iraq.

In August, the Pentagon announced that there were 11,000 troops serving in Afghanistan, thousands more than it has previously stated.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has in the past expressed frustration with the FML method of counting U.S. troops in conflict zones.

Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Alistair Bell

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ast-nigeria-town-residents-idUSKBN1DP0PW?il=0

NOVEMBER 25, 2017 / 1:35 PM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO

Suspected Boko Haram militants take over northeast Nigeria town: residents

Ardo Hazzad
2 MIN READ

BAUCHI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Suspected members of Islamist militant group Boko Haram took over a town in the restive state of Borno in northeast Nigeria on Saturday, residents said.

The attack comes days after a suicide bomber killed at least 50 people at a mosque in neighbouring Adamawa state in one of the deadliest attacks since President Muhammadu Buhari came to power in 2015 pledging to end the eight-year insurgency.

Residents said attackers entered Magumeri, around 50 km (30 miles) from Borno state capital Maiduguri, around 7:00 p.m. (1800 GMT). They said the insurgents shot sporadically and threw explosive devices, prompting locals to flee to a forest.

“We hurriedly took our families to the bushes before they could get us. Almost every resident is hiding here,” said Wakil Bulama, one of two residents who spoke to Reuters by telephone.

A military source who did not want to be identified said Magumeri had been attacked but could not confirm whether it had been seized.

Boko Haram has waged an insurgency in northeastern Nigeria since 2009 in its attempt to create an Islamic state in the region. The group has killed more than 20,000 and forced around 2 million people to flee their homes.

Additional reporting by Paul Carsten in Abuja; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Alison Williams and Dale Hudson

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...my-after-police-islamists-clash-idUSKBN1DP04E

NOVEMBER 24, 2017 / 8:49 PM / UPDATED 4 HOURS AGO

Pakistan government calls in army after police, Islamists clash

Asif Shahzad, Kay Johnson
5 MIN READ

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan’s government on Saturday called on the army to help clear a sit-in by Islamist hard-liners blockading the capital after police clashed with activists and religious protests spread to other cities.

More than 100 people were wounded in Saturday’s clashes, including at least 65 members of the security forces, according to reports from hospitals. Protesters said four of their activists had been killed, but police said there had been no deaths.

Television footage showed a police vehicle on fire, heavy curtains of smoke and fires burning in the streets as officers in heavy riot gear advanced. Protesters, some wearing gas masks, fought back in scattered battles across empty highways and surrounding neighbourhoods.

By nightfall, protests spread to several other big cities with activists brandishing sticks and attacking cars in some areas. New demonstrators had joined the camp in Faizabad, just outside Islamabad, in a stand-off with police,

Private TV stations were ordered off the air, with only state-run television broadcasting. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were also blocked in many areas.

About 1,000 activists from Tehreek-e-Labaik, a new hard-line Islamist political party, have blockaded the main road into the capital for two weeks, accusing the law minister of blasphemy against Islam and demanding his dismissal and arrest.

“We are in our thousands. We will not leave. We will fight until end,” Tehreek-e-Labaik party spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi told Reuters by telephone from the scene.

Tehreek-e-Labaik is one of two new ultra-religious political movements that have risen up in recent months and seem set to play a major role in elections that must be held by summer next year, though they are unlikely to win a majority.

CHAOS AND “CONSPIRACY”

Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal told Reuters in a message on Saturday night that the government had “requisitioned” the military assistance “for law and order duty according to the constitution”.

The ruling party of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif - who was disqualified by the Supreme Court in July and is facing a corruption trial - has a fraught history with the military, which in 1999 launched a coup to oust Sharif from an earlier term.

Earlier in the day, Iqbal said the protests were part of a conspiracy to weaken the government, which is now run by Sharif’s allies under a new prime minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.

“There are attempts to create a chaos in (the) country,” Iqbal said on state-run Pakistan TV.

“I have to say with regret that a political party that is giving its message to people based on a very sacred belief is being used in the conspiracy that is aimed at spreading anarchy in the country,” Iqbal added, without saying who he considered responsible.

Pakistan’s army chief on Saturday called on the civilian government to end the protest while “avoiding violence from both sides”. Opposition leader Imran Khan called for early elections, saying the “incompetent and dithering” administration had allowed a breakdown of governance.

The clashes began on Saturday when police launched an operation involving some 4,000 officers to disperse around 1,000 activists and break up their camp, police official Saood Tirmizi told Reuters.

The protesters have paralysed daily life in the capital, and have defied court orders to disband.

Tehreek-e-Labaik blames the law minister, Zahid Hamid, for wording in an electoral law that changed a religious oath proclaiming Mohammad the last prophet of Islam to the words “I believe”, a change the party says amounts to blasphemy.

The government put the issue down to a clerical error and swiftly changed the language back.

Tehreek-e-Laibak was born out of a protest movement lionizing Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the governor of Punjab province who gunned down his boss in 2011 over his call to reform strict blasphemy laws.

The party won a surprisingly strong 7.6 percent of the vote in a by-election in Peshawar last month.

MORE JOIN PROTESTS

The government had tried to negotiate an end to the sit-in, fearing violence during a crackdown similar to 2007, when clashes between authorities and supporters of a radical Islamabad mosque led to the deaths of more than 100 people.

Despite the police crackdown, the protesters were largely still in place by nightfall and Tehreek-e-Labaik leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi, a prominent cleric, remained at the site, party activist Mohammad Shafiq Ameeni said.

RELATED COVERAGE
Pakistani government calls in army to help disperse Islamist protesters

Pakistan orders TV channels to go off air during crackdown on Islamist protest

Four protesters had died in the police crackdown, he added.

By late afternoon, Tehreek-e-Labaik supporters were coming out on the streets in other Pakistani cities in support.

Police fired tear gas in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, to try to disperse about 500 demonstrators near the airport.

Outside the northwestern city of Peshawar, about 300 protesters blocked the motorway to Islamabad and started attacking vehicles with stones and sticks.

In the eastern city of Lahore, party supporters blocked three roads into the city.

Additional reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar and Drazen Jorgic in Lahore; Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Alexander Smith and Stephen Powell

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ms-ban-provide-turkey-president-a8074121.html

Trump told Recep Tayyip Erdogan US will no longer provide arms to Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, says Turkish foreign minister

Mr Trump tweeted that he and Mr Erdogan would also discuss 'bringing peace to the mess that I inherited in the Middle East'

Suzan Fraser Ankara 21 hours ago
10 comments

President Donald Trump has told President Recep Tayyip Erdogan he had issued instructions that weapons should not be provided to Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria, according to Turkey's foreign minister.

“Our discomfort regarding the provision of weapons to the YPG was conveyed to Mr Trump once again... Trump very clearly said he had given instructions to not provide weapons to the YPG,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a news conference in Ankara.

“We welcome the promise of not providing weapons to the YPG, and want to see it implemented practically.”

Mr Cavusoglu said Mr Trump relayed his decision during a telephone conversation between the Turkish and U.S. leaders on Friday. Cavusoglu was present in Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's office during the telephone call.

Turkey considers the Kurdish Syrian fighters, known by the initials YPG, to be terrorists because of their affiliation to outlawed Kurdish rebels in Turkey. A US decision to arm the fighters soured relations between the two Nato allies.

Mr Cavusoglu also said that Russia, Iran and Turkey would decide jointly who would attend Syrian peace talks. Turkey has said it would not accept the presence of YPG representatives.

There was no immediate comment from the White House, the State Department or the Pentagon. But Turkey's announcement appeared to catch at least some U.S. officials who work on Syria issues off-guard, with several saying they were unaware of any plans to alter U.S. assistance to the Kurds. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

Earlier, Mr Trump tweeted that he'd be speaking with Mr Erdogan “about bringing peace to the mess that I inherited in the Middle East.”

Associated Press

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.businessinsider.com/homicides-hit-new-high-mexico-alongside-increase-in-robberies-2017-11

Homicides have hit a new high in Mexico — but that's not the only sign of growing insecurity

Christopher Woody
Nov. 24, 2017, 4:11 PM 8,973

• The number of homicides in Mexico has risen steadily over the past three years, particularly in areas where drug-related crime is high.
• While much of the violence is related to organized crime, the Mexican government has been criticized for its heavy-handed response, which has led to some high-profile cases of abuse.
• The country's deteriorating security situation promises to play a significant role in the presidential election next year.

Mexico's 2,764 homicide victims in October is the most recorded in any month over the last 20 years, according to data collected by the country's federal government.

The new data puts 2017 on pace to be the most violent year in Mexico since the government began releasing homicide data in 1997.

Federal data also showed that 2,371 homicide investigations, which can include more than one victim, were opened in October — the highest monthly total over the past two decades.

The 23,968 homicide victims reported though October this year are nearly 27% more than the 18,895 recorded over the same period last year.

This year's total through 10 months was almost 55% more than the 15,480 recorded over the same period in 2015.

Mexican federal data may in fact undercount the number of homicides in the country, however.

Civil-society groups have suggested that state governments, which submit crime data to the federal government, may misrepresent or manipulate the number of intentional killings.

"We don't know if October was the most violent month in the last two decades. [Federal government] numbers are sufficiently poor to maintain some skepticism," Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope said after the data was released.

"If you want to make comparisons between different periods, you have to contrast using the homicide rate, not the absolute number."

While 2017's homicide number looks set to exceed the violent years between 2008 and 2012, when drug-related violence was raged across much of the country, this year's homicide rate per 100,000 people remains below those years.

2010 and 2012 were both above 18 homicides per 100,000 people, while 2011 approached 20 per 100,000. The rate fell after 2012, bottoming out at just under 13 per 100,000 in 2014. It has risen since: 2016 saw 16.8 homicides per 100,000 people, while 2017 is at 16.9 homicides per 100,000 people through October.

Not all of Mexico's deadly violence is related to drugs and organized crime, but areas where criminal groups have traditionally been active have seen already elevated homicide numbers increase.

Through October, the strategically valuable border state of Baja California saw a 94% increase in homicide victims compared to the same period last year.

Chihuahua, also a valuable border state, saw a 35% increase. Veracruz, a Gulf coast state that has been a hotbed for criminal activity, saw a 31% increase.

Sinaloa, the heartland of the cartel of the same name, had a nearly 42% increase, while Guerrero, a heavily contested hub of opium production, had a nearly 14% increase through October.

Baja California Sur, home to popular resorts in Los Cabos, has seen the most severe increase in homicides. Its 536 homicides victims through October this year were 223% more than during the same period last year and almost 400% more than during the first 10 months of 2015.

Baja California Sur's spiraling violence was underscored on Monday, when the head of the state's human-rights commission, Silvestre de la Toba, and his son were gunned down.

'Security needs to remain an utmost priority'
While homicides have steadily risien, overall crime has also risen. During the first 10 months of 2017, the Mexican federal government recorded a 13% increase in reported crimes compared to the same period last year. Violent crimes other than homicide are up as well.

Attempted homicides with a firearm over the first 10 months of this year increased 39% compared to the same period last year, according to Mexican news site Animal Politico. In 66.1% of the 20,878 homicide cases opened through October this year, the crime was committed with a firearm.

Violent robberies are up 38% so far this year, with over 50,000 more reported through October than were reported over the same period last year. Within that category, violent robberies of businesses increased 62%.

Extortion cases were up more than 12% through October — though many instances of extortion go unreported. Sexual attacks were also up more than 10% through the first 10 months of the year. Mexico, along with Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, is experiencing severe crisis levels of femicide, or homicides specifically targeting women, according to the UN.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has faced mounting criticism over crime rates that have steadily risen over the past three years and his government's ineffective response. Peña Nieto has pushed for reforms to the country's current security system, including a "Single Command" plan that would centralize public-security authority and reduce the autonomy of municipal police.

In an appearance before legislators this week, Interior Minister Miguel Osorio Chong touted the government's coordinated efforts to capture 108 of the 122 criminal suspects who are considered the country's most dangerous and defended federal security forces against charges of excessive force and other abuses.

Osorio Chong drew attention to the problem of undermanned and underpaid police forces and responded to criticism of a security law that would formalize the military's role in domestic law enforcement.

While critics fear the measure could shield military personnel who have committed abuses, Osorio Chong said the law "was to protect citizens" and would determine when and under what conditions the military could be deployed domestically.

Growing criticism of Peña Nieto's handling of the security situation in the country comes as the president and his party prepare for the upcoming presidential election, scheduled for the middle of next year.

Crime is just one issue that will influence voters, but Peña Nieto himself has acknowledged its importance.

"It has to be said, we're still not satisfied, and we still have lots more to achieve," Peña Nieto said in a speech earlier this month. "Security needs to remain an utmost priority for the government."

SEE ALSO: Mexican heroin is flooding the US, and the Sinaloa cartel is steering the flow
NOW WATCH: These are the kind of profits Mexican drug cartels are making

 

[Chance]

https://www.voanews.com/a/saudis-se...ed-by-ex-pakistan-general-sharif/4136572.html

Saudis Set to Launch Counterterror Coalition Commanded by Ex-Pakistan General Sharif
November 25, 2017 1:14 PM
Ayaz Gul


ISLAMABAD —*
A Saudi-led Muslim military coalition, commanded by a celebrated former Pakistan army chief, will be officially launched on Sunday when Riyadh hosts defense ministers of the participating nations at its inaugural meeting.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Defense Minister of Saudi Arabia, will open the meeting of the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition or IMCTC, said an official statement issued on the eve of the event.

The statement explains that the “pan-Islamic coalition” of 41 predominantly Sunni Muslim countries will coordinate and multiply their individual efforts in the global fight against terrorism and violent extremism.

“The meeting [in the Saudi capital] marks the official launch of the IMCTC and strengthens the cooperation and integration of member countries in the coalition,” it reads.

While supporters dubbed the Saudi-led coalition the “Muslim NATO,” skeptics, including those in Pakistan, continue to question its objectives and see it as a sectarian-based grouping against rival Shi’ite Iran, Syria and Iraq.

Saudi officials announced formation of the coalition in 2015, headquartered in Riyadh, with a mission to fight terrorism, particularly to counter the threat of Islamic State.

Tehran has opposed the move from the outset, however, and has been lobbying against it, believing it is aimed at increasing Saudi influence in the region.

The coalition’s formation specifically has been the focus of debate in Pakistan after former Pakistani military chief Raheel Sharif was appointed as IMCTC’s first commander.

Critics have warned that Islamabad’s participation could upset the country’s minority Shi’ite community and undermine bilateral relations with Iran, which shares a nearly 1,000-kilometer border with Pakistan.

The Pakistani Senate — upper house of parliament — witnessed another heated debate on the issue this week where opposition members urged the government not to give any undertakings in Sunday’s meeting in Riyadh without taking the parliament into confidence.

Senator Farhatullah Babar, in his speech, noted that the coalition encompasses four key areas, including ideology, communications, counter-terrorism financing and military. Those areas, particularly ideology, present potential pitfalls and challenges with possible consequences for Pakistan, local media quoted Babar as saying.

A day after IMCTC's inaugural meeting, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and head of the country’s main spy agency, ISI, among others also plan to visit Riyadh on Monday at the invitation of the Saudi leadership for important consultations, although it is not known exactly what the issues are.

“If the IMCTC turns out to be a Saudi platform to bash geopolitical enemies and advance sectarian narratives, then this country [Pakistan] would best stay away from such a misadventure,” warned the leading English language newspaper, DAWN, in an editorial Saturday.

The newspaper noted with concern the Saudi crown prince’s statement issued Friday in which he dubbed Iran’s supreme leader “the Hitler of the Middle East.”

In its announcement ahead of Sunday’s meeting, the IMCTC quoted its commander, General Sharif, as saying that terrorism is the biggest challenge confronting the Muslim world.

“The IMCTC encompasses an integrated approach to coordinate and unite on the four key domains of ideology, communications, counterterrorism financing, and military, in order to fight all forms of terrorism and extremism and to effectively join other international security and peacekeeping efforts,” Sharif said.

The general retired in November 2016 and is credited with effectively countering terrorist groups operating in Pakistan during his three-year tenure as the chief of the powerful military.

But Shi’ite community leaders and independent critics in Pakistan have criticized the government, as well as Sharif, for accepting the assignment, fearing it would fuel domestic sectarian rivalries.

Pakistan has always walked a tightrope while trying to maintain a balance between its immediate neighbor, Iran, and also Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Kingdom hosts hundreds of thousands of Pakistani expatriates, and is a key source of oil supplies to Islamabad on deferred payments and cash grants to help Pakistan’s traditionally struggling economy.

The Pakistan government, under extreme domestic pressure, had refused to join Saudi-led military operations against Iran-backed Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen in 2015.

The parliament barred then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif from joining the operation, saying Pakistan's involvement in a foreign conflict would exacerbate sectarian tensions at home and upset its friends in the Muslim world.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://thediplomat.com/2017/11/chinas-evolving-approach-to-nuclear-war-fighting/

China’s Evolving Approach to Nuclear War-Fighting

China is dismantling the barriers impeding a war-fighting posture. Does that spell the end of No First Use?

By James Johnson
November 22, 2017

For decades, minimal deterrence, de-mated nuclear warheads, and a no-first-use pledge have formed the bedrock of China’s nuclear posture. China’s conventional deterrence posture, in contrast, has been characterized by war-fighting, pre-emption, asymmetry, and the development of offensively configured conventional capabilities. Recent evidence indicates that these postures are far more integrated, flexible, and dynamic than Beijing’s official rhetoric suggests, and that during the past decade a de facto shift toward a limited nuclear war-fighting (or the use of nuclear weapons for victory denial purposes at all stages of warfare) posture has already taken place.

The closer alignment of these postures would accomplish Beijing’s regional military objectives articulated in its defense strategic concept — including the use of asymmetric and pre-emptive tactics during future “informatized” high-intensity warfare — and link geographically dispersed military forces for joint operations.

If Beijing modified its nuclear forces to meet the operational requirements of a war-fighting doctrine (e.g., sizable deployments of low-yield nuclear weapons and missile-defense capabilities, or the adoption of a launch-on-warning nuclear posture), Washington would indubitably view it as a radical shift in China’s longstanding nuclear posture, and thus, a fundamental challenge to the military balance in the Asia-Pacific region.

In a forthcoming article in The Non-Proliferation Review, I argue that the existing literature has painted a relatively benign, static, and isolated (from China’s conventional war-fighting capabilities) picture of the evolution of Chinese thinking on strategic deterrence, which risks underestimating the increasingly dynamic, integrative, and flexible features of this shifting security paradigm. In particular, I argue that China’s increasingly commingled and diversified strategic missile forces have already been incorporated into a limited war-fighting military posture.

By overemphasizing the gradualist and passive aspects of China’s formal nuclear posture, policymakers risk overlooking the very real possibility that as many of the barriers (technological, military-organizational, and arms-control) to adopting a nuclear war-fighting doctrine are dismantled, the gap between China’s nuclear capabilities and the modest war-fighting ambitions of Chinese strategists will be reconciled.

Unimpeded by these restrictions, therefore, Beijing’s strategic thinking in future regional conflicts will likely reflect more accurately the new options it has amassed in both the nuclear and conventional domains; to maximize the synergies that exist between these domains for local high-intensity “informatized” warfare.

Above all, China’s increasingly commingled and diversified strategic missile forces have already been incorporated into a war-fighting military posture. Furthermore, China’s renewed interest in developing tactical theater weapons and ballistic-missile defense systems has, in conjunction with its conventional forces, enhanced its nuclear deterrence, and enabled the kinds of early and pre-emptive strike tactics consistent with a war-fighting posture.

Simply put, this approach increasingly strains the credibility of Beijing’s official rhetoric that depicts China’s nuclear posture as inherently restrained, in contrast to its conventional forces. As a result, Beijing’s characterization of its declaratory nuclear posture has become increasingly out of step with China’s evolving force structures and military writings. The lip-service paid to this stance by most external observers needs to be adjusted to reflect the more nuanced realities.

Admittedly, only a few Chinese strategists have explicitly advocated a shift in the function of nuclear weapons from minimal deterrence to war-fighting; these minority views, however, reflect broader pressures to assimilate Western nuclear strategies into traditional Chinese approaches to nuclear thinking. Recent evidence suggests that, far from fading into obscurity or being eschewed by Beijing’s official rhetoric, Chinese strategic thinking on war-fighting has continued to shape and inform Beijing’s nuclear modernization efforts.

Chinese Strategists’ Pent-up Interest in Nuclear War-Fighting

Chinese military writings intimate a pent-up interest in an expanded role for China’s nuclear weapons, which has yet to be integrated into China’s formal doctrine. In short, over the past two decades qualitative improvements to China’s nuclear forces have given Beijing the ability to use nuclear weapons (and pre-emptively) in regional wars. This implies a much broader and discriminate use for nuclear weapons than the proponents of minimum deterrence or assured retaliation envisaged.

One of my main findings is that military-technological advancements across a range of capabilities has meant that China’s aggregate nuclear posture should no longer be conceptualized independently of the PLA’s capabilities and concepts. Rather, these military domains (especially space, cyber, and missile defense) are being synthesized into a force structure that incorporates war-fighting tools, designed to deter both conventional and nuclear wars.

In other words, Chinese offensive-dominant space, cyber, and conventional precision strike capabilities have been inexorably fused into China’s nuclear deterrence posture (for integrated strategic deterrence), a trend that is likely to continue as new and increasingly sophisticated capabilities are fielded. During a military parade in 2015, for example, Beijing revealed its new intermediate-range ballistic missile (Dongfeng 26) a dual-payload weapon capable (albeit untested) of targeting land and maritime targets in ranges out to Guam.

In short, several recent technological innovations will likely expedite China’s emerging generation of strategic missiles across the entire nuclear triad, which will have profound implications for the trajectory of its nuclear posture and policies. These military-technological advancements have enhanced the accuracy, speed, precision, ranges, maneuverability, and survivability of Chinese nuclear weapons in a manner that appears incongruous with the requirements of minimum deterrence.

As a corollary, even in the absence of formal changes to China’s nuclear doctrine the integration of its nuclear weapons and operations with non-nuclear capabilities in offense-dominant domains, together with the ongoing qualitative advances associated with China’s nuclear modernization, risks exacerbating U.S.-China security dilemma dynamics, including most worryingly in the nuclear domain itself.

Beijing’s most recent defense white paper touched on planned enhancements to the PLA’s strategic early warning and command and control systems, “to deter other countries from using or threatening to use nuclear weapons against China” (emphasis added). This official statement implies that, at a minimum, Beijing is contemplating a first-strike nuclear capacity to enhance China’s deterrence — a view that resonates within China’s strategic community.

Chinese strategists have often ambiguously declared their general commitment to minimum deterrence, whilst simultaneously arguing in favor of first strikes and pre-emptive warfare in both the nuclear and conventional domains. This apparent contradiction can be explained by the confluence of Chinese conceptualizations of conventional and nuclear war-fighting and deterrence, which contrasts with external observers’ overly passive and static perceptions of Chinese deterrence.

It appears President Xi Jinping has also embraced the notion of a war-fighting doctrine for the newly promoted Rocket Force, which is responsible for China’s strategic missiles. According to Xi, the core mission of this new service is to build a powerful modernized missile force to enhance China’s nuclear and conventional war-fighting tools for “full-area war deterrence.”

In short, the promotion of Chinese strategic forces, together with significant qualitative enhancements to its capabilities, has finally aligned China’s nuclear and conventional war-fighting tools and the aspirations of its military leaders with a command structure and the political will necessary to formalize a doctrinal shift.

An Evolving, Multifaceted Version of Deterrence

Chinese evolving conceptualization of “strategic deterrence” reflects a multifaceted cross-domain version of deterrence, which lends itself to the blurring of traditional conventional-nuclear and offensive-defense distinctions. This inexorable clouding by shortening the decision-making timeframe during crisis, and compressing the nuclear escalation ladder, will likely negatively affect U.S.-China strategic stability, and in turn, increase the incentives (on both sides) for pre-emptive tactics.

This assessment does not, however, posit that Beijing has adopted or will formalize an actual nuclear war-fighting doctrine; rather that the trajectory of China’s military modernization and integration are taking them to a place with many of the same risks and strategic implications.

How Chinese thinking evolves to reflect the linkages that have formed between its increasingly commingled conventional and nuclear capabilities and reorganized military structure remains, however, unknown. Although Chinese strategists frequently discuss cross-domain warfare (to deter adversaries and control escalation), they seldom discuss the inherent risks associated with these tactics.

Furthermore, ambiguities caused by Chinese internal debates relating to China’s “no first use” policy will continue to undermine the credibility of China’s adherence to this stance, keeping the option open for Beijing to formalize its de facto war-fighting posture. To be sure, issues of this kind will become more pressing as China’s military services synthesize and diffuse its cross-domain war-fighting capabilities, especially in space and cyberspace, for future cross-domain warfare.

Implications

The inexorable blurring of the PLA’s conventional and nuclear, and offensive and defense capabilities by shortening the timeframe for crisis decision making, and compressing the (albeit poorly defined) U.S.-China nuclear escalation ladder will pose increasing existential risks to U.S.-China strategic stability in the Asia-Pacific. Under crisis conditions, these risks could exacerbate existing Sino-American misperceptions and misunderstandings that in turn will likely increase the incentives for early and pre-emptive attacks, which are already baked into the competing operational concepts on both sides, e.g. the U.S. Air-Sea Battle Concept (renamed Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons), and China’s anti-access, area-denial strategy.

In short, the mere possibility of China using its nuclear-capable war-fighting tools in limited and tactical missions to deter the United States in nuclear or conventional conflicts and in a manner, timing, and purpose that Washington would unlikely anticipate could harbinger a fundamental shift in Sino-American strategic relations.

If U.S. defense planners concluded, therefore, that China’s war-fighting capabilities could presage a fundamental shift in trajectory of China’s approach to nuclear deterrence intended to support Beijing’s aggressive assertions of sovereignty (e.g. in the East and South China seas, or the Taiwan Strait), the implications for U.S. forward force postures, extended nuclear assurances, and nuclear deterrence would be profound. Moreover, China’s propensity for strategic ambiguity and opacity in the nuclear domain (especially the intended purpose for its war-fighting capabilities) will likely reinforce the Pentagon’s penchant for worse-case scenario (and zero-sum) assessments of Beijing’s strategic intentions.

Several implications and future research topics follow from the findings of this research:

First, research would be beneficial on how the Chinese security community views the U.S.-China relationship in the nuclear domain. In particular, who on the Chinese side is leading this fundamental re-think, is it being challenged, and if so, in what ways and to what degrees of success? How are these views changing in response to U.S. military policies and posture in Asia? Finally, how are the PLA’s “new” capabilities likely to affect Beijing’s thinking about its nuclear options in future warfare?

Second, defense analysts will need to closely monitor the development of Chinese commingled capabilities that might increase Beijing’s future war-fighting options, and especially indications of any changes to the PLA’s operational doctrines because of these developments.

Finally, it is unknown whether the PLA emerges from its recent major overhaul as a stronger and more coordinated joint war-fighting force, and many unknowns exist. What, for example, will be the precise responsibilities of the new Rocket Force for China’s overall nuclear assets?

Conclusions

Recent evidence indicates that Chinese thinking on war-fighting, rather than being eschewed in favor of a minimal deterrence posture, has continued to influence China’s nuclear modernization efforts. Chinese military writings include positions that favor a more flexible and robust nuclear posture than has yet been endorsed in official documents or reflected in China’s formal doctrine, which indicates an underlying receptivity for innovation in this domain.

In sum, unimpeded by many of the constraints imposed on previous generations of Chinese strategists, and driven by the ongoing qualitative changes to the PLA’s force structure, China’s incongruous nuclear posture will likely be reconciled, aligning China’s nuclear forces with its offensively configured conventional stance for high-intensity (or asymmetric escalation), and pre-emptive future warfare.

Several unknowns remain including: How closely will China’s nuclear and conventional domains be aligned, and at what levels? In addition, how will hypersonic weapons and glide vehicles affect this dynamic, especially if they are deployed to enhance both conventional and nuclear missiles?

On the future modern battlefield, where the boundaries between war and peace and conventional-nuclear and offense-defense lines are increasingly blurred; where an aggressor is likely to resort to early and pre-emptive tactics to assert escalation dominance; and where states rapidly accumulate, synthesize, and diffuse progressively advanced war-fighting tools, interstate security dilemmas will become more frequent, intense, intractable, and destabilizing.

Dr. James Johnson is Visiting Fellow with the School of History & International Relations at the University of Leicester. He is the author of the forthcoming book The U.S.-China Military & Defense Relationship During the Obama Presidency with Palgrave Macmillan.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/n...rs-ponder-presidents-power-launch-armageddon/

A Nuclear Reckoning: Senators Ponder the President’s Power to Launch Armageddon

Alexandra Bell
November 24, 2017

Congressional hearings happen all the time. If you inadvertently stumble across a C-SPAN channel, you will find any number of relatively unexciting discussions of public policy minutiae. These necessary, but often dull, proceedings end up like trees falling in a forest. If no one is watching, did they even happen?

Every so often, however, a congressional hearing makes a bigger impact. Such was the case with the Nov. 14 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the authority to order the use of nuclear weapons. It was the first time in 41 years that Congress had discussed such matters, and it may have never happened if not for the alarming nature of the 298 days that preceded the hearing. *

Since the end of the Cold War, congressional attention to nuclear weapons policy has waned. The bulk of the conversation about the most powerful weapons ever invented now occurs between an increasingly small group of members and staff, many of whom seem to have no interest in engaging the public. This problem is not restricted to the legislative branch. Inside the executive branch, the focus on weapons of mass destruction has dwindled as other pressing security threats have taken center stage. *

For better or for worse, President Donald Trump’s views and behaviors have thrust nuclear weapons back into the public spotlight. Whether with his lack of knowledge about U.S. nuclear posture, his bold pronouncements about restarting an arms race, his encouragement of proliferation, or his suggestion that the United States increase its nuclear arsenal by a factor of ten, the 45th president has scared leaders and citizens alike. It is this fear that has opened up an opportunity for the nation to have a broad discussion about the almost 15,000 nuclear weapons that exist across the world.

For some time, proponents of nuclear modernization have passionately argued that the United States has ignored its nuclear weapons infrastructure and can do so no longer. They had a point, but completely missed another: the country has largely ignored the legal, political, and moral implications of these weapons. Some quandaries fell off the radar after the Cold War, while others have been avoided since the dawn of the nuclear age. What exactly would constitute a legal nuclear strike and would international laws have any effect on launch decisions? Do U.S. investments in nuclear modernization influence the actions of other nuclear and non-nuclear states, making an arms race more likely? Are nuclear weapons inherently immoral? These questions and the range of answers and opinions they spawn must factor into future plans. Above all, it is time to accept that nuclear weapons policies are not sacrosanct. U.S. leaders and the American public can and should be asking hard questions about the choices ahead. *

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, should be commended for taking a useful first step with last week’s hearing. Having announced his retirement, the senator seems genuinely interested in getting answers to questions others have been loath to ask. That includes whether America’s current nuclear command structure needs review.

The panel of witnesses included Gen. (ret.) Robert Kehler —U.S. Strategic Command; Dr.*Peter D. Feaver of Duke University, and Brian McKeon, former acting under secretary of defense for policy. (As an aside, it would have been nice to have a woman on the witness panel. That would have brought the grand total of women participating to two, as Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is the sole woman on the committee.)
*
The witnesses outlined the procedures by which the president of the United States can order a nuclear strike. To summarize, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was determined that the decision to use nuclear weapons should be controlled by civilian leadership, specifically the president. *

If a president wants to launch a nuclear strike, he or she would first open a briefcase (commonly referred to as the football) carried by an ever-present military aide. The president would then choose from a number of pre-planned strike options. Next, he or she would initiate a conference call with the Pentagon’s Deputy Director of Operations and the Commander of Strategic Command. Other civilian and military advisors might be included in that call.

After brief consultation, perhaps as short as 30 seconds, the senior officer in the Pentagon’s war room would authenticate the order by having the president respond to a code using a laminated card (often called the biscuit) that is carried by the U.S. leader at all times. Once the order was verified, launch orders and missile unlock codes would be prepared and transmitted to the relevant strategic forces. After that, it’s bombs (or missiles) away. From start to finish, the process can be completed in less than 15 minutes. There is no way to stop the president’s order, short of complete insubordination — not something we should wish for from the military.
**
Despite the alacrity with which the president could effectively destroy the world, each witness at the hearing demonstrated faith in the nuclear command system and stressed caution about making any changes. They all assiduously avoided the elephant in the room.*Indeed, Kehler stated firmly that the U.S. military had accounted for all hypothetical scenarios broached in the hearing. But it is somewhat difficult to believe that the military had until recently imagined a scenario in which the least experienced, and perhaps most unstable, presidential candidate in modern history would be elected at the same time that nuclear tensions were rising at an alarming rate. It would have been hard to conceive of a U.S. leader who rejected basic notions of diplomacy and foreign policy and openly disparaged both his adversaries and closest advisors. However, now that commanders are faced with that situation, it is likely that more than a few conversations related to intemperate nuclear strike orders have transpired. *

Nevertheless, Kehler and McKeon both rejected the idea of any legislative changes to the presidential nuclear launch authorities. McKeon warned that “hard cases make bad law” and advised against setting a precedent for all presidents, based on the behavior of the current one. Moreover, Kehler repeatedly stated that the military does not blindly follow orders. “An order to launch nuclear weapons,” he said, “must be legal.” When it comes to the potential use of nuclear weapons, the issue of legality relates to proportionality and necessity. Questions would include whether a nuclear strike is an appropriate response to an imminent threat and whether a conventional strike would be insufficient against that threat. Determinations on those matters could very likely be subjective and of course, as with all things, the devil is in the details. In a city like Washington, D.C., with the highest per capita percentage of lawyers in the country, it is not difficult to find someone able to build a legal case tailored to policy preferences. Feaver, perhaps less tied to the nuclear command status quo, did posit that U.S. leaders should be reflecting on current policies, if only to allay any concerns about them.

Since the witnesses were relatively moderate in nature and approach, it was the senators in attendance who made headlines. Corker was previously on record expressing concern about Trump’s fitness for office, and the media was quick to link those comments with the topic of the hearing he had convened. Previous statements aside, however, the chairman was all business and made it clear that while he had no interest in jeopardizing U.S. nuclear deterrent guarantees, he valued the discussion. *

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) tied the nuclear command issue more directly to Trump. He said he was getting more and more questions about whether there were any checks and balances to limit the president’s ability to start a nuclear war. It might be time, he argued, to revisit the idea that a single person should have the authority to launch nuclear weapons. Cardin said he wanted to be able to tell his constituents that the nuclear command system can and will prevent an impulsive or irrational nuclear strike, but at the present time could not make that guarantee.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) was fully in his element. No stranger to nuclear policy, the senator made clear that he too wanted to have a larger discussion about whether one human being should have the ability to start a nuclear war. In Markey’s view, the current procedures conflict with the Constitution. He and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) have introduced matching bills in the House and Senate prohibiting presidential authorization of a nuclear first strike without a declaration of war by Congress. So far, the legislation, the “Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act,” has 73 and 13 co-sponsors in the House and Senate, respectively, with the House version enjoying bipartisan support. It should be noted that Markey and Lieu first introduced this legislation in September 2016 when it looked as if someone else would be president. For them, no U.S. leader should have the singular authority to launch a nuclear strike.

In the context of the discussion of presidential nuclear launch authority, Shaheen (and others) questioned the witnesses about whether Trump should seek congressional approval for any preemptive strike against North Korea. McKeon testified:

Any president should want the Congress, as the body directly representative of the American people, to provide its support — to join in the decision and the responsibility for such a national commitment of blood and treasure. Given the high number of casualties that would occur in any conflict with North Korea — let alone during a ground invasion — no reasonable argument can be made that this would not be “war” in the constitutional sense.
​

The topic of the hearing did cause some concern among members of the committee. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said the senators should “tread lightly” on this topic, as the very discussion may cause America’s allies to doubt its commitment to defend them. That, in turn, could push them toward the development of their own nuclear weapons. Rubio also made the case for strategic ambiguity — the idea that a country can better deter a nuclear attack if there is no clear indication about when it would use nuclear weapons. Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) concurred and heavily stressed that he saw the hearing as an “academic” exercise rather than a practical discussion. He then, perhaps inadvertently, contradicted assurances that had been made by the witnesses, asserting that laws, standards, and proportionality would not be considered in the heat of battle and that the president alone would make the decision to launch, quickly if necessary. Corker responded that this reality was the whole point of having the hearing in the first place. *

Of course, the United States should continuously assure its friends and allies that it keeps its word and its commitments. That said, it is unnecessary to fret over the mere discussion of these topics, as if U.S. extended deterrence guarantees had all the fortitude of Blanche Dubois. *Asserting that discussions about current U.S. nuclear weapons policies are inherently dangerous is a particularly good way to make sure they are never discussed.

For example, as Congress begins to pay for the modernization of the nuclear triad, perhaps it is time to talk about the reverence with which this set of nuclear delivery systems is treated. Alex Wellerstein of the Stevens Institute for Technology has pointed out the term “triad” was not widely used until the nuclear disarmament process began in earnest in the 1970s. Was the increased discussion about the need for a triad a response to public and official support for nuclear reductions? That possibility surely deserves some attention today, as experts question whether maintaining the triad is fiscally possible, let alone strategically necessary.

Congress could also spend more time talking about the non-nuclear tools that make up U.S. extended deterrence guarantees to allies. That includes conventional military assets, theater missile defenses, sanctions and importantly, diplomacy. The Trump administration is undervaluing that last tool and it is incumbent on Congress to establish why. Another issue in need of review is how defensive systems, like missile defenses, can affect the strategic balance and make disarmament more difficult. Finally, lawmakers could also take a deeper dive into suggestions for improving the U.S. nuclear command structure without infringing on executive authority or affecting deterrence guarantees. Indeed, the strategic issues worthy of review could keep relevant committees busy far into the future.

After 41 years, Trump’s election has prompted the need for some long-overdue discussions about the most dangerous weapons in the world. Nuclear weapons can quite literally end human civilization and with the current U.S. posture, one person can decide to make that nightmare a reality. That is why Congress must continually review and, where necessary, revamp nuclear policies. That is why their constituents need to demand that they do so. Changes to programs of record, operating decisions, or political postures should be made with care and caution, but whistling past a potential global graveyard should not be an option. That is why the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing is hopefully just the start of a long-overdue nuclear policy reckoning. *
*
Alexandra Bell is the Senior Policy Director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. She previously served as senior advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....Saudi money and Egyptian, Jordanian (and perhaps Pakistani) boots on the ground....Now the question of whom they'll actually focus upon....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/26/middleeast/saudi-arabia-crown-prince-terrorism-fight/index.html

Saudi Prince: Islamic military coalition will fight terrorism until 'eradicated'

By Darran Simon, CNN

Updated 9:36 PM ET, Sun November 26, 2017

Story highlights

• Saudi Arabi's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Islamic military coalition won't let terrorists 'distort our peaceful religion'
  
• The Islamic military coalition meets for the first time since it formed in 2015

(CNN)Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said a two-year-old Islamic military coalition charged with fighting terror "will pursue terrorism until it is eradicated completely," Saudi-backed broadcaster Al-Arabiya reported Sunday.

"We will not allow them (terrorists) to distort our peaceful religion. Today we are sending a strong message that we are working together to fight terrorism," Prince bin Salman said at the inaugural meeting of the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition's defense ministers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Al Arabiya reported.

"Today we affirm that we will pursue terrorism until it is eradicated completely," Prince bin Salman said, according to Al Arabiya.

Trump's Saudi pivot is a golden opportunity in terror fight

The Saudi-led coalition, which now has some 40 members, was formed in 2015 to fight terrorism amid criticism that Arab states were not doing enough to fight ISIS. The coalition's joint operation center is based in Riyadh.

Prince bin Salman's comments come in the wake of Friday's deadly bombing of a Sufi mosque in northern Sinai in Egypt. The attack killed more than 300 people, including 27 children, according to Egypt's state prosecutor.

Another 128 people were injured, according to a statement from the public prosecutor read on Egyptian state-run news channel Nile TV.

Abdallah Abdel Nasser, 14, receives medical treatment at Suez Canal University hospital in Ismailia, Egypt, after Friday's attack.

The attackers had long beards and hair, were wearing military fatigues and were armed with heavy machine guns, according to the statement. At least one of the attackers who entered the mosque was carrying an ISIS flag the statement said.

There has not yet been a claim of responsibility from ISIS or its affiliate in Egypt. But the attack bears the hallmarks of a strike by ISIS, which maintains a stronghold in the north of the Sinai Peninsula and inspires local Islamist extremist groups, despite efforts by Egyptian security forces.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...tary-alliance-crown-prince-idUSKBN1DQ0RQ?il=0

November 26, 2017 / 10:27 AM / Updated 10 hours ago

Egypt attack to spur on Saudi-backed Muslim military alliance: crown prince

Stephen Kalin
4 Min Read

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Sunday an attack on an Egyptian mosque that killed more than 300 worshippers would galvanize an Islamic military coalition that aimed to counter “terrorism and extremism”.

Top defense officials from 40 Muslim-majority nation’s met in Riyadh on Sunday. They are part of an alliance gathered together two years ago by Prince Mohammed, who is also Saudi defense minister.

The crown prince has said he would encourage a more moderate and tolerant version of Islam in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

Prince Mohamed told delegates that Friday’s attack in Egypt “was a very painful occurrence and must make us contemplate in an international and powerful way the role of this terrorism and extremism”.

Gunmen carrying the flag of Islamic State attacked the mosque in North Sinai.

The group of Muslim nations, called the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition, has yet to take any decisive action.

Officials say the group would allow members to request or offer assistance to each other to fight militants. This could include military help, financial aid, equipment or security expertise. The group, which will have a permanent base in Riyadh, would also help combat terrorist financing and ideology.

“The biggest threat from terrorism and extremism is not only killing innocent people and spreading hate, but tarnishing the reputation of our religion and distorting our belief,” Prince Mohammed told officials from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Iraq and Syria, at the forefront of the battle against Islamic State, are not members, nor is mainly Shi‘ite Muslim Iran, the regional rival to mostly Sunni Saudi Arabia.

Qatar, originally part of the alliance, was not invited to Sunday’s meeting after Riyadh led a group of states seeking to isolate Doha, saying it supported terrorism. Doha denies this.

Abdulelah al-Saleh, a Saudi lieutenant general and the coalition’s secretary general, said Qatar was excluded to help build a consensus for launching operations. He also said the group was not aimed at creating a Sunni bloc to counter Iran.

“The enemy is terrorism. It’s not sects or religions or races, its terrorism,” Saleh told reporters.

Saleh said military initiatives had been proposed to the group’s ministerial council, but he did not elaborate.

Despite agreement on principles, members voiced different priorities at the meeting. Yemen’s delegation said the focus should be Iran, al Qaeda and Islamic State, while Turkey called for “support from our friends” against Kurdish separatists.

Critics say the coalition could become a means for Saudi Arabia to implement an even more assertive foreign policy by winning the backing of poorer African and Asian nations with offers of financial and military aid.

Alongside leading a diplomatic charge against Qatar, Saudi Arabia is also leading a war against Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in its neighbor Yemen,
Saleh said Riyadh would pay the 400 million riyal ($107 million) bill for the coalition’s new center, but said other nations could offer financial support for specific initiatives.

Additional reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Edmund Blair

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://qz.com/1134516/inside-pakistans-biggest-business-conglomerate-the-pakistani-military/

JACK OF ALL

Inside Pakistan’s biggest business conglomerate: the Pakistani military

Written by Lt. General Kamal Davar
November 20, 2017 Quartz india

In July 2016, the Pakistani senate was informed that the armed forces run over 50 commercial entities worth over $20 billion. Ranging from petrol pumps to huge industrial plants, banks, bakeries, schools and universities, hosiery factories, milk dairies, stud farms, and cement plants, the military has a finger in each pie and stands today as the biggest conglomerate of all business in Pakistan. However, the jewels in their crown are the eight housing societies in eight major towns where prime lands in well-manicured cantonments and plush civil localities in the possession of these societies are allotted to military personnel at highly subsidised rates. Even military awards are linked with the grant of farm lands and housing plots to military personnel.

Shuja Nawaz in his book, Crossed Swords, expounds the landgrabbing propensities of Pakistani generals. He goes on to say that in the “late 1980s, as dictator fatigue set in during the Zia period, many army officers refrained from going out into the public in their uniforms as there was much resentment against the military for their over-indulgence in economic activities.” Later in 2007, “the country saw the jarring banners carried by lawyers who were protesting the removal of a chief justice by the military ruler: Ae watan ke sajeele Genrailo; saaray ruqbey tumhare liye hain (O’ handsome generals of the homeland, all the plots are just for you).”

Genesis in the General
The “Culture of Entitlement” in the military started during General Ayub’s time when he commenced the tradition of awarding land to army officers (the size of allotment depending upon the rank of the officer) in the border regions of Punjab and in the newly irrigated colonies of Sindh. General Zia also created a novel way of involving serving officers in commercial ventures by placing military lands and cantonments and the provisioning of logistics to the regional corps commanders. Thus, many senior army officers availed opportunities to acquire multiple plots in various cantonments for themselves at highly subsidised rates. These prime properties soon sparked nepotism in allotment and corruption among both the military and civil bureaucracies.

After being allotted plots in prime areas, it became common practice for army officers to sell their preferential allotments at exorbitant prices to well-heeled civilians. The military soon got involved in establishing several foundations ostensibly to help retired service personnel. These institutions virtually penetrated into all sectors of the economy and gradually propelled the military into a major business stakeholder in Pakistan’s economy. The military operates its economic endeavours at three levels with the ministry of defence (MoD) being at the top of the economic military network.

The MoD controls four major areas—the service headquarters, the department of military land and cantonments (MLC), the Fauji Foundation (also known as Fauji Group) and the Rangers (a paramilitary force). The department of military land and cantonments acquires land for allocation to the service headquarters, which distributes it among individual members. The three services have independent welfare foundations, which are directly controlled by the senior officers of the respective services.
**
The military is also involved in public sector organisations like the National Logistics Cell (NLC), the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) and the Special Communications Organisation (SCO), which are all controlled by the army. The Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) was placed under military control in 1998 with over 35,000 personnel now involved in its operations.

You name it and the military has it
The MOD does not directly manage the economic activities of the organisations under its control, but it is an instrument to mobilise resources, accord legitimacy to the varying commercial and other economic activities of its organisations and even field formations and units which run many subsidiary commercial ventures independently. In addition, there are four subsidiary organisations that are involved in the economic activities of the military. These include the Fauji Foundation, Army Welfare Trust, Shaheen Foundation (for retired Pakistan Air Force personnel) and the Bahria Foundation (for retired Navy personnel). These foundations, though controlled by their respective service headquarters, are run by retired military personnel. The profits accruing from the commercial ventures of these organizations are distributed to all shareholders who are retired military personnel. These are engaged in ventures like fertiliser and cement manufacture, cereal production, insurance and banking enterprises, education, and information technology institutes, besides airport services, travel agencies, shipping, harbour services and deep sea fisheries.

The influence of the MOD plays a vital role in securing public sector business contracts and financial and industrial inputs at highly subsidised rates. In recent years, profit making by retired military personnel has acquired even newer dimensions with them providing privatised security services to foreign contractors in security-sensitive regions like the FATA and KPK (Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). This follows the pattern as established by foreign security contractors in adjoining Afghanistan.

The Culture of Entitlement is getting stronger by the day. Several senior service officers have also been parked as ambassadors, governors, and nominated on other high-ranking bureaucratic posts in Pakistan. Successive army chiefs have continued with the practice of strengthening the special perks and privileges of their serving and retired personnel with respective civilian governments reluctantly acquiescing to all the fair and unfair demands of the armed forces.

It is an indisputable fact that Milbus contributes towards professionalism taking its toll when the military participates in nonmilitary commercial activities. The case of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in China is a classic example where some senior Chinese generals fell prey to the temptations of corruption and lucre. True to their style, the Chinese government stepped in and severely punished some of the offenders and thus discouraged the Chinese military from commercial activities.
Milbus in Pakistan is the never-fading and ever-growing clout of its military in its nation’s policies far beyond strategic and security matters. A major reason for this state of affairs is the independent, unaccountable financial muscle of the military. Since the Ayub era, no civilian government has ever bothered to tame in the military except, to some extent, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto for a short period. Most civilian governments have looked the other way at the financial handlings of the military’s commercial enterprises, primarily to buy peace with the powerful generals. Most members of Pakistan’s civil society and even its parliamentarians have wilfully ignored the military’s economic empire-building except for some senators like Sherry Rehman and Farhatullah Babar.

Among the many constants in Pakistan, Milbus too, in the foreseeable future, is likely to more than thrive as it is coterminous with the power wielded by the military in its national affairs. Currently, there are no indicators whatsoever that the Pakistan military will ever relinquish the primacy and unfettered powers it enjoys in its nation.

Excerpted from Lt. General Kamal Davar’s book Armed Forces and Their Corporate Interests with permission from Rupa Publications. We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/27/is-the-philippines-the-next-caliphate/

Is the Philippines the Next Caliphate?

ISIS is looking to regroup, and is setting its sights eastward.

By Patrick B. Johnston, Colin P. Clarke | November 27, 2017, 3:19 PM

Both Western leaders and those involved within the region have been eager to declare victory over the Islamic State after retaking the major cities, such as Mosul and Raqqa, that the group has controlled since 2013. But it’s too soon to be complacent. The Islamic State is already thinking about how to regroup. The Philippines is a long way from the group’s birthplace in the Middle East — but the jihadis have already seized and held a city there for three months, and exerted a grim cost on the country’s security forces to retake it.

The Philippines has a long history of Islamic militancy dating back to the 1970s, when the Moro National Liberation Front began battling the government in its quest for greater autonomy from the central government in Manila. After various splits and splintering within the Moro National Liberation Front, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front emerged in 1984 and continued to wage a low-intensity insurgency throughout the southern Philippines. Another Islamic militant organization, the Abu Sayyaf Group, formed in the early 1990s and has formed links with al Qaeda and other Islamic militant groups throughout Southeast Asia, including Jemaah Islamiyah.

Islamic State is a latecomer to the islands. It had only limited interest in the Philippines before 2016, when its caliphate in the Middle East was already under severe strain. Moreover, while over a half-dozen Philippine factions pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, the organization didn’t reciprocate: It never publicly acknowledged an official wilayat, or franchise, in the Philippines. In a video produced at the end of June 2016 by the Philippines media office, the Islamic State highlighted the formal relationship between its core and the militants in the Philippines, but this was not an official wilayat announcement.

Southeast Asian militants also have little battle experience with the Islamic State. The nearly 1,600 South and Southeast Asian foreign fighters who traveled to Iraq and Syria to join the group would have made up just 5 percent of the total number of Islamic State foreign fighters, estimated to be pushing 30,000, according to a report by The Soufan Center, an international consulting company.

And yet, despite receiving far less attention than other Islamic State franchise groups — including in Libya, the Sinai Peninsula, and Afghanistan — Islamist militants who have espoused an affinity for the Islamic State were able to dramatically seize Marawi, the largest city in Mindanao’s autonomous region, with a population of 200,000. And even though militants in the Philippines never received official Islamic State wilayat status, there are strong ideological links that have even extended to something more tangible. The combined counteroffensive against the militants failed to recapture Marawi from a loose coalition of these Islamic State-linked factions, including the Abu Sayyaf Group and the Maute group, whose effectiveness was bolstered by Islamic State material support. The core group reportedly sent nearly $2 million to militants in the Philippines to help the group wage battle. The Philippines fits the Islamic State’s template of seeking to instigate and latch onto existing ethnic conflicts with sectarian issues, with Muslims from the south competing with Christians from the predominantly Catholic north.

Despite intense assaults and heavy doses of firepower by Philippine security forces, the militants were able to hold the city for more than three months. The feat was even more impressive considering the counterinsurgent force included elite U.S.-trained special operations forces, and — reportedly — U.S. forces that operated quietly alongside them on the ground.

The situation on the ground in the southern Philippines is uncertain today. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte proclaimed Marawi “liberated” on Oct. 17, one day after his security forces killed Isnilon Hapilon and Omar Maute, the top two leaders of the jihadis in Marawi. However, looming insecurity and a humanitarian crisis will pose a major challenge to reconstruction efforts in Marawi, and extremism is likely to increase among the population in response to the bloody government counterterror campaign and threaten the peace process between Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Meanwhile, experts suspect Duterte might have inflated enemy casualty statistics in order to declare Marawi liberated, making it possible for surviving fighters to return to localities where they enjoyed local support and to regroup for future combat.

Marawi may be a taste of things to come. With its Middle Eastern strongholds destroyed, the Islamic State is likely to become more fragmented and to shift greater attention to new regions, from Southeast Asia to sub-Saharan Africa. The foreign fighters who came to Iraq and Syria from around the world may become the nucleus of expanded movements in their home regions. And with its caliphate gone, the Islamic State may attempt to revisit its strategy of designating official franchise groups in an attempt to give its brand a much-needed refurbishment and boost.

Southeast Asia has long been a hotbed of Islamic extremism and violence. For example, neighboring Indonesia — the world’s most populous Muslim country — was the original home of key al Qaeda leaders before the 9/11 attacks. More recently it has seen an uptick of arrests related to terrorist plots by Islamic extremists. Still, the nucleus of jihadis actively fighting in, and possibly returning to, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries is relatively small compared to other countries in other regions such as North Africa. Nonetheless, as the core Islamic State unravels, the Philippines is likely to continue to become increasingly useful to the group as a safety valve outside of the Middle East.

The Philippines is likely to remain a ripe target due to its large Muslim population, the presence of pre-existing radical Islamist violent and nonviolent fringe movements, the permissiveness of its formal and informal financial systems, weak local institutions, and a leader in Duterte who is heading an administration that has overseen a crisis in Marawi that has resulted in dozens of civilians killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.

 

[Housecarl]

NORTH KOREA HAS LAUNCHED AN ICBM 11/28/17
Started by*onetimerý,*Yesterday*10:34 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?527969-NORTH-KOREA-HAS-LAUNCHED-AN-ICBM-11-28-17/page6

The Winds of War Blow in Korea and The Far East
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-of-War-Blow-in-Korea-and-The-Far-East/page79

The Four Horsemen - 11/27 to 12/04
Started by*Ragnaroký,*11-27-2017*02:53 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?527944-The-Four-Horsemen-11-27-to-12-04

=========

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/middle-east/egypt-struggles-suppress-isis-sinai

November 28, 2017 | Bennett Seftel

Egypt Struggles to Suppress ISIS in the Sinai

Friday’s deadly terrorist attack at the Al-Rawda mosque in the north of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula demonstrates that the so-called Islamic State’s Sinai affiliate remains a potent force and raises questions about the effectiveness of Egypt’s harsh four-year anti-ISIS campaign. Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi has pledged to stay the course with strong counterterrorism rhetoric, but his approach has failed to suppress the Sinai-based jihadist movement or address the root causes that have led many in the region to feel disenfranchised by the Egyptian government.

• Originally known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, ISIS’ Sinai branch has been active in the Sinai Peninsula since 2011. The group pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in November 2014, assuming the name Sinai Province.
  
• Sinai Province shocked counterterrorism experts with their technical prowess in October 2015, after claiming responsibility for the downing of a Russian passenger plane, Metrojet Flight 9268, killing all 224 people on board.
  
• Over the last few years, Sinai Province has frequently attacked Egyptian military and security forces deployed in the Sinai and has even managed to strike in Egypt’s heartland. In April, the group bombed Coptic churches in Alexandria and Tanta on Palm Sunday, killing 47 people and injuring more than 100 others.
  
• Estimates put Sinai Province’s membership at between 1,000-1,500 members.
  
• With ISIS losing approximately 95 percent of the territory it once controlled in Syria and Iraq, ISIS leaders may seek refuge in the Sinai, and the group may look to further prop up its Sinai branch by increasing the number of fighters and weapons that are transported into the territory.

Robert Richer, Former Associate Deputy Director of Operations, CIA

“In terms of the current threat level in the Sinai, there is not a week that goes by where there is not some incident where policemen or soldiers are killed, a bus is hijacked or something is happening. I would say that the threshold there is significant. On a scale of one to five, it’s a four, basically saying that if you go into the Sinai, you go in there at your own risk.”

The attack on Friday, considered to be the bloodiest terrorist incident in Egypt’s modern history, marked a new degree of indiscriminate violence displayed by Sinai Province. While the insurgents had previously focused their operations against Egyptian military and security personnel patrolling the Sinai, as well as Coptic Christian communities across Egypt, last week’s tragedy occurred at a mosque during the weekly Friday prayer service.

• Approximately 30 gunmen arrived in four vehicles and bombed the mosque before opening fire on fleeing worshippers. The vehicles were also set on fire outside the mosque to block off escape routes.
  
• According to the latest reports, more than 300 people were killed with more than 120 others injured during the attack.
  
• Egypt’s chief prosecutor, Nabil Sadeq, said that the assailants brandished an ISIS flag. Locals have reported that the mosque was frequented by followers of Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, who are viewed as heretics by ISIS.

A key reason why the Egyptian government has struggled to combat the jihadist threat in the Sinai is because it has neglected to provide its citizens in the Peninsula with adequate resources, social services or employment opportunities that would improve their quality of life. Consequently, tribes in the Sinai who have felt ostracized by the Egyptian government may lend support to insurgent groups as a means of protesting what they view as poor governance.

Timothy E. Kaldas, Professor, Nile University

“Much more needs to be done to help develop the Sinai Peninsula and address the population’s longstanding isolation from the state and its services. Moreover, much needs to be done to instill a sense among the population that the security apparatus is subject to the rule of law.”

Furthermore, by severely cracking down on groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as tribes in the Sinai, the Egyptian government has been accused of committing egregious human rights violations, particularly against those who have been taken into custody by Egyptian authorities. These activities have damaged the credibility of the Egyptian army and have not helped the Egyptian military win many backers. *

Michele Dunne, Director, Middle East Program, Carnegie Endowment

“The Egyptian regime needs to get the support of more of its citizens in fighting terrorism; the current level of human rights abuses and political repression leaves far too many Egyptians susceptible to radicalization or at least unwilling to help the government against extremists.”

On the military front, the Egyptian army continues to implement traditional military strategies as opposed to counterinsurgency tactics, such as working closely with the local population to provide them with security. This has hampered the Egyptian government’s ability to effectively root out extremist threats in the Sinai where the group has exploited lawless territory to plan, orchestrate and launch attacks.

• “Egypt’s brass continues to believe that it can use heavy force to ‘contain’ the jihadis, while eschewing lighter and more targeted counterinsurgency techniques,” Eric Trager, former Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East policy, wrote in The Cipher Brief. “So rather than securing Sinai’s civilian population and then mobilizing it to identify and fight the terrorists, the Egyptian military’s broad-based repression has*alienated core Sinai constituencies, including some prominent Bedouin families, which have refused to cooperate with security forces until their relatives are released from prison.”

Until the Egyptian government concentrates on amending these shortcomings, it is likely that Sinai Province will continue to conduct large-scale operations in the Sinai and beyond – a cautionary tale for other fractured states battling ISIS affiliates. Despite Sisi’s promises to combat terrorism throughout Egypt and his continued reliance as a staunch U.S. counterterrorism partner, it appears that Egypt will continue to confront its share of extremist adversaries in the short-term.
Mohamed Adam, Nonresident Fellow, Tahrir Institute on Middle East Policy

“It*is time for the Egyptian government to realize that fighting terrorism is a heavy burden which no government can carry alone. It is time the government understands that it cannot rely on a security solution alone and should resort to different civil society groups. It should grant access to journalists and human rights researchers in Sinai, who can be used as another tool to gain better insight on the situation. It should build strong ties with civil society, rather than use the ‘war on terror’ as a pretext to crackdown on the opposition or to block news websites and prevent journalists from doing their work.”

Bennett Seftel is deputy director of analysis at The Cipher Brief. Follow him on Twitter @BennettSeftel.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...n-t-stemmed-terrorism-in-afghanistan-u-s-says

Pakistan Hasn't Stemmed Terrorism in Afghanistan, U.S. Says

By Anthony Capaccio
November 28, 2017, 1:04 PM PST Updated on November 28, 2017, 2:39 PM PST

• General says Pakistan has fought attacks on its government
• ‘Big problems remain,’ U.S. commander Nicholson says

Pakistan has failed to stop terrorists crossing its borders into Afghanistan, even as it has made progress against those who attack inside the country, the top U.S. general in the region said.

“The Pakistanis have been engaged in a very tough fight against extremism inside their own country,” Army General John Nicholson, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told reporters Tuesday. “They did displace many of those terrorists who were fighting their own government. But at the same time, we’ve seen the ones who weren’t displaced were the Afghan Taliban” and the affiliated Haqqani network, he said.

President Donald Trump announced a new regional strategy in August intended to force the Taliban to the negotiating table by boosting U.S. forces in Afghanistan, increasing the training of Afghan forces and pilots, strengthening the Afghan government and prodding Pakistan to do more or face a cutoff in U.S. financial aid. “Pakistan often gives safe haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror,” said Trump, whose strategy also aims to strengthen ties with India, Pakistan’s traditional adversary.

Read more: A QuickTake Q&A on Why Pushing Pakistan Isn’t Simple

Pakistan’s civilian government and military reacted angrily to Trump’s statements, saying the U.S. has failed to recognize its efforts to combat terrorism, pointing to thousands of its troops that have died in operations over more than a decade.

Nicholson, speaking by video conference from Afghanistan, said “big problems remain,” citing periodic cross-bordering shelling by the Pakistani military in pursuit of terrorist groups. “This has, unfortunately, displaced hundreds of Afghan civilians from villages in close proximity to the border,” so “the relations are strained right now,” he said.

He said Pakistani leaders have come to Kabul to meet with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and “they identified certain steps that they were going to take.” The general added: “We’ve not yet seen those steps play out.”

Every recent U.S. defense secretary since Robert Gates has visited Pakistan seeking improved relationships and greater cooperation stemming cross-border sanctuaries after the Obama administration announced an “AF-Pak” strategy in 2009 linking success in Afghanistan with Pakistan.

Eight years later, the efforts continued with the August announcement. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has yet to visit Pakistan.

Expectations for Pakistan

Nicholson’s remarks were the most extensive from a U.S. military official since Trump’s announcement about expectations for Pakistan under the administration’s new strategy. Mattis, in his few comments about Pakistan since the strategy was announced, has been more cryptic.

“We will firmly address Pakistan’s role” because “NATO’s demands need to be heard and embraced in Islamabad,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee in October.

Without elaborating, Mattis added that “there will be a very specific number of things that we deal with Pakistan on, and those will be balanced with the appropriate levels of firmness as we set a new relationship.”

The Pentagon chief said Pakistan “has a convoluted history with terrorism” but added that there are “probably few nations, perhaps none” that “have lost as many troops fighting terrorists as they have.”

Border Posts

Fleshing out the U.S. strategy further, Nicholson said “One of the principle issues that we want to work together on is border control” between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The two nations have established standard operating procedures “for how to do this,” he said.

The U.S. and NATO had assisted the two nations in the establishment of border crossing points, but after a 2015 reduction in forces in Afghanistan, “many of those policies, outposts” that “were in place have fallen off.”

With Beijing financing more than $55 billion of Pakistani infrastructure projects as part of China’s Belt and Road initiative, some analysts have suggested that the U.S. now has less financial leverage over Pakistan.

U.S. frustration with Pakistan has led to the suspension or withholding of some aid. Since 2015, the U.S. has denied Pakistan $650 million in Coalition Support Fund reimbursements that could be released only if the U.S. military certified the country is making acceptable progress against the Haqqani network, which is affiliated with the Taliban.

The Pentagon also continues to review whether $400 million that Congress approved for fiscal year 2017, pending a certification, can be released. The fiscal 2018 defense policy bill earmarks an additional $350 million, which can’t be released until there is a Pentagon certification as well.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...k-against-u-s-accusations-in-terror-stalemate

Pakistan Hits Back Against U.S. Accusations in Terror Stalemate

By Ismail Dilawar and Chris Kay
November 29, 2017, 3:00 PM PST

• PM Abbasi says terror groups are in Afgahnistan, not Pakistan
• Hardline religious protests expose government’s challenges

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi rejected U.S. accusations that the country provides sanctuary to militant groups and said attacks in the region were originating across the border in Afghanistan.

In an interview in Islamabad last Friday as a right-wing Islamist group choked the capital and officials marketed the country to international bond investors, Abbasi said Pakistan would act against terrorists found within its borders, including the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network.

Yet his administration has been shaken by weeks of hardline religious protests and has come under harsh criticism over a court decision to release accused terrorist Hafiz Saeed, underscoring the difficulty Abbasi’s government faces in dealing with extremist elements in Pakistan. On Monday, Zahid Hamid stepped down as law minister after the little-known Tehreek-e-Labaik party demanded his resignation for overseeing changes to a reference to the Prophet Muhammad in a lawmakers’ oath, viewed as blasphemous.

The turmoil showed the government’s struggle to restrain right-wing groups, including those suspected of having the backing of the military. Abbasi said there were “some extremist elements among the protesters.”

Cross-Border Attacks

Islamabad and Washington are at loggerheads over Donald Trump’s demands in August that Pakistan take tougher action against terrorists operating within its borders -- part of a U.S. attempt to bring resolution to the 16-year war in Afghanistan.

Both Pakistan’s government and military protested that the U.S. didn’t recognize the thousands of Pakistani servicemen and civilians who had died in the war on terror. The army also started fencing its porous and disputed border with Afghanistan in an effort to contain attacks, a move that prompted a furious response from Kabul.

“We have asked them to share any intelligence about the Haqqani network, we will take action,” Abbasi said. “The attacks however are being made from across the border, we have pinpointed even the sanctuaries of the attackers. Cross-border infiltration from Afghanistan is the order of the day.”

U.S. Pressure

American officials have kept up the pressure. General Joseph Votel, commander of U.S. Central Command, met with Pakistan army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa two weeks ago following Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s trip to Islamabad last month. Both urged Pakistan to take action against militants.

Still Pakistan has failed to stop insurgents crossing into Afghanistan, even as it has made progress against those who attack its own soil, U.S. General John Nicholson, the top commander in Afghanistan, told reporters on Tuesday.

“There is no room for them to take a tough stance here, because Pakistan is the country which is fighting the war on terror,” Abbasi said. “Somebody gives us intelligence and we will act upon it. It is our war, not theirs.”

Pakistan has long been accused of covertly supporting outfits that strike Afghanistan and India. Having fought multiple wars with India, Pakistan’s security establishment fears domination by its arch-rival and having a stable pro-Indian administration in Afghanistan.

‘At Odds’

“With the U.S. and India claiming that Pakistan is an originator of terror, and Pakistan reluctant to meaningfully crack down on terror groups, the two sides will inevitably be at odds,” said Shailesh Kumar, a senior South Asia analyst at Eurasia Group.

When asked if Pakistan would move against Taliban leaders who have allegedly lived for years in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, Abbasi said “we will act against them if they really exist.”

Abbasi reiterated that Trump’s troop increase and support to Afghanistan will end in failure and urged the Afghan government and the Taliban to agree to peace talks.

“We have assured them of whatever assistance we would be able to offer, but things are quite fragmented on that side,” he said. “Pakistan has tried twice, but the talks have been sabotaged.”

Mumbai Attacks

The U.S. also escalated its criticism of Pakistan last week after a high court in Lahore ordered the release of Saeed from house arrest. India and the U.S. accuse Saeed of masterminding the 2008 Mumbai attacks and claim he is the leader of terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, charges Saeed denies. The White House warned his release may damage bilateral relations.

“The court, a three-judge bench, has released him saying there are no charges against him, the country has a law you know,” Abbasi said. “Prosecute him internationally if there is substance to these charges -- these are accusations only. No evidence has been provided by India.”

However, India says it has provided evidence to Pakistan. Indian foreign ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar didn’t respond to requests for comment.

For Pakistan, Saeed is still “an important asset” as the U.S. pushes India into Afghanistan, according to Shamila Chaudhary, a former White House and State Department official who’s now a fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. “Why would the Pakistan military allow for the imprisonment of one of its most influential proxies against India when it needs it the most?”

— With assistance by Anthony Capaccio

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/rising-china-signals-historic-power-transition/

Rising China Signals Historic Power Transition

The U.S. must face a shift of its own influence on the Korean Peninsula.

By CHRISTOPHER LAYNE • November 30, 2017

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump stopped in Beijing to meet with his “friend,” Chinese President Xi Jinping. At the top of Trump’s agenda was persuading Xi to tighten the economic screws on North Korea, in order to compel Pyongyang to give up all its nuclear weapons. There is nothing inherently wrong with the leaders of great powers developing cordial relations with their counterparts—as long as they bear in mind the dictum of the great 19th-century British statesman Lord Palmerston, who famously said that great powers do not have permanent friends. Instead, they have permanent interests.

Warm personal relationships between leaders may matter at the margins of policy, but national interest always prevails over friendship in determining a state’s foreign policy goals. It’s unclear whether President Trump understands this, or, even more importantly, the reasons why Chinese and U.S. interests clash on some important issues—not least North Korea.

The Xi/Trump meeting did not lead to any breakthroughs on the North Korea issue. For one thing, President Trump is all over the ballpark with respect to North Korea. During his East Asian swing he effectively labeled North Korea a one-country “axis of evil,” warned North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that the U.S. possesses overwhelming military power and is ready to use it, called for Pyongyang to “come to the negotiating table” to solve the crisis peacefully, and said he wants to be friends with Kim.

President Trump is operating on two mistaken assumptions: that North Korea can be compelled to give up all of its nuclear weapons, and that China holds the key to forcing Pyongyang to do so.

China’s leaders have no interest in doing anything that could cause North Korea’s collapse. If the Pyongyang regime dissolved, the Korean peninsula would be reunified, and U.S. troops would be on China’s doorstep. Beijing will do everything in its power—including defending North Korea from a U.S. attack—to prevent this from happening.

Actually, it is the United States—not China—that holds the key to peacefully resolving the crisis without war. Washington needs to acknowledge that both China and North Korea face their own respective “security dilemmas.” To solve the Korea issue without war, the U.S. would need to assuage Beijing’s and North Korea’s respective fears. This would require a radical change in U.S. policy: removing American forces from the Korean peninsula.

That would dramatically reduce Beijing’s and Pyongyang’s sense of insecurity and dramatically change the dynamics with respect to the crisis. Beijing would be able to apply more pressure on North Korea to reach a diplomatic settlement without fear that doing so would have adverse strategic repercussions. And if it no longer needed to fear the U.S. using military power to bring about regime change, the North Koreans would have incentives—especially if economic sweeteners are thrown in—to reduce, and limit, the size of their nuclear arsenal.

Of course, changes in U.S. military posture might solve one problem while creating another: Japan and South Korea would acquire their own nuclear deterrent capabilities. But this is going to happen sooner or later anyway because Japan and South Korea understand that at the end of the day the United States would not commit suicide by using nuclear weapons to defend its “allies.” That is, the U.S. will not—and should not—risk Los Angeles, Houston, or New York to defend Seoul, Tokyo, and Taipei—or, for that matter, Berlin or Warsaw. The U.S. needs to reexamine its policy of “extended deterrence”—that is extending the American nuclear umbrella to cover its allies in East Asia and Europe.

When Xi and Trump met, there was an 800-pound gorilla in the room: the changing Sino-American balance of power. Over the past eight years, China has become the world’s leading exporter, trading nation, and manufacturing nation. And in 2014, the International Monetary Fund announced that, measured by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), China had leapfrogged the U.S. to become the world’s largest economy.

The U.S. foreign policy establishment downplays the importance of China’s astonishingly rapid economic growth by claiming that “China can’t innovate”—notwithstanding that the compass, printing press, and gunpowder were invented in China. But we don’t need to go back to the ancient Chinese dynasties to see proof of innovation. Over just the past few years, China has taken the lead in quantum communications and green technologies (including electric cars), and built the world’s fastest supercomputer (with chips made in China) and world’s largest radio telescope.

Inside the Beltway, the conventional wisdom is that whatever gains China may be making economically and scientifically, the U.S. lead in military power is unassailable. But some serious American military analysts are rethinking the validity of that assumption. A recent RAND Corporation report (“The U.S.-China Military Scorecard”) talks about the “receding frontier of American military dominance in East Asia.” Other RAND analysts believe that by 2020—regionally, not globally—China will have caught up with the U.S. on most key metrics of military power.

Before our eyes, the tectonic plates of geopolitics are shifting. We are in the midst of a truly world historical event: what scholars of great power politics call a power transition. Power transitions occur when the dominant (hegemonic) great power’s primacy is challenged by a rising great power.

The Sino-American relationship today is a textbook example of a power transition, and it bears many similarities to the pre-1914 Anglo-German rivalry that culminated in World War I. Power transitions are the most dangerous moments in great power politics because they invariably lead to war between the incumbent hegemon and the rising challenger.

The geopolitical question of our time is whether the United States will try to maintain an East Asian balance of power that is out of sync with the emerging power realities in the Sino-American relationship.

“May you live in interesting times” is an ancient Chinese curse. We are living in just such times. Avoiding a Sino-American clash in coming years will require U.S. policymakers to engage in long-term, sober, and innovative strategic thinking.

Christopher Layne is University Distinguished Professor of International Affairs at Texas A&M University. His essay on the parallels between the pre-1914 Anglo-German power transition and the current Sino–American relationship will be published in January 2018 in the edited volume Will China’s Rise Be Peaceful?

8 Responses to Rising China Signals Historic Power Transition
Youknowho says:
November 29, 2017 at 11:09 pm
Oh, for the Good Old Days, when China was the Communist Menace, to be defeated, and we did not have to worry how its economy was doing, and what it meant to ours. And we did not have to beg them to help with North Korea..

Alas, those days are gone.

Myles Hagar says:
November 30, 2017 at 6:19 am
The rise of China has absolutely no relevance to “the key metrics of military power”. 20% of the global population there is well-fed, well-housed, well-educated and well-served by a competent government. There are no food banks or people living in cars in China. The best way to contain China would be to ban all products made there. Just try it. Everything you are now wearing and every item surrounding you, including your computer is ‘Made in China’. Military power is nowhere in sight.

Nelson says:
November 30, 2017 at 6:54 am
Inside the Beltway, the conventional wisdom is that whatever gains China may be making economically and scientifically, the U.S. lead in military power is unassailable.

The Soviets had a good military until their economy fell out from under them.

While not quite as bad as them, we too are making the mistake of going further and further in debt to maintain our military superiority when we’re not directly threatened. Overextending and overspending on the military is another sign that a power shift is about to occur.

Fred Bowman says:
November 30, 2017 at 10:18 am
All the US warmongers need to understand that if they challenge China or it’s interest, militarily, that all China has to do is close it’s exports to the US and this by itself will destroy the US and it’s economy. The US, by and large, has given up it’s manufacturing capabilities. Now try fighting a war on top of that.

Wouldn’t be long before shopping at Walmart would be equalivant to shopping at Neiman-Marcus.

Trying to fight a major war without a strong manufacturing base is a recipe for disaster.

Mark H says:
November 30, 2017 at 11:31 am
I believe DJT understands and respects, probably better than most of his critics, that nations act in their own interest. Freedom, even on the international scale is an arms reach short of your neighbor’s nose. China has been extending its reach into the South China Sea to test U.S. policy of freedom of the seas. They will get push back from the Trump administration .

LouisM says:
November 30, 2017 at 12:47 pm
I don’t think its that the US would not risk Seattle or Chicago or Houston for Seoul, Tokyo or Taipai. Its a different issue entirely in my opinion. Years ago the US was unchallenged in the Pacific and we could adopt a hegemonic leadership role. We had the naval carrier groups and the military and the technology. We like to think of our nation with great hubris and insular conceit. However, with all our great assets and at the peak of our great power, the US still struggled in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. If our conceit were justified then they would have been short military campaigns with demonstrations of our overwhelming superiority.

Today China has missiles with 1,000 mile range that could knock out our aircraft carrier groups and they have militarized the south china sea shoals. Yes, there is a rebalancing of power in the East Pacific but its not done. The US will still and more many years to come have strong allies among the Pacific nations but the US as hegemonic leader is over. Our allies will have to represent the front line balance of power with China. Japan and Korea will have to solve their depopulation problem. Japan, South Korea and Taipai will have to go nuclear. The sooner they do. The better for all. Kim in North Korea will be gone as soon as they do. He is too unpredictable a vassal state leader for China.

There are 2 absolutely critical non-military initiatives for the Pacific. Korean Unification and Taiwanese independence. These 2 initiatives will secure peace in the region. China may not like either but China needs this just as much for without it other pacific nations will fear the 1 ton elephant that China is developing into.

Kent says:
November 30, 2017 at 3:29 pm
China is the future. The United States has lost all of its ethical, intellectual and cultural leadership over the last 50 years. Libertarian economics has left the economy in a shambles and the once mighty middle-class on the cusp of poverty.

We cannot possibly win a war against China. Our best bet is to be like the British. Be the best friend of the new hegemon and hope we can at least keep some of our wealth.

fabien says:
November 30, 2017 at 4:04 pm
It’s not China you’ve to look after, it’s Russia. It still has a good nuclear capacity and unlimited natural ressources. As the third wheel of the chariot, it will ally with one of these two. This one will be the winner. China alone can do little to push the US away; no ressources.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/30/middleeast/saudi-yemen-missile/index.html

Saudi Air Force destroys ballistic missile launched from Yemen

By Jamie Tarabay, CNN
Updated 10:45 PM ET, Thu November 30, 2017

Video

Story highlights

• Houthi rebels claim it was a successful missile test
• Saudi Arabia's international airport was targeted in a missile strike in early November

(CNN)For the second time in a month, the Saudi military has intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile it said was launched from Yemen on Thursday.

The Saudi Press Agency, quoting Colonel Turki al-Maliki, the official spokesman of the Saudi-led coalition fighting the war in Yemen, said the missile was headed towards the Saudi city of Khamis Mushait on its southwestern border.

It was destroyed without causing any casualties, the spokesman was quoted as saying, but there were no details on how the missile was intercepted.

http://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/171130211119-yemen-saudi-arabia-map-image-exlarge-169.jpg

Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed success in the missile launch, saying it was a test firing, according to the pro-Houthi news agency SABA in Yemen.

Weeks earlier, Yemeni rebels fired a ballistic missile towards an international airport in Riyadh, which was intercepted before it struck.

The war in Yemen
Saudi Arabia has been leading a coalition of Gulf states against Houthi rebels who ousted the pro-Saudi, internationally-recognized goverment in Yemen in 2015.

Yemen's one-time president Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi has been living in Saudi Arabia since the rebels took over the presidential palace in early 2015.

The Houthis, a Shiite tribal militia from northwest Yemen, have been at war with the central government for the best part of a decade. Saudi Arabia and its allies claim that Iran backs and funds the rebels, something the rebels themselves deny.

In March 2015, warplanes from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and other allies began airstrikes on rebel positions in Yemen. Since then, countless airstrikes have struck rebel and civilian targets, causing thousands of casualties and decimating infrastructure in the Arab world's poorest country.

The UN Human Rights Office has documented over 13,800 civilian casualties, including over 5,000 people killed since fighting began. The numbers are believed to be a fraction of the overall death toll.

Yemen is now facing a near famine and one of the worst outbreaks of cholera in decades. The suspected number of cases has reached 500,000, according to the World Health Organization.

Blaming Iran
Saudi Arabia has blamed Iran in the past for supplying the rebels with weapons. After the November 4, missile strike, the kingdom's foreign minister accused Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant and political group that is aligned with Iran, of smuggling missile parts into Yemen.

"Operatives from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah" helped put it back together again and launch it, Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir told CNN.

"This is a very, very hostile act," he said. "We have been extending our hand to Iran since 1979 in friendship, and what we get back is death and destruction."

Iran at the time responded to the Saudi claims of Tehran's involvement with the missile strike. Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said the Saudi accusations were "false, irresponsible, destructive and provocative," according to the Iranian news agency Tasnim.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...saudi-arabia-appear-iranian-u-n-idUSKBN1DU36N

#WORLD NEWSNOVEMBER 30, 2017 / 3:08 PM / UPDATED 5 HOURS AGO

Exclusive: Yemen rebel missiles fired at Saudi Arabia appear Iranian - U.N.

Michelle Nichols
4 MIN READ

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Remnants of four ballistic missiles fired into Saudi Arabia by Yemen’s Houthi rebels this year appear to have been designed and manufactured by Riyadh’s regional rival Iran, a confidential report by United Nations sanctions monitors said, bolstering a push by the United States to punish the Tehran government.

The independent panel of U.N. monitors, in a Nov. 24 report to the Security Council seen by Reuters on Thursday, said it “as yet has no evidence as to the identity of the broker or supplier” of the missiles, which were likely shipped to the Houthis in violation of a targeted U.N. arms embargo imposed in April 2015.

Earlier this month, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley accused Iran of supplying Houthi rebels with a missile that was fired into Saudi Arabia in July and called for the United Nations to hold Tehran accountable for violating two U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The report said that monitors had visited two Saudi Arabian military bases to see remnants gathered by authorities from missile attacks on Saudi Arabia on May 19, July 22, July 26 and Nov. 4.

They also visited four “impact points” from the Nov. 4 attack where other remnants of the missiles were identified.

“Design characteristics and dimensions of the components inspected by the panel are consistent with those reported for the Iranian designed and manufactured Qiam-1 missile,” the monitors wrote.

The Qiam-1 has a range of almost 500 miles and can carry a 1,400-pound warhead, according to GlobalSecurity.org public policy organization.

Saudi-led forces, which back the Yemeni government, have fought the Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen’s more than two-year-long civil war. Saudi Arabia’s crown prince has described Iran’s supply of rockets to the Houthis as “direct military aggression” that could be an act of war.

SMUGGLING ROUTE

Iran has denied supplying the Houthis with weapons, saying the U.S. and Saudi allegations are “baseless and unfounded.” Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the U.N. monitors report.

Another ballistic missile was shot down on Thursday near the southwestern Saudi city of Khamis Mushait, the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya channel reported.

The U.N. monitors said they gathered evidence that the missiles were transferred to Yemen in pieces and assembled there by missile engineers with the Houthis and allied forces loyal to Yemen’s former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

“The panel has not yet seen any evidence of external missile specialists working in Yemen in support of the Houthi-Saleh engineers,” the monitors wrote.

They visited Saudi Arabia after the monitors called on the coalition to provide evidence backing Riyadh’s claim that Iran was supplying missiles to the Houthis, warning that a failure to do so would violate a U.N. resolution.

They said the missiles most likely were smuggled into Yemen along “the land routes from Oman or Ghaydah and Nishtun in al Mahrah governorate (in Yemen) after ship-to-shore transshipment to small dhows, a route that has already seen limited seizures of anti-tank guided weapons.”

The monitors also said that while “concealment in cargo of vessels offloading in the Red Sea ports is unlikely, it cannot be excluded as an option.”

The Saudi-led coalition used the Nov. 4 missile attack to justify a blockade of Yemen for several weeks, saying it was needed to stem the flow of arms to the Houthis from Iran.

The United Nations had said the blockade could spark the largest famine the world has seen in decades. Some 7 million people in Yemen are on the brink of famine, and nearly 900,000 have been infected with cholera.

Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by John Walcott and Grant McCool

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://moderndiplomacy.eu/index.php...tions-for-indo-pacific-and-south-asian-region

India’s Naval Modernization: Implications for Indo-Pacific and South Asian Region

BY ASMA KHALID
NOV 29, 2017

India has instituted the strategy of Military modernization of its forces to achieve the geo-strategic objectives. In this regard India Navy is considered as central force to full fill the strategic goals of India; to emerge as a major global Player.

Traditionally, Indian navy remained Cinderella service due to Nehruvian continental mindset but now “Modernizing and Growing” are two significant elements to describe India Navy. Three significant arrangement are key drivers of Indian naval modernization: one is prevent the country’s coastline and expensive maritime area of economic interest, second is to full fill desired regional and global ambitions and third is protect sea lines that deals with India’s supplies and trade. To achieve these goals Indian Navy has adopted more offensive and assertive doctrine based on ‘sea power framework’ of Alfred Mahan.

India Naval strategy of 2004 is comprised of six significant principles; increasing spending, modernization, expanding infrastructure, conducting naval exercises, deployment in Indian Ocean Region, active Maritime diplomacy and Protecting SLOC. Whereas Indian maritime doctrine of 2009 defines six striking roles in Indian Naval Forces, remarkable elements are deterrence, protecting sea lines decisive military victory and protection from threat. The Naval Doctrine highlightson the importance ofenhance capabilities to influence warfare on land and development of forward power projection abilities. To achieve these objectives India’s defence spendings are increasing. 4.3% of total defence budget of 2016-2017 is allocated for Indian Navy: In total, 2921 billion was allocated to Navy which is around 17.4 per cent oftotal defence expenditure of India from 2005 to 2015 in nominalterms. It is significant to note that the annual growth rate of the Navy’s budget is around 15-18 per cent.

India is extensively modernizing its naval capacity, by acquiring a number of various modern vessels. Currently, Indian navy possesses quite an influx of manpower with an approximate total of 79,023 personnel and “a large fleet consisting of 2 aircraft carriers, 1GAH amphibious transport dock, 9 landing ship tanks, 14 frigates, 10 destroyers, 1 nuclear powered submarine and 14 conventionally powered submarines, 25 corvettes, 7 minesweeping vessels, 47 patrol vessels, 4 fleet tankers and various auxiliary vessels.” Though, the modernization is related more with enhancing the quality rather than the quantity; as it is replacing the older vessels with the advanced ones.

The qualitative and quantitative increase, doctrinal evolution and recent trends in the Indian Navy indicate that these development will posed various strategic implications on regional states and Indian Ocean region. Due to these trends region and Indian Ocean will experience new arrangement of strategic competition among regional states (India-Pakistan) and Great powers (U.S. and China). The strategic competition will increase the role of external powers in region and enhance the security dilemma in Ocean.

Secondly in recent era, Indo-Pacific Asia is very significant for trilateral regional competition: India-China, US-China and India-Pakistan. The bilateral rivalries among states are increasing the instability and disturbing the strategic equilibrium in region. Especially growing political and strategic partnership and Indo-U.S. nuclear deal is characterized as alliance to counter the emerging strategic partners: China and Pakistan. India is militarizing as well as nuclearizing the region to hold the chines claims regarding the ‘string of pearls’ strategy. India naval developments and aspiration to nuclearize its Navy are not as troublesome for china as for deterrence equation in South Asia. The South Asian security landscape is already unstable due to India-Pakistan historical rivalry. India naval build-up and modernization in conventional and nuclear sphere is increasing asymmetry between India and Pakistan.The conventional asymmetry and defence production gap between both states has made Pakistan to adopt the doctrine of full-spectrum deterrence to ensure its security and the launch of Indian nuclear powered submarine this rivalry has entered in other regions such as in the Indian Ocean.

With changing regional scenarios and prevailing challenges, the South Asia Strategic balance and security is threatened by the India’s naval modernization plan. Militarization and Nuclearization of Indian naval forces has increased the Indian deterrence capability but disturbed the balance of power of region by instigating the security dilemma and increasing the arms race.

India’s Proactive strategies, renewed defense settlements and the military build-up force the Pakistan to take counter measures while balancing the strategic equilibrium at the same time; for the Pakistan is important to closely track Indian defense spending and modernization plan, as India remains the key threat to Pakistan’s security.

ASMA KHALID

Asma Khalid is Research Associate at Strategic Vision Institute (SVI), a think-tank based in Islamabad, can be reached at asmaakhalid_90[at]hotmail.com

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://warontherocks.com/2017/12/mali-is-frances-afghanistan-but-with-a-difference/

Mali is France’s Afghanistan, But With a Difference

Stephanie Pezard and Michael Shurkin
December 1, 2017

In a recent editorial in*Le Monde, French journalist Christophe Ayad*draws disturbing parallels between the French military operations in Mali*— which will reach their five-year mark in January — and America’s involvement in Afghanistan. At first glance the comparison is compelling, and in some important ways, accurate. Yet these two interventions present some fundamental differences that make the Afghanistan case likely more intractable than Mali’s, and give reason for optimism in France.

Ayad’s argument relates to the course of the wars and the apparent bind in which the American and French militaries now find themselves. Ayad observes that in both cases a lightning offensive gave way to a grinding counter-insurgency. In neither case can one now discern an alternative to continuing indefinitely to pay in blood and treasure to prop up governments that frequently act in ways contrary to good sense or good strategy. One can, in fact, blame those governments,*as many critics do, but Ayad insists on Western militaries’ fundamental inability to do what they’re being asked to do in countries like Afghanistan and Mali. They have, he argues, neither “the mandate, the vocation, nor, finally, the qualifications for reconstructing the States in which they are intervening.” They “no longer know what to do” and have to choose between hunkering down in bunkers to prevent useless losses while becoming an army of occupation, or conducting raids to intimidate the enemy but risk accidents and ambushes like that which*took the life lives of four American soldiers in Niger*in October. Winning “hearts and minds” through civil-military engagements is supposed to be a third option, but, Ayad asserts, this is not really the job of soldiers, “as we saw in Afghanistan, where dozens of billions of dollars were spent for nothing.”

Ayad is largely correct. Both the United States and France now seem stuck in intractable wars, frustrated by the apparent fruitlessness of their best efforts. The Afghan and Malian governments, moreover, bear a large portion of the responsibility for the wars’ failures. Both have squandered the good will afforded them by their people through*abuses, corruption and gross ineptitude. Often their leaders appear uninterested in even trying to win, or unaware that Rome burns while they fiddle (though admittedly in this regard current Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is a vast improvement over his predecessor, Hamid Karzai). The net result in both countries is that*the situation has been worsening,*and there is little reason to think either Washington or Paris has a good plan for turning things around.

There are, however, some important differences between the two cases that give one at least a glimmer of hope for the French.* First, notwithstanding Ayad’s assertion that Western forces are unqualified, the French military in Mali knows well the environment in which they are operating and the people with whom they are interacting. The French military has been involved in the region since the 19th*century, and although their activities have drastically changed (from conquest to training and advice), this almost continuous involvement has given them a knowledge of both the human and the physical terrain that the United States lacked in Afghanistan. While such knowledge is far from perfect and comes with some baggage — in the form of perceptions of neo-colonialism and resentment toward the ever-present French — the learning curve is certainly less steep for French soldiers and leaders than their American counterparts.

Second, France benefits from its ability to act with and through the security services of Mali and its neighbors, who are willing, if not the most capable, allies in the fight.*Fighters in Mali frequently cross borders, but wherever they go, they have to contend with security services that coordinate effectively with the French. Enhancing that coordination is one objective of France’s scheme to develop a joint “Sahel G-5 force” drawing on the militaries of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger.

Third, and relatedly, there is no Pakistan in the Sahel. There is no country providing Islamist fighters support and the benefits of a safe haven, no regional spoiler to steer the conflict in directions that it sees*as*beneficial. Libya’s role as a power intent on influencing Sahel politics vanished with the fall of Qaddafi, even though the effects of that country’s chaotic internal situation are still felt throughout the region. Algeria’s role is gradually fading along with its now 80-year old president. And in any case, while in the past both competed for regional dominance and at times fostered instability to advance their own interests, neither tolerated Islamist militants — a far cry from Pakistan’s role in enabling Afghan insurgents.

Are these differences sufficient for the French to help turn the situation around? A key question is first to understand what France is trying to achieve in Mali, and how it hopes to end its intervention. A common French exit strategy is to hand over the situation to a U.N. mission, once it has established a modicum of stability. In Mali, the United Nations is already present through the MINUSMA peacekeeping mission but has been experiencing dramatic casualties — earning it the little-envied title of*“world’s most dangerous mission”*—*in an environment where there is little peace to keep. Thus France, like the United States in Afghanistan — will have to focus on cultivating the capabilities of local security forces in the hopes that they will one day stand on their own.

Here Ayad’s specific complaint that Western forces are not skilled at building states rings true. That is simply not what they’re good. Regardless, in both Afghanistan and Mali victory will require far more than military efforts. There have to be political solutions, economic development, and vastly improved governance. The French know this. They*state openly*that their strategy rests on the three legs of security, politics, and development. The challenge is to follow through and go beyond policy statements; France, like the United States, tends to focus on military matters despite official policy largely because the security piece is, overall, less complex or at least easier for many governments to act upon.

This brings us to another fundamental difference between the two wars. France has more at stake, given the direct relationship between stability in the Sahel and France’s own well-being. The Sahel is France’s backyard. Terrorist groups in the Sahel directly threaten France.*Political and economic instability in the region*feed the refugee crisis. France also has economic interests in the region as well as large numbers of nationals residing there (8,000 in Mali alone). The United States in contrast, faced a direct threat in Afghanistan from al-Qaeda, but not necessarily from the rest of Afghanistan’s militants. Failure to stabilize Mali — and, more broadly, the Sahel — could have dramatic repercussions on France’s homeland.

A greater stake does not necessarily translate to a higher chance of success, but it does make France more likely to make the kind of comprehensive, long-term effort success requires. On the other hand, France, unlike the United States, lacks the resources to conduct a “surge” and is struggling to maintain its current level of commitment, which stands at*roughly 4,000. France can’t “go home,” but it can’t “go big” either. In its own war on terrorism, France is fighting on two fronts — Mali and the French homeland, where up to 10,000 soldiers (which, combined with the 4,000 in the Sahel, corresponds to almost 20 percent of France deployable force of*77,000) are deployed to secure sensitive sites and events. France’s way out of Mali will have to rely on novel solutions — more political than military, more long-term than immediate, and more complex than a mere doubling down on a failing effort. This need to be creative may be the key to avoiding another Afghanistan.
*
Stephanie Pezard is a political scientist*at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.*Michael Shurkin is a senior political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.