WAR 12-03-2016-to-12-09-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(244) 11-12-2016-to-11-18-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...18-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(245) 11-19-2016-to-11-25-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...25-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(246) 11-26-2016-to-12-02-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...02-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/dipl...ilitary-foreign-ministry-divide-muddies-south

China’s military-foreign ministry divide ‘muddies South China Sea waters’

Chinese armed forces adopting more hawkish stance over claims to sovereignty than nation’s diplomats and the disagreement is ratcheting up tensions, they say

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 03 December, 2016, 11:04am
UPDATED : Saturday, 03 December, 2016, 10:01pm
Shi Jiangtao
jiangtao.shi@scmp.com
Comments 5

Sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea have been blown out of proportion partly because of intense internal differences in China over the handling of the maritime rows, according to a prominent US expert.

Stapleton Roy, a former US ambassador to Beijing, also said the escalation of tensions in the South China Sea was partly due to both China and the US allowing their militaries to play too large a role in the handling of the disputes.

“South China Sea disputes have been much higher profile than they should have been,” Roy said.

Part of the problem is China cannot clarify its position because of its internal dispute [between the foreign ministry and the military]

Stapleton Roy, former US ambassador to Beijing,

“Part of the problem is China cannot clarify its position because of its internal dispute [between the foreign ministry and the military]. Therefore, no one knows if China is claiming rights within the nine-dash line or not.

“Sources say the dispute is so sensitive that it cannot be resolved at present time, even with a strongman leader like [Chinese President] Xi Jinping in power,” he said.

The Chinese foreign ministry regularly issues statements saying China claims all islands and reefs in the South China Sea without claiming special rights in the waters, but Chinese behaviour suggests it is claiming rights within the nine-dash line, according to Roy.

How the US got outplayed in the Asia-Pacific

“Various parties in China, including the fishing industry and the ships that protect the fishing boats, are acting inconsistently with the foreign ministry position. I’ve heard Chinese admirals tell me that all of the waters inside the nine-dash line are Chinese territorial waters. You see some people, not just those in the military, feel that way inside China,” he said.

Roy served in Beijing from 1991 to 1995 and is the founding director emeritus of the Kissinger Institute on China and the US at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre in Washington.

He is critical of the role both Chinese and the US militaries have played in the South China Sea disputes.

“When we were moving aircraft carriers to the South China Sea and are running frequent freedom of navigation operations, China and Russia held joint military exercises in the disputed waters. Is it the right way to deal with this issue?” he said.

Conflicting Claims

David Lampton, a China expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, also said it was unwise of China to hold a joint exercise with Russia in September with suggestions that its purpose was to practise seizing island territory.
“You can hardly be surprised that others react when China and Russia have island-grabbing exercises. China is a big power and if China does things, its neighbours and other big powers, including the US and Japan, will react. So maybe we both will have to be careful what we are doing,” he said.

Lampton, a former president of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, agreed there were policy differences between China’s military and foreign ministry over the maritime disputes.

“Militaries everywhere want more resources than the civilians want to give them. They are more jealous guardians of sovereignty and their own right to manoeuvre,” he said.

Both analysts noted the differences between the US military, which swears allegiance to the constitution and the Chinese military that vows to protect the Communist Party.

Every system has problems but actually I think it’s easier for us to control our military than for China to control their military

David Lampton, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

“In a party, it matters who is the leader, how strong the leader is and what his viewpoint is. Every system has problems but actually I think it’s easier for us to control our military than for China to control their military,” Lampton said.

Roy believed the US and other nations have failed to pay close attention to some of the remarks made by Xi during his visit to Washington a year ago, when he appealed for greater diplomatic effort to solve maritime disputes.

“When Xi, speaking on the record, put together no intention of militarisation, more effective implementation of the code of conduct on parties and calls for a speedy conclusion of consultations, it seems to me the diplomatic track should be getting more attention,” he said. “China is saying it’s prepared to negotiate a territorial issue in the Spratly Islands, but the US side paid no attention and did not pick up on that.”

He added there was no point questioning Xi’s sincerity in making those statements. “If the Chinese president makes the statement, you accept it at face value. So this is why I am critical of the US position,” Roy said.

Analysts said China had not undertaken any provocative steps since a landmark ruling by the international Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in July, which rejected Beijing’s claims to much of the South China Sea.

Relations between China and Southeast Asian nations appear to have improved markedly, with Beijing enticing its neighbours, including rival claimants the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam, with lucrative trade and investment deals.

If China and the Philippines can find ways to lower tensions with respect to their claims in the South China Sea, it will be a step towards lowering tensions overall
Stapleton Roy, former US ambassador to Beijing

US experts said new Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, despite being largely unpredictable, had chosen to reach out to China instead of using the ruling, which Beijing deemed as a humiliating diplomatic defeat, to confront Beijing.

“If China and the Philippines can find ways to lower tensions with respect to their claims in the South China Sea, it will be a step towards lowering tensions overall,” Roy said.

But analysts remained cautious over the prospect of resolving long-standing South China Sea disputes, citing uncertainty resulting from the rise of unpredictable leaders such as Duterte and US president-elect Donald Trump.

US to expand military presence in Asia-Pacific but Trump ‘unlikely to chart dramatic new course’

“We have this unpredictable new president in the Philippines, who has been behaving in the ways that people did not anticipate,” Roy said. And how the new US administration under Trump handles the maritime disputes largely depended on what the situation was when he took office next month, he added.

Bonnie Glaser, an expert on Asia at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said: “Apparently, China wants to completely ignore the ruling, but I don’t think the US, and more importantly the Philippines and other rival claimants, would agree.

“Some people say China may take advantage of Obama’s final months and China will test a new US administration. We’ll have to wait and see,” she said.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as:
‘discord in Beijing worsens sea row’

 

[Housecarl]

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http://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-flight-tests-10-df-21-missiles/

China Flight-Tests 10 DF-21 Missiles

Show of force comes amid transition to Trump

BY: Bill Gertz
December 2, 2016 5:00 pm

China’s military conducted a salvo of 10 missile flight tests late last month in a show of force during the transition to the Donald Trump administration.

Chinese state media reported Thursday that the simultaneous flight tests of 10 DF-21 intermediate-range ballistic missiles were carried out in China.

The missiles “can destroy U.S. Asia-Pacific bases at any time,” the dispatch from the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The flight tests were disclosed by China Central Television on Nov. 28 and coincide with President-elect Donald Trump’s high-profile announcements of new senior government officials.

Disclosure of the missile salvo launch comes as Trump announced on Thursday that he will nominate retired Marine Corps. Gen. James Mattis as his defense secretary. Mattis is one of the Corps’ most celebrated warfighting generals.

Xinhua reported that the DF-21 is comparable to the U.S. Pershing II intermediate-range missile that used a two-stage rocket and aerodynamic reentry vehicle. The Pershing II was dismantled under the U.S.-Russian INF treaty.

Rick Fisher, a China military expert, confirmed the missile tests involved the DF-21C variant of the missile.

Fisher, a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, also noted that the missile test came as China is conducting large-scale naval exercises.

“The PLA is banging some drums to provide background for military psychological warfare,” Fisher said.

The DF-21 is the basis for several types of missiles, including the anti-ship variant known as the DF-21D. Another version is believed to be part of China’s anti-satellite arsenal.

The DF-21C is a land-attack maneuvering missile with a range of about 1,000 miles.
It is also capable of firing a maneuvering warhead.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-defence-idUSKBN13S0DA

World News | Sat Dec 3, 2016 | 6:26am EST

China's Xi says military must be smaller, but more capable

China's armed forces must be smaller but more capable, and if reforms are not properly carried out the military risks falling behind, affecting its ability to wage war, Chinese state media on Saturday cited President Xi Jinping as saying.

Xi unexpectedly announced in September last year that he would cut troop numbers by 300,000, or some 13 percent of the world's biggest military, currently 2.3-million strong.

The cuts come at a time of heightened economic uncertainty in China as growth slows and the leadership grapples with painful economic reforms. In October, hundreds of previously demobilized soldiers protested in Beijing.

The lay-offs are part of broader reforms to modernize the military, moving away from the old Soviet-era command module and putting more emphasis on high-tech weapons such as stealth jets.

Speaking at a two-day meeting on military reform, Xi said militaries must never stick to their old ways and need to change with the times.

"Otherwise, armed forces that were strong will become outdated, or even collapse at a single blow," Xi said in comments carried by the official Xinhua news agency.

"History and reality tells us that a military, if it falls behind the times on scale and strength, it will fall behind on war ideology and developments in waging war, maybe forfeiting strategy and right to initiate war," he added.

China's military needs to put more focus on technology rather than force of numbers, Xi said.

"This is a major, inevitable change," Xi told the meeting. "We must seize the opportunity and make breakthroughs."

China's military has not fought a war in decades and the government insists has no hostile intents, simply needing the ability to properly defend what is now the world's second-largest economy.

But China has rattled nerves around the region with its increasingly assertive stance in the East and South China Seas and ambitious modernization program that includes aircraft carriers and anti-satellite missiles.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; editing by Susan Thomas)

Also In World News
China lodges protest after Trump call with Taiwan president
Iran says extension of sanctions act shows U.S. unreliable

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idUSKBN13S0BF

World News | Sat Dec 3, 2016 | 9:30am EST

Syrian rebels lose more ground in Aleppo: monitor

Syrian government forces have captured 60 percent of the area previously held by rebels in eastern Aleppo after gaining new ground on the city's eastern edge, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.

At least seven plumes of smoke were seen rising from rebel-held areas of the city on Saturday morning as the sound of jets could be heard overhead, a Reuters witness in the government-held western Aleppo said.

The Syrian army backed by allied militia has captured large areas of rebel-held eastern Aleppo in the last week in a ferocious campaign that threatens to deal a major defeat to the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad.

The Observatory and a Syrian military source said the army had built on its gains by capturing the Tariq al-Bab district late on Friday. A Turkey-based official with one of the rebel groups in Aleppo said government forces had advanced in the area but rebels were repelling them.

Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said the total area lost by the rebels was "easily 60 percent".

The Observatory said at least three people were killed in an air strike on the al-Shaer neighborhood of eastern Aleppo. The civil defense rescue service in eastern Aleppo said a gathering of displaced people had been struck and put the death toll at more than six. The army denies targeting civilians.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-somalia-security-idUSKBN13S0JD

World News | Sat Dec 3, 2016 | 8:58am EST

Somali forces kill seven in clash with faction loyal to Islamic State

By Abdiqani Hassan | BOSASSO, Somalia

Soldiers allied to the Western-backed Somali government said they killed seven insurgents from a faction loyal to the Islamic State group in a clash in northern Somalia on Saturday.

The soldiers from the semi-autonomous region of Puntland are part of a force headed to the port town of Qandala, which has been under the control of the insurgents since November.

The Puntland forces were attacked in the village of Bashaashin, which is 34 kilometers (21 miles) from Qandala.

"We killed seven IS and took their guns - now we are in the village," Captain Mohamed Saiid, head of a Puntland military unit, told Reuters by satellite phone from the scene.

"The IS fighters retreated into a hill outside the village. Three soldiers were injured from our side. We shall keep on pursuing the fighters till we eliminate them from Qandala."

The insurgents are thought to number in the low hundreds and are led by Abdiqadir Mumin, who broke away from the main al Shabaab insurgency last year and swore allegiance to Islamic State.

His group has no known operational links to Islamic State in the Middle East and Qandala is the first town where they took control.

Al Shabaab is fighting the shaky U.N.-backed government to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law in Somalia, which has been at war for more than 25 years.

(writing by Katharine Houreld; editing by Susan Thomas)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-afghanistan-idUSKBN13T0CM

World News | Sun Dec 4, 2016 | 5:12am EST

Afghan president says Taliban wouldn't last a month without Pakistan support

By Sanjeev Miglani | AMRITSAR, India

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Sunday that the Taliban insurgency would not survive a month if it lost its sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan, urging its neighbor to take on militant groups on its soil instead of giving Kabul financial aid.

Ghani's remarks, made at an international conference in the northern Indian city of Amritsar not far from the border with Pakistan, suggested tensions were rising with Pakistan after Ghani attempted to improve relations with Islamabad when he took office in 2014.

Pakistan said while violence had increased in Afghanistan , blaming another country for it didn't help.

Violence has spread around Afghanistan and the Taliban's ability to conduct coordinated high profile attacks in the capital Kabul has piled pressure on Ghani's Western-backed government to provide better security to a war weary people.

Last year, Afghanistan suffered the highest number of civilian casualties and military related deaths in the world, Ghani told the Heart of Asia conference aimed at getting regional players together to help stabilize his country.

"This is unacceptable... Some still provide sanctuary for terrorists. As a Taliban figure said recently, if they had no sanctuary in Pakistan, they wouldn't last a month," he said.

Analysts say Pakistan has historically backed the Afghan Taliban as a hedge against the influence of arch-rival India, with whom Pakistan has fought three wars, in its backyard.

Pakistan denies this and instead said it is itself a victim of terrorism and that fighters of the Tehrik-i-Taliban, one of the main groups carrying out attacks inside Pakistan, were operating from Afghanistan.

Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan's top foreign policy adviser, said it was true that there had been an upsurge in violence in Afghanistan. "We need to have an objective and holistic view rather to blame one country," he told the conference.

The number of people displaced by conflict in Afghanistan this year has surpassed half a million people, the United Nations reported last month, the highest number since it began compiling such statistics in 2008.

On top of the Taliban, Islamic State has claimed responsibility for attacks targeting minority Shi'ites in Afghanistan where sectarian violence has been rare.

Ghani said there were 30 militant groups identified by the UN that were trying to establish a base in Afghanistan.

"I don't want a blame game, I want clarifications on what is being done to prevent the export of terror," Ghani said, calling it an undeclared war on Afghanistan.

"We thank Pakistan for their pledge of $500 million assistance for reconstruction of Afghanistan. I hope you use it to fight terrorists and extremists in Pakistan." Pakistan had made the pledge earlier this year.

Ghani's remarks, the strongest in recent months, come as India has simultaneously mounted pressure on Pakistan to end what it too calls cross-border terrorism in the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said regional players had to act against not only the militants but their sponsors. "It must be backed by resolute action. Not just against forces of terrorism, but also against those who support, shelter, train and finance them."

Islamabad has rejected the Indian allegations and said it was ready to hold talks with India on the dispute over Kashmir, but no talks are planned with Aziz while he is in Amritsar, Indian officials said.

(Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Eric Meijer)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-shaar-idUSKBN13U0PE

World News | Mon Dec 5, 2016 | 2:59am EST

Syrian rebels set to lose another Aleppo district: insurgent

Another key district of eastern Aleppo has effectively fallen to advancing Syrian government forces, a rebel official said on Monday, as the army and allied militia pressed an assault against the opposition-held enclave.

"Karm al-Jabal and al-Shaar are considered fallen," the official with the Jabha Shamiya group told Reuters, speaking from Turkey.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported heavy clashes on Monday morning in al-Shaar. The Syrian army and its allies advanced into al-Shaar, capturing some positions in the area, it said.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis/Tom Perry; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-usa-mosul-idUSKBN13U0HX

World News | Mon Dec 5, 2016 | 1:20am EST

Recapture of Mosul 'possible' before next U.S. administration: Pentagon chief

By Idrees Ali | ABOARD A US MILITARY AIRCRAFT

While the fight to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from Islamic State is going to be difficult, it is "possible" it could be complete before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Monday.

Some 100,000 Iraqi government troops, Kurdish security forces and mainly Shi'ite militiamen are participating in the assault on Mosul that began on Oct. 17, with air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition.

The capture of Mosul, the largest city under control of Islamic State, is seen as crucial toward dismantling the caliphate which the militants declared over parts of the Iraq and Syria in 2014.

"That is certainly possible and again it is going to be a tough fight," Carter said when asked if the recapture would be complete before Jan. 20, when Trump starts his presidency.

Islamic State fighters retreating in the face of a seven-week military assault on their Mosul stronghold have hit back in the past few days, exploiting cloudy skies which hampered U.S-led air support and highlighting the fragile army gains.

In a series of counter-attacks since Friday, the jihadist fighters struck elite Iraqi troops spearheading the offensive in eastern Mosul, and attacked security forces to the south and west of the city.

"Obviously there (are) always weather issues ... the Iraqi security forces are prepared for any eventuality there," Carter said.

Iraqi officials say they continue to gain ground against the militants who still hold about three-quarters of the country's largest northern city.

But the fierce resistance means the military's campaign is likely to stretch well into next year as it seeks to recapture a city where the jihadists are dug in among civilians and using a network of tunnels to launch waves of attacks.

Carter did not say how the recapture could be completed before Jan. 20 in the face of resistance from Islamic State.

In a separate speech in California on Saturday, Carter left the door open for U.S. and coalition forces to stay in Iraq after Islamic State had been removed.

"In Iraq in particular, it will be necessary for the coalition to provide sustained assistance and carry on our work to train, equip, and support local police, border guards, and other forces to hold areas cleared from ISIL," said Carter, using an acronym for Islamic State.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Robert Birsel)

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/mosul-under-siege-unlikely-chance-save-isis-enslaved-120001689.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Midd...unlikely-chance-to-save-ISIS-enslaved-Yazidis

With Mosul under siege, an unlikely chance to save ISIS-enslaved Yazidis?

Kristen Chick
Christian Science Monitor
December 3, 2016
43 Comments

Ghazal Salim had spent more than two years in slavery under the so-called Islamic State when her chance for freedom finally came.

As Kurdish and Iraqi forces prepared for the offensive on Mosul in mid-October, her captor, a Jordanian IS fighter, was also making plans for the battle. Along with Ms. Salim – one of the thousands of Yazidi women and girls taken by IS in 2014 – he took his wife and child from Mosul, where they lived, to Raqqa, the de facto IS capital in Syria.

There he told Salim to contact her family. He sold her and her young son to them for $25,000, she said, and in turn used the money to send his wife and daughter back to Jordan. He then returned to Mosul, intent on dying as a suicide bomber in the fight against Iraqi forces.

Recommended: How much do you know about the Islamic State?

Salim is one of only a small number of IS slaves who have been rescued or escaped since the battle in Mosul began in October. Many of the family members of the estimated hundreds of Yazidi captives held in the city were hopeful that the offensive would bring freedom to their relatives. So far, they have been bitterly disappointed.

IS members in Mosul appear to have moved most of their slaves to Syria before the fighting began, say those working to document and free the captives. No captives have been found in the towns retaken from the militants, though 18 Yazidis were able to flee to safety amid heavy fighting in Tal Afar, west of Mosul, last week.

That angers activists, who criticize Iraqi forces for not cutting Mosul*off from Syria to the west before attacking, leaving a corridor for the militants to send the captives farther away into Syria. Bahzad Farhan Murad, who has painstakingly documented crimes against Yazidis, says captives whose families knew they were in Mosul have shown up in the online marketplace in Syria, showing the militants moved them before the battle.

“Always when the [IS] fighters are withdrawing, they keep the Yazidi girls, they take them with them. They never leave them in areas that are liberated,” he says.

But the enslaved Yazidis' relocation to Syria brings some hope. In Syria, slaves are bought and sold more openly than in Iraq. That makes the rescue of some possible via a complex network of people who buy the slaves and then smuggle them to Kurdish territory. Activists and family members hope that those brought to Syria from Iraq will be able to eventually be rescued, as Salim was.

FREEING ENSLAVED YAZIDIS

When IS captured a large swath of northern Iraq in August 2014, the militants killed thousands of Yazidis, whom they consider infidels. Men were gunned down and buried in mass graves, while women and children, and some men, were taken captive. Many of the women were forced into sexual slavery.

More than 2,700 have since been rescued or escaped, while more than 3,600 are still enslaved, said Hussein al-Qaidi, director of the Office of Kidnapped Affairs of the Kurdish regional government. More have been rescued from Syria than from Iraq, though he won’t discuss the details of the rescues and said his office does not deal with IS militants directly.

None of those working to rescue Yazidis will openly discuss how they are freed from Syria, but anonymously, activists say that people in their networks often buy the women and children from IS fighters before smuggling them back to safety. Some in bondage are also rescued or escape without payment, or, as in Salim’s case, bought by their families.

This is made possible by militants in Syria listing the captives, with pictures and prices, in an online marketplace on an encrypted messaging application. That allows families to find their missing loved ones, and activists to make contact with their captors.

But such online marketplaces were not used to the same extent in Iraq, say activists. “Seventy-five percent of the girls who come from Syria, we buy them. In Iraq it’s not like that,” says one activist who asked to remain anonymous.

'I THOUGHT I WOULD NEVER MAKE IT'

In all cases, the rescues are dangerous. Salim, who was captured with her husband and two small children in Sinjar in 2014, said she witnessed the execution of people accused of helping to free Yazidi slaves. After her capture, she was held for around a year in a series of prisons, some underground. Then she was taken by an IS commander to Deir Ezzour, Syria. About a year ago, she says, he sold her to the Jordanian fighter, who brought her to live in Mosul, along with her young son.

On a visit to Raqqa with her captor, she says, an American IS fighter who went by the name Abu Osama, a comrade of her Jordanian captor, publicly beheaded a man accused of working to free Yazidis. The captives were often forced to watch such executions, she says, to dissuade them from attempting to escape.

In early October, “there was talk that the operation would start, so [the Jordanian] decided to send his family to safer place,” she says softly, soothing her two children as they fussed. “He brought all of us to Raqqa. After that he opened the Internet for me, and I contacted my family.”

He bargained with her family before settling on a price. After receiving the money, he sent her with a smuggler, who led her on foot to Kurdish territory and the freedom that she had thought would never come. “I thought I would never make it,” she says.

She now lives in a refugee camp with relatives, hoping the offensive will also bring liberation for her husband, whom she last saw 1-1/2 years ago.

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Focus Iraq after ISIS: At site of massacre, bridge-building replaces blood feud
Their town now liberated, Iraqi Christians talk of life under ISIS
For jihadists, Trump election brings a change in strategy

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idlib-idUSKBN13U0Q7

World News | Mon Dec 5, 2016 | 3:04am EST

Air strikes kill 73 in rebel-held Idlib province: war monitor

Air strikes killed at least 73 people in rebel-held Idlib province, including 38 in the city of Maarat al-Numan, on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group monitoring the war, reported.

Russian war planes and Syrian military jets and helicopters have been conducting heavy strikes for months against rebels in Idlib, southwest of Aleppo. Insurgents had previously tried to get help and supplies to fellow rebels in the city from Idlib.

The Observatory said the death toll in Maarat al-Numan included five children and six members of a single family.

The bombardment included barrel bombs, improvised ordnance made from oil drums filled with explosives and dropped from helicopters, the monitor said. The Syrian military and Russia both deny using barrel bombs, whose use has been criticized by the United Nations.

Syria's civil war, which began in 2011, pits President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia, Iran and Shi'ite Muslim militias against mostly Sunni rebels including groups supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf kingdoms.

Jihadist militants are also fighting alongside the insurgents, including Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, which has a large presence in Idlib province and was known as the Nusra Front until July when it broke its formal allegiance to al Qaeda.

Russia says its air campaign, which began in September 2015, is aimed at preventing jihadists, including both Fateh al-Sham and the Islamic State group, from gaining more territory in Syria that could be used to mount attacks overseas.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall; Editing by Louise Ireland)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.minotdailynews.com/news/...ds-already-approved-for-icbm-upgrade-program/

Some funds already approved for ICBM upgrade program

Local News
Dec 5, 2016
Eloise Ogden
Regional Editor
eogden@minotdailynews.com

A portion of the federal funding is in place for a major upgrade of the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles including those of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base.

“Congress has approved $75.2 million for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program in fiscal year 2016,” said Leah Bryant, chief of Public Affairs and legislative liaison for the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Kirtland AFB, N.M.

For fiscal year 2017, the president’s budget requested $113.9 million from Congress, Bryant said. She said they are waiting for final congressional approval for fiscal year 2017.

On Friday, Congressman Kevin Cramer announced the House of Representatives passed the Conference Report to S. 2943, the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2017. The legislation includes continuing to fund ICBM modernization and supports the Air Force proposal to structure the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program. The Senate vote on the bill is scheduled for this week.

The ICBM program involves upgrading missile communications, launch facilities and launch control centers.

This past summer, the Air Force kicked off proposal competitions for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent to replace the 1960s-era Minuteman III ICBM, and the Long Range Standoff (LRSO) weapon, according to Defense News.

Minot AFB’s 91st Missile Wing is one of three ICBM wings in the Air Force responsible for operating, maintaining and securing the 150 Minuteman III missiles in underground facilities in several counties in northwest and north central North Dakota. The other wings are at F.E. Warren AFB, Wyo., and Malmstrom AFB, Mont.

Recently, a team from Lockheed-Martin met with Minot Area Chamber of Commerce officials to discuss the program and the impact it will have on the local community.

“Going forward, we will annually request funding from Congress to continue executing the GBSD program,” Bryant said. She said those future year requests will also be made through the annual president’s budget submissions to Congress.

“The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center estimates the total GBSD acquisition cost will be $62.3 billion,” Bryant said.

The Long-Range Stand-Off (LRSO) weapon is being developed to replace the aging AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile, according to the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center Public Affairs.

“The LRSO will be a reliable, flexible, long-ranging, and survivable weapon system to complement the nuclear triad,” Gen. Robin Rand, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, told the Senate Armed Forces Committee earlier this year. “LRSO will ensure the bomber force can continue to hold high-value targets at risk in an evolving threat environment, to include targets within an area-denial environment.”

Minot AFB’s 5th Bomb Wing has the B-52 bomber.

Constance Baroudos and Peter Huessy reported in Breaking Defense in July that critics of U.S. nuclear modernization claim the LRSO can be eliminated without harming America’s security interests. But the LRSO provides America with a unique capability to deter adversaries from using nuclear force and projects credible power while keeping U.S. forces safe. “Updated standoff weapons ensure America maintains a credible and reliable strategic deterrent force. Standoff cruise missiles are launched from a bomber outside defended airspace and penetrate enemy territory — allowing a non-stealthy aircraft like the B-52 to strike well-protected targets,” they said.

Huessy, founder and president of GeoStrategic Analyis, a defense consulting firm in Potomac, Md. who has partnered with Task Force 21, Minot’s base retention and new mission committee, for nuclear triad symposiums that the Minot group has held.

Mark Jantzer, chairman of Task Force 21, said the most recent symposium was held in September in Washington, D.C., and attended by about 200 people. Experts on the nuclear triad and members of Congress are among the speakers at the symposiums.

Bryant said no costs may be released for the LRSO program due to its classified nature. “However, it was also approved to start its TMRR (Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction) phase” of the program, she said.

 

[Housecarl]

Trump talks to president of Taiwan. China could get mad.
Started by mzkitty‎, 12-02-2016 02:23 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...esident-of-Taiwan.-China-could-get-mad./page2

Well this changes the narrative a little bit....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/1...fore-trump-call-with-taiwanese-president.html

China flew nuclear-capable bombers around Taiwan before Trump call with Taiwanese president

By Lucas Tomlinson, Jennifer Griffin
Published December 05, 2016
FoxNews.com

Video

Less than a week before President-elect Donald Trump spoke with Taiwan’s president over the phone, China flew a pair of long-range nuclear-capable bombers around Taiwan for the first time, two U.S. officials revealed to Fox News.

TRUMP REMAINS ON DEFENSIVE AFTER CALL WITH TAIWAN PRESIDENT

On Nov. 26, two Chinese Xian H-6 bombers, along with two escort planes, a Tupolev Tu-154 and Shaanxi Y-8, flew around the island of Taiwan from mainland China, taking off and landing from two separate Chinese military bases.

The escort jets were used to collect radar information and conduct other surveillance on American allies such as Japan, Fox News is told. The Chinese bombers stayed in international airspace, according to officials.

CONWAY: TRUMP'S TALK WITH TAIWAN LEADER 'JUST A CALL,' NOT A SIGN OF POLICY SHIFT

At different points of the flight, Chinese J-10 and Su-30 fighter jets performed escort duties for the Chinese strategic bombers.

Japan scrambled eight F-15 fighter jets to intercept the Chinese flight at one point in the skies somewhere northeast of Taiwan, according to the officials.

A high-ranking official from Taiwan’s defense ministry commented on the Chinese military flight Monday.

"This was the first time that Chinese aircraft circled around Taiwan," Deputy National Defense Minister Lee Hsi-ming said, adding that China has said similar flights would occur in the future according to Focus Taiwan News Channel.

"China has steadily built up a massive military capability in the area around Taiwan. This isn't simply a matter of flying bombers. Understand that technically, we can't object to flying bombers near Taiwan if we are flying combat aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft near China. This is simply legal under international law," Anthony H. Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said. "Taiwan faces a much more serious Chinese challenge than it has ever faced before."

Elsewhere, a Russian Su-33 crashed while attempting to land aboard a Russian aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean. The incident occurred Saturday according to The Aviationist, which was first to report the crash.

"After performing a combat mission over Syria a Sukhoi-33 fighter-jet overran the runway while trying to land on The Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier. The arresting cable’s rupture was the reason," read a statement from the Russian Defense Ministry according to Russian state media. The Russian Defense Ministry announced the pilot was safe after ejecting into the Mediterranean.

In the past few weeks, Russia recently deployed missiles to Western Crimea after Ukraine conducted missile tests and also deployed nuclear-capable short range ballistic missiles to Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave in Europe bordering Poland and Lithuania.

The Russian Su-33 is seeing combat for the first time in Syria. Unable to launch strike missions from the Russian aircraft carrier due to the heavy weight of fuel and bombs, the Russian air force moved six Su-33s to its base along Syria’s coast to conduct strike missions in the past few weeks, Fox News was told.

It was the second time in less than three weeks that a Russian jet crashed while attempting to land aboard the aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean. Fox News was first to report the first crash of a MiG-29 last month.


Lucas Tomlinson is the Pentagon and State Department producer for Fox News Channel. You can follow him on Twitter: @LucasFoxNews

Jennifer Griffin currently serves as a national security correspondent for FOX News Channel . She joined FNC in October 1999 as a Jerusalem-based correspondent. You can follow her on Twitter at @JenGriffinFNC.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....Now all we're missing is CONUS based point defense systems.....One suggestion quite a while back was a conventionally armed variant of the Sprint system backed up with new guidance and computers....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://dailycaller.com/2016/12/05/us-military-developing-anti-nuke-countermeasure-rockets/

Daily Caller News Foundation

US Military Developing Space-Based, Anti-Nuke Countermeasure Rockets

ANDREW FOLLETT
Energy and Science Reporter
4:35 PM 12/05/2016

A major U.S. defense contractor announced plans over the weekend to develop space-based defensive anti-missile weapon called a “Multi-Object Kill Vehicle” (MOKVs).

Raytheon believes it can load several MOKV’s to rockets, then deploy them in space or launch them from the ground. MOKVs would have a steering and propulsion system which would allow it to slam into an incoming nuclear weapon, destroying it with kinetic forces.

Raytheon, and other defense contractors like Lockheed-Martin and Boeing have already received contracts from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency to begin designing MOKVs. This method could destroy several incoming missiles in space with a single launch, making it more economical to defend against nuclear weapons than to attack with them.

“Ten years ago, we had a single kill vehicle on a single interceptor,” John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, told Seeker. “Kill vehicles today are the size of a toaster. This MOKV program is the latest iteration.”

The program could shoot incoming missiles carrying nuclear weapons out of space, rendering them harmless and making it eaiser to defend the U.S. from a potential nuclear-first strike.

“The impacts would take place beyond Earth’s atmosphere, but on a trajectory that would send the resulting cloud of debris back into the atmosphere, where it burn up,” Pike continued.

The Missile Defense Agency plans to conduct the firsts intercept test in 2019, according to Live Science.

The Department of Defense (DOD) is very worried that both Russia and China are also developing space weapons. These could be capable of knocking out America’s satellites in any future conflict, though these are likely not sophisticated enough to target U.S. nuclear weapons. Knocking out American satellites could give either country a potentially catastrophic edge in war. NatureWorldNews reports this could cause a simple accident in space to trigger an escalation of tensions between the U.S. and either country.

The critical military importance of satellites has been obscured in recent conflicts because most of them were against guerrilla foes who lacked the ability to target American space assets, according to a report published in August by the U.S. National Academies. America’s military relies on numerous satellites to provide precision navigation, communications, weather monitoring, ground surveillance, spying and detection of nuclear missile launches.

The Air Force has already vowed to invest $6.6 billion into efforts to protect America’s satellites over the next six years, and could spend upwards of $10 billion on space operations from combined public and classified budgets this year, according to The Air Force Times.

The Pentagon suspects that the most rapidly rising threat in space is China’s military-led space program. China successfully targeted and destroyed one of its own satellites in orbit in 2007, and has likely tested a ground-based missile launch system to destroy objects in orbit in 2013.

Follow Andrew on Twitter

Send tips to andrew@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1022032.shtml

China sends first 120 of 700-member peacekeeping force to S. Sudan

By Xinhua - Global Times Source:Global Times Published: 2016/12/5 23:08:39

China dispatched the first 120 of a 700-member peacekeeping infantry battalion to Juba, capital of South Sudan, on Sunday, including 13 female soldiers.

The rest of the battalion, which has been assigned to a 12-month United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission, will leave in five separate groups.

The female infantry team will carry out humanitarian relief work and protect the rights of women and children, said battalion commander Ding Hailong.

The battalion is composed of officers and soldiers from the 54th Group Army, including infantry, armored units, artillery forces, signal troops and special warfare troops.

The peacekeepers have all attended a three-month peacekeeping course and have been tasked with protecting civilians, supporting UN and humanitarian relief programs, patrols and escorts.

The infantry battalion is the third Chinese team to be dispatched to South Sudan since the country deployed its first peacekeeping infantry battalion in South Sudan in 2015.

In July, two Chinese peacekeepers were killed and five others were injured during a peacekeeping mission in Juba in fighting between government and rebel forces.

War in South Sudan erupted in December 2013, two years after winning independence, after President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup, AFP reported.

The peacekeeping force will be assigned to safeguarding local security and supporting post-war reconstruction, rather than engaging in battle, Wang Baofu, a military expert at the College of Defense Studies, was quoted by the Beijing Times as saying.

Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed facilitating China-UN cooperation by allowing a leading role in high-level exchanges, and pushing forward progress in implementing China's measures to support the UN, which he announced at a visit to the UN headquarters in September 2015. The measures include an offer of $2 billion for a fund to support South-South cooperation, and the establishment of a permanent peacekeeping police detachment and a peacekeeping force of 8,000 troops.

Over 2,600 Chinese peacekeeping personnel are involved in 10 UN peacekeeping operations, including those in South Sudan, Sudan's Darfur region, Mali and Liberia.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thediplomat.com/2016/12/after-the-call-does-taiwan-have-a-plan-for-the-trump-years/

After the Call: Does Taiwan Have a Plan for the Trump Years

What is Taiwan looking for from Donald Trump?

By Ankit Panda
December 05, 2016

Last Friday’s phone call between U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen — the first presidential interaction between the two sides since U.S. President Jimmy Carter ended formal diplomatic relations in 1979 — has hinted at a possible change to relations between the two sides. Shortly after the Financial Times reported that the call had taken place, I ran through some of the possible implications for both cross-strait ties and U.S.-Taiwan relations. (David Graham in The Atlantic also presents a good round-up of the reasons for the U.S. status quo policy.) Additionally, Shannon Tiezzi discussed the reaction from Beijing, with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi putting out a statement that effectively gave Donald Trump a pass and blamed Taiwan for its “little trick.” (The reaction would likely have been very different had Trump been in office at the time of the call.)

What has gone relatively unaddressed in coverage of the call in the United States is what the Taiwanese side makes of all this. First, on Saturday, the South China Morning Post introduced an important detail that had been misreported earlier on Friday. Citing Alex Huang, Tsai’s presidential spokesman, the SCMP confirmed that the call had been initiated by Taiwan — meaning that Trump’s tweet revealing that the “President of Taiwan” called him was true. The SCMP report also clarified that on the president-elect’s side, Edwin Feulner, founder of the right-leaning Heritage Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think tank, facilitated the call.

As I discussed on Friday, there is plenty of evidence that Trump is surrounded by a coterie of advisers who strongly support closer ties between the United States and Taiwan. When the call first took place and it was reported that the Trump team had set it up, it appeared at first that the president-elect may have been goaded into the status quo-defying call by advisers and others close to the campaign, including Peter Navarro and John Bolton. (Both Bolton and Navarro have authored articles calling for a substantial re-think of U.S. support for Taiwan, prompting closer ties — Bolton has gone as far to suggest “a diplomatic ladder of escalation” with China.)

Context for the Call

For Tsai and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), initiating a historic phone call with the incoming U.S. president is not necessarily suggestive of an incoming push for de jure independence from Taiwan. Instead, the decision may represent more careful diplomatic maneuvering on Taiwan’s apart. Tsai, as was made clear from her campaign for the presidency, her inauguration speech, and her conduct as Taiwan’s president, clearly understands Beijing’s “red lines” for the island. Any serious hint of a push for de jure independence could lead to serious conflict with China; accordingly, her government — and the government of the United States — have not made independence a policy objective.

However, Tsai’s administration has effectively been boxed in by Beijing. First, there was Tsai’s inauguration speech. After Beijing was not satisfied with Tsai’s rhetorical treatment of the so-called “1992 consensus” — the understanding between Taipei and Beijing that there is “one China,” with differing interpretations of what that means — cross-strait communications were unilaterally suspended by China. The decision to do so was casually announced by Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office about a month into Tsai’s tenure.

Further boxing the DPP in, China went to great pains in 2015 and early 2016 to emphasize its preference for continued rule by the KMT, or Kuomintang, in Taiwan. Unfortunately for Beijing, the popular backlash against the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement brokered by the KMT administration of President Ma Ying-jeou, encapsulated in the Sunflower Movement, led to a popular surge for the independence-leaning DPP. Tsai won the election with a comfortable mandate, with her victory underlining the extent to which “Taiwanization” would become an irreversible force in the island’s politics.

Beijing sees the political winds in Taiwan as inherently unfavorable to the sustenance of harmonious cross-strait ties in line with the “1992 consensus.” Its method of dealing with Tsai’s victory, however, has been to deploy blunt force. In addition to unilaterally ending cross-strait communications, Beijing has sought to remind Taipei that the island’s economic exposure to mainland means that not playing by the “old rules” will be to Taiwan’s detriment. That’s not entirely untrue either — 40 percent of Taiwanese exports, representing 70 percent of GDP, first head to China. Taiwanese economic growth fell below 1 percent in 2015 as well, with voter dissatisfaction with the KMT’s handling of wage growth, real estate prices, and the labor market also helping in Tsai’s win.

In her first seven months in office, Tsai hasn’t shown a clear way to reconcile her twin mandates on bringing Taiwan economic prosperity without giving in to Beijing on rejecting the island’s increasingly “Taiwan-ized” political identity. Beijing wants the DPP administration to recognize that conceding on the latter is the only way for Taiwan to attain the former. For the moment, the DPP has been reluctant to accept that. Tsai, for instance, told the Taipei Times in mid-November — after Trump’s electoral win — that her government would continue to seek closer trade ties with other Asian nations. Part of this push is encapsulated in the “New Southbound Policy,” which seeks to closely integrate Taiwan with the 500-million-strong ASEAN economies. (ASEAN is Taiwan’s second largest trading partner after China.)

A Considered Move?

The above is a fair bit of context, but it may matter immensely in decoding the significance of the Trump-Tsai phone call. As her mid-November interview with the Taipei Times further suggests, Tsai knows that to spur growth, Taiwan needs to probe new avenues in trade. “As an ‘insular economy,’ Taiwan is fundamentally dependent on trade; therefore we need to improve our economic links with neighboring Asian states and other nations in the region, put all our effort into developing bilateral ties and aggressively pursue national participation in regional economic cooperative relationships,” she said.

Trump, of course, is no proponent of regional, multilateral trade deals, as his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership has made clear. While Taipei may have given up any lingering hope of one day entering the TPP network, Taiwan has no doubt picked up on the Trump team’s support for bilateral free trade agreements. On Saturday, Taiwan’s presidential office released its readout of the call and the contents are revealing. The Taiwanese side notes that Tsai and Trump “shared their views and principles regarding key policy matters, particularly the need to promote domestic economic development and strengthen national defense so that citizens can enjoy better lives and increased security.”

The readout adds that “The two also briefly exchanged views on conditions in the Asian region. Commenting on future Taiwan-US relations, President Tsai expressed hope that the two sides can enhance bilateral interactions and liaison so as to build a closer cooperative relationship.” Finally, “President Tsai also told President-elect Trump that she hopes the U.S. will continue to support Taiwan in its quest for more opportunities to participate in international affairs and make contributions.” After the call, Taiwan’s envoy in the United States, Stanley Kao, remarked that the call represented progress in ties between the two sides, further suggesting that the call and its effects had been considered by Taiwan.

Tsai, unsurprisingly, took the opportunity to emphasize core areas where Taiwan could benefit from additional U.S. support. Given previous interaction between the Tsai administration and Trump advisers, Tsai’s office likely knew that Trump would be receptive to the call. Even if the impulse wasn’t to push Trump to look favorably on Taiwanese interests, Tsai has expressed concern that “Trump’s isolationism will cause Asian nations to move closer into China’s orbit and lead to heavier resistance to the ‘new southbound policy.'” Taipei may have been looking to convey to the U.S. president the importance of not pulling back from Asia, which would allow Chinese influence to expand.

Of course, not everything went according to plan. For instance, as the Taipei Times notes, “Trump’s open acknowledgment of the call on Twitter caught Tsai’s team by surprise” (though Taipei likely did not seriously expect this call to stay out of the press). Taiwan’s intent with this call may have been to push back against Beijing, showing that the false dichotomy of choosing between the “Taiwanization” mandate and the economic development mandate could be redressed by pursuing closer ties with the United States. China, based on its reaction to the call, may have gotten precisely this message.

What Lies Ahead?

Going forward, a lot will hinge on how the Trump administration evaluates the necessity of a recalibration of U.S. policy toward Taiwan. One status quo-defying call doesn’t portend a revolution in U.S. Taiwan policy. The Trump campaign said little about the issue. The Heritage Foundation’s outline of U.S.-Taiwan relations and the Taiwan Relations Act may be instructive given Feulner’s reported involvement, but here too the call isn’t to back Taiwanese independence. Rather, Heritage’s outline supports more muscular U.S. backing for Taiwan along all axes — defense, trade, investment, and people-to-people ties. (Fortunately, nothing like Bolton’s “diplomatic escalation ladder” makes an appearance.)

For China, the Trump-Tsai conversation is a wake-up call that it may need to be ready to impose punitive costs on Washington for any deviation from the status quo of “strategic ambiguity” that Beijing has tolerated since the late-1990s, when Bill Clinton articulated support for the “Three Nos” in the U.S. view of the situation across the Taiwan Strait. Beijing’s sheer size and clout give it considerable influence here as China is critical to a range of other initiatives in the Asia-Pacific that may be of interest to the incoming Trump administration, including the North Korean nuclear problem and maritime disputes in the East and South China Seas.

A repeat Trump-Tsai phone call after January 20, when Trump enters office, or even an idle tweet from Trump referring to Tsai as the “President of Taiwan” could have the effect of China freezing diplomatic ties with the United States. (China and Taiwan maintain bilateral ties with a mutually exclusive set of countries, each of whom recognizes just one of their governments.) Much will depend on how Trump’s Asia advisers choose to assess the costs and benefits of pursuing U.S.-Taiwan rapprochement, but China’s reaction could impress on the them the reasons that successive U.S. administrations since Carter have stuck to a “one China” policy. According to the Washington Post, Trump is taking a keen interest in the U.S. posture toward China. Stephen Yates, a Republican national security advisor, told the Post that Trump has made this a “personal priority.”

Road to Conflict?

U.S. policy toward Taiwan — between “strategic ambiguity” and the Taiwan Relations Act — has sought to allow Taiwan to prosper as a de facto country while allowing for broad-based diplomacy with China. U.S.-based critics of the status quo, however, resent that China has effectively been given a veto on U.S. policy and interactions with Taiwan, a liberal democracy of 23 million with close people-to-people and security ties with the United States. Among ideological neoconservatives (Bolton, for example), there is a push for throwing more muscular U.S. support behind Taiwan.

If China senses that these voices will be a driving force of Trump’s Asia policy, then the odds of a serious diplomatic decline between these two powers may be in the offing. In a sense, the nightmare scenario for Beijing is a simultaneous consensus about closer U.S.-Taiwan ties emerging in both Taipei and Washington. The overlap in tenures between Chen Shui-bian, Taiwan’s first DPP president, and George W. Bush, a U.S. president with a significant coterie of neoconservative advisors, highlighted this to an extent, but Chen presided over a very different Taiwan — one before the Ma Ying-jeou years and the ensuing surge in civic nationalism. (Under Chen, a bilateral U.S.-Taiwan FTA gained prominence on Taiwan’s diplomatic agenda.)

The strongest justification for U.S. status quo policy for years has been that it provides stability, even as Taiwanese identity continues to shift. Tsai, the United States and China have to reckon with the possibility that the forces of formal Taiwanization are irreversible. As I wrote after Tsai’s election win, for Washington, “understanding how to reconcile its status quo support for Taiwan under a policy of strategic ambiguity while acknowledging the Taiwanese people’s genuine democratic aspirations to assert a uniquely Taiwanese identity will be critical.”

For the Trump team, this will likely translate into a wholehearted embrace of Taiwan. As long as this will have support from Taiwan’s democratically elected leaders, who are keenly aware of Beijing’s red lines on independence, expect to see change in U.S.-Taiwan relations accompanied by sharply worse U.S.-China ties and cross-strait ties. Even though no one expects Taiwan to move toward a de jure declaration of independence any time soon, the risks of conflict rise should Taipei miscalculate U.S. military backing for Taiwan in the event of a cross-strait conflict or if Beijing senses that Washington is goading independence backers in Taiwan.

As with other aspects of the incoming administration’s foreign policy, if there is anything new to be said about where the United States will come down on Taiwan, it should be outlined clearly, leaving nothing to chance. U.S. Vice President-elect Mike Pence simply described the call as a “courtesy,” but that’ll do little to calm Beijing’s nerves. Despite the relatively muted statement from Foreign Minister Wang, China contacted the White House after the call, seeking a reaffirmation of the U.S. “one China” policy (which is also emphasized by U.S. leaders before every presidential phone call with their Chinese counterpart, per Beijing’s wishes).

The Tsai-Trump phone call, with input from both sides, gives us the first suggestion since the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in the mid-1990s that the careful geopolitical equilibrium ensuring peace on the island could be upended. Tsai’s move, as I’ve outlined above, was likely calculated, but without clarity on Taiwan policy from the incoming U.S. administration, the odds of a Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis — or worse — have increased.

Ankit Panda is a senior editor at The Diplomat, where he writes on geopolitics, security, and economics in the Asia-Pacific region. Follow him on Twitter at @nktpnd.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/12/06/us_nuclear_options_110446.html
https://www.stratfor.com/sample/analysis/us-weighs-its-nuclear-options

U.S. Nuclear Options

By Stratfor
December 06, 2016

Forecast

Nuclear weapons issues will be a big part of the next U.S. president's agenda.
North Korea will continue its nuclear program, and the United States will have little leeway to contain or counter it.

As India and Pakistan amend their military doctrines, the presence of tactical nuclear weapons will increase the risk of nuclear conflict in the region.

Although the United States' cornerstone arms control agreements with Russia are increasingly fragile, the next administration may be able to renegotiate them.*

Analysis

When U.S. President-elect Donald Trump assumes office in January, an array of vexing foreign policy and security challenges will await him. Between conflicts in the Middle East, the enduring standoff with Russia, competing claimants in the South China Sea and upheaval in the European Union, the next administration will have its hands full. On top of these, Trump will have to contend with matters of nuclear weapons proliferation, balance and arms control, pressing concerns that are sure to command attention.

A Nuclear North Korea

Foremost, Trump will have to decide how to address North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Once a means to exact political and economic concessions from rival powers, the program has since become a cornerstone of the country's national security policy. Pyongyang is no longer interested in negotiating over its nuclear program and instead regards it as the ultimate deterrent against attack. In light of this development — and the steady progress that North Korea is making toward a viable nuclear arsenal*— the United States will be compelled to respond yet will be limited in its options to counter the emerging nuclear power. Sanctions have so far done little to deter Pyongyang from pursuing its nuclear ambitions. At the same time, military intervention is a risky proposition given the dearth of intelligence on North Korea, the threat of retaliation*and the consequences of a full-scale war.

https://www.stratfor.com/sites/defa...images/north-korea-missiles.png?itok=X17p6467

With so few options at its disposal, Washington will be left to build up its anti-ballistic missile defenses. But here, too, the United States will run into complications, not only from China and Russia, which oppose such efforts by the United States, but also from its regional allies, Japan and South Korea. Lingering grudges*between Tokyo and Seoul will make it difficult for Washington to coordinate a unified response. As North Korea ramps up its missile testing cycle, meanwhile — and as South Korea adopts increasingly aggressive policies to pre-empt an attack from the North*— the prospect of armed confrontation grows ever more likely.

Standoff in South Asia

Over the next four years, the United States will also have to contend with a heightened risk of nuclear conflict in South Asia. Long-standing disputes between India and Pakistan occasionally flare up, as*recent violence in Kashmirhas shown, and each country will keep revising and adapting its military doctrine in an effort to contain or defeat the other. On both sides of the rivalry, nuclear weaponry has become an important component of military strategy.

https://www.stratfor.com/sites/defa...ical-Nuclear-Weapons-120516.png?itok=o4E5enHY

Pakistan has assembled an impressive arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons*to compensate for conventional military capabilities that pale in comparison with India's. (Islamabad also must secure its border with Afghanistan, where insurgent fighting has been on the rise.) In the event of war, Pakistan hopes that its collection of low-yield nuclear weapons would be enough to overcome a large-scale Indian offensive. New Delhi's current nuclear policy prohibits first use, and Islamabad reasons that using nuclear weapons in its own territory would stop India from escalating an attack. India, however, has repeatedly stated that it would respond in kind if Pakistan were to resort to nuclear weapons, even within its borders. In fact, India's defense minister has called for New Delhi to reconsider its policy on first use — though he was quick to clarify that those were his own views and that the country's official stance had not changed. Some members of India's defense policy circles have even suggested that the country amass a tactical nuclear arsenal of its own to keep the upper hand on Pakistan.

Fragile Arms-Control Agreements

As the Trump administration evaluates the United States' policy toward Russia, it will find that the countries' differences are not limited to issues such as Ukraine and Syria. Though it has weathered its share of challenges*since its signing in 1987, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) is facing its biggest trial yet.*The treaty, a foundational arms-control agreement, bans ground-based nuclear or conventional missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (300 to 3,400 miles) and eliminated thousands of destabilizing nuclear weapons, particularly in Europe.

https://www.stratfor.com/sites/defa...kr-500-missile-range-121516.jpg?itok=ya3Eh6cZ

But Russia increasingly feels that the treaty puts it at a disadvantage relative to the United States, which has continued to modernize its nuclear arsenal and develop its ballistic missile defenses. Washington has begun to question the agreement as well because it does not extend to China's land-based missiles. In 2014, the United States formally accused Russia of developing missiles in breach of the treaty, namely the R-500 ground-based cruise missile and the SS-27 Mod 2 intercontinental ballistic missile, which Moscow started testing at ranges prohibited by the INF. Russia, in turn, has alleged that the United States' deployment of Mk41 launchers in Europe — along with its development and use of armed drones with ranges in excess of 500 kilometers — violates the terms of the agreement.

https://www.stratfor.com/sites/defa...a-new-missiles-range-120516.jpg?itok=RgWSMwrs

The New START treaty, which aimed to reduce the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers by half, may also be in peril — albeit less than the INF. Conducting inspections in April, the United States reportedly discovered that Russia was improperly disposing of SS-25 mobile missiles and could not verify that missiles slated for elimination had been destroyed. Furthermore, Russia has fallen far behind in eliminating warheads, raising doubts about its intent or ability to comply by the February 2018 deadline. Efforts to extend the treaty by another five years, postponing its expiration date to 2026, have also failed to gain much traction given the acrimonious relationship between Moscow and Washington.

The Trump administration may usher in an era of improved relations between the United States and Russia, as the president-elect has hinted. Washington, moreover, stands a better chance of stabilizing its fragile arms-control agreements with Moscow than of changing the nuclear balance in South Asia or on the Korean Peninsula. Regardless, nuclear weapons issues will figure prominently throughout the next four years, requiring a significant amount of attention from the next administration.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/arti...il&utm_term=0_b02a5f1344-cc42786a16-122460921

Expert Commentary

Strategic Concerns for the EU and U.S.

December 6, 2016 | David Koranyi

Russia can influence politics in Central and Eastern Europe via the energy sector. Most of the Visegrad Group countries in Central Europe, for example, are dependent on Russia for natural gas. Some of those countries – like Hungary – recently attempted to diversify supply, only to pivot back toward Russia after pro-Russian leaders took over government positions. To get a sense of just how much influence Russia has in this region, The Cipher Brief spoke with David Koranyi, director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasian Energy Futures Initiative and former chief foreign policy and national security advisor to Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai.

The Cipher Brief: How much influence does Russia have in the Visegrad Group countries – Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia – vis-à-vis energy?

David Koranyi: The Russians retains a lot of influence, but It varies from country to country, and it is generally on the decline. Their influence is probably the least in Poland. The Polish energy mix is such that gas plays an important role, but due to the predominance of coal, nowhere near as important as in the rest of the Visegrad countries. Until recently, most of Poland’s gas came from Russia. Now they have the option to get liquefied natural gas through the terminal in Świnoujście, which is in the north on the Baltic Sea. Still, the Poles import significant quantities of gas from Russia. The Poles are relatively well-off in terms of their independence on natural resources, but there is some dependence on Russian gas imports and pricing is still an issue.

When it comes to the Slovaks, they are in close competition with the Hungarians in terms of substantial Russian influence, as the main trunkline that exports most of Russia’s natural gas goes through Ukraine and then Slovakia, yielding significant transit revenues for the Slovak economy.

Then you have Hungary, which is, at least in theory, in a much better position than it was a couple of years ago. It has built up interconnectors between countries. For example, it has an interconnector connecting to Slovakia and the western European markets. There has been an interconnector in Austria for a number of years now, so the Hungarians can access the Baumgarten hub there.

It is unclear, how the Orbán Government’s intentions to reinforce the energy relationship with Russia will impact its decisions on gas supplies as the current long term gas supply treaty with Russia expires towards the end of the decade. The decision on the Paks nuclear power plant signals the desire of a closer energy relationship with Russia.

In Hungary, there is currently an expansion of the existing nuclear reactors. There is an agreement between the Russian government and the Hungarian government and between Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation, and Hungarian companies to build two additional reactors of 1.200 Megawatt *capacity, which would at least temporarily* more than double the current nuclear capacity in Hungary. The almost complete lack of transparency makes it difficult to answer some of the questions about how much Russian influence the agreement could buy. Hungary will in any case be tied to purchasing Russian nuclear fuel for at least a decade.

TCB: Should this be of concern to the European Union (EU), especially given that the European Energy Union was largely created to diversify member states’ supplies away from Russia?

DK: It should be a concern. The European Energy Union strategy was never only about Russia. It is about market-based competition and cracking down on abuse of monopolistic power everywhere. Diversifying resources to increase competition is a critical component to that. If you look at Europe and oil and gas imports, you already have a external dependency on oil imports – up to 85 percent comes from outside. That number is about 65 percent for gas, but it’s going to go up in the next 10 or 15 years to 85 or even 90 percent, according to projections. That is a strategic concern for the EU as a whole. There is also the issue* of how Europe is going to be able to get those resources in a safe and secure way.

Given the animosities between the West and Russia, and differences over Ukraine, at this point, many tend to view Russia as an unreliable supplier. The Russians have cut off gas on numerous occasions to various countries. The two major gas crises – in 2006 and 2009 – ended with some countries, including Bulgaria, Hungary, and many others, having weeks of no gas supplies coming from Russia, due to tensions between Russia and Ukraine (a country that the gas needs to flow through to be delivered).

The *European Commission has never said that Russian natural gas is a bad thing. Indeed, it’s quite obvious that Russia is and will continue to be a supplier, because it’s close by and it’s relatively cheap. It’s only natural that there’s an energy relationship between Russia and the EU. But how transparent that relationship is and how much leverage Russia has over other issues from that relationship is a big concern, not only for Brussels, but also for the U.S. The fact that these countries are NATO allies and are supposed to have the ability and freedom to act in the interest of the alliance means the kind of influence Russia has over some of these countries, via their dependence on Russian energy, is not healthy.

TCB: Can you expand on that last point about why the U.S. should be concerned as well?

DK: There are two components to this. One is that a country that is excessively dependent on Moscow for energy can be blackmailed – that is, Moscow can threaten to turn off the gas tab or increase prices – into taking up a softer position on, for example, sanctions against Russia. We have seen this play out in the case of the annexation of Crimea. All EU countries did end up voting for sanctions, but in terms of adopting a stronger package of sanctions, those countries most dependent on Russian resources or due to other forms of Russian influence – like Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Greece, and Bulgaria – were very soft and opposed to a more serious package.

The second piece is that heavy Russian influence in the energy sector is usually coupled with corruption. The energy sector is often used by the Russians as an avenue for various political elites or players connected to these political elites – some in government positions – to buy influence that is not in the strategic interest of the United States.*

Russia
Europe
Energy

The Author is David Koranyi
David Koranyi is the director of the Eurasian Energy Futures Initiative at the Atlantic Council. He has been a nonresident fellow at the Johns Hopkins University SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations since 2010. Koranyi served as undersecretary of state and chief foreign policy and national security advisor to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Hungary, Gordon Bajnai (2009-2010). He worked in the European Parliament as chief foreign policy adviser and head of cabinet of a Hungarian MEP (... Read More

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://warontherocks.com/2016/12/russias-hybrid-war-as-a-byproduct-of-a-hybrid-state/

Russia’s Hybrid War as a Byproduct of a Hybrid State

Mark Galeotti
December 6, 2016

Whether or not “hybrid war” is the right term — a battle probably lost for the moment —Russia is indeed waging an essentially political struggle against the West through political subversion, economic penetration, espionage, and disinformation. To a degree, this reflects the parsimonious opportunism of a weak but ruthless Russia trying to play a great power game without a great power’s resources. It also owes much to Moscow’s inheritance from Bolshevik and even tsarist practices. But a third key factor behind it is the very nature of the modern Russian state, as I discuss in my new report, Hybrid War or Gibridnaya Voina: Getting Russia’s Non-Linear Military Challenge Right.

One distinctive aspect of recent Russian campaigns, from political operations against the West to military operations in Ukraine, has been a blurring of the borders between state, paramilitary, mercenary, and dupe. The Putin regime evidently believes that it is at war with the West — a geopolitical, even civilizational struggle — and is thus mobilizing every weaponizable asset at its disposal. This extends to mining society as a whole for semi-autonomous assets, from eager internet trolls and “patriotic hackers” to transnational banks and businesses to Cossack volunteers and mercenary gangsters.

When William Nemeth posited the notion of hybrid warfare in the context of the Chechen war against the Russians, it was rooted in his belief that Chechen society was itself a hybrid, still somewhere between the modern and the pre-modern. Traditional forms of social organization, notable the family and the teip (clan), could be used to mobilize for war in ways that need not distinguish between “regular” and “irregular” forms of war, spanning conventional war, insurgency, and terrorism. Hence, a hybrid society fought a hybrid war.

The “hybridity” of Russian operations likewise reflects a conceptually analogous if operationally very different hybridity of the Russian state. Through the 1990s and into Putinism, Russia either failed to institutionalize or actively deinstitutionalized — however you choose to define it.

Today, Russia is a patrimonial, hyper-presidential regime, one characterized by the permeability of boundaries between public and private, domestic and external. As oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky put it:

[W]hat distinguishes the current Russian government from the erstwhile Soviet leaders familiar to the West is its rejection of ideological constraints and the complete elimination of institutions.

Lacking meaningful rule of law or checks and balances, without drawing too heavy-handed a comparison with fascism, Putin’s Russia seems to embody, in its own chaotic and informal way, Mussolini’s dictum “tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato” — “everything inside the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” Parenthetically, Mussolini sent what could be called “little blackshirt men” to Spain in the 1930s to fight on Franco’s side during the civil war. All notionally opted to do so of their own volition (as the Voluntary Troops Corps) and initially without insignia.

In Russia, state institutions are often regarded as personal fiefdoms and piggy banks, officials and even officers freely engage in commercial activity, and the Russian Orthodox Church is practically an arm of the Kremlin. Given all that, the infusion of non-military instruments into military affairs was almost inevitable. Beyond that, though, Putin’s Russia has been characterized — in the past, at least — by multiple, overlapping agencies, a “bureaucratic pluralism” intended as much to permit the Kremlin to divide and rule as for any practical advantages. This is clearly visible within the intelligence and security realm, from the intrusion of the Federal Security Service (FSB) — originally intended as a purely domestic agency — into foreign operations, as well as in the competition over responsibility for information operations.

When “information troops” were formed following the Georgian war, for instance, the FSB at first publicly denounced plans by the military to develop its own capability. Under a 2013 presidential decree, the FSB was tasked with securing national information resources. Since then, this apparent monopoly seems to have eroded, as there is much anecdotal evidence suggesting Russian military intelligence units active in information warfare in Ukraine.

Moscow must also be considered the master of “hybrid business,” of developing illegal and legal commercial enterprises that ideally make money, but at the same time can be used for the state’s purposes, whether technically private concerns or not. Russian commercial institutions not only provide covers for intelligence agents and spread disinformation, but acting notionally on their own initiative, they are also used to provide financial support to political and social movements Moscow deems convenient. For instance, Marine Le Pen’s anti-European Union Front Nationale in France received a €9 million loan from a bank run by a close Putin ally. Similarly, the election of the Czech Republic’s Russophile President Miloš Zeman was partially bankrolled by the local head of the Russian oil company Lukoil — allegedly as a personal donation. Fighting in Syria is spearheaded by “mercenaries” who are simply deniable Russian troops, while even organized crime groups are pressed into service from time to time when the needs of the “hybrid war” demand.

So, it is not simply that Moscow chooses to ignore those boundaries we are used to in the West between state and private, military and civilian, legal and illegal. It is that those boundaries are much less meaningful in Russian terms, and they are additionally straddled by a range of duplicative and even competitive agencies. This can get in the way of coherent policy and create problems of redundancy and even contradictory goals, as evidenced by the 2016 hack of U.S. Democratic National Committee servers, in which FSB and GRU military intelligence operations appear to have been working at cross purposes. However, it also creates a challenge that is complex, multi-faceted, and inevitably difficult for Western agencies to comprehend, let alone counter.

Of course, there is blurring even within these blurred categories and a degree to which these hybrid actors also represent a threat to Russia. “Patriotic hackers” mobilized or hired by the state today may steal from Russian banks tomorrow, treating their role in Putin’s undercover war as their “get out of jail free” card. Businesses may be helping the Kremlin launder, move, and disburse money in Europe, while at the same time enthusiastically embezzling from the federal budget. In many ways, this is the quintessence of the Putin “total war” approach to governance: the absence of legal, ethical and practical limitations on the state’s capacity openly or covertly to co-opt other institutions to its own ends.

Moscow should be careful of the lessons it is teaching the West (or China and other potential future rivals). An over-geared, under-invested, over-securitized, and under-legitimate Russia may well be extremely vulnerable to at least some of the very tactics it uses so profligately abroad. Should they choose to, the United States and its allies possess formidable opportunities to fight their own “political war” inside Russia, including through cyberattacks, deeper and broader sanctions, propaganda campaigns, and encouragement of elite conspiracies. Alarmist rhetoric aside, in the long term, this so-called “new way of war” may well prove to be more of a threat to Russia than to the West.
*
Dr. Mark Galeotti is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of International Affairs Prague, and Principal Director of the consultancy Mayak Intelligence. He has been Professor of Global Affairs at New York University, a special advisor to the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office and head of History at Keele University in the United Kingdom, as well as a visiting professor at Rutgers—Newark, Charles University (Prague), and MGIMO (Moscow). Read his new report, Hybrid War or Gibridnaya Voina: getting Russia’s non-linear military challenge right.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/saudi-sentences-15-death-spying-iran-reports-100500405.html

Saudi condemns 15 to death for spying for Iran

Ian Timberlake
AFP
December 6, 2016
Comments 25

Riyadh (AFP) - A Saudi court Tuesday sentenced 15 people to death for spying for the kingdom's rival Iran, local media and a source close to the case said, in a move likely to heighten regional tensions.

The source told AFP that most of the 15 Saudis were members of the kingdom's Shiite minority.

Their trial opened in February, a month after Riyadh cut diplomatic ties with Tehran over the burning of the Saudi embassy and a consulate by Iranian demonstrators protesting the kingdom's execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

The most serious charge levelled against them was high treason.

Prosecutors also alleged the accused had divulged defence secrets, tried to commit sabotage, to recruit moles in government departments, to send coded information, and supported "riots" in the Shiite-dominated eastern district of Qatif, Saudi media reported.

The 15 were among a group of 32 people tried over the espionage allegations, Alriyadh newspaper said.

Some of the defendants were accused of meeting Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The death sentences will be appealed, said the source close to the case, who cannot be identified due to its sensitivity.

Two of the group were acquitted while the rest received jail sentences of between six months and 25 years.

Apart from one Iranian and an Afghan, all of the defendants were Saudis. The source said that one of the two acquitted was a foreigner.

Amnesty International, in a statement, called Monday's sentence "a travesty of justice and a serious violation of human rights".

"Sentencing 15 people to death after a farcical trial which flouted basic fair trial standards is a slap in the face for justice," said Amnesty's Samah Hadid.

- Syria, Yemen tensions -

Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW), told AFP that the trial was "flawed from the beginning".

It was tainted by allegations the accused did not have access to lawyers during interrogation, Coogle said.

They were also charged with offences that do not resemble recognisable crimes, including "supporting demonstrations", attempting to "spread the Shia confession", and "harming the reputation of the kingdom", he said.

"Criminal trials should not be merely legal 'window-dressing' where the verdict has been decided beforehand," he said.

HRW earlier cited a lawyer who represented some of the accused until March as saying the timing of the case "may relate to ongoing hostility between Iran and Saudi Arabia".

All but one of the accused had been detained since 2013.

The region's leading Shiite and Sunni powers are at odds over a range of issues including the wars in Syria and Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has also expressed concern over an international agreement that lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for guarantees it would not pursue a nuclear weapons capability.

Riyadh fears the pact will lead to more Iranian "interference" in the region.

With relations at a low, Iranian pilgrims in September -- for the first time in nearly three decades -- did not attend the annual hajj in Saudi Arabia after the two countries failed to agree on security and logistics.

Nimr, the executed cleric whose case sent tensions soaring, was a driving force behind protests that began in 2011 among the Shiite minority, most of whom live in the kingdom's east, which faces Iran across the Gulf.

The protests developed into a call for equality in the Sunni-dominated kingdom, where the Shiites have long complained of marginalisation.

Nimr was convicted of terrorism and executed in January alongside 46 other people -- mostly Sunnis -- found guilty of the same crime.

Rights activists say more than two dozen other Shiites are on death row in Saudi Arabia.

 

[Housecarl]

Russian Aleppo Field Hospital Attacked By Al-Qaeda, US-Led Coalition blamed by Russia
Started by*Possible Impact‎,*Yesterday*06:10 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...By-Al-Qaeda-US-Led-Coalition-blamed-by-Russia


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.voanews.com/a/syria-government-refuses-aleppo-cease-fire-if-rebels-stay/3625003.html

Middle East

Syria Government Refuses Aleppo Cease-Fire If Rebels Stay

December 06, 2016 10:17 AM
VOA News

The Syrian government says it will reject any cease fire agreement that allows rebels to stay in eastern Syria, arguing it would allow the rebels to “regroup and repeat their crimes.”

The Syrian Foreign Ministry, in a statement carried by state media, called the rebels "terrorists", in reference to the 81 civilians killed by rebel shelling of government-held districts during the past three weeks, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights.

In the statement, Syria vowed to not leave citizens of eastern Aleppo in what it called "the terrorists’ captivity".

http://gdb.voanews.com/AA2009FB-F515-4D8A-861B-D4CF8D7486E8_w610_r0_s.png

The Syrian statement comes just one day after Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council vote to impose a seven-day cease fire in Aleppo to allow humanitarian aid to reach the city.

Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, echoed the statement out of Damascus in explaining his veto of the cease fire plan, saying it would only “worsen the suffering of civilians.”

“These kinds of pauses have been used by fighters to reinforce their ammo [ammunition] and to strengthen their positions,” he said.

Syria and its Russian ally have routinely described the fight against rebels in eastern Aleppo as a battle against terrorists, despite the sector's huge civilian population earlier described by witnesses as largely too fearful to flee.

Speaking in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the only option for rebels is to leave the city.

“Those who refuse to leave nicely will be destroyed,” he said. “There is no other way.”

Syria's Russian-backed military has been intensifying its offensive against the rebel-held enclave in Aleppo since mid-November. It has since retaken more than half of the rebel-held areas. About 250,000 civilians are believed trapped in the eastern part of the city.

U.S. Deputy Ambassador Michele Sison said the Russian and Chinese action would only serve to deprive besieged civilians of medicine, food and other life-saving aid. “They have vetoed the lives of innocent Syrians, she said. “This action is a death sentence for innocent men, women and children.”

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.janes.com/article/65999/images-emerge-of-possible-new-chinese-anti-submarine-missile

Naval Weapons

Images emerge of possible new Chinese anti-submarine missile

http://www.janes.com/images/assets/999/65999/1692690_-_main.jpg
Video footage from Chinese broadcaster CCTV posted on online forums shows what appears to be a new torpedo-carrying missile being test-fired from a land-based inclined container launcher. Source: CCTV
Andrew Tate, London - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
06 December 2016

Video footage from Chinese broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) posted on Chinese online forums around 20 November shows what appears to be a new torpedo-carrying missile being test-fired from a land-based inclined containerised launcher: an indication that the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is seeking to further enhance its anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities.

Although the quality of the stills grabbed from the footage is limited, it is clear that the missile has an air intake beneath the body, indicating that an air-breathing turbojet/turbofan engine powers the missile once the solid-propellant booster used at launch is expended and jettisoned.

The images also show that the diameter of the missile increases slightly at a point approximately one third along its length. This is consistent with the forward section comprising a standard 324 mm lightweight torpedo mated to a concentric missile body of slightly larger diameter.

Assuming the weapon functions in a similar way to other ASW stand-off weapons, such as the US RUR-5A ASROC system, the missile will release the torpedo at a targeting point defined by data input to the missile.

The streamlined nose cone will then be jettisoned prior to or on entry of the torpedo into the water, exposing the transducers of the homing head, which will seek the submarine in either an active or passive search mode.

The targeting point will likely be determined by sonar, which may be operated by the ship launching the weapon or a third party such as another ship, helicopter, or maritime patrol aircraft.

No information has been made public about the torpedo being carried by the recently shown missile. The lightweight torpedo most frequently used by the PLAN is the Yu-7, which IHS Jane's Weapons: Naval assesses to be powered by a liquid Otto-fuelled internal combustion engine, giving it a potential speed in excess of 40 kt.

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[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.lawfareblog.com/limits-air-strikes-when-fighting-islamic-state

Omphalos

The Limits of Air Strikes when Fighting the Islamic State

By Daniel Byman Monday, December 5, 2016, 9:00 AM

Omphalos: Middle East Conflict in Perspective

When it comes to the Islamic State, who doesn’t want to “bomb the shit out of them,” as our President-elect so eloquently put it? The group is violent, aggressive, and almost cartoonishly evil: torture, mass murder, and sexual slavery are only a few of the abhorrent practices the Islamic State embraces. Left unchecked, it may consolidate power and expand. After years of surviving largely underground, in 2014 it took over vast swaths of Iraq and Syria, and it has established so-called “provinces” in Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, and other countries.

Bombing is attractive because Americans are rightly leery of a prolonged ground campaign in the Middle East. The Iraq debacle still colors our thinking on intervention. A poll taken in August showed that only 42 percent of Americans favored deploying a significant number of ground troops to Syria to fight the Islamic State, though a slight majority is comfortable with limited numbers of special operations forces.

Air power seems like the perfect middle ground between a large ground force invasion and inaction: a way to hit the Islamic State hard while avoiding an Iraq-like quagmire. The previously cited poll also showed that 72 percent of Americans favor airstrikes on the Islamic State, and apparently our President-elect is among their ranks. As Eliot Cohen, one of our country’s leading military analysts, once wryly remarked, “Air power is an unusually seductive form of military strength, in part because, like modern courtship, it appears to offer gratification without commitment.”*Yet air power, if not used carefully, runs all the risks of a one-night stand: it can create false expectations, drag America into unwanted relationships with flawed partners, and winds up meaning little in the long-term.

Not surprisingly, in Iraq and Syria, the United States relies heavily on airpower to supplement Iraqi Security Forces, Peshmerga, Sunni tribal, and other militias to fight the Islamic State. Over the course of Operation Inherent Resolve’s two year life, Coalition aircraft (with the United States by far the largest contributor) have flown an estimated 125,000 sorties and destroyed or degraded around 32,000 targets—a massive effort. Air strikes also play an important role in Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, and other countries where the United States is fighting jihadist organizations.

Air power’s attractions are both clear and real. A sustained campaign of targeted killing using drones or fixed-wing aircraft can remove large numbers of terrorist leaders from the Islamic State’s ranks. Although killing one leader rarely has a decisive impact, the cumulative effects are considerable. Over time, veterans are weeded out and replaced by less experienced figures. At the very least, the constant transition in leadership is disruptive, as anyone who has worked in an office where bosses seem to rotate constantly can testify.

Perhaps most important, adaptation in response to air strikes renders terrorists less effective. A tip sheet found among jihadists in Mali advised militants they could avoid drones by maintaining “complete silence of all wireless contacts,” “[avoiding] gathering in open areas,” and taking strenuous measures to root out spies, and noted that leaders “should not use communications equipment,” among other suggestions. These are all sensible tips for avoiding death from above, but the implications for group effectiveness are staggering. Training on a large-scale is harder, if not impossible, as large gatherings can be lethal. Group leaders’ influence wanes, as they must hide or remain incommunicado. Trying to organize a kids’ soccer game, let alone a global terrorist network, becomes almost impossible if you can’t use phones or the Internet regularly. The indirect effects also matter. Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been laying low since U.S. military operations began, diminishing his charismatic presence from Islamic State propaganda and, presumably, disheartening his beleaguered troops. Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, the spokesman who headed the group’s external operations, was also charismatic and inspired terrorists around the world to attack—and eventually the United States tracked him down and killed him in an airstrike.

Politically, air power is also attractive, and it is not surprising politicians as diverse as Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton found it appealing. When drones crash or are shot down, the pilot still lives. Pilots of fixed-wing aircraft, of course, take on more risk, but the combination of terrorists’ weak air defenses and the sophisticated aircraft U.S. pilots fly often limit this danger considerably. Because few or no American lives are at risk, U.S. leaders can intervene with less concern about the political costs at home.

Air power is particularly valuable when it can be yoked with local allied fighters on the ground. In Afghanistan after 9/11, the rag-tag Northern Alliance quickly turned the tables on the Taliban after the U.S. Air Force entered the fray. NATO airpower stopped Qaddafi’s forces at the gates of Benghazi and then helped the Libyan opposition push back regime forces and eventually gain victory. When local fighters support air power—and vice versa—enemy forces find it hard to maneuver and mass: when they do, they risk being destroyed. This puts them on the defensive, enabling allied militaries or militias to isolate terrorist fighters. Air power plays a role in crushing these isolated forces too, helping support ground operations, even in relatively built up areas.

Urban environments present significantly greater challenges for targeting and minimizing civilian casualties, yet the U.S. has still identified and destroyed hundreds of Islamic State fighting positions, fortified buildings, vehicles, and equipment in the support of the Mosul offensive. In the first week of the offensive alone, coalition air power conducted around 100 airstrikes in and around the city. As the Iraqi forces approached the city’s outskirts, Islamic State defenders were subjected to strikes every eight minutes during one three-day period. U.S. airpower continues to be critical in enabling even minor tactical advances against the Islamic State to the point of near dependency, which some observers, including my colleague Kenneth Pollack, warn could overstretch even the relatively substantial coalition effort.

Yet air power has real limits.

For it to be effective, for starters, certain preconditions must be met. Bombers need bases near the conflict zone and access to the battlefield. True, some systems can fly bombing runs all the way from the United States. But to maintain a sustained battlefield presence, aircraft must be able to get to and from the conflict zone quickly and easily. Allies, of course, don’t provide access to their bases for free: they expect favors in return. Current armed drone systems also need a permissive environment, as they are simply too easy to shoot down otherwise. Thus, the United States either needs local governments to cooperate with drone strikes or the absence of an effective government (and thus the absence of air defenses).

Nor does air power address the biggest long-term challenges in fighting the Islamic State: governance. The United States has proven again and again that it can dislodge terrorists, insurgents, and forces loyal to local despots. Filling the vacuum so that they don’t return is much harder. The terrorists often come back, or, at times, chaos rules. Neither outcome is an improvement for locals, and new terrorist groups can breed if there is no government to keep them down. You can’t provide that governance with a drone.

Moreover, for air power to be effective, you need capable local allies. Their forces can provide the necessary intelligence to find and target Islamic State fighters. In addition, when they advance, they force Islamic State forces to mass—making them vulnerable to air power. If Islamic State fighters stay dispersed and hidden, then forces on the ground can root them out. Local forces can also fill the vacuum after victory, ideally establishing a legitimate government and preventing the terrorists from returning or new extremist groups from arising.

The trouble is that local allies are often themselves flawed instruments: corrupt, ineffective, and brutal. Often, U.S. troops are necessary to leaven local forces, provide necessary intelligence, and otherwise carry much of the burden.
Finally, by using air power, the United States becomes implicated in the local conflict. Bombing “the shit out of” the bad guys leaves an impression on more than just the bad guys. Although from a U.S. perspective the current intervention seems limited and low-risk, the perception may be different on the ground. The United States has taken sides in a war, and Washington’s partnership with local forces means locals do not always distinguish between more precise U.S. air strikes and more brutal and indiscriminate attacks from allied militias and forces. *

Like all good things except sex and barbeque, in other words, air power is best in moderation. It can keep the bad guys off balance, tilt the playing field in favor of U.S. allies, and otherwise help in the fight against terrorism. But it is an imperfect instrument even when it works well, and absent other tools and a broader strategy its benefits will always be limited.

 

[Housecarl]

Syria: Jihadists Rebels Surrender Almost All Of East Aleppo Tonight (Turkey/Russia deal)
Started by*Possible Impactý,*Today*06:32 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ll-Of-East-Aleppo-Tonight-(Turkey-Russia-deal)

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-aleppo-idUSKBN13W0K7

World News | Wed Dec 7, 2016 | 2:43am EST

Monitor says Syrian army seizes Aleppo Old City from rebels

A war monitor said on Wednesday the Syrian army had seized control of all parts of the Old City of Aleppo which had been held by rebels, part of an advance which has seen insurgents lose around two thirds of their main urban stronghold over the past two weeks.

The Syrian army and allied forces began to enter the Old City on Tuesday, and are looking closer than ever to achieving their most important victory of the five-year-old civil war by driving rebels out of the besieged eastern sector of the city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army advance on Tuesday and overnight, which was supported by heavy air strikes and shelling, caused insurgents to withdraw from the historic Old City, including from the area around the historic Umayyad Mosque.

A Turkey-based official with one of the rebel factions told Reuters government forces had taken part of the Old City, but not all of it.

A military source confirmed to Reuters on Wednesday that the Syrian army had entered Aleppo's Old City.

Restoring full control over Aleppo, Syria's most populous city before the war, would be a major prize for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country's multi-sided conflict.

The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, made more than half of Syrians homeless and created the world's worst refugee crisis.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-security-sirte-idUSKBN13V15R

World News | Tue Dec 6, 2016 | 9:40pm EST

Libyan forces clear last Islamic State holdout in Sirte

By Hani Amara | SIRTE, Libya
Libyan forces backed by U.S. air strikes finished clearing the last Islamic State holdout in Sirte on Tuesday after a near seven-month battle for the militant group's former North African stronghold.

The forces gained full control over a final patch of ground in Sirte's Ghiza Bahriya district after hours of clashes. Several dozen women and children who had been holed up with the militants were able to leave the ruined buildings where they had made their last stand.

As celebrations erupted among the Libyan forces, which are dominated by brigades from the city of Misrata, a spokesman said the military campaign would continue until the wider area was secured.

Fighters fired in the air chanting "Free Libya" and "The blood of the martyrs was not for nothing."

The loss of Sirte is a major blow for Islamic State, leaving the group without any territory in Libya, though it retains an active presence in parts of the vast country.

The jihadist group took over Sirte in early 2015, turning it into their most important base outside the Middle East and attracting large numbers of foreign fighters into the city. It imposed its ultra-hardline rule on residents, and extended its control along about 250 km (155 miles) of Libya's Mediterranean coastline.

Spokesman Rida Issa said although forces had "secured all the buildings and the streets" in Ghiza Bahriya, this did not mean the end of the Misrata-led operation. "We still need to secure the area around Sirte," he said.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said: "This is very good news. The defeat of Daesh (Islamic State) is a very strong act, but it can only be seen as a step ... the militias that have freed Sirte deserve to be congratulated."

Libyan and Western officials say some Islamic State fighters escaped from Sirte before the battle or in its early stages. They fear an insurgent campaign from outside the city and there have been attacks in outlying areas.

BOMBERS, SNIPERS, MINES
The Misrata-led forces counterattacked in May after jihadists moved along the coast toward their city. The brigades, nominally aligned with a U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, advanced rapidly toward the center of Sirte before suicide bombers, snipers and mines largely halted their progress.

More than 700 of their fighters have been killed and more than 3,200 wounded in the grueling campaign.

On Tuesday, a further three men were killed and about 50 wounded, said Mohamed Lajnef, an official at Sirte's field hospital. He also said 21 women and 31 children had been released in Ghiza Bahriya.

Dozens of other women and children - some of them migrants from sub-Saharan Africa held captive by Islamic State - had escaped or had been released from militant-held ground in recent days.

Mohamed al-Ghasri, another spokesman for the military operation, said there had been two attempted suicide bombings on Tuesday, including one by a woman, and that more than 30 militants' bodies had been counted in the rubble.

Since Aug. 1, the United States has carried out at least 495 air strikes against Islamic State in Sirte.

Libya remains in turmoil over five years after the revolution that toppled Muammar Gaddafi. The U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) that arrived in Tripoli in March and supported the campaign in Sirte has made little progress in ending the chaos.

Sirte lies in a strategic position about halfway along Libya's coastline, near some of the country's major oil fields and terminals. Close to Gaddafi's birthplace, it is also the city where he was shot and killed after ruling Libya for 42 years.

Almost all of Sirte's estimated population of 80,000 fled the city since Islamic State took over. Ghasri appeared on television asking local families not to return until mines had been cleared.

(Additional reporting by Mohamed Lagha in Misrata, writing by Aidan Lewis; editing by Janet Lawrence, G Crosse)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tsai-guatemala-idUSKBN13U2W2

World News | Tue Dec 6, 2016 | 6:22pm EST

China urges U.S. to block transit by Taiwan president

By Ben Blanchard and Bill Barreto | BEIJING/GUATEMALA CITY

China called on U.S. officials on Tuesday not to let Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen pass through the United States en route to Guatemala next month, days after President-elect Donald Trump irked Beijing by speaking to Tsai in a break with decades of precedent.

The U.S. State Department appeared to reject the call, saying that such transits were based on "long-standing U.S. practice, consistent with the unofficial nature of (U.S.) relations with Taiwan."

China is deeply suspicious of Tsai, whom it thinks wants to push for the formal independence of Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing regards as a renegade province.

Her call with Trump on Friday was the first between a U.S. president-elect or president and a Taiwanese leader since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979.

Tsai is due to visit Guatemala, one of Taiwan's small band of diplomatic allies, on Jan. 11-12, its foreign minister, Carlos Raul Morales, told Reuters.

Taiwan's Liberty Times, considered close to Tsai's ruling Democratic Progressive Party, reported on Monday that she was planning to go through New York early next month on her way to Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Taiwan has not formally confirmed Tsai's trip but visits to its allies in the region are normally combined with transit stops in the United States and meetings with Taiwan-friendly officials.

The trip would take place before Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20 to replace Democrat Barack Obama and Tsai's delegation would seek to meet Trump's team, including his White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, the Liberty Times said.

MEETING "UNLIKELY"
An adviser to Trump's transition team said he considered it "very unlikely" there would be a meeting between Tsai and Trump if she were to go through New York.

China's Foreign Ministry said the one-China principle, which states Taiwan is part of China, was commonly recognized by the international community and that Tsai's real aim was "self-evident."

China hopes the United States "does not allow her transit, and does not send any wrong signals to 'Taiwan independence' forces," the ministry said in a statement sent to Reuters.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Monday he had no information whether Tsai would meet U.S. officials if she stopped in transit but said Taiwanese presidents did stop over periodically.

He said the transits were "based on long-standing U.S. practice, consistent with the unofficial nature of our relations with Taiwan." A spokeswoman repeated the position on Tuesday when asked to comment on the Chinese call.

In a meeting with American reporters on Tuesday, Tsai played down the significance of her conversation with Trump, saying it was to congratulate the president-elect.

"I do not foresee major policy shifts in the near future because we all see the value of stability in the region," she told the reporters.

U.S. Vice President-elect Mike Pence told the Fox News Channel on Tuesday that Trump did not regret taking the call.

"(The) president-elect was fully aware of the one-China policy," Pence said. "He’s also very aware that the United States has sold billions of dollars in arms to Taiwan.

"We have a unique relationship with that country that’s been defined over the decades since we’ve reopened relations with the People’s Republic of China but I think he think he felt it would be rude not to take the call.”

Taiwan has been self governing since 1949 when Nationalist forces fled to the island after defeat by Mao Zedong's communists in China's civil war.

Taiwan's Presidential Office said media reports about a January trip were "excessive speculation."

El Salvador's government said it was working with Taiwan on plans for a visit by Tsai in the second week of January but gave no specific dates.

The Nicaraguan government had no immediate comment. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is to be sworn in for a third consecutive term on Jan. 10, however, so Tsai's trip to Guatemala would dovetail with that ceremony.

The White House said on Monday it had sought to reassure China after Trump's phone call with Tsai, which the Obama administration warned could undermine progress in relations with Beijing.

(Reporting by Bill Barreto in Guatemala City, Nelson Renteria in San Salvador, Enrique Andres Pretel in Mexico City, David Brunnstrom and Susan Heavey in Washington, Michael Martina in Beijing and J.R. Wu in Taipei; Writing by Simon Gardner; Editing by Bill Trott and James Dalgleish)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...y-buildup-seen-at-India-border/3371481052755/

Report: China military buildup seen at India border

By Elizabeth Shim **|** Dec. 6, 2016 at 2:46 PM

HONG KONG, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- China's military build-up is extending to its border with India, according to a Chinese-language media report.

Kanwa Asian Defense, a news site specializing in military developments, reported Tuesday Beijing's military has placed more missiles and fighter jets along the India border.

The weapons have been deployed in Tibet and in the western region of Xinjiang along with airborne early warning and control systems, according to the report.

Kanwa quoted sources in the Indian navy and air force who said Chinese troops have placed the Jian-11, the Jian-10 and the Kongjing-500 in rotational deployment.

The Shenyang J-11 is a twin-engine jet fighter that was first produced in China in 1998. It was built to compete with fourth-generation fighters such as the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle and the Eurofighter Typhoon.

The Chengdu J-10 is a lightweight fighter jet and the KJ-500 can carry an airborne early warning system.

In the city of Korla in Xinjiang, China may have deployed a troop responsible for the launch of midrange ballistic missiles, and in Hotan, an oasis town in southwestern Xinjiang, the country has been deploying the J-10 and the strategic bomber H-6K.

The large-scale military build-up is aimed at expanding a position of readiness in the case of a confrontation with the Indian military, the sources said.

Andrei Chang, the founder of Kanwa, said the military reinforcements are being deployed with a counteroffensive in mind.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.voanews.com/a/iraq-islamic-state-mosul/3626988.html

Middle East

Refugee Story: IS Increasingly Desperate as Iraqi Army Moves Forward

December 07, 2016 2:33 PM
Heather Murdock

HASSAN SHAM CAMP, IRAQI KURDISTAN —*
In Mosul neighborhoods adjacent to areas controlled by Islamic State, the call to prayer from the militants’ mosques can be heard clearly.

So too, can increasingly desperate IS threats, says Ibrahim Inaimy, who was a farmer before the militants took over the city. Since then, like many of the people fleeing IS territories, he has been unemployed.

“Daesh knows this camp,” he says, using the Arabic acronym for IS, an insult to the militant group. “They used mosque microphones to say they plan to kill anyone who flees to this place.”

The Hassan Sham camp, about 25 kilometers from Mosul, is quickly filling up as several others in the area have done, with between 40 and 250 families arriving daily, according to aid workers.

Nearly 84,000 people have fled their homes since the Mosul offensive began in mid-October, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Barrage of threats
When the Iraqi Army moves into a neighborhood, many people run from the IS mortars and gunfire that continue until the army moves forward to their next position.

Others run simply because after two and half years of IS rule, they have no money, no food, and no conceivable way to survive.

But as IS retreats, say refugees, many families don’t have the chance to run. Militants have unleashed a barrage of threats against the population in recent days and weeks, and have forced families to move back with them as they run.

“They take families as armor in front of themselves,” says Raad, who was a taxi driver before IS. “They went house to house in my area threatening to kill anyone who would not flee with them.”

Mobile phones and beards

Under Islamic State rule, mobile phones are strictly prohibited and men are required to wear a specific style of beards. In areas outside of IS territory in Iraq, almost everyone has a phone and beards in the IS style are deeply out of fashion.

“When Iraqi forces came close to my neighborhood, Daesh said they would chop off the heads of anyone caught with a phone or shaving,” continues Raad.

IS militants often call shaved Iraqi men “Obama,” likening them to their archenemy, U.S. President Barack Obama, he adds.

In anticipation of escape, many men shave their beards, not wanting to look like they could be militants when they are on the outside. Mobile phones remain buried in gardens or hidden inside, lest they are accused of passing information to the army.

But like Raad, most people wait until they’ve escaped to use their phones or shave.

“It was a different face, and it was finally a good face,” he says, grinning, as he describes the first shave after his flight.

Former Iraqi police

Men who were Iraqi police officers before surviving IS, adds Ali Abdu Mohammad, are increasingly targets as the army moves forward. Many of his compatriots were slaughtered when IS moved in, but others took an oath to be “good Muslims,” and lived.

That oath, according to IS, was essentially a vow not to fight the militants, says Mohammad, a father of three.

But in the days leading up to the Iraqi Army’s arrival in his neighborhood last week, the militants rescinded the promise, saying they planned to kill all former Iraqi police. Like mobile phone owners, the militants were afraid former police officers would turn over information on IS to the Iraqi Army, he says.

“I shaved my face and hid for three days before the army took my area,” explains Mohammad.

Related:

Middle East
Rescued Yazidi Women Relate the Horror of Captivity Under IS

USA
Iran's Proxy Activities Probed on Capitol Hill

 

[Housecarl]

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Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/iran-closed-mosul-horseshoe-changed-iraq-war-123511420.html

How Iran closed the Mosul 'horseshoe' and changed Iraq war

By Dominic Evans, Maher Chmaytelli and Patrick Markey
Reuters
December 7, 2016

BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - In the early days of the assault on Islamic State in Mosul, Iran successfully pressed Iraq to change its battle plan and seal off the city, an intervention which has since shaped the tortuous course of the conflict, sources briefed on the plan say.

The original campaign strategy called for Iraqi forces to close in around Mosul in a horseshoe formation, blocking three fronts but leaving open the fourth - to the west of the city leading to Islamic State territory in neighboring Syria.

That model, used to recapture several Iraqi cities from the ultra-hardline militants in the last two years, would have left fighters and civilians a clear route of escape and could have made the Mosul battle quicker and simpler.

But Tehran, anxious that retreating fighters would sweep back into Syria just as Iran's ally President Bashar al-Assad was gaining the upper hand in his country's five-year civil war, wanted Islamic State crushed and eliminated in Mosul.

The sources say Iran lobbied for Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization fighters to be sent to the western front to seal off the link between Mosul and Raqqa, the two main cities of Islamic State's self-declared cross-border caliphate.

That link is now broken. For the first time in Iraq's two-and-half-year, Western-backed drive to defeat Islamic State, several thousand militants have little choice but to fight to the death, and 1 million remaining Mosul citizens have no escape from the front lines creeping ever closer to the city center.

"If you corner your enemy and don’t leave an escape, he will fight till the end," said a Kurdish official involved in planning the Mosul battle.

"In the west, the initial idea was to have a corridor ... but the Hashid (Popular Mobilisation) insisted on closing this loophole to prevent them going to Syria," he told Reuters.

The battle for Mosul is the biggest in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003. In all, around 100,000 people are fighting on the government side, including Iraqi soldiers and police, "peshmerga" troops of the autonomous Kurdish region and fighters in the Popular Mobilisation units. A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support.

Iraqi army commanders have repeatedly said that the presence of civilians on the battlefield has complicated and slowed their seven-week-old operation, restricting air strikes and the use of heavy weapons in populated areas.

They considered a change in strategy to allow civilians out, but rejected the idea because they feared that fleeing residents could be massacred by the militants, who have executed civilians to prevent them from escaping other battles. Authorities and aid groups would also struggle to deal with a mass exodus.

KILL BOX

Planning documents drawn up by humanitarian organizations before the campaign, seen by Reuters, show they prepared camps in Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria for around 90,000 refugees expected to head west out of Mosul.

"Iran didn't agree and insisted that no safe corridor be allowed to Syria," said a humanitarian worker. "They wanted the whole region west of Mosul to be a kill box."

Hisham al-Hashemi, an Iraqi analyst on Islamist militants who was briefed on the battle plan in advance, also said it initially envisaged leaving one flank open.

"The first plan had the shape of a horseshoe, allowing for the population and the militants to retreat westward as the main thrust of the offensive came from the east," he said.

About a week before the launch of the campaign, Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, a close ally of Iran, accused the United States of planning to allow Islamic State a way out to Syria.

"The Iraqi army and popular forces must defeat it in Mosul, otherwise, they will be obliged to move to eastern Syria in order to fight the terrorist group," he said. Hezbollah is fighting in support of Assad in Syria.

Hashid spokesman Karim al-Nuri denied that Tehran was behind the decision to deploy the Shi'ite fighters west of Mosul.

"Iran has no interest here. The majority of these statements are mere analysis - they are simply not true," he said.

Nevertheless, securing territory west of Mosul by the Iranian-backed militias has other benefits for Iran's allies, by giving the Shi'ite fighters a launchpad into neighboring Syria to support Assad.

If Islamic State is defeated in Syria and Iraq, Tehran's allies would gain control of an arc of territory stretching from Iran itself across the Middle East to Lebanon and the Mediterranean coast.

RUSSIAN PRESSURE

Iran was not the only country pressing for the escape to be closed west of Mosul. Russia, another powerful Assad ally, also wanted to block any possible movement of militants into Syria, said Hashemi. The Russian defence ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

One of Assad's biggest enemies, France, was also concerned that hundreds of fighters linked to attacks in Paris and Brussels might escape. The French have contributed ground and air support to the Mosul campaign.

A week after the campaign was launched, French President Francois Hollande said any flow of people out of Mosul would include "terrorists who will try to go further, to Raqqa in particular".

Still, the battle plan did not foresee closing the road to the west of Mosul until Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi agreed in late October to despatch the Popular Mobilisation militias.

"The government agreed to Iran's request, thinking that it would take a long time for the Hashid to get to the road to Syria, and during that time the escape route would be open and the battle would still proceed as planned," Hashemi said.

The Hashid move to cut the western corridor was announced on Oct. 28, 11 days after the start of the wider Mosul campaign. Fighters made swift progress, sweeping up from a base south of Mosul to seal off the western route out of the city.

Abadi "was surprised to see them reaching the road in just a few days," Hashemi said. "The battle has taken a different shape since then - no food, no fuel is reaching Mosul and Daesh (Islamic State) fighters are bent on fighting to the end."

IRAQ STRONGHOLD

Once the Iraqi Shi'ite militia advance west of Mosul had begun, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi told his followers there could be no retreat from the city where he first proclaimed his caliphate in July, 2014.

Those tempted to flee should "know that the value of staying on your land with honor is a thousand times better than the price of retreating with shame," Baghdadi said in an audio recording released five days after the Shi'ite militias announced they were moving to cut off the last route out.

Since then his fighters have launched hundreds of suicide car bombs, mortar barrages and sniper attacks against the advancing forces, using a network of tunnels under residential areas and using civilians as human shields, Iraqi soldiers say.

A senior U.S. officer in international coalition which is supporting the campaign said that waging war amidst civilians would always be tough, but the Baghdad government was best placed to decide on strategy.

"They've got 15 years of war (experience)... I can't think of anyone more calibrated to make that decision and as a result that why as a coalition we supported the government of Iraq's decision," Brigadier General Scott Efflandt, deputy commanding general in the coalition, told Reuters.

"The opening and closing of that corridor, hypothetically, realistically, did not fundamentally change the plans of the battle," he added. "It changes how we prosecute the fight, but that does not necessarily make it easier or harder."

But the Kurdish official was less sanguine, saying the battle for Mosul was now "more difficult" and could descend into a long drawn out siege similar to those seen in Syria.

It could "turn Mosul into Aleppo," he said.

(Reporting by Patrick Markey and Maher Chmaytelli in Erbil and Dominic Evans in Baghdad; additional reporting by John Irish in Paris and Tatiana Ustinova in Moscow; writing by Dominic Evans; editing by Peter Graff)

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[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?507406-The-Sudden-German-Nuke-Flirtation

Hummm.......

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http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/12/06/sudden-german-nuke-flirtation-pub-66366

The Sudden German Nuke Flirtation

Some of Germany’s prominent voices are musing about the options of a German or non-NATO European nuclear deterrent should a Trump administration roll back U.S. commitments to the alliance.

Ulrich Kühn
Article
December 06, 2016

While the United States is still coming to terms with President-elect Donald Trump’s potential domestic and foreign policy, U.S. allies worldwide are becoming increasingly nervous about the incoming administration’s stance toward U.S. alliance commitments. Spurred by Trump’s warm words for Russian President Vladimir Putin, his implicit threat that Washington could scale back U.S. defense commitments to Europe if NATO members do not pay more for their own security, and his lax remarks that certain U.S. allies should perhaps be allowed to go nuclear, some prominent voices in Germany are suddenly openly flirting with the nuclear option.

Given the country’s long-term support of nuclear disarmament, a debate about a possible German nuclear deterrent is virtually unprecedented. So far, these voices represent an extreme minority view—currently, neither the government nor the vast majority of German experts is even considering the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons—but with continued uncertainty about Trump’s commitment to Europe, this could change during the coming years.

The Pro-Nuclear Arguments

Just three days before the U.S. elections, an op-ed in Germany’s largest left-leaning news outlet, Spiegel Online, mused about the possibility of Germany pursuing its own nuclear weapons if NATO were to break up in the aftermath of a Trump administration’s withdrawal from the alliance.

Two weeks later, Reuters quoted Roderich Kiesewetter, a senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and a high-ranking member of the Bundestag (national parliament), saying that “if the United States no longer wants to provide this [nuclear] guarantee, Europe still needs nuclear protection for deterrent purposes.” Given Trump’s earlier statements, Kiesewetter continued, “Europe must start planning for its own security in case the Americans sharply raise the cost of defending the continent, or if they decide to leave completely.” His suggestion: a Franco-British nuclear umbrella for Europe, financed through a joint European military budget. Under such a scheme, Germany would have to contribute a large amount to the overall costs of such a European deterrent. Further clarifying his remarks, Kiesewetter later pointed out that Europe does not need additional nuclear powers.

On November 28, Germany’s most influential conservative newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, opened with an op-ed by one of its publishers, Berthold Kohler, preparing Germans for “the unthinkable.” Continued Russian and Chinese attempts to expand their spheres of influence, coupled with a possible retreat of the United States, would amount to a “continental shift,” the author argued. According to Kohler, the stern implications for Berlin, which for many years relied on the approach of “Frieden schaffen ohne Waffen” (“build peace without weapons”), would be obvious: if Germany wants to successfully bargain with the Kremlin, he implies, it has to be able to credibly defend its allies (which is an interesting hint at the changed power relations in Europe). Kohler concludes that this could mean increased defense spending, a return to conscription, the drawing of red lines, and an indigenous nuclear deterrent. He is quick to insinuate that the French and British arsenals are currently “too weak” to take on Russia and China.

The Two Paths

Even though these remarks and op-eds do not build or comment on each other, they begin to reveal contours of a debate. One can see two paths of proposed action if the United States were to withdraw or openly question its security guarantees: a European nuclear option and a German nuclear option.

Following Kiesewetter’s suggestions, a potential European nuclear option could be interpreted as an extreme, though not logically conclusive, part of a larger ongoing effort to give the European Union more credible and integrated defense structures. German Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen is already lobbying for a bigger EU global security role and higher defense spending. There is little doubt that these efforts are also a reaction to Trump’s campaign comments. But more so, they represent a change in German foreign and security policy dating to 2013, when President Joachim Gauck cautioned Germans that “in a world full of crises and upheaval, Germany has to take on new responsibilities.”

In contrast, a potential indigenous German nuclear option is by no means grounded or linked to any ongoing political debate about Germany’s role as a security provider for Europe. Nevertheless, it is indeed a reflection—though an extreme and perhaps hysterical one—of the multiple crises and threats Europe is facing. These include, inter alia, an increasingly aggressive and militaristic Russia, the war in eastern Ukraine, the British Brexit vote, the war in Syria and the related refugee crises, and the heavy-handed authoritarian rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdoðan in Turkey.

Against this background, certain segments of the German strategic community seem deeply concerned about the uncertain effects of four (or eight) years of U.S. foreign and security policy under Trump. Not completely without reason, their criticism of him points to the fact that extended nuclear deterrence rests on a fragile, psychological bargain between the provider (the United States), the recipient (the NATO allies), and the addressee (Russia), which can only be upheld if all sides believe to a certain degree in the credibility of the deterring threat. Trump’s questioning of the continuity of U.S. security commitments places the whole bargain under stress. In this context, musing about a German deterrent could be interpreted as nuclear signaling to both Washington and Moscow.

The Current Realities

Notwithstanding the recent public airing of nuclear flirtations, powerful and convincing arguments speak against a German or non-NATO European nuclear option. All things nuclear are highly unpopular among ordinary Germans. In a recent poll, 85 percent of Germans spoke against the continued deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in Germany. More than 90 percent approved the idea of an international ban on nuclear weapons. Even among policymakers, nuclear weapons policies have always been dealt with in a cautious and sometimes skeptical way. The 2009 coalition contract of Merkel’s ruling conservative party, for instance, held out the prospect of Germany working within NATO on a full withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons from German soil.

But since the Russian annexation of Crimea, the German government has been fully supportive of NATO’s nuclear-sharing arrangements and opposes the latest push in the United Nations toward a nuclear weapons ban treaty. Musings about a European deterrent, as articulated by Kiesewetter, would run counter to German efforts to remind the Trump administration of the value of NATO’s Article 5 commitments and the U.S. role as a security provider for Europe. In fact, they could give Trump carte blanche to argue that if Europe were to have its own deterrent, then why would it need Washington’s guarantees? It is also not clear how a Franco-British deterrent for Europe could take shape with London currently exiting from the European project.

In addition, Berlin just announced an increase in its defense spending by 8 percent in 2017, taking defense expenditures to 1.22 percent of its GDP. This is a significant increase, even though Germany remains considerably below its NATO commitment of spending at least 2 percent of its GDP on defense. Nevertheless, Germany can point to its efforts in the upcoming consultations with the new Trump team to counter criticism about its defense commitments to NATO. A possible German nuclear option would only distract from the core message that Germany is ready to take on more responsibility within the alliance and Europe as a whole.

Even if Germany was to attempt to go nuclear, the hurdles would be extremely high. Although the country is one of the most technically advanced nations in the world and it theoretically possesses enough fissile material for a nuclear device, the enormous financial and political costs that would come with such a decision would most likely outweigh any perceived benefit.

There are also many political-legal obstacles. Germany would have to withdraw from or seek to change the 1990 Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (also known as the Two Plus Four Treaty), which it signed together with France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In that agreement, the reunified Germany reaffirmed its “renunciation of the manufacture and possession of and control over nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.” In addition, Berlin would openly violate commitments under the international Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the European Atomic Energy Community.

From Fringe to Mainstream

Obviously, current German nuclear flirtations represent a fringe view, but they are an important early warning sign. These flirtations were carried by Germany’s biggest left-leaning and conservative media outlets. In addition, Kiesewetter is not a backbencher or low-ranking politician from a small party. As a former Bundeswehr (armed forces) general staff officer; former chairman of the Subcommittee for Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation of the Bundestag; and current spokesperson of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, he is well-versed in foreign and security policy matters. That a person of his stature would raise such a view is reason enough for concern.

Further, extreme views on nuclear matters do not always remain at the fringes. As the case of South Korea demonstrates, external shocks such as the repeated nuclear tests by North Korea in 2013 can quickly move formerly fringe positions to the center stage of public attention. Once in the mainstream, it can be difficult to put such sentiments to rest, particularly when the underlying security concerns remain.

To be clear, the Merkel administration is far from considering a European or German nuclear option, and other major political parties on the left are traditionally strong opponents of a more muscular nuclear weapons approach. For example, Rainer Arnold, defense spokesman for the ruling coalition partner of the Social Democrats in parliament, was quick to dismiss Kiesewetter’s suggestion as “off base.” In fact, for decades, Berlin acted as a staunch advocate of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation policies, and isolated instances of German proliferation signaling were extremely rare. But their now sudden and unexpected occurrence is telling with regard to the devastating effects of Trump’s loose and uninformed talk about U.S. alliance commitments and long-standing American nonproliferation policies.

Beyond those more narrow observations, the “Trump shock” and its effects—which caught most German policymakers off guard—point to U.S. allies’ wider concerns about America’s role in the world and the likely period of unpredictability and volatility ahead. Underlying these perceptions and developments are strategic discontinuities that can occur quite rapidly and result in previously unimaginable developments. A U.S. retreat from long-held, global political and normative positions would be such a sudden discontinuity. Germany’s final acceptance of the role of a benevolent hegemon in Europe, in combination with the British retreat, would be another. Combined, they could give rise to alternative policy concepts and cognitive adjustments. The current German nuclear flirtation is just one, and certainly not the last, sign of the changing European security landscape.

 

[Housecarl]

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Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2016/12/06/china_puts_the_squeeze_on_taiwan_112135.html

China Puts the Squeeze on Taiwan

By Stratfor
December 06, 2016

Summary

Sino-Taiwanese tensions are rising and the effects have begun to spread, so much so that they have started to complicate China's relationship with the United States. Over the past month, China has redoubled its efforts to weaken Taiwan's ties with diplomatic allies and defense partners while also tempering its own economic and diplomatic involvement with the newly elected Democratic Progressive Party in Taipei. Beijing's push to isolate Taiwan suggests that China thinks its approach toward Taipei over the past decade is becoming less effective, particularly in light of a potential shift in U.S. policy as Washington prepares to inaugurate a new president. This has moved Taiwan to the center of Beijing's foreign policy agenda, a shift that the Dec. 2 phone call between U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has given added weight.

Analysis

On Nov. 23, Hong Kong authorities, apparently acting at Beijing's behest, interdicted a shipment of armored personnel carriers heading from Taiwan to Singapore — a city-state that has long maintained military ties with Taipei. A week later, reports surfaced that Beijing has been seeking to establish official ties with the Dominican Republic, a move that would invalidate the island's existing relationship with Taiwan. (Mainland China and Taiwan both adhere to the idea that there is only one China, so if a country forges ties with either Beijing or Taipei, it must sever ties with the other.) On Dec. 2, a Chinese business delegation arrived in Panama — another of the few countries that still recognizes Taiwan — scouting investment opportunities, particularly in energy and port infrastructure.

These moves are not motivated solely by China's concerns about Taiwan. Over the past few months, for example, China and Singapore have gotten into several diplomatic spats over how to manage territorial disputes in the South China Sea and over the city-state's increased defense cooperation with the United States. China's protests have been intended, in part, to discourage Singapore from undermining Beijing's attempts to adopt a more conciliatory approach toward South China Sea claimant states and to sow doubts about Washington's commitment to the region.

Meanwhile, Beijing has been building up its presence in Central American and Caribbean states for years as part of its outreach to Latin America. The region has significant markets, natural resources and investment opportunities. It also provides a space for China to expand its soft power on the United States' doorstep. Consequently, Chinese trade jumped to more than 12 percent of Latin America's total trade portfolio in 2014, up from 2 percent a decade ago. Its investment presence rose substantially as well, even in countries with which it has no diplomatic relations.

Isolating Taiwan

Nonetheless, the issue of Taiwan is becoming increasingly interwoven in Beijing's strategy across the globe, suggesting that China believes the island's status quo is growing less sustainable. The roots of Beijing's spat with Singapore, for example, date back to the normalization of Sino-Singaporean relations in the 1990s, when Beijing reluctantly agreed to allow Singaporean troops to train overseas in Taiwan. For the past two decades, Beijing has opted to tacitly accept the status quo while boosting its own military cooperation with Singapore. The interdiction of the Singaporean armored personnel carriers calls this strategy into question.

Beijing has grown more assertive in Taiwanese affairs elsewhere as well. In 2008, following the election of the comparatively China-friendly Kuomintang government in Taipei, Beijing reached a deal with Taipei to refrain from poaching its few diplomatic allies. The agreement came in spite of a change in the economic, diplomatic and political clout of the mainland and Taiwan, which drew some of Taipei's allies — including Gambia, Panama and El Salvador — closer to China. But as cross-strait relations progressively deteriorated under Taiwan's recently elected Democratic Progressive Party, so did the truce.

For the most part, the Tsai administration does not seem interested in a radical departure from the previous administration's cross-strait policies, nor in the pursuit of independence. But even an ostensibly pragmatic position is not enough to satisfy Beijing. Taiwan has openly sought economic independence and has reached out diplomatically to China's rival, Japan, on sensitive maritime matters. Beijing views such acts as an attempt to jettison the status quo. In response, it has largely suspended its official exchanges with Taipei and has attempted to block the island's inclusion in international organizations and events. China has also imposed indirect economic punishments, including limiting the flow of tourists from the mainland and perhaps even trade in areas with the strongest support for Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party.

By going after Singapore and courting Taipei's Central American allies, Beijing aims to diplomatically squeeze Taipei. Most of Taiwan's allies in Central America, Africa and Oceania are important simply because they legitimize Taiwan's "one China" claim. They are not a critical economic or political priority to Taiwan, nor are they powerful enough to give Taipei the strategic influence it so desires. Still, Beijing's overwhelming economic advantage and international heft could begin forcing some of Taipei's allies to rethink their strategies.

Looming Turbulence

Beijing's attempts to isolate Taipei are unlikely to hamper Taiwan's pursuit of political and economic autonomy. But the call from Trump — a significant breach of U.S. protocol and tradition — could trigger a reassessment by Beijing of the new U.S. administration's strategy toward China, as well as its own options regarding cross-strait relations.

Though many perceive the call from Trump to be a diplomatic victory for Taipei, uncertainty over U.S. military obligations in the region persists at a time when any miscalculation between Washington and Beijing could considerably degrade cross-strait relations, leaving Taiwan vulnerable. The United States' withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership also stifles Taipei's hopes for inclusion and protection from Beijing by diverting trade from the mainland market. Washington's commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act — an act that could require the United States to intervene if China attacks or invades Taiwan — has not been tested for many years, and a hawkish cross-strait policy could put Taipei squarely in Beijing's crosshairs.

But just as Taipei will struggle to manage the fallout of these strained relationships, Beijing will also suffer some consequences. Over the past decade, China has relied on its economic interdependence and cultural links with Taiwan to advocate their eventual reunification. This strategy is becoming less and less feasible, however, in large part because of a political shift in Taiwan: The island's younger generation is more nationalist than its elders. Along with Beijing's increased military capability, territorial assertiveness and diplomatic clout, a more unpredictable United States and a remilitarized Japan will continue to test the security of cross-strait relations, perhaps pushing even Beijing beyond peaceful means.

A Stratfor Intelligence Report.

"China Puts the Squeeze on Taiwan" was first published by Stratfor and is reprinted with permission.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/11/30/opinion-nato-in-search-of-a-21st-century-mission.html

NATO: In Search of a 21st Century Mission

Military.com | Nov 30, 2016 | by Joseph V. Micallef

Joseph V. Micallef is a best-selling military history and world affairs author, and keynote speaker. Follow him on Twitter @JosephVMicallef.

Founded in 1949, the 28-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization is now 67 years old. Originally, it was a political association. Following the onset of the Korean War, it rapidly transformed itself into an alliance for mutual defense.

Pursuant to Article 5 of the NATO charter, any member country attacked by a foreign entity could request assistance from the other members. The nature of that assistance was left to the discretion of each party. It did not necessarily need to be direct military assistance, although NATO's force structure was organized to facilitate a joint military response.

NATO's strategic objective, in the words of Lord Ismay, its first secretary general, was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down." Those goals largely defined NATO's mission over its first 40 years. In 1955, West Germany was incorporated into the Alliance.

That decision was largely prompted by the need to integrate German military forces into NATO to ensure that the Alliance's manpower would be sufficient to blunt a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. In response, the Soviet Union organized the Warsaw Pact as its own collective security organization consisting of itself and the communist countries in Eastern Europe.

For the next 35-odd years, the two organizations defined the two-opposing sides of the Cold War in Europe. NATO's operational doctrines were designed to promote the standardization and interoperability of each nation's armaments as well as operating procedures. Its tactical and strategic doctrines, including a tacit agreement for the first use of theater nuclear weapons, were designed to counter the threat of a Soviet invasion by massed, highly mechanized infantry, spearheaded by rapidly moving armored divisions.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, NATO's primary purpose has become largely obsolete. The Warsaw Pact has disintegrated. Indeed, many of its former members are now part of NATO. The prospect of a Russian invasion of Western Europe has largely vanished. Even if it wanted to, Russia simply lacks the force structure to execute such an invasion, much less successfully occupy Western Europe.

On the other hand, while Western Europe has little to fear from an armed Russian attack, NATO's newest members in Eastern Europe, especially those states that were once part of the Soviet Union, are particularly concerned about the Kremlin's attempts to intimidate and subvert them.

Judging by Russia's actions in Ukraine, and to a lesser extent Georgia, Russian security threats in the future are likely to consist of a combination of cyberwarfare, subversion and insurgency, especially among ethnic Russians living in targeted countries, and ongoing attempts at political and economic manipulation.

By producing domestic chaos and instability, the Kremlin has a pretext to intervene with Russian military forces either in the guise of peacekeepers to protect ethnic Russians or in an unofficial capacity as volunteers of unspecified origins. The latter also gives the Kremlin plausible deniability for its actions.

This type of threat is very real and is completely different from the mission that NATO was originally designed to serve.

Since 1989, NATO has been steadily expanding its membership across Eastern Europe, while at the same time accepting responsibilities well outside of its original mandate. These new responsibilities have ranged from directing the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan to "training missions" in Iraq, to operating no-fly zones over Libya to antipiracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden. At the same time, it has also expanded its deployment in Eastern Europe. The immediate consequences have been a significant mismatch between its military capabilities and the external threats, either directly or indirectly, that its members face.

NATO's member expansion has taken two forms. In the Balkans, it has incorporated or put on a membership track many of the nations that emerged from the breakup of Yugoslavia. Serbia, which has longstanding religious, ethnic and political ties to Russia, is the sole exception. Nonetheless, Serbia has been quietly inching toward NATO, expanding its cooperation while still officially maintaining its neutrality. Serbia is a candidate for membership in the EU and relies on the economic bloc for the bulk of its foreign investment, external markets and foreign aid.

Albania has also joined (2009), as have the former Warsaw Pact Balkan members of Bulgaria and Romania (2004). Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro are all candidate members pending their meeting the required preconditions for membership.

The Kremlin does not pose an immediate security threat to the Balkan nations, although Russia has historically claimed that it had longstanding interests there because of ethnic and religious ties. It was Russian support of Serbia in 1914, in its dispute with Austria-Hungary, after all, that triggered the chain of events that ultimately precipitated World War I.

NATO's objectives in the area were, instead, motivated by two other concerns. First, a recognition that the economic well-being of the Balkan nations was contingent on closer integration with the EU and access to the bloc's markets and capital. Secondly, that integration of the region's military forces into NATO, along with EU membership, would make local outbreaks of violence less likely.

NATO's eastern expansion was, in part, also motivated by the corresponding eastern expansion of the EU and the desire to incorporate those countries into a European-wide system of collective defense. There was also an element of atonement for the decision made at Yalta two generations ago to abandon the region to Soviet hegemony.

NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe, and especially into some of the former states of the Soviet Union, was seen by the Kremlin as a provocation and ran counter to what Russia claimed was an unofficial agreement reached with the United States to forego NATO's eastern expansion in return for Soviet acquiescence to German reunification.

Of late, Russia has become increasingly provocative toward the nations that make up what the Kremlin calls the "near abroad." These are countries that were previously under Soviet control or domination and which geographically Russia sees as essential to Russia's defense. Their participation in NATO is deemed by the Kremlin as threatening to Russia.

These provocations have taken the form of frequent overflights of armed Russian fighter-bombers operating with their transponders turned off, numerous instances of cyber warfare, blackmail threats to interrupt Russian supplies of natural gas or electrical power, attempts to stir up organized dissent among ethnic Russian citizens in those countries, military intimidation and heavy-handed attempts at political and economic manipulation.

In the case of Georgia, once a candidate member to join NATO, but since shelved, this also involved an invasion by Russian special forces. In Ukraine's case, similar actions, including Russian seizure of the Crimea and portions of the Donbass Basin, whose population was predominantly ethnic Russians, was organized to forestall any moves by Kiev to pursue NATO membership. Particularly worrisome is the fact that all three of the Baltic Republics, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, have been seeing an intensifying pattern of Russian provocation and attempts at political intimidation.

In June 2016, NATO added cyberwarfare as an "operational domain of war," no different than land, naval or aerial warfare. While cyberwarfare now qualifies as a form of attack that can trigger the Article V mutual defense provision, the nature of cyberattacks makes it difficult to always know who the antagonist is. The other types of Russian tactics, while no less threatening, are a lot more diffuse than an armed attack.

These kinds of provocations do not explicitly come under the provisions of what constitutes an attack under Article V. They are a lot more subjective and open to interpretation or dispute. Ethnic unrest, for example, may result from legitimate domestic grievances as well as foreign manipulation or subversion.

Many NATO members are reluctant to make what appear to be purely domestic issues a pretext for triggering the mutual defense clause. NATO needs to redefine the kinds of threats it is designed to oppose, as well as its possible responses to reflect the tactics in the Kremlin's current playbook.

To date, there is no consensus within NATO on what this new threat definition should be or how the organization should, if at all, respond. For NATO's Eastern European members in general, and for the Baltic Republics in particular, this new redefinition of NATO's security mission can't come soon enough.

-- If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration.

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.ft.com/content/102a20f0-bc92-11e6-8b45-b8b81dd5d080

General Scaparrotti: Turkey's Military Purge Has "Degraded" NATO

By Arthur Beesley
December 08, 2016

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s purge of alleged coup plotters in Turkey’s armed forces has “degraded” Nato’s command operations by removing experienced senior officers, the alliance’s top general has said.

As many as 150 high-level Turkish personnel were detained, recalled from Nato or retired from active service after the failed military coup in July, said General Curtis Scaparrotti, Nato’s supreme allied commander in Europe.

“These officers served well here in Nato . . . I had talented, capable people here and I’m taking a degradation on my staff for the skill, the expertise and the work that they produced,” Gen Scaparrotti said as Nato foreign ministers met at the headquarters of the alliance in Brussels.

Asked whether he ever had any suspicions that any of the officers who were removed might be involved in planning a coup, Gen Scaparrotti said: “No.”

Gen Scaparrotti — one of the highest-ranking generals in the US military, with service in Korea and Afghanistan — said their removal from Nato’s “allied command operations” also had an impact on the military capabilities of Turkey itself.

The country’s military is one of the largest within the alliance, with a strategic role on Nato’s borders with Syria, Iran and Iraq.

“It does have an impact because it was largely very senior personnel and you lose a good deal of experience. So we are seeing a bit of degradation there and we are also having to build relationships with new leaders, Nato partners. That’s coming along fine but it is going to take some time.”

He said concerns were being allayed through talks with Turkey’s chief of defence, General Hulusi Akar.

The removal of Turkish Nato officers comes as the relationship between Ankara and the EU has become increasingly tense, with Brussels hardening its stance on Mr Erdogan while the Turkish president has warned that he could allow 3m refugees into Europe.

The personnel removed mostly held the rank of lieutenant-colonel, colonel and flag-rank officer, Gen Scaparrotti said, describing them as having “a great deal of experience” and an important role in training.

About half of the personnel have since been replaced by Turkey through the promotion of more junior officers.

In recent weeks, Nato acknowledged that some Turkish officers posted to Nato missions in Europe had sought asylum rather than return home. The alliance has said the assessment of asylum applications was a matter for national authorities.

Gen Scaparrotti said he had sought and received assurances from Turkey about the treatment of officers and their families on their return to the country.

“I have a concern about what happened the people who were working for us. I’ve said to Gen Akar my concern is that they would follow the rule of law and treat their people appropriately.

“I talked to him about my concern about the care for them and their families as well. That’s a concern for those officers who you know in some cases really don’t understand what their future is at this point. So yes, I am concerned.”

 

[Housecarl]

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http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-tests-nuclear-capable-drone-sub/

Russia Tests Nuclear-Capable Drone Sub

Unmanned underwater vehicle a strategic threat

BY: Bill Gertz
December 8, 2016 5:00 am

Russia conducted a test of a revolutionary nuclear-capable drone submarine that poses a major strategic threat to U.S. ports and harbors.

U.S. intelligence agencies detected the test of the unmanned underwater vehicle, code-named Kanyon by the Pentagon, during its launch from a*Sarov-class submarine on Nov. 27, said Pentagon officials familiar with reports of the test.

No details were available about the location or results of the test.

Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis declined to comment. “We closely monitor Russian underwater military developments, but we will not comment specifically about them,” Davis said.

Development of the new drone submarine was first disclosed by the Washington Free Beacon in September 2015 and then confirmed by the Russian military two months later. Russian officials said the secret program was mistakenly disclosed.

Russia calls the drone development program the “Ocean Multipurpose System ‘Status-6.’” The developer is Russia’s TsKB MT Rubin design bureau, the*defense industry entity that builds all Russia’s submarines.

U.S. intelligence agencies estimate the Kanyon secret underwater drone will be equipped with megaton-class warheads—the largest nuclear weaponns in existence, with the killing power of millions of tons of TNT.

The weapon likely could be used against U.S. ports and bases, including those used by ballistic missile submarines.

The two U.S. nuclear missile submarine bases are located at Kings Bay, Georgia, just north of the Florida border, and Puget Sound in Washington State.

Russia’s nuclear weapons development in recent years has alarmed American military leaders in part due to a new doctrine adopted by Moscow that increases its*reliance on nuclear forces in a conflict. The new doctrine indicates that Russia will quickly escalate to the use of nuclear arms to compensate for its aging and outdated conventional forces.

U.S. intelligence agencies also have detected Russia’s development of new low-yield tactical nuclear weapons—arms that could be used more easily in regional conflicts.

Former Pentagon official Mark Schneider said the test of the underwater nuclear delivery vehicle poses a new strategic threat.

“The Status-6, a nuclear powered, nuclear armed drone submarine, is the most irresponsible nuclear weapons program that Putin’s Russia has come up with,” said Schneider, now with the National Institute for Public Policy.

“Status-6 is designed to kill civilians by massive blast and fallout,” he said, noting that such targeting violates the law of armed conflict.

According to a Russian document disclosed on state television Nov. 10, 2015, the weapon is a self-propelled underwater craft capable of carrying*a nuclear warhead up to 6,200 miles. The vehicle can submerge to a depth of 3,280 feet and travel at speeds of up to 56 knots.

A drawing of the drone submarine shows it will be nuclear powered, controlled by surface ships, and supported by a Sarov submarine.

Russia’s Sarov has been described in Russian press reports as a diesel electric-powered vessel for testing new weapons and technology. It also has been described as an intelligence-gathering submarine.

The Russian document said Russia planned to build a Kanyon prototype by 2019 and begin testing that year. The Nov. 27 test indicates the document may have been a disinformation operation aimed at deceiving the United States about the program.

U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that the 2015 leak was Moscow’s attempt to warn*the United States about*its displeasure with U.S. missile defenses in Europe and the deployment of missile defense ships to the region.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters one*day after the leak that classified information had been accidentally disclosed—an unusual public admission of a security error that has raised concerns about false Russian strategic messaging.

The Russian nuclear arms buildup has coincided with what U.S. officials say*are unprecedented public statements by Russian leader Vladimir Putin about*nuclear weapons in response to Western opposition to Moscow’s military annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.

In addition to the nuclear-tipped drone, Russian nuclear modernization includes a new class of ballistic missile submarines, new submarine-launched ballistic missiles, two new land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, and a new long-range bomber. Russia also is building a new railroad-based missile system.

The U.S. Navy is developing new underwater drones, but none will be nuclear armed.

Schneider, the former Pentagon official who has held a number of positions involving strategic weapons, said reports from Russia indicate the drone sub will be armed with a 100-megaton warhead.

“The Russian government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that to achieve ‘extensive radioactive contamination’ the weapon ‘could envisage using the so-called cobalt bomb, a nuclear weapon designed to produce enhanced amounts of radioactive fallout compared to a regular atomic warhead,'” Schneider said.

“A cobalt bomb is a ‘doomsday’ weapons concept conceived during the Cold War, but apparently never actually developed,” he said.

Testing of the drone, which is said to be powered by a nuclear reactor with limited shielding, poses environmental risks. A guidance failure could result in an undersea nuclear disaster.

“The Obama State Department appears to be asleep at the helm on this issue,” Schneider said, noting the New START arms treaty requires notification of new offensive strategic weapons in a U.S.-Russia commission.

“We could even propose a ban on such weapons,” Schneider said. “There is no indication from the Obama administration that any negotiations are underway, or that the U.S. has even raised the issue with Russia.”

During congressional testimony in December 2015, Rose Gottemoeller, then the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said the Russian nuclear-armed drone is a concern.

“I know we are concerned about it; of course we are concerned about it as a threat to the United States,” said Gottemoeller, now NATO’s deputy secretary general. She noted that the system would pose a great threat if “widely put into operation.”

The Obama administration, however, took no action against Russia’s violation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty.

Retired Air Force Gen. Robert Kehler, former commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, has said development of the underwater nuclear strike vehicle is one element of a “troubling” Russian strategic nuclear buildup.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Ala.), chairman of the House subcommittee on strategic forces, has said that the Russians assert the nuclear drone submarine will be used to target coastal areas and inflict “unacceptable damage to a country’s territory by creating areas of wide radioactive contamination that would be unsuitable for military, economic, or other activity for long periods of time.”

“What does it say about a country that feels that nuclear weapons are such a significant tool of its military and diplomatic strategy that it discloses systems in this manner?” Rogers asked*during a House hearing. “And what does this say about a country that would invest resources in such a weapon? This is just nuts.”

Pavel Podvig, a Russian nuclear forces watcher, stated two years ago that the Status-6 payload “looks like a massive dirty bomb,”—a nuclear device that kills with radiation as opposed to a combination of a nuclear blast and radiation.

“A number of people noted that the description does not necessarily exclude the possibility that the initial ‘damaging’ can be done by a regular nuclear device,” Podvig said. “Which only makes this whole thing even more insane—do they think that a nuclear weapon on its own would not inflict ‘unacceptable damage’?” he said.

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.thecipherbrief.com/arti...il&utm_term=0_b02a5f1344-f958c67c64-122460921

Expert Commentary

Comprehensive Terrorism Strategy Needed

December 8, 2016 | Bruce Hoffman

The Cipher Brief sat down with Bruce Hoffman, Director for Security Studies at Georgetown University, to discuss President Obama’s counterterrorism legacy and the outlook for the terrorist threat in the coming year. According to Hoffman, although the U.S. has achieved “tactical gains” against al Qaeda and ISIS during Obama’s tenure, the U.S. currently faces the “most parlous international security situation in terms of terrorism, at least since the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.”

The Cipher Brief: How has U.S. counterterrorism policy developed in the eight years under President Obama?

Bruce Hoffman: Clearly during the eight years of the Obama Administration there was an effort to shift from the deployment of U.S. ground forces for prolonged periods overseas to using other forms of engaging terrorists, principally unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, as well as the increased deployment of Special Operations forces. Tactically, it was successful – it eliminated at least three-dozen senior al Qaeda commanders following the ramp up of drone strikes in 2009 – and it crystalized of course with the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011. These tactics served to disrupt terrorist operations and keep these groups off balance. Tactically, it was unquestionably successful.

But strategically, the U.S. faces the most parlous international security situation in terms of terrorism, at least since the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. According to the National Counterterrorism Center’s (NCTC), despite our ongoing efforts in Iraq and Syria over the past two years, ISIS has expanded geographically. The NCTC reported that in 2014, when the U.S.-backed campaign against ISIS began, the group had branches in seven countries. By 2015, they had branches in 13 countries, and by 2016, this number had increased again, now to 18. So clearly the Obama Administration’s strategy hasn’t stopped the spread of ISIS.

Similarly, al Qaeda today is present in about three times as many places as it was in 2008. *Even if there have been significant tactical achievements in keeping both these groups off-balance and making it more difficult for them to attack in the U.S., for instance, except perhaps by mobilizing lone-wolves, we’re nonetheless still facing serious terrorist challenges in the future. This was the message delivered by the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in his testimony before the U.S. Senate last February, when he cited a resilient al Qaeda that, he said, was poised to make gains in 2016 and therefore continues to pose a local, regional, and international threat. He also worried about the continued threat from ISIS, even despite the intense pressure that we’ve put them under in Iraq and Syria.* Clapper was especially concerned about the threat of terrorist attacks in Europe—outside the geographical locus of ISIS’ caliphate.

While tactically the gains may only have been ephemeral and temporary, given that in the overall strategic sense, the terrorist threat is arguably greater now than it’s been at any time over the past decade-and-a-half.

Also, in 2001 we faced only one major terrorist adversary. Today we face two. Further, in 2001, we faced one terrorist adversary that did not have a raft of active affiliates, associates, and branches. We now face two terrorist groups with affiliates, associates, and branches variously located in west, north, and east Africa, the Levant, the rest of the Middle East, South Asia, and elsewhere.

TCB: What were some of the strongest elements of President Obama’s CT policy? What were the weakest?

BH: First, from 2011 until very recently, we were told by a succession of senior U.S. counterterrorism officials, including the President, that al Qaeda was on “the verge of strategic collapse.” DNI Clapper’s statements last February reveal something very different. His melancholy assessment at the Senate hearings suggests that a lot of the progress over the eight years was mostly tactical and may yet prove to be evanescent.

For instance, the 2015 U.S. national security strategy cites three pillars of U.S. counterterrorism policy: leadership attrition, training host militaries to take the fight directly to the terrorists, and countering the terrorists’ narrative and message.

Clearly we’ve eliminated a number of leaders, including Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaqi, and more recently Mohammad al-Adnani, but whether it is al Qaeda or ISIS, both these groups seem to have a deeper bench than we believed. In other words, they each have thus far shown an unfortunate ability to be able to continue to summon their forces to battle despite the loss of senior leaders and the damage otherwise inflicted on them in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, among other places. Both organizations appear to have succession plans that despite the loss of key leaders, they nonetheless are able to recover or rebound from those setbacks, hand over command authority to a new person, and carry on the struggle. I don’t see this changing—at least any time in the short term, unfortunately.

I’m not by any means implying that we shouldn’t be killing terrorist leaders, but what I have often observed is that we are confusing a tactic (high value leadership targeting) with a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy—and they are not the same. In this war, we shouldn’t in any event be looking at one, single metric as a defining variable.

So the first pillar has not fundamentally changed the war on terrorism to an extent where we are much safer than we were before.

Second, the training of host militaries has been a significant failure. Just a few years ago, Mali and Yemen were being touted as success stories where we had trained indigenous forces so that Western intervention wouldn’t be required. In both places, however, we’ve seen that we couldn’t train host-nation forces fast enough to keep pace with terrorist recruitment or terrorist territorial gains.

Third, is countering the narrative. DNI Clapper also spoke of upwards of 40,000 foreign fighters from at least 100 countries throughout the world who have gravitated to both al Qaeda and ISIS in recent years. That doesn’t suggest to me that our counter-narrative is really having an impact if we see this tremendous ground swell in the unprecedented number of foreign fighters drawn to the conflicts not only in Syria and Iraq, but also in Yemen, Libya, Mali, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, among other places.

Further, in contrast to a decade ago when the vast majority of these foreign fighters came from the Arabian Peninsula, the Gulf, or North Africa, we now see hundreds of recruits from Latin America and from places like Benin and Bangladesh, countries that had hitherto been unaffected by the process of terrorist radicalization but are nonetheless providing fighters.

You can almost argue that, going back to the first point about high value targeting, we basically kill terrorist leaders but it seems as if these groups have continued to spread and seize more territory and meanwhile also appeal to a broader constituency of recruits in more countries than before. Meanwhile, we’ve downsized our military over the past eight years while we’ve seen these terrorist groups’ numbers increase as a result of the flow of foreign fighters into their ranks. We see that even as we build up our intelligence capabilities, the terrorists are developing means to frustrate those same capabilities by using off the shelf, encrypted communication apps.

TCB: Is President Obama’s counterterrorism legacy defined by executive actions such as drone strikes?

BH: Yes. President Obama came in with a commitment to draw down U.S. combat forces on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. He did succeed in doing that, but what we’ve seen is that even while we were withdrawing these troops, the terrorist threats in both those countries and elsewhere as well hasn’t diminished.

The drone campaign emerged as the major means of addressing these threats and controlling the growth of terrorist movements. But, by definition this lone tactic can only go so far when you have organizations that over the past decade and a half have proven to be more dispersed, adaptive, and resilient than we’ve imagined.

Think of it this way, U.S. forces – the Joint Special Operations Command combined with the U.S. Air Force – were spectacularly successful in 2006 in killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq. That knocked the group off-balance temporarily and significantly weakened it, but over time, it re-emerged and resurrected itself as ISIS, which has shown itself to be more deadly, more consequential, and more threatening than al Qaeda in Iraq had ever been.

TCB: Looking forward into the next year, aside from ISIS and al Qaeda, do you see other terrorist threats?

BH: Right now, our main challenge is that ISIS has completely preoccupied our attention and has consumed most of our resources in the ongoing war on terrorism during a time when, as I have argued in a previous Cipher Brief interview, al Qaeda has been quietly rebuilding. Our ability to focus on two preeminent threats, much less the range of potentially second or third order threats, has been seriously constrained, not least because of the geographical spread of both those movements and their stubborn resiliency.

Off the top of my head, I can’t see any other threats as significant as either ISIS and al Qaeda emerging in the near future, but that’s because both of these adversaries already seem too much for us to focus on simultaneously. But you are right that we need now to be thinking of the threats that might surface from a post-caliphate ISIS and a potentially resurgent al Qaeda.

Our track record in anticipating these threats has not been impressive. For the two years preceding the 2015 Paris attacks, for instance, ISIS build up a formidable external operations capability in Europe that largely went completely unnoticed by intelligence and security services around the world. We know that al-Zawahiri has attempted to constrain al Qaeda’s international terrorist operations since around 2013, so we perhaps also don’t have a clear picture of what al Qaeda’s capabilities and future intentions are. In many respects, the threats and the troubles we see right now may just be the tip of the iceberg given the proliferation of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in recent years.

TCB: As ISIS is pushed out of its stronghold in Mosul and possibly its headquarters in Raqqa, how will*those CT campaigns affect terrorism here in the U.S.?*Could there be an uptick in lone wolf style attacks as ISIS concentrates its efforts on conducting attacks abroad?

BH: *We are never going to be able to completely eliminate ISIS in the near term given its tremendous growth in recent years. It will likely retain some terrorist strike capability at some level even as it continues to lose men, materiel and territory in Libya, Iraq, and Syria. We need to anticipate what ISIS’s next steps will be in response to the dismantling of its caliphate and power and be concerned whether in desperation or otherwise this leads to an upsurge of terrorist attacks in Europe and beyond.

Accordingly, ISIS is likely to exist in one form or another. Just one year ago, ISIS unleashed the most consequential attack on a major European city in over a decade: shattering the prevailing analytical paradigm of the time, which held that ISIS’s violence would remain largely confined to Syria and Iraq. That caught intelligence and security services by surprise. And especially as the group becomes more desperate as it’s weakened on the battlefield, the danger of it striking elsewhere becomes greater. If the immediate past is any guide, I worry that we may not understand the full extent of that capability until it actually materializes.

Look at it this way. A little bit more than a year ago, we thought that terrorists’ ability to attack commercial aviation had been seriously challenged if not negated. Then came the October 2015 in flight bombing of the Russian charter plane in the Sinai, which killed over 200 people. And, the previous February, al Shabaab had been able to smuggle a bomb concealed in a laptop computer on board a passenger jet that departed Mogadishu. Fortunately, the plane had not yet reached cruising altitude when the device exploded so it didn’t crash, but they were still able to smuggle a bomb on board an aircraft, which is of course profoundly troubling.

Therefore, we need to be careful not to neglect the possibility that terrorist groups, including ISIS, have been deterred from continuing to attempt attacks on commercial aviation.

TCB: Under President Obama, we’ve seen the weakening of al Qaeda, the rise of ISIS, and more recently the decline of ISIS and the rise of al Qaeda. What should we expect moving forward in the next year?

BH: Both groups have successfully locked us into a strategy of attrition. *They understand that they cannot defeat us militarily but instead seek to undermine confidence in our elected leaders, polarize polities, and create profound fissures in our society that they believe will wear down our resolve to resist their depredations and threats. Too often in the past we have precipitously declared that we are on the verge of victory only to see our adversaries rebound from even the most consequential setbacks. We pay a price for that over time that inadvertently plays into the terrorists’ strategy of attrition.

Public expectations rise as we are told victory is at hand, only to plummet in the wake of some new attack, and therefore as the war on terrorism seems to drag on. Each new terrorist attack appears to generate not just new fears and anxieties, but tears at the fabric of our society creating an atmosphere where popular pressure can drive a liberal democracy to embrace increasingly illiberal means in hopes of enhancing security.

Accordingly, the main challenge that we face is in breaking this stasis and frustrating this war of attrition that terrorists seek to keep us enmeshed in. To do this, we have to more decisively engage, dismantle, and defeat these organizations and their networks.

This is not to say that what we’ve been doing so far is ineffective and has not been successful, but that it clearly hasn’t been enough. What is required today is a more comprehensive, more systemic and aggressive counterterrorism strategy. We have to very critically start asking questions about why the host nation militaries we are training are failing in their efforts to take the war to the terrorists. We need to step back and assess what we’re doing now and why it is not producing decisive results so that we can break this stasis once and for all.

TCB: Would a more effective counter-messaging campaign aid in this effort?

BH: The problem is that counter-messaging works best after you have first broken the terrorists’ power and you’ve diminished their allure by depriving them of their appeal. We need to better counter their narrative which is that they’ve survived the greatest onslaught ever directed against a terrorist group in history, whether it’s the decade and a half-long conflict against al Qaeda or the more recent one against ISIS. For them, the fact that they are still fighting is enormously evocative in terms of their appeal and propaganda; that they have stood up to this very formidable counterterrorism campaign and have not only survived but have even expanded geographically despite our considerable efforts.

Counter-messaging works best when terrorists are deprived of their power, which means they are deprived of their sanctuary and safe haven, their efforts to recruit are thereby diminished: that’s when counter-messaging is enormously useful in preventing the recrudescence or the reemergence of these movements. But in-and-of-itself, without weakening the terrorist groups’ power, the messaging is going to be ineffective, as we’ve seen today, as demonstrated by the current worldwide proliferation of foreign fighters.*

Counterterrorism
Barack Obama
al Qaeda
ISIS

The Author is Bruce Hoffman
Professor Bruce Hoffman is a tenured professor at Georgetown University and the Director of the Center for Security Studies. *He has served as a commissioner on the Independent Commission to Review the FBI’s Post-9/11 Response to Terrorism and Radicalization, a Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at the CIA, and an adviser on counterterrorism to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2004.

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Levi Maxey

 

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http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38248316

Boris Johnson's Saudi 'proxy wars' comment 'not UK's view'

32 minutes ago
From the section
UK Politics

Downing Street has said Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's comments on Saudi Arabia do not represent "the government's position".

Footage has emerged from an event last week at which Mr Johnson said UK ally Saudi Arabia was engaging in "proxy wars" in the Middle East.

The PM's spokeswoman said these were the foreign secretary's personal views.
She said a forthcoming visit to the region would give him a chance to set out the UK's position on Saudi Arabia.

Mr Johnson's comments were made at a conference in Rome last week but only emerged after the The Guardian newspaper published footage of the event.

In it the foreign secretary said: "There are politicians who are twisting and abusing religion and different strains of the same religion in order to further their own political objectives.

"That's one of the biggest political problems in the whole region. And the tragedy for me - and that's why you have these proxy wars being fought the whole time in that area - is that there is not strong enough leadership in the countries themselves."

'Awkward comments'

Mr Johnson told the Med 2 conference: "There are not enough big characters, big people, men or women, who are willing to reach out beyond their Sunni or Shia or whatever group to the other side and bring people together and to develop a national story again.

"That is what's lacking. And that's the tragedy," he said, adding that "visionary leadership" was needed in the region.

He went on: "That's why you've got the Saudis, Iran, everybody, moving in and puppeteering and playing proxy wars."

The BBC's diplomatic correspondent James Landale said the emergence of the comments would be "awkward if not embarrassing for the foreign secretary".

"Once again Mr Johnson's use of language is causing headlines that his diplomats will need to explain," our correspondent said.

Downing Street's comment came as Prime Minister Theresa May returned from a visit to the Gulf where she had dinner with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

Her spokeswoman said that Mrs May wanted to strengthen the relationship with Saudi Arabia, saying, "we are supporting the Saudi-led coalition in support of the legitimate government in Yemen against Houthi rebels".

She said: "Those are the prime minister's views - the foreign secretary's views are not the government's position on, for example, Saudi Arabia and its role in the region."

Robert Lacey, a historian and author of the Kingdom and the House of Saud, said that while he agreed with Mr Johnson's comments, he questioned whether he should be saying them about an ally.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he believed it was a gaffe and that Mr Johnson was acting more like a journalist.

More on this story
Boris Johnson accuses Saudi Arabia of 'playing proxy wars'
1 hour ago
Theresa May 'clear-eyed' over Iran threat
7 December 2016
May seeks 'new chapter' in Gulf relations ahead of Bahrain visit
5 December 2016
UK must stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia, say MPs
15 September 2016

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World News | Thu Dec 8, 2016 | 7:52am EST

British PM May slaps down foreign minister over Saudi comments

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was not setting out government policy when he said Saudi Arabia and Iran were stoking proxy wars across the Middle East, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Theresa May said on Thursday.

Johnson, known for his colorful use of language and tendency to go off-script, told an audience in Rome last week that the absence of real leadership in the Middle East had allowed people to twist religion and stoke proxy wars.

It is the latest in a series of gaffes to plague the foreign minister, who even May has jokingly said is hard to keep "on message for a full four days". He has been criticized by some EU officials for using less-than-diplomatic language in talks on Britain's decision to leave the bloc.

May's quick response underlines the importance of Britain's alliance with Saudi Arabia, which is a major customer for British defence companies.

"You've got the Saudis, Iran, everybody, moving in, and puppeteering and playing proxy wars. And it is a tragedy to watch it," Johnson was shown saying in footage posted on the Guardian newspaper's website.

"There are politicians who are twisting and abusing religion and different strains of the same religion in order to further their own political objectives. That's one of the biggest political problems in the whole region," Johnson said.

It is unclear from the footage whether he specifically accused Saudi and Iran of twisting religion, though the Guardian reported that Johnson had accused Saudi Arabia of abusing Islam.

The spokeswoman for May said: "Those are the foreign secretary's views, they are not the government's position on for example Saudi and its role in the region."

May, who visited the Middle East this week, met Saudi King Salman and "set out very clearly the government's view on our relationship with Saudi Arabia, that it is a vital partner for the UK particularly on counter-terrorism", she said.

"We want to strengthen that relationship."

May appointed Johnson, who was key in the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, in July, after he failed in a bid to become prime minister, cementing her appeal to other Brexit supporters in the ruling Conservative Party.

Her spokeswoman said May still supported her foreign secretary, adding that Johnson would have the "opportunity to set out the way that the UK sees its relationship with Saudi Arabia" during a visit to the region.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Also In World News
Exclusive: Risking Beijing's ire, Vietnam begins dredging on South China Sea reef
Iraqi troops retreat after Mosul hospital battle

 

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http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/manila-us-patrols-south-china-seas-44053048

Philippines Says It Won't Help US Patrols in South China Sea

By Jim Gomez, Associated Press
MANILA, Philippines — Dec 8, 2016, 3:39 AM ET

The Philippine defense secretary said Thursday it's highly unlikely his country will allow the U.S. military to use it as a springboard for freedom of navigation patrols in the disputed South China Sea to avoid antagonizing China.

Delfin Lorenzana said U.S. ships and aircraft could use bases in Guam, Okinawa or fly from aircraft carriers to patrol the disputed waters.

Under President Rodrigo Duterte's predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, some U.S. aircraft and ships stopped in the Philippines on the way to patrolling the disputed waters to challenge China's territorial claims.

Duterte, who took office in June, has taken steps to mend ties with China and became hostile toward the Obama administration, after it raised concerns over Duterte's deadly crackdown on illegal drugs.

Asked if the Philippines will continue to host U.S. ships and aircraft patrolling the disputed waters, Lorenzana said that Duterte will not likely allow that to happen "to avoid any provocative actions that can escalate tensions in the South China Sea. It's unlikely."

"We'll avoid that for the meantime," Lorenzana said. "Anyway, the U.S. can fly over there coming from other bases."

U.S. officials did not comment immediately. The commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. Harry Harris, said last month that despite Duterte's rhetoric, military cooperation with Manila has not changed.

Duterte has publicly threatened to scale back the Philippines' military engagements with the U.S., including scuttling a plan to carry out joint patrols with the U.S. Navy in the disputed waters, which he said China opposes.

U.S.-Philippine annual combat exercises have been reduced and will be redesigned to focus on disaster-response and humanitarian missions. Among the maneuvers to be dropped starting next year are amphibious landing exercises and beach raids, aimed at enhancing the country's territorial defense.

Duterte's actions have become a hindrance to U.S. efforts to reassert its presence in Asia, although the U.S. military has vowed to continue patrolling one of the world's busiest commercial waterways.

After Duterte met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in October, China allowed Filipinos to fish at the disputed Scarborough Shoal. China took control of the rich fishing area in 2012 after a tense standoff with Philippine government ships.

Philippine coast guard ships have also resumed patrols at the shoal.

Aside from the easing of tensions at Scarborough, Chinese coast guard ships are no longer blocking Philippine resupply ships from Second Thomas Shoal, farther south in the Spratlys, Lorenzana said.

 

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South China Sea | Thu Dec 8, 2016 | 5:13am EST

Exclusive: Risking Beijing's ire, Vietnam begins dredging on South China Sea reef

By Lincoln Feast and Greg Torode | SYDNEY/HONG KONG

Vietnam has begun dredging work on a disputed reef in the South China Sea, satellite imagery shows, the latest move by the Communist state to bolster its claims in the strategic waterway.

Activity visible on Ladd Reef in the Spratly Islands could anger Hanoi's main South China Sea rival, Beijing, which claims sovereignty over the group and most of the resource-rich sea.

Ladd Reef, on the south-western fringe of the Spratlys, is completely submerged at high tide but has a lighthouse and an outpost housing a small contingent of Vietnamese soldiers. The reef is also claimed by Taiwan.

In an image taken on Nov. 30 and provided by U.S.-based satellite firm Planet Labs, several vessels can be seen in a newly dug channel between the lagoon and open sea.

While the purpose of the activity cannot be determined for certain, analysts say similar dredging work has been the precursor to more extensive construction on other reefs.

"We can see that, in this environment, Vietnam's strategic mistrust is total ... and they are rapidly improving their defences," said Trevor Hollingsbee, a retired naval intelligence analyst with Britain's defence ministry.

"They're doing everything they can to fix any vulnerabilities - and that outpost at Ladd Reef does look a vulnerability."

Reuters reported in August that Vietnam had fortified several islands with mobile rocket artillery launchers capable of striking China's holdings across the vital trade route.

Vietnam's foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

The vessels at Ladd Reef cannot be identified in the images, but Vietnam would be extremely unlikely to allow another country to challenge its control of the reef.

Greg Poling, a South China Sea expert at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said it remained unclear how far the work on Ladd Reef would go. Rather than a reclamation and a base, it could be an attempt to simply boost access for supply ships and fishing boats.

Ladd could also theoretically play a role in helping to defend Vietnam's nearby holding of Spratly Island, where a runway is being improved and new hangars built, he said.

"Vietnam's knows it can't compete with China but it does want to improve its ability to keep an eye on them," Poling said.

Vietnam has long been fearful of renewed Chinese military action to drive it off its 21 holdings in the Spratlys - worries that have escalated amid Beijing's build-up and its anger at the recent Philippines legal action challenging its claims.

China occupied its first Spratlys possessions after a sea battle against Vietnam's then weak navy in 1988. Vietnam said 64 soldiers were killed as they tried to protect a flag on South Johnson reef - an incident still acutely felt in Hanoi.

BUILDING BURST

The United States has repeatedly called on claimants to avoid actions that increase tensions in the South China Sea, through which some $5 trillion in world trade is shipped every year.

Vietnam has emerged as China's main rival in the South China Sea, actively asserting sovereignty over both the Paracel and the Spratly groupings in their entirety and undergoing its own naval modernisation. Taiwan also claims both, but its position is historically aligned with Beijing's.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, run by the CSIS, says Vietnam has added about 120 acres (49 hectares) of land to its South China Sea holdings in recent years.

Regional military attaches say Vietnam's key holdings are well fortified, some with tunnels and bunkers, appearing geared to deterring easy invasion.

Vietnam's reclamation work remains modest by Chinese standards, however.

The United States, which has criticized China for militarizing the waterway, estimates Beijing has added more than 3,200 acres (1,300 hectares) of land on seven features in the South China Sea over the past three years, building runways, ports, aircraft hangars and communications equipment.

Beijing says it is entitled to "limited and necessary self-defensive facilities" on its territory and has reacted angrily to "freedom of navigation" operations by U.S. warships near Chinese-held islands.

CHINESE RECLAMATION WORK DAMAGED

In another image provided by Planet Labs, reclamation work in the Chinese-held Paracel Island chain appears to have been damaged by recent storms.

China began dredging and land filling earlier this year at North Island, about 12 km (7 miles) north of Woody Island, where it has a large military base and this year stationed surface-to-air missiles.

Satellite images in February and March showed dredging vessels working to build a 700 meter (2,300 ft) sand bridge connecting low-lying North Island with neighboring Middle Island.

But images taken after two powerful storms spun through the region in October show the narrow sand strip has been largely swept away.

The Paracels have been under Chinese control for more than 40 years after a battle towards the end of the Vietnam War, when Chinese forces removed the then-South Vietnamese navy. Analysts say they play a key part in protecting China's nuclear armed submarine fleet on Hainan Island, to the north.

China has not commented publicly on the work at North Island and the foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

(Additional reporting by Martin Petty and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Alex Richardson)

 

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World News | Thu Dec 8, 2016 | 8:00am EST

Iraqi troops retreat after Mosul hospital battle

By Ahmed Rasheed and Saif Hameed | BAGHDAD

Iraqi troops who seized a hospital deep inside Mosul believed to be used as an Islamic State military base have retreated after a fierce counter-attack, giving up some of their biggest gains in a hard-fought seven-week campaign to recapture the city.

The soldiers seized Salam hospital, less than a mile (1.5 km) from the Tigris river running through central Mosul, on Tuesday but pulled back the next day after they were hit by six suicide car bombs and "heavy enemy fire", according to a statement by the U.S.-led coalition supporting Iraqi forces.

Coalition warplanes, at Iraq's request, also struck a building inside the hospital complex from which the militants were firing machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, it said.

Tuesday's rapid advance into the Wahda neighborhood where the hospital is located marked a change of tactics after a month of grueling fighting in east Mosul, in which the army has sought to capture and clear neighborhoods block by block.

The soldiers are part of a U.S.-backed 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi forces including the army, federal police, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and mainly Shi'ite Popular Mobilization forces battling to crush Islamic State in Mosul.

Defeating the militants in their Iraq stronghold would mark a major step in rolling back the caliphate declared by the jihadists in parts of Syria and Iraq when they took over Mosul in mid-2014.

But with two years to dig themselves into northern Iraq's largest city, retreating fighters have waged a lethal defence, deploying hundreds of suicide car bombers, mortar barrages and snipers against the advancing soldiers and exploiting a network of tunnels to ambush them in residential areas.

"GATES OF HELL"

Soldiers from the army's Ninth Armored division were left exposed on Tuesday after punching into the Wahda neighborhood.

"When we advanced first into Wahda, Daesh (Islamic State) showed little resistance and we thought they had fled," an officer briefed on the operation told Reuters by telephone. "But once we took over the hospital, the gates of hell opened wide".

"They started to appear and attack from every corner, every street and every house near the hospital," said the officer who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He said insurgents may also have used a tunnel network reaching into the hospital complex itself.

Iraqi military spokesmen have said little about the fighting around the hospital, stressing instead gains they said were being made in other parts of east Mosul, including the Ilam neighborhood a few districts northeast.

Brigadier-General Yahya Rasoul, a spokesman for Iraq's joint operations command, said on Wednesday "operations are continuing" around Wahda. He could not immediately be contacted on Thursday.

The statement by the coalition said Iraqi troops "fought off several counter-attacks and six VBIEDs (car bombs) ... before retrograding a short distance, under heavy enemy fire".

The Iraqi officer said that when the troops were inside the hospital complex, fighting off the militants, they came under attack from suicide bombers who he said either infiltrated through tunnels or had been hiding in the hospital grounds.

"We don't know, they were like ghosts," he said.

Iraq does not give casualty figures or report on its equipment losses, but the officer said 20 soldiers were killed and around 20 armored vehicles were destroyed or damaged.

Those figures could not be confirmed. Islamic State's Amaq news agency said more than 20 vehicles were destroyed and dozens of soldiers killed, and that they had been forced to retreat.

Alongside those figures it showed a picture of a smouldering tank, its turret blown off, next to a crater in the road.

Around 280 km (175 miles) southwest of Mosul dozens of people, mainly civilians, were killed on Wednesday in air strikes which hit a western Iraqi town close to the border with Syria, local parliamentarians and hospital sources said.

They said the strikes hit a busy market area in the Islamic State-held town of Qaim, in the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim province of Anbar. Among the victims were 12 women and 19 children.

An Iraqi military statement said Iraqi air force planes conducted air strikes "on a terrorist hideout" in the area shortly after noon on Wednesday, as well as a second attack an unspecified location.

It said at least 50 terrorists were killed. It gave no details of civilian casualties, but said that the region - and all information coming out of it - was controlled by Islamic State.

Iraq's speaker of parliament, the country's most senior Sunni Muslim politician, called on Thursday for a government inquiry into the air strikes.

(Writing by Dominic Evans, editing by Peter Millership)

 

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Europe

Syria President Says Victory in Aleppo Won't End the War

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DEC. 8, 2016, 7:00 A.M. E.S.T.

BEIRUT — President Bashar Assad said in comments published Thursday that Syrian forces' victory in the battle for Aleppo will be a "big gain" for his government but that it will not end of the country's civil war.

Assad's comments came as his troops were pushing further into the rebel-held enclave in eastern Aleppo, in swift advances that were hardly possible earlier in the bitter conflict, now in its sixth year.

Deeply divided since 2012 between Syrian government and rebel-controlled areas, more than three quarters of the rebel section have now fallen under the government's control, including the symbolically important ancient Aleppo quarters. More than 30,000 of the estimated 275,000 residents of besieged eastern part have fled to western Aleppo.

On Thursday, opposition activists said intensive bombings took place in al-Sukkari and Kallaseh neighborhoods in the area still held by rebels.

State TV said the troops were about to storm the two districts. Al-Sukkari is in the southern part of eastern Aleppo, an area that has become home to the majority of the displaced civilians who stayed behind. Kallaseh is near the Old City.

The International Committee for the Red Cross said meanwhile that it evacuated 148 disabled civilians and others in need of urgent care from a facility in Aleppo's Old City after fighting had calmed down there.

ICRC said in a statement on Thursday that the evacuation was undertaken jointly with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and was completed late on Wednesday. The people had been trapped in a facility that was originally a home for the elderly and included mental health patients, elderly orphans, and patients with physical disabilities. Some were injured civilians who had sought refuge there.

"They were forgotten," said Pawel Krzysiek, ICRC communication coordinator in Damascus. The evacuees were taken to hospital and shelters in the western, government-held part of Aleppo.

Others were not as lucky, with eastern Aleppo residents describing bodies lying on the ground because no one could get to them amid intense fighting.

In an emotional plea sent to the media, the head of the eastern Aleppo medical authority called for an immediate cease-fire, saying this was a "last distress call" for help.

"Aleppo is finished. There is nothing left except a few residents and bricks," Mohammed Abu Jaafar said in a recorded audio message shared with reporters. "This may be my last call."

Activists are struggling to document casualties because of street clashes and intense bombings.

The Syrian Civil Defense in Aleppo said it was able to record 38 killed in Wednesday's violence. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11 were killed in Old Aleppo, seized by the government Wednesday.

The rebel defenses have buckled amid the government and allies wide-ranging offensive, that opened a number of fronts at once and was preceded by an intensive aerial campaign. A proposal for a cease-fire put forward by the rebels Wednesday, calling for a five-day humanitarian pause, has been ignored.

Assad, in an interview published on Thursday in the state-owned newspaper al-Watan, said he will no longer consider truce offers, adding that such offers, particularly from Americans, often come when the rebels are in a "difficult spot."

"That is why we hear wailing and screaming and pleas for truces as the only political discourse now," Assad said. He described his forces' fight in Aleppo as one "against terrorism and a conspiracy" to destroy and divide Syria, allegedly led by Turkey.

"Liberating Aleppo from the terrorists deals a blow to the whole foundation of this project," he said. But he added, "to be realistic, it doesn't mean the end of the war."

With Aleppo, Syria's largest city and former commercial heart, the capital of Damascus and Homs, the third largest city under his control, Assad says "terrorists" no longer hold any cards.

"Even if we finish in Aleppo, we will carry on with the war against them," Assad added.

Also Thursday, Russian news agencies quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying Moscow was close to reaching a deal with the United States on a cease-fire for Aleppo. He didn't elaborate, but warned against "high expectations."

The Syrian government and its ally Russia have rejected previous calls for truce for the war-torn city, keeping up the military offensive that has squeezed and forced rebels to retreat in several areas.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met on Wednesday in Germany but didn't release any statements.

Ryabkov said a final deal has not been worked out yet.
___
Associated Press writer Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.

 

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Report: China military buildup seen at India border

By Elizabeth Shim **|** Dec. 6, 2016 at 2:46 PM

HONG KONG, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- China's military build-up is extending to its border with India, according to a Chinese-language media report.

Kanwa Asian Defense, a news site specializing in military developments, reported Tuesday Beijing's military has placed more missiles and fighter jets along the India border.

The weapons have been deployed in Tibet and in the western region of Xinjiang along with airborne early warning and control systems, according to the report.

Kanwa quoted sources in the Indian navy and air force who said Chinese troops have placed the Jian-11, the Jian-10 and the Kongjing-500 in rotational deployment.

The Shenyang J-11 is a twin-engine jet fighter that was first produced in China in 1998. It was built to compete with fourth-generation fighters such as the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle and the Eurofighter Typhoon.

The Chengdu J-10 is a lightweight fighter jet and the KJ-500 can carry an airborne early warning system.

In the city of Korla in Xinjiang, China may have deployed a troop responsible for the launch of midrange ballistic missiles, and in Hotan, an oasis town in southwestern Xinjiang, the country has been deploying the J-10 and the strategic bomber H-6K.

The large-scale military build-up is aimed at expanding a position of readiness in the case of a confrontation with the Indian military, the sources said.

Andrei Chang, the founder of Kanwa, said the military reinforcements are being deployed with a counteroffensive in mind.

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China Massively Boosting Military Build-up at Xinjiang Near Border with India

By Arthur Dominic Villasanta | Dec 07, 2016 02:17 AM EST

China is vigorously strengthening its air and missile forces in the troubled province of Xinjiang close to the border with India to enable the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to stage a massive counterattack in the event of a war against India.

The warplanes and missiles are being deployed in western Xinjiang and in Tibet along the border with India.

The unexpected ramping-up of Chinese military power is seeing a steady deployment of front line fighter and attack jets of the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and ballistic missiles operated by the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF).

Chinese media reveal the PLAAF is stationing an increasing number of Shenyang J-11 air superiority fighters; Chengdu J-10 multirole fighters; Xian HK-6 strategic bombers and Shaanxi KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft at different airbases in Xinjiang.

The HK-6 bombers and the J-10 fighters have been deployed to airbases in Hotan, an oasis town in southwestern Xinjiang. This province borders the Indian territory of Aksai Chin seized by China from India during the Sino-Indian War of 1962.

PLARF has deployed more of its mobile missile units at the city of Korla in Xinjiang. The type of missiles operated by these units weren't identified, however.

What is known is that Chinese ballistic missiles such as the DF-31 long-range, road-mobile ICBM and DF-31A (a longer range variant) aimed at India have been deployed to Delingha, north of Tibet.

On the other hand, India has also been strengthening its military forces, especially Indian Air Force (IAF) units, along the border.

In September, India said it had upgraded four IAF airfields 100 km or less from its border with China at Arunachal Pradesh state -- which China claims to own and will try to seize in the event of a war. India said it will finish the construction of two more airfields within the year as it tries to match an equally massive Chinese build-up of its air and missile power.

Despite the Indian military build-up, the military balance along the border is heavily against India.

China has deployed 300,000 men of the People's Liberation Army Ground Force along its border with India.

The Chinese have also built airfields at Hoping, Pangta and Kong Ka to support six existing airfields in the Tibetan Autonomous Region that can handle fighter jets and heavy transport aircraft.

Arrayed against these forces are 120,000 Indian Army soldiers that will soon receive 90,000 reinforcements. Supporting these men are two IAF Su-30MKI squadrons from Tezpur in Assam.

Also counted in India's favor is the forthcoming deployment of a BrahMos supersonic cruise missile regiment to the state.