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

[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ble-of-attaching-nuclear-warheads-to-missiles

November Sierra........Talk about slow walking something.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://news.sky.com/story/north-korea-capable-of-attaching-nuclear-warheads-to-missiles-10688506

North Korea 'capable of attaching nuclear warheads to missiles'

Pyongyang has conducted a series of missile launches in the wake of its fourth nuclear test in January.

22:24, UK,
Thursday 08 December 2016

North Korea is now capable of attaching nuclear warheads to missiles but has not mastered hitting a target, a senior US defence official has said.

Pyongyang has conducted a series of missile launches in the wake of its fourth nuclear test in January, despite international condemnation.

Experts have concluded North Korea is able to make nuclear warheads small enough to arm Scud missiles, but it is unclear if they can put weapons on larger rockets which travel further and can deploy warheads from space.

The defence official said: "Truthfully, they have the capability right now to be able to deliver a nuclear weapon, they are just not sure about re-entry, that's why they continue to test their systems out there."

He added that he believed North Korea can already "mate" a missile with a warhead.

The US is deploying an advanced missile defence system in South Korea in the wake of increased testing by North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un.

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system will be operational within 10 months, according to the Pentagon, and has sparked strong objections from China and Russia.

Pyongyang's continued nuclear testing has generated concern in the US military, and the Pentagon has devised contingency plans to try and halt its atomic capabilities.

The official added: "It is the threat that keeps me awake at night.

"You've heard other senior leaders say the same thing, primarily because we don't know what the 'Dear Leader' in North Korea really is after."

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/ar...d-a-gentle-us-descent-leveraging-the-nagorno-

Great Powers in Decline: A Russian Free-fall and A Gentle U.S. Descent: Leveraging the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict to Ease the Pain

by Daniel H. McCauley and Sadi S. Sadyev
Journal Article | December 8, 2016 - 5:19am

As the world’s only superpower, the U.S. has spent the last 25 years underwriting global security and is now feeling the strain of countering Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and other non-state actors’ actions while attempting to meet increasing domestic demands. During that same period, the Russian Federation has emerged not only as a regional challenger to U.S. hegemony in Europe, but also one that seeks to re-establish itself as a viable alternative to the U.S. in the global environment. Buoyed by vast petroleum deposits, energy sources, and easy access to needy markets, the Russian Federation has embarked on a path to challenge U.S. supremacy wherever it can. Although still easily the world’s dominant military power, the U.S. finds it increasingly difficult to translate this military advantage into the preferred political outcomes of the world’s sole superpower.

While frustrating to some, the United States’ increasing inability to dictate preferred outcomes should come as no surprise. As a natural outcome of primarily demographic and economic trends, the U.S. is no longer the global hegemon in a unipolar world; rather, it is one of several Great Powers operating in a multipolar environment. Likewise, there are those that see Russia as a rising Great Power that is once again challenging the U.S. for global supremacy. These same factors, however, that have undermined the United States’ global hegemon status will quickly reverse the recent Russian rise to Great Power status.

Through prudent strategic leadership, vision, and a change in security policy, the U.S. can still attain its long-term strategic objectives in this new multipolar world despite the demographic and economic trends. Unfortunately for Russia, its return to Great Power status will be short-lived as President Putin attempts to counter these inevitable debilitating trends with a strategic approach that may help in the short-term, but reinforces its demise in the long run.*********

In The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Paul Kennedy’s main thesis is that each of the Great Powers of the past ultimately fell because of imperial over-reach. The tendency for Great Powers is to overextend themselves economically as they face the convergence of three debilitating trends: ever-increasing security threats, increasing domestic demands, and a decreasing share of the global economy. In this downwardly spiraling scenario, defense requirements burden an already insufficient federal budget because of an increase in demands for domestic spending at a time of slower economic growth associated with mature economies.[1] For example, in the late 1980s, the Soviet Union spent between 15 and 17 per cent of its annual gross domestic product (GDP) on an armaments race with the United States and its NATO allies while its overall GDP growth rate remained flat. This unsustainable defense expenditure was a key contributing factor in the demise of the Soviet Union.[2]

Few would argue that Russia has not declined as a Great Power since the height of the Soviet Union. The U.S. Great Power decline was a theme in this year’s presidential elections. President-elect Trump’s campaign refrain to “Make America Great Again” touches on the three trends Kennedy noted above. Measuring Great Power decline, however, is typically problematic as most arguments for or against the idea are emotionally-based. Fortunately, a facts-based assessment is available—the Hillebrand-Herman Index (HHI) is a historical measure of relative national power and can be used to compare national power over time, historically since 1960 and forecasted as far into the future as 2100. The HHI is a function of population, GDP, technology, and the conventional and nuclear military expenditures of a nation and provides the best assessment of national power currently available.

Using the HHI,[3] Table 1 shows 12 nations that have been viewed either as historically great or regional powers or those that are forecast to be regional powers. In the specific cases of Russia and the U.S., a downward trend is evident for both nations. It is easy to see the dramatic downturn in Russia’s power index after 1988 with the fall of the Soviet Union and is likely no great surprise to anyone. What might be surprising, however, given President Putin’s recent actions regionally and internationally, is that Russia’s power index will continue to decline due, in large part, to its rapid population decline and associated decline in economic growth. By 2050, Russia’s power index will be less than that of Nigeria’s and by 2100, it will rank 10th out of the 12 countries listed. Unless one or more of these power index variables changes significantly, not only will Russia not regain its status as a Great Power, it will likely not even be a regional power in the next 50 years or so.*

Using the same index, the United States also sees a decline in power relative to other global and regional actors although its decrease is less precipitous than that of Russia’s. By 2050, the U.S. will see a global power drop of approximately 50%, and by 2100 will rank 3rd in the world behind India and China. The sense that the U.S. has lost its preeminent position in the world is confirmed and a continued slow decline relative to other actors is inevitable according to this index.

If the declines in power indices for the U.S. and Russia are true, then the question for each becomes is there a way to stop or reverse the trend or are the forecasts inevitable? Although current American and Russian actions are renewing historical friction points between the old antagonists, harkening back to a bipolar world, each is attempting to reverse their Great Power decline in a way that best serves its citizenry in the short-term. Inevitable Great Power decline, however, is not necessarily a zero-sum game between the two nations as many observers assume. Rather, understanding each nations’ security imperatives and the potential flashpoints where those imperatives mutually merge provide insights into potentially decreasing current tensions between the two nations thereby slowing their decline.

http://smallwarsjournal.com/sites/default/files/greatpowersdecline.jpg

The purpose of any government is to provide for the safety and security of its citizenry. Nations have historically sought advantages over other actors within the environment to do just that, leveraging their diplomatic, economic, military, and information instruments of power.[4] In the case of the United States and the Russian Federation, each has a national security strategy that provides a broad approach for enhancing national safety and security. Given the current friction points between the two nations, it should come as no surprise that the two strategies are remarkably similar. The tension between the two nations is a result of those similarities and a direct outcome of the different audiences they serve.
*******
The U.S. has had essentially four enduring interests since national security strategies have been written: security (securing the homeland, U.S. citizens, allies and partners), prosperity (a strong, innovative growing economy in an open economic system), universal values (based upon American values), and stability (a rules-based international order advanced by U.S. leadership that promotes peace, security, and opportunity).[5] In addition to these four interests, there have been three unique traditions of American foreign policy that have shaped U.S. actions. The first is that because of distance, the U.S. has always had the ability to remain isolated from world politics; as a result, American economic strength could be maintained and enduring prosperity and growth facilitated while maintaining internal political stability. The second tradition is that while the U.S. seeks democratic change within the world, it does not want to do so at the risk of global disorder. Finally, the U.S. has always relied upon alliances to mitigate the global challenges of the day. Over the past three decades, the U.S. has strayed from these traditions by underwriting global security that has contributed to a sense of Great Power decline by policies that are shifting and increasingly ineffective.[6]

Some experts in the West believe that no one except Vladimir Putin really understands what Russia wants from its recent excursions into Ukraine and Crimea.[7] Still others call him an ‘opportunist’ and suggest that even Putin doesn’t know his ultimate end state.[8] Unfortunately, assuming Putin lacks an understanding of the criticality of the power index variables on the current and future state of Russia is disingenuous at best. Through the analysis of the Russian National Security Strategy insights into Putin’s actions and potential future actions can be gleaned.

The current Russian strategy seeks to consolidate the efforts of the federal, state, and local organs of power as well as its social civil institutions to create internal and external conditions that enable the Russian Federation to realize its national security interests. The strategy’s paradigmatic assumption is that there is an unbreakable interconnection and interdependence between Russia’s national security and its socioeconomic development. The state has the responsibility to protect the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Russian Federation’s Constitution, which includes “a decent quality of life and standard of living, sovereignty, independence, state and territorial integrity, and sustainable socioeconomic development.”[9] The specific national securities are state, public, informational, environmental, economic, transportation, energy, and individual, and must be safeguarded by the state.[10]

The instruments of Russian national power leveraged to ensure its national security are the organs of state and local power, along with its political, military, organizational, socioeconomic, informational, and legal institutions. Within this security strategy, Russia has vowed to defend the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of the state, and “to protect the rights of compatriots abroad.”[11] To accomplish this, Russian long-term strategic interests are served by a strong national defense; enhanced national accord; higher living standards, improved health, and stable population demographics; the preservation of Russian culture; increased economic competitiveness; and the consolidation of the Russian Federation’s status as a leading world power with the intent to maintain global stability.[12] To achieve these strategic interests, Putin has determined that a buffer zone keeping NATO and the U.S. away from its immediate borders best serves its national interests. To support this effort, for example, Russia recently signed a treaty forming a joint military commandant with Armenia, which puts NATO aspirant Georgia in a potentially untenable position.[13]

Considering Russian strategic interests in light of the enduring U.S. strategic interests, the similarities are fairly obvious. Each nation’s security depends upon a robust and growing economy and the preservation of its culture and values. Strong militaries are needed to protect and promote these interests and each seeks to be a global leader to maintain stability and, by extension, prosperity and security. The friction points, unfortunately, are multiple as each nation sees its interests attained only at the expense of the other. Therefore, each nation appears to be purposefully antagonizing the other through their actions and reactions. In reality, the U.S. and Russia are merely attempting to fulfill its strategic interests. Each nations’ current approach seeks to maintain a concept of a global steady state, but with different benefactors.

The U.S. is the quintessential Great Power as described in Kennedy’s book. The U.S. has been a part of the global economic system since its independence—it has been a Great Power since the latter half of the 19th century, a superpower since the 1940s, and the global hegemon since the early 1990s. For the past 60 years, the U.S. has had the power and influence to not only dominate the global environment, but to make the rules, too. The U.S. domestic environment, however, has undergone significant changes over the past 30 years marked by the slowing of population and economic growth. The relative power advantage the U.S. has maintained over the rest of the world has been primarily through its development and use of technology.

In a bid to capitalize on its unique hegemonic position in the world in the 1990s, U.S. leadership sought to make the world more prosperous, and thus more stable and secure, by facilitating the global economy. The key assumption was that as the global economy grew, the U.S. economy would reap equal, if not greater, benefits thereby allowing the U.S. to maintain its relative economic, political, and military advantages.[14] Unfortunately, over the past few decades, as prosperity around the world has increased, the U.S. economy has not benefited as assumed. As other global actors’ economies and populations have increased, the U.S. has found itself in an increasingly inferior position within a system it has promoted. Ironically, as the U.S. position has declined, it finds itself in an environment in which increasingly influential regional actors want to change the traditional U.S. rule set for one that benefits them even greater. As a result, to maintain its current relative position, the U.S. had no choice but to defend and maintain the traditional power system—the primary factor Kennedy identifies in traditional Great Power decline.

Recent Russian expansionist actions have been the result of a number of internal trends that are driving Putin’s actions, particularly the economy and demography, which form the cornerstone of the Russian state. In early 2001, oil and gas accounted for about 30 per cent of the Russian federal budget. By 2015, that figure reached 44 per cent. With the recent plunge in oil prices and the conflicts in Crimea and Ukraine, along with the resultant sanctions by the West, the value of Russian currency has been cut in half. With the global demand for oil is predicted to remain low, Russia’s ability to secure and expand its position and influence in the world, buttressed by a strong, modern defense, is threatened.[15]

Coupled with its economic decline, Russia is overlooking a population precipice. In the late 1990s, fertility rates plummeted to 1.2 births per women and has currently improved only slightly to 1.7 births per women.[16] Far below natural replacement birthrates, the Russian population is expected to be approximately 125 million by 2050, which is similar to the level in 1960, and will decrease to around 100 million in the year 2100. Russia’s power index is currently 3.53 and is expected to drop to 1.65 by 2015 and to 1.21 by 2100.[17] In addition, Russia's labor force is projected to shrink by approximately 15 percent[18] further exacerbating its economic problems.

For Putin, the path to solving both the demographic and economic decline is to expand its population or to recapture some of the ethnic Russian populations lost in the breakup of the Soviet Union. This approach also fits nicely within Russia’s stated strategic objective of protecting the rights of compatriots abroad. Recent incursions into Georgia, Crimea, and Ukraine serve this strategic objective well. Also, by challenging the U.S. leadership role internationally, Russia creates international instability, thereby creating opportunities to maintain and strengthen its leadership and economic potential.[19]

Unfortunately, Putin’s approach to mitigating the trends undermining the health of the Russian Federation directly counters U.S. strategic objectives. Furthermore, in a bid to offset her demographic and economic challenges, Putin has taken a page out of the U.S.’s playbook by investing in technology. Russian has made significant investments in their military capabilities, modernizing existing systems, including long-range conventional strike and nuclear capabilities as well as developing robust cyber electronic warfare and undersea capabilities.[20] These modernized military capabilities are viewed by the U.S. as a way to undermine their ability to project power.[21] In fact, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, recently stated that Russia now constitutes a greater threat to U.S. security than ISIS.[22] As well, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, echoed that sentiment by calling Russia the U.S.’s top threat.[23]

Responding to Putin’s drive to consolidate the Russian peoples and his military modernization efforts, NATO member states on its northeastern and eastern peripheries sense an imminent threat to their own independence.[24] As a result, the West has countered by supporting former Soviet states congruent to Russia’s border by forward deploying U.S. and other NATO troops, and increasing regional exercises that enhance readiness. With an increase in the U.S.’s presence on its borders, Putin senses that the U.S. is attempting to create flashpoints of tension in Europe posing a direct challenge to Russian national interests and Putin’s power structure.[25] One can see that this current punch-counterpunch approach from both antagonists results in an escalating scenario that can easily spiral into direct conflict between the U.S. and Russian militaries. In any scenario, if conflict were to occur neither nation would benefit.* In fact, direct conflict only accelerates each nation’s decline.

From the U.S.’s perspective, recognizing these negatively reinforcing actions and the reasons behind Putin’s activities is the first step in understanding the U.S.’s own contribution to its Great Power decline. The U.S. must accept that the world is changing and America is, too. American leaders must work to manage or shape actors and events rather than fight them everywhere around the world. Underwriting global security is an unsustainable approach to maintaining the status quo. As much as the U.S. would like to turn back the clock to a post-WWII strategic environment in which it dominated the world economically, it cannot do so. It can, however, do a better job of managing its role in the world while maintaining a highly influential, if not the preeminent, leadership role in the world. With a growing population, albeit slowly through immigration, a growing economy, and still the world’s leading technology innovator, by leveraging these three key components within the power index the U.S. can choose its place in the new world order rather than crashing into it. Realizing that underwriting global security is a losing proposition will help relieve pressure on the U.S. economic engine, the output of which must be used to address the pressing domestic issues.

From a Russian perspective, there are no good solutions at this point. There are not enough ethnic Russians living outside of the current Russian state to compensate for the steep decline in population, nor can the Russian economy expand enough to offset the population decline. Investment in technology can only provide a short-term partial solution, but will not stem the inevitable tide of decline. So, if pressed, Russia will likely resort to conflict to create instability, using any combination of soft and hard power as required to create as much uncertainty as possible for any rival or rivals to decrease their national power relative to their own.

Given that Russia has an arsenal of nuclear weapons and advanced military technologies, and that President Putin is not the type of leader to accept his nation’s inevitable decline without a fight, the primary question for the U.S. becomes how to manage a ‘soft landing’ for a proud nation and people that spans two continents? In addition, how does the U.S. manage this without further contributing to its own relative decline? Analyzing the Russian National Security Strategy provides some clues. The first is to appropriately manage the Russian desire for national security along its immediate borders. The second is to provide Russia with a modicum of international prestige and national pride through a prominent leadership role in solving regional or even global conflicts.

Continued...

 

[Housecarl]

Continued...

At first blush, there does not appear to be any opportunities for cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. However, one long-simmering issue in a region that is important to both nations is in the Caucasus. The decades-long Azerbaijani and Armenian conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region could prove to be the mutually beneficial opportunity that addresses concerns of both the U.S. and Russia.

In the 1920s, the U.S.S.R. included the Nagorno-Karabakh region within Azerbaijan and repeatedly affirmed that decision over the years despite multiple petitions by Armenia. During the last four years of the Soviet Union, Armenia renewed efforts to influence the weakening Soviet political leadership to restate their claim. A distracted Soviet leadership failed to provide clear guidance on the issue thereby increasing the tensions between the two Soviet Republics. In the late 1980s, the pro-Armenian majority in southwestern Azerbaijan held a referendum, boycotted by the Azerbaijani population, voting in favor of independence. In early 1988, the ethnic Armenian majority demanded to unite with Armenia and, as the Soviet Union’s disintegration approached, increasingly violent conflict occurred between ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijanis.[26] On February 20, 1988, the region voted to unify with Armenia. Four days later, ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijanis engaged in open conflict as ethnic Azeris fought the region’s secession from Azerbaijan. In the end of the standoff there was a death toll of 26 Armenians and 6 Azerbaijanis.[27]

On July 12, 1988, the Regional Soviet of Karabakh adopted a bill on the secession of Karabakh from Azerbaijan SSR and its incorporation into the Armenia SSR. The bill was in violation of Article 78 of the Constitution of USSR in which it states that the territory of any Union Republics could not be altered without each republics’ consent. The borders between Union Republics could only be altered by mutual agreement of the Republics concerned, and was also subject to approval by the USSR.[28] The bill was an open violation on the territorial integrity of the Soviet Azerbaijan and Moscow shut its eyes to the facts. During the next two years, the ethnic conflict worsened and Azerbaijanis living in Armenia were forced to flee the country. As a consequence, at least 216 Azerbaijanis were killed and 1,154 people were wounded. The number of refugees from Armenia reached 200,000 with another 600,000 Azeris displaced from the Karabakh region. With upwards of 230,000 Armenians displaced from Azerbaijan, there are well over one million displaced persons in the region.[29]

As a result of this conflict, Armenia occupies over 20 percent of the Azerbaijani territory protected by Armenia’s well-formed army and backed by a Russian combat brigade. Despite the ceasefire that was achieved in 1993, the Armenians and Azerbaijanis again engaged in open conflict as recently as April 2016, each accusing the other of provocation and attacks. Unlike other clashes took place throughout the ceasefire, this time heavy weapons were used. Severe casualties are reported from either side.[30]

In addition to the former Soviet Union’s Constitutional Article regarding disputed territories, Azerbaijan’s assertion that it has been the aggrieved party has been supported by multiple international organizations over the past two decades.* The U.N. Security Council passed four resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) in 1993 for purpose of developing a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Each of these resolutions demanded the unconditional withdrawal of the Armenian forces from the whole occupied territory of Azerbaijan. Armenia has ignored these demands.[31]

At the Lisbon Summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (O.S.C.E.) in early December of 1994, the co-chairmen of O.S.C.E. advised principles toward the solution of the conflict. The statement released by all 53 O.S.C.E. members, except Armenia, agreed on three principles for the settlement of the conflict. The principles are:

- The territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia;
- The legal status of Karabakh defined in an agreement based on self-determination which confers on Karabakh the highest level of self-administration within the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan; and
- The guaranteed security for Karabakh and its whole population, including mutual obligations to ensure compliance by all the parties with the provisions of the settlement.[32]

In the May of 2002, under the Chairmanship of the OSCE Minsk Group, talks were organized between the Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister, Araz Azimov, and the Personal Representative of President of Armenia,*Tatoul Markarian, in Prague.*A second session of the talks took place in late July of 2002. The Prague Process, as it was later called by the U.S. State Department in September 2002, would serve as a vehicle for sustained communications between the both parties. The process was later continued by the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Vartan Oskanian and Elmar Mammadyarov, who had the first meeting in Prague in April 2004. The process was mediated by*France,*Russia, and the*United States. The first round of Prague Process culminated in*Warsaw*on May 15, 2005 by a meeting of*the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ilham Aliyev*and*Robert Kocharyan. The four meetings between the two leaders allowed the methodical re-examination of all negotiation parameters. Both Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed that if a settlement is achieved, five of the seven occupied regions by Armenia would be returned to Azerbaijan and international peacekeepers*would be deployed.* Despite these political efforts, the issue remains unsettled.[33]

Given this specific regional issue, why would solving this smouldering conflict on Russia’s southern border be of interest to Russia and the United States? More importantly, how can solving this conflict be used to enhance each country’s national interests, provide an opportunity for mutually beneficial interaction, and either soften one nation’s decline or contribute to halting the other’s decline?

From a Russian viewpoint, a settlement undercuts other regional territorial claims, such as Armenia with Georgia, thereby reducing the potential for other conflicts. Leveraging the earlier U.N. and O.S.C.E. resolutions, Russia could enhance its reputation as a global leader while stabilizing a portion of a volatile area on its southern flank. Russia could benefit economically from increased trade with Iran and Turkey while also providing it with a sense of national pride as a major regional actor. Finally, Russia could also reduce military expenditures by removing its 102nd Military Base in Gumru, Armenia, consisting of about 5,000 troops.[34] The removal of the base would also ease tensions with Georgia and Azerbaijan. As there are no large Russian ethnic populations in Georgia, Armenia, or Azerbaijan, the likelihood of future Russian annexation is remote. Solving this regional conflict addresses a number of Russian national strategic objectives.

For the U.S., solving the Nagorno-Karabakh issue requires little expenditure of national resources other than diplomatic energy. It would not be a drain on the U.S. economy as it would be solving a long-term problem through means other than militarily. The U.S. would enhance its global reputation by providing leadership on an issue that is of peripheral interest to it, but of important or vital interest to the antagonists and surrounding nations. The U.S. would enhance both the U.N. Security Council’s and O.S.C.E.’s images as legitimate and effective regional and international organizations. A stable Caucasus region would provide regional destabilizers, such as nation states, regional actors, or transregional actors less opportunity to exploit the conflict and associated instability for their own purposes.* **

In addition, as Azerbaijan is a key provider and hub for energy to Europe, a stable region offers greater certainty for our European allies and partners making them less prone to disruptions and influences from elsewhere. The Caucasus also serve as an important transportation thoroughfare for the new Silk Road from Asia minimizing the cost of transportation of global shipments. A stable Caucasus region could potentially draw Iran into an economic partnership with Azerbaijan by allowing Iranian oil exporters the use of Azerbaijani energy transportation networks. An even longer-term outcome could directly benefit Armenia by extending the transportation network through Armenia and directly to Europe thereby shortening the route. In helping to solve this conflict, the U.S. enhances its global and regional leadership, maintaining or even slightly enhancing it Great Power status, while sustaining the economic status quo with little outlay of resources.

Identifying a cooperative opportunity that benefits Russia and the U.S., such as Nagorno-Karabakh, is a small step in the right direction for both nations. First, it provides an issue where U.S. and Russian interests merge and thus an opportunity for cooperation on this and potentially other issues. Second, providing Russia with a sense of stability on one of its immediate borders will increase its sense of security. Third, the U.S. finds that it can influence international order through the protection and advancement of U.S. values instead of through the military instrument of national power. Fourth, finding common ground that will relieve some of the suspicion between the two antagonists will allow the U.S. to keep an eye on the rising economic powers of China and India. Fifth, and most important, any increase in Russian prestige will be short-lived as the powerful trends of a decreasing Russian population and associated economy make Russia’s long-term demise inevitable.

Make no mistake, the U.S. is engaged in a battle for global power. However, it appears more and more that the greatest foe it faces is itself. Locked in a paradigm that requires the maintenance of the status quo, the U.S. is expending its valuable and finite resources in a futile attempt to live in yesterday’s world. The long-term trends of the five variables that make up the power index—population, GDP, technology, and conventional and nuclear military expenditures—support the theory of Great Power decline. Fortunately, all is not lost. Astute U.S. civilian and military leadership can understand the relationship and effects of these variables on power and develop an approach that best leverages American advantages in the current global system.

End Notes
[1] Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, New York: Random House, 1987.
[2] Federation of American Scientists, “Russian Military Budget,” September 2000, Available at: https://fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/agency/mo-budget.htm***
[3] The HHI Power Index was taken from the International Futures (IF) database hosted at the Federick S. Pardee Center for International Futures at the University of Denver, The IFs data base is used in developing many security-related documents, such as the U.S. National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, https://www.scribd.com/doc/115962650/Global-Trends-2030-Alternative-Worlds
[4] Martell, William C. Grand Strategy in Theory and Practice. The Need for an Effective American Foreign Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
[5] National Security Strategy, Washington, D.C., 2015.
[6] Martell, 2015.
[7] Menon, Rajan. “What Does Putin Want in Ukraine?” The Huffington Post, March 1, 2014.
[8] Karber, Phillip A. “Lessons Learned from the Russo-Ukrainian War, Personal Observations (DRAFT)” The Potomac Foundation, Historical Lessons Learned Workshop sponsored by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory & U.S. Army Capabilities Center (ARCIC), July 8, 2015. Accessed at: https://prodev2go.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/rus-ukr-lessons-draft.pdf*
[9] Russia’s National Security Strategy, 2015. The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia. December 31, 2015, General Provision. **Accessed at: http://www.ieee.es/Galerias/fichero...sian-National-Security-Strategy-31Dec2015.pdf
11 Russia’s National Security Strategy, 2015.*
12 Russia’s National Security Strategy, 2015, General Provision 76.
13 Russia’s National Security Strategy, 2015.
[13] Zemlianichenko, Alexander, The Moscow Times, “Russia and Armenia to Create Joint Military Forces, Nov 14, 2016.* Available at: https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russia-and-armenia-to-create-joint-military-forces-56121
[14] A National Security Strategy for a Global Age. The White House: Washington, D.C., December 2000. Available at: http://nssarchive.us/NSSR/2001.pdf
16 Andrianova, Anna and Khrennikova, Dina.* “How Cheap Oil Is Squeezing Russia's Economy, It's expanding the deficit and spurring inflation,” Bloomberg Markets, January 25, 2016. Accessed at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-26/how-cheap-oil-is-squeezing-russia-s-economy **
17 Chamie, Joseph and Mirkin, Barry. “Russian Demographics: The Perfect Storm, High mortality, low fertility and emigration of the well-educated are shrinking Russia,” YaleGlobal, 11 December 2014. http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/russian-demographics-perfect-storm
18 The Federick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, University of Denver, IFs Model (Web Version) 7.24. For contrast, the U.S. will have a population of 378 million in 2050 and 381 million in 2100.
19 Chamie and Mirkin, 2014.*
20 Russia’s National Security Strategy, 2015.
[20] Dunford, Joseph F., Jr. “Keynote Address by General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr. at the Air Force Association Air Space Cyber Conference,” National Harbor, MD, September 21, 2016.*
[21] Dunford, 2016.*
[22] Cimbala, Stephan J. and McDermott, Roger N. “Putin and the Nuclear Dimension to Russian Strategy,” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 29:4, 535-553, 2016.
[23] Dunford, 2016.*
[24] Cimbala and McDermott, 2016.
[25] Oliker, Olga. Unpacking Russia's New National Security Strategy, January 7, 2016, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).* Available at: https://www.csis.org/analysis/unpacking-russias-new-national-security-strategy
[26] Rieff, David. "Case Study in Ethic Strife: Without Rules or Pity." Foreign Affairs. Council on Foreign Relations. 76 (2). Available at: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/arti...ase-study-ethnic-strife-without-rules-or-pity
[27] Hasanov A.M. Muasir beynalxalq munasibatlar va Azarbaycanýn xarici siyasati (Modern international relations and Azerbaijan’s foreign policy). Baku. 2005, 752.
[28] Berdal, Mats and Malone, David M., eds., Greed and Grievance. Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2000.* Available at: http://www.guillaumenicaise.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/berdal-greed-and-grievances.pdf
[29] Hasanov A.M. Muasir beynalxalq munasibatlar va Azarbaycanýn xarici siyasati (Modern international relations and Azerbaijan’s foreign policy). Baku. 2005, 752.
[30] Hasanov, 2015.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Hasanov A.M. Azarbaycan Respublikasýnýn milli inkiþaf va təhlükəsizlik siyasəti (National development and security policy of the Azerbaijan Republic). Baku, “Letterpress” Publishing House, 2011. 440 p.
[33] The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: A Historical and Legal Appraisal. SAM Center for Strategic Studies, Baku, Azerbaijan 2013, 156. Available at: http://sam.az/uploads/PDF/The Nagorno Karabakh Conflict A Historical and Legal Appraisal .pdf
[34] Piven, Ben. AlJazeera America, “Russia expands military footprint abroad with new Syria base,” September 18, 2015. Available at: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/9/18/russia-foreign-military-bases.html

Tags: Great Power Decline
About the Authors

Daniel H. McCauley
Daniel H. McCauley is currently serving as a faculty member with National Defense University’s Joint and Combined Warfighting School (JCWS) in Norfolk, Virginia. In addition to teaching in the classroom, he has served in several course director and curriculum development capacities. Dr. McCauley has served on the military faculty at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and as adjunct faculty for the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College and the U.S. Air Force Command and Staff College. Dr. McCauley has published numerous articles on topics such as strategic foresight, design, Joint leadership, and Joint professional military education, which are also current research efforts. He currently serves as the Joint Forces Staff College’s Campaigning journal editor. Dr. McCauley is a recognized expert in strategic foresight, design, and strategy, and is a frequent presenter and guest panelist. Dr. McCauley spent 25 years in the United States Air Force flying various aircraft as well as serving in U.S. and NATO staff positions. Dr. McCauley’s email is: mccauleyd@ndu.edu.


Sadi S. Sadyev
Sadi S. Sadyev is currently serving in the military education and sciences environment in Baku, Azerbaijan. Dr. Sadyev was admitted to the State University of Languages in 1996 and earned his Bachelor’s degree of Faculty of Translation (English and German) in 2000. In 2002, he earned a Master’s degree in the same filed of study. In 2002, Dr. Sadyev was accepted to into the PhD program at the Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Azerbaijan, earning his PhD in 2006. In 2014, he was awarded the rank of associated professor rank and in 2015 was promoted to professor at Azerbaijan Republic War College of the Armed Forces. Dr. Sadyev has published a book "Literature of Balkan Turks" and has more than 50 scientific articles on literature and strategic issues. He has attended and presented at more than 10 State and International Conferences. Dr. Sadyev is currently training two PhD students. Dr. Sadyev’s email is: sanansadiyev@yahoo.co.uk.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/ar...-responses-to-emerging-unconventional-threats

The Danger of the Gray Zone: Flawed Responses to Emerging Unconventional Threats

by Nicholas Hermberg
Journal Article | December 6, 2016 - 9:54am

In the South China Sea, islands able to sustain PLA military operations have been constructed from what previously had been strips of sand or small atolls while Chinese naval militias harass commercial fishing fleets. In Crimea and eastern Ukraine, soldiers lacking national attribution have assisted local forces demanding changes in political boundaries. Russian and Chinese actions have demonstrated a shift in their strategies to project power within their perceived spheres of influence. Less overt than conventional military forces, and more aggressive and assertive than ordinary diplomatic relations, these changed tactics represent a declared “gray zone” between war and peace. The actions of the Chinese and Russian governments convey comprehensive strategic thought, connecting the desired national goals to means able to accomplish these objectives while realizing the realities of the modern international system.

A reactive focus on countering these gray zone tactics fails to appreciate that to adversaries such as Russia and China, the gray zone does not occupy a unique battlefield space, but rather that these actions throughout the conflict spectrum are coordinated efforts to achieve national goals despite the current military and economic advantages of the United States. The United States must counter the gray zone by rejecting frameworks which distinguish between military and diplomatic responses, between conflict and peace, and instead counter these threats with a coherent, national, whole of government strategy that recognizes U.S. goals for the international system and the wide variety of means available towards preserving, maintaining, and expanding national interests. The United States should avoid over-militarizing its response and should embrace alternative means for exercising power and influence on battlefields that no longer distinguish between diplomatic and military victories.

The most important characteristics of the gray zone, as described by Michael Mazarr for the Army War College, are the tactics employed and the intent of the actor engaging in them. The gray zone incorporates the use of unconventional force, “from cyberattacks to information campaigns to energy diplomacy,” in order to gain leverage over other international actors. These actions are carried out by “revisionist” states seeking to exercise control without escalating conflicts to a level which would merit American or international intervention despite the campaign’s objective being intolerable from the perspective of the international community. Importantly, the actions are “forceful and deliberate” efforts to achieve political and strategic goals that utilize gradual escalation rather than outright military conflict.[ii] These actions, as recognized by Antulio Echevarria II, purposefully remain below the threshold for a military response such Article 5 of the NATO treaty or by the UN Security Council and exploit “the West’s conception of, and long-standing aversion to, armed conflict” while accomplishing “’wartime-like’ objectives.”[iii]

Scholars have debated the usefulness of the gray zone conception described by Mazarr. Adam Elkus points to the vagueness of the definition of the “gray zone” itself while criticizing those who claim that this tactical shift by actors such as Russia and China represents a new method of warfare or statecraft.[iv] He questions the usefulness of a concept which embraces the tactics of both Putin’s efforts to destabilize Ukraine with China’s efforts to exert control over the South China Sea while also connecting them to wars being conducted by groups in Syria, Iraq, and Nigeria against their governments as well as other rival factions.[v] Additionally, according to Elkus, the concept is flawed due to its inability to distinguish these “new” tactics from previous wars of limited ends and means, noting that political and strategic implications have long impacted the willingness to engage in what Clausewitz describes as “absolute war.”[vi] While Mazarr recognizes that Elkus is correct in identifying that the concept is vague and that the idea of limited war is nothing new, he maintains that the gray zone remains an identifiable effort by adversaries to work between the spaces occupied by traditional diplomatic and military methods of pursuing national interests.[vii]

It is this conceived seam between diplomatic and military methods which is the danger of Mazarr’s gray zone conception of conflict, a mistake noted by Elkus as well as Frank G. Hoffman.[viii] While Mazarr undoubtedly recognizes the nuanced blending of traditional and non-traditional tactics, policy-makers focused on this break between war and peace will be misled. This implied gap between diplomacy and military force fails to recognize that adversaries such as China and Russia do not distinguish between the two in their conception of strategy and pursuit of objectives within the international system. Elkus writes that this gap is a “Western invention” that is unrecognized by the states who Mazarr is arguing are pursuing gray zone conflicts in the first place.[ix] Hoffman notes that the United States suffers from a “strategic culture” that fails to recognize the “many different forms that human conflict can take.”[x]

According to Hoffman, this short coming has three consequences for the United States: the United States has unreasonable political and public expectations for success, a simplistic grasp for the effectiveness of the application of military power, and a “naïve” view of both its adversaries and the overall context for international conflict.[xi] Mazarr is correct to recognize that actors such as Russia or China are deliberately conducting campaign-like efforts to achieve their interests, but assigns a framework for analyzing these threats which continues to separate between peaceful and violent forms of conflict rather than recognizing that these actors are instead willingly employing means, both sequentially and simultaneously, throughout the spectrum of coercion. Rather than distinguishing between military and diplomatic methods, or seeking to exploit a gap between the two, actors such as Russia and China are successfully harnessing all aspects of national power in their conception of strategy, with great effect.

Russia’s approach to modern conflict has evolved from the conceptions of conventional, declared wars. Instead, as described by chief of the general staff of the Russian Federation Valery Gerasimov, conflict now combines military and nonmilitary activities and is dominated by small, focused forces and influenced heavily by “political, economic, cultural and other nonmilitary factors.”[xii] According to Gerasimov’s conception of modern war, conflict is dominated by “intelligence and domination of the information space” with little distinguishing the levels of war or offensive and defensive actions.[xiii] According to the Gerasimov model, military and nonmilitary means are intertwined as the conflict moves from its covert origins and escalation phases that prepare the battlespace towards the crisis, resolution, and restoration of peace phases.[xiv] Diplomacy, economic and political coercion, intelligence and covert action, and military force are all utilized as tools to systematically achieve Russia’s national interests. While Mazarr’s identification of a clear and coherent campaign is clearly incorporated into the Gerasimov model, the gap between military and diplomacy is absent.

Russia’s actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine provide a clear example of the Gerasimov model and the Russian approach to conflict outside of conventional military forces. Russia had a number of motivations to intervene in Ukraine following the Euromaidan protests and the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych ranging from appeasing Russian domestic turmoil, limiting and obstructing NATO and EU expansion, geostrategic control of the Black Sea, strengthening and protecting its sphere of influence in eastern Europe, and incorporating ethnic Russians and former Soviet compatriots into the Russian Federation.[xv] In both cases Russia prepared the modern battlefield through exertion of political and economic pressure on its neighbor Ukraine, culminating in the abandonment of EU integration by President Yanukovych in December of 2013.[xvi] President Putin offered $15 billion in loans and discounts on Russian natural gas in an effort to appease protests and push Ukraine towards joining the Eurasian Economic Union.[xvii] These efforts failed, as violent protests resumed in Ukraine culminating in Yanukovych fleeing to Russia after an agreement signed on February 21st, 2014 agreed to presidential elections and a return to Ukraine’s 2004 constitution aimed at limiting executive authorities.[xviii]

During this preparation and escalation period, Russia had already begun an information campaign that utilized propaganda aimed against the protestors in Kiev who were labeled as fascist in an effort to preemptively delegitimize the resistance movement.[xix] In both Crimea and eastern Ukraine, Russia supported and assisted the rise in political protests and energized groups opposed to Kiev’s pro-Western, anti-Yanukovych turn.[xx] On March 16th, Crimea held a referendum in which an improbable 97% of the population allegedly voted to secede from Ukraine and Vladimir Putin absorbed the region into the Russian Federation on March 18th despite international protests.[xxi] On the 19th, Russia assisted Crimean troops in securing Ukrainian military forces within Crimea, leading to their withdrawal.[xxii] Russia solidified its control over Crimea through the provision of economic aid while simultaneously escalating efforts in eastern Ukraine, pulling attention away from the former Ukrainian territory of Crimea.[xxiii] In the Donbass region of Ukraine, Russia assisted militant separatist forces replaced Ukrainian television broadcasts with Russian content, utilized SPETSNAZ forces to combat the Ukrainian military, and cut off Ukraine’s access to Russian natural gas exports in efforts to destabilize eastern Ukraine and weaken Kiev’s resolve to combat the secessionist movements.[xxiv] In August, 2014, Russian forces including personnel carriers, artillery, and air defenses were obviously involved in insurgent efforts to overthrow Kiev’s limited control of the region despite persistent denials from Moscow.[xxv] It is clear that throughout the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Russia has effectively utilized economic, political, and military tools in both covert and overt ways to pursue its interests. The gray zone, rather than a distinct zone between diplomacy and military force, was in fact the effective employment of all methods available in a coherent national strategy applied towards achieving specific objectives within Ukraine.

Likewise, the Chinese approach to strategy avoids the limitations of separating conflict between diplomatic and military stages. In 1999, Qiao Lian and Wang Xiangsui published “Unrestricted Warfare,” prescribing an effective strategy for countering American military and economic prowess and advancing Chinese national interests. In it, they articulated eight principles to guide developing nations such as China in their pursuit of national interests in an era of American dominance: omnidirecitonality, synchrony, limited objectives, unlimited measures, asymmetry, minimal consumption, multidimensional coordination, and adjustment and control of the entire process. Several are particularly relevant in understanding Chinese conceptions of the proposed gray zone. Omnidirectionality refers specifically to the rejection of separate military and diplomatic spheres for conflict and interaction between states.* The authors state that “there is no longer any distinction between what is or is not the battlefield.”[xxvi] The battlefield now incorporates, and must be fought within, “social spaces such as the military, politics, economics, culture, and the psyche” of the adversary population.[xxvii] Synchrony implies that rather than thinking in phases, national actions to accomplish goals are conducted “under conditions of simultaneous occurrence, simultaneous action, and simultaneous completion.”[xxviii] The pursuit of limited objectives with unlimited means ensures that national ambition is constrained by what is feasible, but that all resources are available to achieve these interests while asymmetry ensures that means are employed against the weakest points of an adversary rather than directly against its strengths, such as conventional American military forces.[xxix]

These principals can be observed by Chinese actions in the South China Sea. The Chinese have asserted their territorial rights to the South China Sea, claiming historical control and therefore legitimate sovereignty over the sea and its island formations including the Pratas, Paracel, Macclesfield, and Spratly Islands also claimed by China’s regional neighbors.[xxx] China has attempted to legitimize these claims under treaties such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) despite many legal objections to this interpretation of international law and the implications it would have for historical territory claims.[xxxi] While The Hague ruled that these historical claims were not sufficient to claim sovereignty over the sea, and therefore benefit from rights such as the establishment of an exclusive economic zone, on July 12th, 2016, the Chinese continue to assert influence in this non-kinetic conflict through several means while rejecting the court’s ruling.[xxxii]

While the Philippines filed their case with the UN against the Chinese in 2013, objecting to Chinese control of the Scarborough Shoal within the Philippine exclusive economic zone, the Chinese have continued their ambitious construction and militarization of several disputed islands within the South China Sea.[xxxiii] Since the creation of seven islands on pre-existing reefs was completed in 2015, China has built ports, airstrips, and radar facilities within the disputed Spratly Islands.[xxxiv] China has refused to respect other nations’ exclusive economic zones within the South China Sea, failing to prevent Chinese fishermen from exploiting these territories.[xxxv] The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the growing Chinese Maritime Militia have been involved in a number of interactions with American and neighboring navies, challenging freedom of navigation and assisting in economic exploitation of claimed territories.[xxxvi] China’s ambiguous Maritime Militia have assisted, and at times replaced to maintain the legitimacy of the PLAN, Chinese efforts to protect economic interests and enforce territorial claims and has become increasingly militarized.[xxxvii] This force has allowed China, through top-down political direction, to “harass foreign fishermen and defy other coast guards without obviously implicating the Chinese state.”[xxxviii] While China has failed to change international recognition of its territorial claims through legal processes, it has continued to exert coercive force through economic exploitation of the areas, political rejection of UN rulings, and the use of the PLAN and Maritime Militia to exert overt and covert Chinese state pressure on competing regional and international actors.

Both the Russian and Chinese strategies for changing territorial claims in the Ukraine and South China Sea conflicts represent a connection of all assets of state power and a refusal to operate solely in diplomatic or military capacities. This is a clear rejection of Mazarr’s characterization of the gray zone, demonstrating a connection between strategic thought that refuses to delineate between the means available towards achieving national interests. Diplomacy, economic pressure, covert action, and military force are all parts of eroding the existing international system and achieving otherwise objectionable goals without incurring an intervention by the United States or other interested actors. Rather than a unique space between peace and violence, between diplomacy and military force, the gray zone should be characterized as a refusal by adversarial countries to delineate between separate phases of a conflict, instead achieving a calculated attempt to harness all methods of coercive power to achieve contested national interests. Through this lens, it becomes clear that the United States and other nations seeking to preserve the existing international order must likewise respond with a holistic, strategically-sound policy to counter gray zone aggression by actors such as Russia and China.

Unfortunately, the United States continues to fail in producing a coordinated response to gray zone challenges. The term first appeared in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review[xxxix] in regards to security assistance capacities.[xl] The report recognized that the gray zone requires competent foreign partners when the United States is unable to confront aggression independently. The report additionally noted that the “divide between defense, diplomacy, and development…simply does not exist,” and that the Department of Defense would require other American civilian agencies to adequately respond to the gray zone threat.[xli] By June, 2016, the United States Government had failed to achieve this coordinated response to the gray zone, with the Army War College publishing “Outplayed: Regaining Strategic Initiative in the Gray Zone” and calling for the Department of Defense to lead in the development of a national strategy to combat “gray zone competitors.”[xlii] While recognizing that a whole of government strategic approach would be “ideal,” it dismissed this possibility due to a lack of “national-level guidance.”[xliii] The report is likely right in this respect, supported by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2016. Section 1097 has called on the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to lead the U.S. Government development of a strategy to counter unconventional warfare, encompassing many of the gray zone methods employed by Russia and China.[xliv]

Despite the initial recognition that the entirety of the United States Government would be necessary to confront gray zone challenges, the Army War College and the House of Representatives have demonstrated that the Department of Defense will be the first, and potentially only, agency tasked with formulating a coherent strategy to respond to non-conventional aggression. This is despite the threat that falls in the United States military’s least effective role in accordance with its own planning models. As noted by Echevarria II, gray zone conflicts occur during Phase 0 (Shape) and Phase 1 (Deter) of the campaign-planning paradigm.[xlv] These are the phases in which the military traditionally places the least effort, equipping and training for traditional military missions which occur in Phase II (Seize Initiative) and Phase III (Dominate).[xlvi] The United States is tasking an organization, predisposed to prioritize other areas of conflict and with no authority over other agencies, to lead the development of a strategy to combat gray zone conflicts that are best characterized by the rejection of traditional definitions between military and non-military roles. In addition, the military is being asked to construct a strategy to combat actions by actors who are inherently seeking to avoid escalating conflicts to a level which would activate sufficient political and popular support to warrant a military intervention.

The United States has failed to appropriately respond to the gray zone so far, so what should the new administration strive for? Strategists should recognize the legitimacy of the revisionist nature of Mazarr’s characterization of the gray zone, while rejecting the notion that these actors are operating between war and peace. Instead, they should note that Russian and Chinese coercive action is effectively utilizing the entire conflict spectrum in their efforts to pursue national interests, carefully weighing their objectives with the means available to achieve them while avoiding an outside military intervention. Short of developing a whole of government strategy to equally coalesce all of the United States’ available means to combat these actions, which to this point has and will likely continue to remain elusive, other government agencies can embrace the gray zone and develop its own means to combat gray zone aggression. These responses will avoid the over-militarization of the American response to Chinese and Russian actions, having already recognized the inherent flaws in tasking the Department of Defense to lead this pursuit.

The United States should continue to look for ways to increase the power and severity of economic sanctions, recognizing their coercive strengths and weaknesses, and maintaining international support for their sustainment despite legitimate fears of negative economic repercussions for initiators. Sanctions against Russia, in combination with the decreased price of oil, have contributed to a Russian recession since their annexation of Crimea.[xlvii] Unfortunately, this has not forced Putin to end Russian involvement in eastern Ukraine, and seven EU states have reported a net loss in trade since sanctions began.[xlviii] Current and future efforts to deter Russian aggression will depend on developing tools to effectively punish Putin, potentially requiring the ability to threaten his regime.[xlix] In response to The Hague decision delegitimizing China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, the United States could bolster the international court’s decision by finally ratifying UNCLOS as proposed by Senator Ben Cardin and supported by Mazarr.[l] This would grant greater legitimacy of the court, and its future decisions, and limit China’s ability to ignore UN decisions it disagrees with.

Overall, the United States should seek policies such as those which strengthen international institutions and support the Western-dominant system that Russia and China are seeking to circumscribe. The United States should seek to exercise the “strategic restraint” G. John Ikenberry credits with America’s prolonged dominance in the international arena, strengthening institutions which have allowed to enduring American prosperity and the stability of Western industrial democracies.[li] This would raise the costs of attempting to operate outside of the existing international system and strengthen the resolve of anti-revisionist states to oppose gray zone aggression. A failure to recognize the true nature of the gray zone, and to develop non-military means if not a collective strategy to combat it, will enable actors such as Russia and China to manipulate the current aversion to armed intervention and expand their national interests.

End Notes
Michael J. Mazarr, “Mastering the Gray Zone: Understanding a Changing Era of Conflict,” Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press (December, 2015), pg. 2. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1303.pdf, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[ii] Ibid, pg. 1, 11-13.
[iii] Antulio J. Echevarria II, “Operating in the Gray Zone: An Alternative Paradigm for U.S. Military Strategy,” Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. War College Press (April, 2016), pg. 12-13. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1318, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[iv] Adam Elkus, “50 Shades of Gray: Why the Gray Wars Concept Lacks Strategic Sense,” War on the Rocks (December 15th, 2015). http://warontherocks.com/2015/12/50-shades-of-gray-why-the-gray-wars-concept-lacks-strategic-sense/, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] Michael J. Mazarr, “Struggle in the Gray Zone and World Order,” War on the Rocks (December 22nd, 2015). http://warontherocks.com/2015/12/struggle-in-the-gray-zone-and-world-order/, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[viii] Adam Elkus, “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here: You Cannot Save the Gray Zone Concept,” War on the Rocks (December 30th, 2015). http://warontherocks.com/2015/12/ab...r-here-you-cannot-save-the-gray-zone-concept/, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[ix] Ibid.
[x] Frank G. Hoffman, “The Contemporary Spectrum of Conflict: Protracted, Gray Zone, Ambiguous, and Hybrid Modes of War,” The Heritage Foundation, 2016 Index of US Military Strength (2015) pg. 25. https://s3.amazonaws.com/ims-2016/PDF/2016_Index_of_US_Military_Strength_FULL.pdf, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[xi] Ibid, pg. 25.
[xii] “’Little Green Men’: Modern Russian Unconventional Warfare, Ukraine 2013-2014,” United States Army Special Operations Command (June, 2015), pg. 17. https://info.publicintelligence.net/USASOC-LittleGreenMen.pdf, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[xiii] Ibid, pg. 18.
[xiv] Ibid, pg. 19.
[xv] Ibid, pg. 36-40.
[xvi] Ibid, pg. 53.
[xvii] Ibid, pg. 53.
[xviii] Ibid, pg. 54.
[xix] Ibid, pg. 54.
[xx] Ibid, pg. 56, 58.
[xxi] Ibid, pg. 57.
[xxii] Ibid, pg. 58.
[xxiii] Ibid, pg. 58.
[xxiv] Ibid, pg. 58-60.
[xxv] Ibid, pg. 61.
[xxvi] Qiao Lian and Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare, PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House (Beijing; February, 1999), pg. 206. https://www.oodaloop.com/documents/unrestricted.pdf, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[xxvii] Ibid, pg. 206.
[xxviii] Ibid, pg. 207-208.
[xxix] Ibid, pg. 208-211.
[xxx] Dustin E. Wallace, “An Analysis of Chinese Maritime Claims in the South China Sea,” Naval Law Review (63:128, July 1st, 2013), pg. 148-149. http://heinonline.org.proxy.library...journals/naval63&collection=journals&page=128, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[xxxi] Ibid, pg. 148-153.
[xxxii] “The South China Sea Arbitration,” Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague (July 12th, 2016). https://pca-cpa.org/wp-content/uplo...H-CN-20160712-Press-Release-No-11-English.pdf, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[xxxiii] “Courting Trouble: An international tribunal delivers a blow to China’s claims in the South China Sea,” The Economist (July 16th, 2016). http://www.economist.com/news/china...y-await-chinas-response-un-appointed-tribunal, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[xxxiv] Derek Watkins, “What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea,” The New York Times (February 29th, 2016). http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...uilding-in-the-south-china-sea-2016.html?_r=0, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[xxxv] “The South China Sea Arbitration”
[xxxvi] Andrew S. Erickson and Conor M. Kennedy, “China’s Maritime Militia,” Center for Naval Analysis (March 7th, 2016), pg. 3. https://www.cna.org/cna_files/pdf/Chinas-Maritime-Militia.pdf, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[xxxvii] Ibid, pg. 4-6.
[xxxviii] Michael McDevitt, “Becoming a Great ‘Maritime Power’: A Chinese Dream,” Center for Naval Analysis (June, 2016), pg. 6.
[xxxix] Hoffman, “The Contemporary Spectrum of Conflict,” pg. 26.
[xl] Department of Defense, “Quadrennial Defense Review Report” (February, 2010), pg. 73. http://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/features/defenseReviews/QDR/QDR_as_of_29JAN10_1600.pdf, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[xli] Ibid, pg. 74.
[xlii] Nathan Freier et. al., “Outplayed: Regaining Strategic Initiative in the Gray Zone,” Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press (June, 2016), pg. 78. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1325, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[xliii] Ibid, pg. 78.
[xliv] U.S. Congress, “H.R. 1735: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016, Section 1097,” (January 6th, 2015). https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th...35/text#toc-H57D78DE2C41D4347BF5202B774B80E94, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[xlv] Echevarria II, “Operating in the Gray Zone,” pg. 13.
[xlvi] Ibid, pg. 15.
[xlvii] Edward Hunter Christie, “Sanctions after Crimea: Have they worked?” NATO Review (2015). http://www.nato.int/docu/Review/2015/Russia/sanctions-after-crimea-have-they-worked/EN/index.htm, accessed December 1st, 2016.
[xlviii] Ibid.
[xlix] See Nikolay Marinov, “Do Economic Sanctions Destabilize Country Leaders?” American Journal of Political Science (49:3, July 2005), pg. 564-576 for a thorough discussion of the effectiveness of sanctions and their ability to threaten regime stability.
[l] Ben Cardin, “The South China Sea is the Reason the United States Must Ratify UNCLOS,” Foreign Policy (July 13th, 2016). http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/13...-reason-the-united-states-must-ratify-unclos/, accessed December 1st, 2016. Mazarr, “Struggle in the Gray Zone and World Order.”
[li] G. John Ikenberry, “Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Persistence of American Postwar Order,” International Security (23:3, Winter 1998-1999), pg. 73.
*

Tags: Gray Zone unconventional threats unconventional warfare
About the Author

Nicholas Hermberg
Nicholas Hermberg is currently earning a Master of Arts degree in Security Studies from Georgetown University as a VGEP scholar. In 2016, he graduated from the United States Naval Academy and commissioned as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy with orders to report to flight school following the completion of his graduate studies. These views are his own and do not reflect the views of the Department of Defense or the United States Navy.

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/asia/playing-taiwan-card-1091

Expert Commentary

Playing the Taiwan Card

December 9, 2016 | Gordon Chang

On November 25th, six Chinese aircraft—two nuclear-capable H-6K bombers, two Su-30 fighters, and two surveillance planes—participated in an exercise near Taiwan’s airspace.

Four of the craft, in an especially provocative move, circled the island. This was the first time China’s planes had done so.

A Taiwan defense spokesman said there was “absolutely no relation at all” between the Chinese air force exercise and the historic December 2 telephone call between President-elect Donald Trump and Taiwan’s leader, Tsai Ing-wen.

In all probability, the two unprecedented events are in fact connected, and they suggest Beijing understands the Trump-Tsai call signals a fundamental change in American policy toward China in general and Taiwan in particular.

As an initial matter, it is extremely unlikely the Taiwan military knows the motivation for any particular Chinese aerial exercise, so the denial looks politically motivated, to assure the Taiwan public that the phone call has not put the island at risk.

Moreover, various factors suggest a linkage between the two events. Beijing, with an extensive information-gathering network in Taipei, generally knows what goes on inside Taiwan’s government. The call, which shattered four decades of diplomatic isolation of the island republic, would be something Beijing would want to prevent.

After all, Beijing claims Taiwan as its 34th province and the call, even though it took just ten minutes, was an implicit recognition of Taiwan’s sovereignty. That became clear from the Trump’s transition team’s readout, which stated “President-elect Trump also congratulated President Tsai on becoming President of Taiwan earlier this year.”

Trump calling Tsai “President” is an acceptance of her position, that she is the head of a state separate and apart from China. Trump, as if to drive home the point, labeled her country “Taiwan,” not the formal “Republic of China.”

Commentators immediately said Trump’s taking the call from Tsai was just another shoot-from-the-hip moment from the president-elect. That narrative has been put to rest by reporting on the extensive arrangements preceding the call.

The significance of China’s aerial exercise is that it tells us not only were Trump and Tsai prepared for the call, but also they were determined to proceed in the face of Chinese threats.

And in the face of Trump’s determination, China has, at least for the most part, taken a cautious approach. Apart from ordering the official China Daily to call the president-elect a “diplomatic rookie,” Beijing has used measured language, especially in its diplomatic protest filed Saturday.

And Chinese leaders are trying to rein in Trump by using their “old friend,” former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Kissinger, who sat down with President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday, is helping China in two ways. First, from all indications, Kissinger carried a message from Xi for Trump.

Second, Kissinger is praising China’s response to the call. “At this moment, I’ve been very impressed at the calm reaction of the Chinese leadership, which suggests a determination to see whether a calm dialogue can be developed,” he said on Monday in New York.

The goal of American foreign policy should not be, as Kissinger implies, “dialogue.” It should be responsible behavior from Beijing.

Of course Chinese leaders want to talk. But while Americans talk, they act. Among other things, experts believe they proliferate materials for North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs, pursue outlandish sovereignty claims and grab territory from their neighbors, and close off their home market through actions blatantly violating trade promises. They cyberattack the institutions of American society, from newspapers to advocacy groups to foundations to NGOs. They spy on American companies, taking hundreds of billions of dollars a year in intellectual property and commercially valuable information.

They will engage in these and other destabilizing acts until Washington imposes costs on them. Imposing costs on China will anger Chinese autocrats, but their happiness should not be an American concern. America’s concern is the maintenance of peace and stability. And the protection of free societies like Taiwan’s.

Washington’s foreign policy on Taiwan is unsustainable. It undermines a friendly free society to help an authoritarian state that is attacking American values.

American policy also works against efforts to maintain stability in East Asian waters by driving the island into China’s hands. Taiwan’s location is strategically important, the proverbial “cork in the bottle” at the intersection of the South China and East China Seas. It is, Douglas MacArthur said, the “unsinkable aircraft carrier.”

None of this is to say Trump’s new approach to China will work, but the current policy has to change.

Beijing, obviously, wants America’s policy to stay the same. After all, the Chinese air force just flew planes around Taiwan to try to prevent a ten-minute phone call.

The Author is Gordon Chang
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and*Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World*as well as a Forbes contributor. Follow him on Twitter @GordonGChang.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/12/09/urging_taiwan_to_invest_in_defense_110463.html

Urging Taiwan to Invest in Defense

By Todd Crowell
December 09, 2016

Last June, a delegation from the Senate Armed Services Committee, headed by Chairman John McCain, met with Taiwan’s newly elected president Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei and urged her to spend more on national defense.

It was not the first time that Washington has expressed dismay over Taiwan’s falling defense expenditures. Many in the U.S. government from both political parties have urged Taipei to do more for its own defense.

That sounds a like something out of president-elect Donald Trump’s play book except that he seems to want to cozy up to Taiwan, the one country in Northeast Asia that is not pulling its weight in self defense.

Every other country in Asia has been raising defense budgets in the face of growing threats. China’s defense budget has risen by double digits for more than a decade; Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has reversed the pattern of declining defense budgets during his four years in office.

The South Korean National Assembly just last week approved a budget with a four-percentage point increase in defense pending, clearly indicating worry about North Korea’s growing expertise in making nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Yet while Japan and South Korea have been increasing military appropriations, Taiwan has been cutting back on defense. This is not new. As far back as 2010 the U.S. envoy to Taiwan, William Stanton, had called Taiwan out over its complacent attitude.

“I worry about Taiwan a great deal because I think Taiwan’s people do not worry enough,” said Stanton shortly after he retired. In 2010, he warned that Cross Strait relations will not be determined by Taiwan alone. “China will also have a say.”

Taiwan’s defense spending has slowly but steadily declined as a percentage of the country’s GDP since at least 2008, and now hovers around two percent.

Singapore, a country that does not have 1,500 missiles pointed at her, spends more than three percent of its GDP on national defense. Also telling is that defense accounts for a much larger proportion of Singapore’s budget than it does Taiwan’s.

The U.S. senators who met with President Tsai urged her to raise defense spending to at least three percent of its GDP, something that Taipei has promised to do.

In theory, Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) should look more favorably on defense spending since the DPP officially favors independence from mainland China. Yet defense spending was falling even under the previous DPP administration.

Taiwan politics oscillates between those, mainly in the Kuomintang Party, who want closer economic ties with the mainland, and those in the DPP who worry that the government is getting too cozy with China.

A strong reaction against getting cozier put Tsai in office earlier this year. But records show that it doesn’t make much difference which party is in power as far as defense appropriations go. When the DPP was last in power, under former President Chen Shui-bian, spending dropped from 2.9 percent of GDP in 2001 to 2.1 percent in 2006.

The same political factors exist for both parties. During the bad old days before free elections, the military simply made their demands known and a compliant ministry produced the money.

Now Taiwan has a civilian minister of defense, and he has to ask for, not demand, appropriations. At the same time, the Taiwanese population has developed a taste for social welfare programs, and legislative candidates campaign on promises to supply them.

Moreover, in 2014 Taiwan ended conscription, and moved to an all-volunteer force, which has boosted personnel costs, taking away funds for weaponry.

Under the Taiwan Relations Act passed shortly after Washington de-recognized Taipei, the U.S is obliged to provide weapons to bolster Taiwan’s defenses. But the legislative Yuan has often balked at paying for them.

At the same time, China has been strengthening and modernizing it armed forces with special attention to amphibious operations and denying access to any American forces that might try to come to Taiwan’s rescue if it were invaded.

The largest ship within in the Chinese navy aside from the aircraft carrier Liaoning is the Type 071 amphibious landing dock. China has commissioned four of these ships, and has another two planned. Each can transport about a battalion of troops.

Taiwan’s own defense ministry issued a white paper claiming that China will have the means to forcibly reunify Taiwan and the mainland by 2020. That report, written in 2013, gave Taiwan about a month to hold off the Chinese until help could arrive.

In the last big Taiwan Strait crisis in 1994-1995 Beijing tossed ballistic missiles off the northern coast in order to intimidate the Taiwan electorate from voting for Lee Teng-hui, the first democratically elected president.

At the time, the U.S sent two aircraft carrier battle groups into the Strait as a show of force, and Beijing backed down. It’s a question now whether the U.S. would be able to risk sending carriers into the Strait again.


Todd Crowell is the author of The Coming War Between China and Japan, published as an Amazon Kindle Single.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nigeria-security-dead-idUSKBN13Y1T9

News Maps | Fri Dec 9, 2016 | 10:00am EST

Suicide bombs kill 30 in northeast Nigerian town: army spokesman

Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up in the northeastern Nigerian town of Madagali on Friday, killing 30 people and wounding 57, an army spokesman said.

"Based on the report from our men working on the ground, 30 were killed and*57 people were injured," said Major Badare Akintoye, a spokesman for an army unit based in Mubi, like Madagali a town in Adamawa state.

"Security agents have taken over the area to avoid enemies coming in to cause another attack." he said.

(Reporting by Emmanuel Anda and Ardo Hazzad; Writing by Ulf Laessing; editing by John Stonestreet)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.cbsnews.com/news/egypt-c...killed-likely-bomb-attack-pyramids-road-giza/

CBS/AP December 9, 2016, 6:35 AM

Deadliest attack in months on Egypt's security forces

Last Updated Dec 9, 2016 7:31 AM EST

CAIRO -- An explosion on a main Cairo thoroughfare killed six police and wounded another three on Friday, in what appeared to be the deadliest attack on security forces in several months.

The state-run MENA news agency said the explosion took place near a mosque on Pyramids road, the main avenue leading from the city center out to the Giza pyramids, which is often used by tour buses. It says the blast targeted security forces, without elaborating on what caused the explosion.

Insurgents have carried out a number of attacks in Egypt since the 2013 military ouster of an elected Islamist president. The violence has been concentrated in the northern Sinai Peninsula, but there have also been several attacks on the mainland, including in the capital.

Hasam, an Egyptian militant group said to be linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, claimed responsibility for the blast later Friday. It was the eighth attack claimed by the group this year. * *

An AP reporter at the scene said the bombing appeared to have targeted two police SUVs parked along the road at a mobile checkpoint. The explosion completely destroyed one of the vehicles and severely damaged the other. Dozens of people gathered at the scene as police cordoned off the area.

It appeared to be the deadliest attack in Egypt since May, when gunmen opened fire on a microbus filled with plainclothes police in the Cairo suburb of Helwan, killing eight of them. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which has apowerful affiliate based in the Sinai, claimed the attack.

An explosive device struck a police convoy in Cairo in October, killing a pedestrian bystander.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://warontherocks.com/2016/12/the-nuclear-threat-environment-facing-the-trump-administration/

Commentary

The Nuclear Threat Environment Facing the Trump Administration

Angelo Bonavita and Adam Lowther
December 8, 2016

With Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, the American people can expect the new administration to author a Nuclear Posture Review that is likely to differ significantly from the Obama administration’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review. This is primarily because the two men have fundamentally different worldviews. Whatever direction the new administration takes, one thing is certain: The nation’s adversaries pose an increasingly daunting challenge when it comes to nuclear weapons.

While Obama deserves considerable credit for spending more time thinking about nuclear deterrence than any post-Cold War president, competing budgetary priorities have left the United States’ nuclear arsenal older than it has ever been. Both delivery vehicles and warheads are in need of replacement as system components and technology age out. At present, the Long Range Stand-off Cruise Missile (LRSO), B-21 stealth bomber, and the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) are planned as replacements for existing delivery systems, but these new systems are at least a decade out.

To make matters worse, our adversaries spent the past decade expanding (China and North Korea) and modernizing (Russia, China, North Korea) their nuclear forces. They are fielding both new warheads and new delivery systems that incorporate a number of developments that make their weapons harder to target by, for example, American ballistic missile defenses. Because the United States did not do the same, the American advantage in both weapons science and engineering and delivery vehicle technology has shrunk while other countries – China and Russia in particular – continued to advance the science and technology of their nuclear weapons programs.

While the United States is in the early phases of modernizing its nuclear forces, any discussion of comprehensive nuclear modernization should occur with adversaries in mind. Descriptions of what America’s adversaries are doing to field nuclear forces have been missing in policy and strategy debates.

Contrary to the assertions of some nuclear critics, we should not inherently fear the modernization efforts of our adversaries or see them as the beginning of a new arms race. Just as a dull knife can be more dangerous than a sharp one, modern nuclear forces can and do contribute to strategic stability by making a country feel secure. What matters most is how an adversary intends to use their nuclear weapons.
While the current debate in Washington focuses on whether the United States should modernize nuclear weapons and whether we can afford to spend six percent of the defense budget on a nuclear deterrent, our adversaries are having no such debate. Russia, China, and North Korea are moving forward aggressively as they see advancements in nuclear capabilities as playing a major role in deterring or defeating the United States while they advance their regional interests.

Russia

Russia has the most diverse and formidable nuclear arsenal of any nuclear weapons state. In addition to a strategic triad of long-range bombers armed with new nuclear cruise missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, as well as silo, road mobile, and rail mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles, Russia possesses a “tactical” nuclear arsenal — estimated at least 2,000 weapons. It should come as no surprise that NATO, which fields an estimated 200 B-61 nuclear gravity bombs, is at a distinct disadvantage should Russia seek to engage the alliance in a limited nuclear war. With a stated policy that includes “escalate to deescalate,” Russia seems to believe that it can use its tactical nuclear weapons either to consolidate conventional gains on the battlefield and terminate a war or change the direction of a conflict should it begin to lose..

There is reason to believe that President Putin may view his recent upgrades to his strategic nuclear forces as an effective messaging tool which conveys Russia’s commitment to not only nuclear modernization but fighting and winning a nuclear conflict. Because the Russian tactical nuclear arsenal is superior in both size and delivery options to NATO’s nuclear arsenal, it is not unreasonable to believe Putin thinks he has the advantage and can force the United States to the negotiating table in the event of a conflict. Some of Russia’s modernization efforts are worth noting.

The Strategic Rocket Forces, which operate Russia’s ballistic missile force, fields a number of new intercontinental ballistic missiles as it seeks to replace Cold War era weapons. Russia is currently replacing its remaining SS-18 and SS-19 Mod 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) – which were designed and deployed about the same time as American Minuteman III ICBMs – *with SS-27 Topol-M and SS-29 Yars-M ICBMs, which were designed in the 1990s and 2000s. These ICBMs can be launched from silos and road or rail mobile transporter erector launchers (TEL). Locating and targeting mobile ICBMs is particularly difficult and gives the Russians an assured second strike. By 2020, the Russians will field the RS-28 Sarmat which is called the “country killer” because it can hold 15 thermonuclear reentry vehicles and is equipped with defensive countermeasures designed to defeat ballistic missile defenses.

Russia is also fielding a new class of ballistic missile submarine to replace its fleet of six Delfin-class (Delta IV) submarines, which were launched between 1984 and 1992. The new Borei-class ballistic missile submarine, which is the quietest submarine Russia has produced, can carry up to 16 of the new SS-NX-30 Bulava submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) — a more accurate and deadly weapon. With the first Borei-class submarine entering service in 2009, this latest class of submarines is still entering the fleet. Eight are expected to be commissioned by 2020.

Russia is also modernizing its fleet of Tu-95 Bear-H and Tu-160 Blackjack bombers while it designs and fields a new stealth bomber. The Russians have also begun fielding a new nuclear air launched cruise missile (ALCM). First fielded in 2014, The Kh-102 can be launched by both of Russia’s bombers while still in Russian airspace and reach the continental United States.* Because of the altitude at which they fly and their radar cross-section, the United States may not even see these weapons before they enter American airspace.

Russia has also made significant advances in warhead design, which is important as both the United States and Russia are growing increasingly concerned that the other side could destroy incoming warheads through defensive measures. Russian nuclear weapons designers have focused their efforts on ensuring their warheads detonate at the desired yield and exactly when and where they are supposed to. While open source information is limited, it does appear Russia is making strides in these areas.

Perhaps most concerning is the behavior of President Putin. He has not only acted aggressively against neighboring countries, but has been particularly vocal in letting the world know that Russia will rely on its nuclear arsenal to defend the nation and its interests. The recent Russian violation of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, abrogation of the “MOX Treaty,” and increasing concern that Russia will not meet its obligations under the New Start Treaty give ample reason for unease. Russia has also said that it will not negotiate the size of its tactical nuclear arsenal, which is of greatest alarm to NATO.

China

Although China is believed to maintain a nuclear arsenal considerably smaller than the United States and Russia, our knowledge of the Chinese nuclear weapons program is limited because China has purposefully remained opaque. We do, however, know that China maintains a secure second-strike capability that is becoming more robust due to modernization efforts that are designed to provide China a proper nuclear triad with advanced nuclear warheads.

The heart of China’s nuclear deterrent is found in its ballistic missiles. The DF-5 (CSS-4) is a liquid-fueled rocked first deployed in the mid-1980s. This heavy lift ICBM was designed for use with a single large-yield warhead with a range of approximately 7,000 miles and an accuracy of* approximately one-quarter of a mile. As part of its modernization effort, the DF-5 is due to be replaced by the DF-41, a heavy lift, solid-fueled ICBM, which has a considerably improved accuracy and response time.

China also fields the DF-31 (CSS-9) — a solid-fueled ICBM first deployed in 2006. China recently upgraded to a DF-31A variant, which can reach the United States with its three warheads. An additional variant is the DF-31B — a road mobile weapon.

There are an estimated 20 DF-5 and 15 DF-31 on alert in China. If loaded with a full complement of warheads, China is capable of delivering approximately 105 mega-ton class weapons on the United States. With its “counter-value strategy” that focuses on targeting American cities, the Chinese ballistic missile force is deeply concerning and an existential threat to America.

The Chinese are also establishing a continuous at-sea deterrent with the introduction of the Jin-class ballistic missile submarine. The first boat was commissioned in 2010 and a total of five are expected. Open source literature describes the Jin as noisy enough to be detected and tracked by the U.S. Navy, which makes it inferior to American and Russian ballistic missile submarines. Still, it is a clear step toward parity for China because Beijing has never had an operational nuclear sea leg, particularly one that could operate effectively close enough to the U.S. coast to strike the homeland. The new SSBN will carry up to twelve JL-2 (CSS-NX-4) ballistic missiles, which have a range of approximately 5,000 miles.

China also fielded the H-6K bomber in 2009 — a modernized variant of the Soviet-era H-6 bomber — which can carry the CJ-10K cruise missile. Although it is believed that the CJ-10K is loaded with a conventional warhead, China does have the technical capability to field a nuclear variant. With China seeking regional dominance in Asia, the H6-K’s 2,200 mile range provides the aircraft ample distance to hold targets in the region at risk.

It is also believed that China is currently increasing the numbers of its stockpile from an estimated 200 to 300 to an unknown number. Since China is not believed to be actively creating additional highly-enriched uranium or weapon-grade plutonium, the ultimate size of its arsenal may be limited well below that of the United States and Russia. However, the opaque nature of the Chinese nuclear weapons program and Chinese nuclear strategy make it difficult for Western analysts to accurately assess the aspirational goals and its use doctrine. From limited glimpses into the program, interaction with Chinese scientists, and publications by Chinese scientists, it is believed that China has a weapons development program on par with the United States and Russia.

North Korea

North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is designed to provide the Kim regime a deterrent that will prevent an invasion by the United States and South Korea. The Kim family regime is unable to defeat a conventional or nuclear attack. As such, an ability to strike the United States and its allies are viewed in Pyongyang as vital to deter such an attack. The United States would like North Korea to return to the six-party talks and agree to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, but such a move is unlikely.

While North Korea has demonstrated the ability to produce a nuclear device and has an active ballistic missile program it is not clear that it can deliver its nuclear warheads atop a KN-08 road mobile ICBM. Currently, there is no open source evidence to suggest that North Korea has attempted to mate a nuclear warhead with any of its ballistic missiles. However, it is unlikely that North Korean scientists and engineers will fail to overcome existing challenges given Kim Jung-Un’s focus on nuclear weapons.

The complete lack of transparency in the North Korean nuclear program makes it particularly threatening. In its nuclear doctrine, North Korea has both claimed a “no first-use” policy as well as threatened a nuclear pre-emptive strike. As he has shown in the past, Kim Jung-Un is difficult to understand and predict, making the North Korean weapons program particularly worrisome for South Korea and Japan.

Final Analysis

There are three points worth remembering. First, America’s adversaries never took a holiday from the development and fielding of new nuclear weapons and delivery platforms. It was only the United States that naively believed nuclear weapons were less important to national security. U.S. conventional superiority made nuclear weapons more important than at any point in the nuclear age. The American victory in the Gulf War in 1991 left little doubt that the United States would dominate the conventional battlefield for many years — leaving nuclear weapons to serve as the great equalizer and deterrent of an expeditionary American military.

Second, in a time of smaller nuclear arsenals and lower-yield nuclear weapons, ensuring that every weapon arrives at its target and is able to destroy that target is central to the stability of nuclear deterrence. During the Cold War, arsenals that exceeded 20,000 operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons ensured the stability of nuclear deterrence because of their sheer numbers. Today, however, with the size of the arsenal down 90 percent and America’s adversaries both developing defensive systems that can destroy incoming missiles — Russia’s S-400 integrated air defense system is one example — and moving underground with critical facilities, the United States’ aging nuclear weapons and delivery systems may soon find themselves unable to effectively hold key targets at risk.

Third, counter to arguments made by nuclear critics, the United States will not set-off a nuclear arms race by modernizing its nuclear arsenal. With the American economy five times larger than the ailing Russian economy, sustaining an arms race with the United States is not a viable option for Russia. China is limited in its production of nuclear weapons by its relatively small stockpile of fissile material. Thus, such arguments are hyperbolic rather than demonstrative of how our adversaries are likely to respond to American modernization.

As the United States contemplates spending between six and seven percent of the defense budget on nuclear weapons modernization, Americans should understand that our adversaries never took a holiday from modernization. An aggressive Russia and a more capable China now have arsenals that are more capable than the weapons they replaced. This increases the threat the United States faces. Effectively deterring these threats will require that the United States replace its weapons, which were designed to counter a threat that existed four decades ago. This is not the threat we face today.
*
Dr. Adam B. Lowther is the Director of the School of Advanced Nuclear Deterrence Studies (SANDS) at Kirtland, AFB. His latest book is Defending the Arsenal: Why America’s Nuclear Modernization Still Matters. Maj. Angelo Bonavita is the Deputy Director of SANDS and hold a PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not represent the views or positions of SANDS, the U.S. Air Force, or the Department of Defense.
Image:*Vitaly V. Kuzmin

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3 thoughts on “The Nuclear Threat Environment Facing the Trump Administration”

Zac Rogers says:
December 8, 2016 at 8:39 pm
Interested in the authors views on the evolution of US counterforce targeting capabilities since the end of the Cold War. The authors describe the Chinese and Russian second strike capability as “secure” and “assured”, and refer to road and rail mobility making counterforce targeting “particularly difficult.” These views are debated in the literature. The trickle of declassified documents has recently suggested the US counterforce mission certainly did not “take a holiday”, and that by the end of the Cold War was already advanced to the point where the US Navy, for example, was confident it knew the location of Soviet subs, and that extensive mapping of road and rail transit points meant mobility was no game changer either. Sensing and tracking capabilities have advanced since then also. The counterforce discussion is absent from the article so just interested in views on that.

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Kanes says:
December 9, 2016 at 1:45 am
US expanding or modernizing its nukes will certainly trigger a WMD arms race. Russia and China have argued they were merely catching up to USA. They use USA’s unmatchable conventional weapons capability to justify their nuke refinement. If USA modernizes its nukes, then the gap widens again triggering Russia and China to respond. Economic logic is valid for Russia. However, nuclear weapons development takes about 7% of US defence budget. Russia can pocket that out. So can China. A real danger is resurrecting their biological, chemical and biochemical weapons programs in response to an arms race. Squeezed for funds, these are low hanging fruit – relatively little investment with huge WMD capabilities. On the nuclear front, they will expand their tactical weapons enormously. Russia will also invest serious money in their nuclear dirty bomb undersea drones like the Status-6. With lesser reliance on seaports, Russia has little to lose in this space. These weapons can hold entire Western Europe, Americas and Far East Asia to ransom. Hypersonic Gravity Vehicles are the next frontier.
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Mike McGannon says:
December 9, 2016 at 10:02 am
I wouldn’t consider Chem/Bio low hanging fruit or ones that take little investment. Soviet Union Chem/Bio program was the largest in the world during the Cold War. They dumped a significant amount of money into to do cutting edge research. Russia will never achieve anything on that scale again without a significant investment.

The book Bio Hazard does a pretty good job covering the extent of the Soviet Program.

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[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ic-Russia-and-the-Threat-to-Liberal-Democracy

Hummm.....

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https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/12/russia-liberal-democracy/510011/

Russia and the Threat to Liberal Democracy

How Vladimir Putin is making the world safe for autocracy

Larry Diamond 10:45 AM ET
Comments 287

Since the end of World War II, the most crucial underpinning of freedom in the world has been the vigor of the advanced liberal democracies and the alliances that bound them together. Through the Cold War, the key multilateral anchors were NATO, the expanding European Union, and the U.S.-Japan security alliance. With the end of the Cold War and the expansion of NATO and the EU to virtually all of Central and Eastern Europe, liberal democracy seemed ascendant and secure as never before in history.

Under the shrewd and relentless assault of a resurgent Russian authoritarian state, all of this has come under strain with a speed and scope that few in the West have fully comprehended, and that puts the future of liberal democracy in the world squarely where Vladimir Putin wants it: in doubt and on the defensive.

On the global chessboard, there has been no more deft and brilliant (and of late, lucky) player than Putin. From the early days of his presidency a decade and a half ago, he began to signal that he intended to make Russia great again, and that he saw this imperative as a zero-sum game: As the West gained friendships among post-communist states, Russia lost, and so everything possible had to be done to force Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and the Balkan states out of a Western liberal orientation and back into the greater Russian orbit.

The first dramatic salvo came in the summer of 2008, when Russia intervened militarily to back separatist forces in the enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia seeking to break away from Georgia. Russia’s military assault was brief but brutal, and involved bombing civilian populations both in the disputed areas and in the rest of Georgia, as well as attacking fleeing civilians. The overconfident pro-Western president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, was dealt a painful lesson courtesy of Putin, and the two breakaway “republics” remain under Russian occupation to this day. It was the first time since the end of the Soviet Union that Russia’s military violated the sovereignty of an independent state, but it would not be the last.

Since huge swaths of society rose up in color revolutions in the former Yugoslavia in 2000, in Georgia in 2003, and in Ukraine in 2004-2005—all to protest electoral fraud and bring about a transition from authoritarianism to democracy—Putin has behaved as if obsessed with fear that the virus of mass democratic mobilization might spread to Russia itself. Neither was he prepared to condone the “loss” of key parts of the former Soviet Union, such as Georgia and Ukraine, to any potential alliance structure with the West. As the forces of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution squandered their miraculous victory in corruption and political squabbling, Putin won another victory in 2010, when the pro-Russian villain of the rigged election that prompted the 2004 uprising, Viktor Yanukovych, finally won the presidency.

But Yanukovych’s authoritarianism and pro-Russia orientation—which led him to scuttle a much hoped-for association agreement between Ukraine and the EU—increasingly outraged the Ukrainian people, who ousted him in a second people-power revolution (the Euromaidan) in February 2014. Soon thereafter, Russian troops without insignias infiltrated Crimea and, with sympathetic local actors, seized control of its infrastructure. Militarily weak and bereft of Western military support—which in any case was difficult to deliver quickly and effectively due to the distance relative to Russia’s proximity—Ukraine watched helplessly as Putin consolidated his conquest with a pseudo-referendum that endorsed Crimea’s re-absorption into Russia.

It was the first time since the Nazis marauded across Europe in World War II that the boundaries of a European country had been altered by military aggression. But Putin did not stop there. In a replay of its shadowy campaign of aggression against Georgia, Russia infiltrated its troops and equipment into the Donbas region of far eastern Ukraine, in support (and probably orchestration) of separatist forces there. It was one of those eastern Ukrainian armed groups that used a Soviet-era missile system to shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 17, 2014. More blatant Russian military intervention followed, with Russia denying any involvement of its own soldiers, despite abundant evidence to the contrary. Today, Russia still occupies a portion of the Donbas region. A major swing state between West and East has been militarily violated and partially dismantled, and the story isn’t over yet.

Like President Bush with respect to the Georgia crisis in 2008, President Obama did not respond militarily to this aggression. But he was not passive. Together with the European Union, the U.S. imposed several rounds of painful economic and financial sanctions on key Russian officials, banks, and businesses. As the sanctions have broadened, they have hurt important Russian elites and seriously impaired the functioning of the Russian financial, energy, and defense sectors—not exactly a great formula for making Russia great again.

Putin has been desperate to get out from under these sanctions so that his regime can thrive domestically and internationally. His goals appear to be twofold. First, he seeks to restore some form of Russian empire—with at least informal dominion over all the territories of the former Soviet Union—while forcing the West to accept this new balance of power and treat Russia as a superpower once again. Second, he seeks to invert Woodrow Wilson’s famous call to arms and instead “make the world safe for autocracy.” Democracy is his enemy. He is smart enough to know that he cannot undermine it everywhere, but he will subvert, corrupt, and confuse it wherever he can.

And so Putin’s regime has been embarked for some years now on an opportunistic but sophisticated campaign to sabotage democracy and bend it toward his interests, not just in some marginal, fragile places but at the very core of the liberal democratic order, Europe and the United States. As The Telegraph reported in January, Western intelligence agencies have been monitoring a Russian campaign on a Cold War scale to support a wide range of European parties and actors—illiberal parties and politicians of both the far left and far right—that are sympathetic to Russia and Putin. This includes not just newer neo-fascist parties, but anti-immigrant far-right parties like the National Front of France—which obtained a 9 million euro loan from a Russian bank in 2014—and the Freedom Party of Austria, both of which have been gaining popularity for some time. While the Freedom Party lost the election for Austria’s ceremonial presidency last Sunday, its candidate, Norbert Hofer, won over 46 percent of the vote, and it remains the third-largest party in the parliament, poised to do better in the next elections.

Hofer’s defeat may temporarily slow the right-wing populist momentum across Europe, but National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who endorsed Putin’s annexation of Crimea and has called for an end to Western sanctions on Russia, could well be elected the next President of France next spring. And even if she loses, Putin is likely to be sitting pretty with the next French president. Le Pen’s principal rival, former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, who recently won the conservative presidential primaries in France, has for years been calling for an end to sanctions on Putin and a closer relationship between France and Russia.

The romance between far-right, anti-immigrant European parties and Vladimir Putin’s Russia springs not just from practical ties of support but a shared conservative reaction against liberalism, globalization, and multiculturalism, and a celebration of Putin, in the words of the scholar Alina Polyakova, as “as a staunch defender of national sovereignty and conservative values who has challenged US influence and the idea of ‘Europe’ in a way that mirrors their own convictions.” This same spirit suffused the Brexit campaign in the U.K., whose longtime populist champion, Nigel Farage, has combined fierce demands for British independence from Europe with fawning admiration for Putin. Yet the Russian boost to Brexit did not come only from the right. Russian media lavishly praised the successful campaign for Labour Party leadership of the far-left candidate Jeremy Corbyn, a NATO and EU skeptic whose extremely tepid support for the Remain campaign contributed to the narrow victory of Brexit.

Meanwhile, the damage to liberalism in Europe was also being driven by a more brutal form of Russian intervention—in Syria. Russia’s bombing campaign there has not only tilted the war in favor of the dictator, Bashar al-Assad, who along with his allies has killed more civilians than either ISIS fighters or rebels, but it also dramatically accelerated the flow of Syrian refugees (now nearing 5 million) into other countries, including European ones. While Europe’s refugee crisis has many sources and causes, roughly 30 percent of European asylum-seekers last year were Syrian refugees, and the human exodus from that civil war has incidentally further helped to feed right-wing (pro-Putin) populist parties and movements across Europe, while undermining liberal leaders like Angela Merkel of Germany.

The destabilizing effects of the refugee crisis in Europe have been a kind of dividend of Putin’s campaign to defend his Middle East ally. But Putin has also attempted to destabilize democracies directly through methods more reminiscent of the Cold War. After Montenegro’s parliamentary elections on October 16 (which saw Putin pouring money into the pro-Russian opposition party and sympathetic media and NGOs, in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat the pro-NATO prime minister), evidence emerged of a plot involving three Russian citizens (alleged in the Montenegrin news media to be agents of the GRU, Russian military intelligence) and some 20 right-wing Serbian nationalists. Montenegrin authorities now allege they planned to stage a terrorist attack that would discredit the election outcome, assassinate the pro-Western prime minister, and topple his government.

As these political dramas and tensions have unfolded in democratic Europe, Putin’s Russia has made brilliant use of old and new forms of propaganda to exploit political divisions. The leading element of this has been RT (Russia Today) which is not only one of the most widely watched (and heavily subsidized) global sources of state television propaganda—and which claims 70 million weekly viewers and 35 million daily— but a vast social-media machinery as well. Added to this is the hidden influence of a vast network of Russian trolls—agents paid to spread disinformation and Russian propaganda points by posing as authentic and spontaneous commentators.

What began as a somewhat preposterous effusion of fake news reports spreading panic, for example, about an Ebola outbreak in the U.S., morphed into something more sinister, sophisticated, and profoundly consequential: a dedicated campaign to discredit Hillary Clinton and tilt the U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump. The army of Russian trolls started infiltrating U.S. media with conservative commentaries, playing up Clinton’s scandals and weaknesses, and widely diffusing other right-wing narratives against Clinton. The Russian government (America’s own intelligence agencies believe) hacked into the emails of the Democratic Party and of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and passed them on to Wikileaks to dispense in a devastating drip-drip-drip of divisive and unflattering revelations. In The Washington Post’s words, the campaign portrayed “Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers.” All of this gave Trump significantly more political traction while dispiriting and discouraging possible Clinton voters (many of whom simply stayed home in disgust). Given how close the U.S. election outcome was, it is easy to imagine that this intervention might have provided Trump with his margin of victory in the Electoral College.

We stand now at the most dangerous moment for liberal democracy since the end of World War II. There are still many more democracies worldwide today than when the Cold War ended. But outside the West, many of them are fragile or rapidly declining. Turkey is in the grip of full authoritarianism, the Philippines is sliding in that direction, and Korea and Brazil have both seen their first women presidents disgraced in eruptions of public anger over corruption and misuse of power. Some 200,000 Muslim Indonesians have flooded the streets of Jakarta demanding that the Christian governor be arrested for insulting Islam.* In much of Africa, the people still overwhelmingly want democracy, but leaders in numerous countries are dragging their systems in the opposite direction.

The greatest danger, however, is not what is happening in Asia, Africa, or Latin America. It is the alarming decay of liberal democracy in Europe and the United States, accelerated by escalating Russian efforts at subversion. Putin’s forces are on such a roll that they can no longer contain their glee. One pro-Putin Russian governor recently declared in a radio interview, “It turns out that United Russia [Putin’s political party] won the elections in America.”

Donald Trump’s election victory was an extraordinary political achievement for someone who has never held or sought political office. It drew the support of many tens of millions of voters who rallied to his themes of controlling immigration, changing the way things are done in Washington, generating economic opportunity for those left behind by globalization, or somehow just “making American great again.” But it probably would not have happened without Russia’s hacking of America’s political process—and on behalf of a candidate who had said he wanted good relations with Vladimir Putin.

Geopolitics does not have to be a zero-sum game. But great powers must recognize and defend vital interests. Having a Europe that is whole and free is a vital American interest. Enforcing the principle that established borders cannot be eviscerated by military aggression is a vital American interest—and nowhere more so than in Europe. Ensuring that an authoritarian Russian regime does not replicate its values and expand its power by subverting democracy in the heart of Europe is also a vital American interest.

The most urgent foreign-policy question now is how America will respond to the mounting threat that Putin’s Russia poses to freedom and its most important anchor, the Western alliance. Nothing will more profoundly shape the kind of world we live in than how the Trump administration responds to that challenge.

About the Author

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-violence-blast-idUSKBN13Y0SU

Edition: United States

World News | Fri Dec 9, 2016 | 3:11pm EST

Egypt security forces hit by two bombings in a single day

Reuters
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By Giles Elgood | CAIRO

Egyptian security forces were hit by two roadside bombings in a single day on Friday that killed six policemen and wounded six in Cairo and the north of the country, security sources and officials said.

The attacks come as the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi faces an insurgency waged by Islamist groups.

In the first incident, on Friday morning, a recently emerged Egyptian militant group claimed responsibility for a bomb in Cairo that the interior ministry said killed six policemen and wounded three others at a checkpoint on a main road leading to the Pyramids.

The Hasm Movement, which has claimed several attacks in Egypt in recent months, said it set off the bomb which, security sources said, also injured four civilians.

Eyewitness Ahmed Al-Deeb described a scene of carnage, with dead and dying policemen lying next to wrecked cars. One of the policemen had blast fragments in his chest and two more had lost legs, he told Reuters Television.

The second attack came on Friday evening in the Kafr El Sheikh governorate in the Nile Delta, where a roadside bomb killed a civilian and injured three policemen, security sources said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

SINAI INSURGENCY

The government is taking on militants in the Sinai Peninsula, where militants loyal to Islamic State are based, and Islamist groups elsewhere in the country.

Security forces killed three gunmen on Tuesday in a raid on a hideout in southern Egypt they said was used by Hasm, which they described as an armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood says it is a peaceful organization.

Hasm, the Arabic word for decisiveness, has accused judges of sentencing thousands of innocent people to death, or jailing them for life, at the behest of the military.

Egyptian judges have issued death sentences against hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters since 2013, when President Mohamed Mursi, a member of the group, was overthrown by the army and arrested.

Also In World News
Syrian government forces press attack in east Aleppo
South Korean parliament votes overwhelmingly to impeach President Park

The Brotherhood, which won Egypt's first free elections after the 2011 uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak's 30 years in power, has since been banned and its leaders and members have largely been imprisoned or driven into exile or underground.
Since the crackdown, other small groups, including Hasm, have emerged. Hasm claimed responsibility in September for an assassination attempt on a senior prosecutor.

Militants loyal to Islamic State based in the Sinai have killed hundreds of soldiers and police.

Judges, policemen and senior officials have been targeted by radical Islamists angered by long prison sentences imposed on members of the Brotherhood.

(Reporting by Mohamed Elsherif and Ahmed Mohamed Hassan; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Ralph Boulton and Robin Pomeroy)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/09/europe/netherlands-rotterdam-terror-plot-arrest/

Rotterdam: Man held in suspected terror plot

By Vasco Cotovio, CNN
Updated 11:39 AM ET, Fri December 9, 2016

Amsterdam, Netherlands (CNN)Dutch police have arrested a 30-year-old man in Rotterdam on suspicion of planning a terror attack, the Interior Ministry said Friday.
The man was arrested Wednesday when police raided an apartment where he lived in the port city, the ministry said.

Officers found an AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifle with two full magazines in the apartment as well as four boxes of highly explosive illegal fireworks.

The police also seized a large painting with an image of a flag used by ISIS, mobile phones and 1,600 euros in cash, an Interior Ministry statement said.

The man "is suspected of preparing a terrorist crime," the statement said.

In response to reports of the arrest, far-right politician Geert Wilders tweeted: "The Netherlands thanks to Rutte."

He was referring to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who earlier Friday said neither he nor his government would be willing to form a coalition with Wilders' far-right party unless he retracted discriminatory comments he made about Moroccans.

Wilders was convicted by a Dutch court earlier Friday of inciting discrimination and "insulting a group" over the statements he made about Moroccans.

CNN's Rosanne Roobeek contributed to this report.

-----

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...arrested-kalashnikov-explosives-a7465886.html

Rotterdam terror plot foiled as man with Isis flag, Kalashnikov and explosives arrested by Dutch police

Arrest comes after Europol warns more terror attacks are likely in Europe

Lizzie Dearden @lizziedearden
5 hours* ago
7 comments

A man has been arrested on suspicion of preparing an Isis-inspired terror attack in the Netherlands after police found a loaded Kalashnikov and explosives alongside the group’s flag.

The Dutch Public Prosecution Service (Openbaar Ministerie) said the 30-year-old suspect was taken into custody on Wednesday.

Searches of his home in Rotterdam uncovered an AK-47 with two loaded magazines, four boxes of “highly explosive” illegal fireworks, mobile phones and €1,600 (£1,300) in cash alongside a painting of the*Isis flag.

The suspect, who has not been identified, will remain in custody for at least two weeks as investigations continue.

His arrest came a day after Belgian police detained a suspected cell of Isis supporters who were recruiting foreign fighters for the so-called Islamic State.

The Belgian federal public prosecutor’s office said a court extended the detention of three suspects on Friday on charges of recruiting people to travel to Syria and financially supporting Isis.

Numerous terror plots have been uncovered in Europe since the group declared its “caliphate” in 2014 and Europol has warned further attacks remain likely across the continent.

The Paris and Brussels attacks were carried out by militants deployed by commanders from their strongholds in Syria, while other atrocities like the Nice massacre and German train attack were carried out by extremists apparently inspired by the group’s propaganda.

No attacks have so far been launched in the Netherlands but the country is among Isis’ targets as a member of the US-led international coalition bombing its militants in Syria and Iraq.*

The Dutch government extended air strikes by four F-16 fighter jets from Iraq into Syria in January and they have taken part in operations helping push fighters out of key strongholds including Fallujah and Manbij.*

More than 260 extremists have travelled from the Netherlands to join Isis in Syria or Iraq since 2012, according to a report released by its National Coordinator for Terrorism and Security.

At least 42 are known to have been killed, 40 have returned and 170 Dutch men, women and children are thought to remain in the group’s territories.

 

[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...sional-Oversight-of-Kill-Capture-Military-Ops

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://lawfareblog.com/expanding-c...ture-ops-conducted-military-section-1036-ndaa

Expanding Congressional Oversight of Kill/Capture Ops Conducted by the Military: Section 1036 of the NDAA

By Robert Chesney Thursday, December 8, 2016, 6:25 PM

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 ("NDAA") is likely to complete its journey into law this week, and so the time has come to spotlight some of the nuggets in it that might matter to Lawfare readers. *One of the most important, in my view, involves the little-known, emergent oversight architecture associated with kill/capture operations conducted by the military in locations other than areas of "theaters of major hostilities."

I have written previously about the creation of a SASC/HASC-based oversight system designed to ensure greater Congressional awareness of kill/capture missions conducted by the military outside a theater of major hostilities. *The statute calls such activities "sensitive military operations," *and I'll use the acronym SMO).
*
Here*is the current statute (10 U.S.C. 130f) resulting from these efforts. *One way to understand this is to see it as analogous to the more-familiar oversight system we already have for Title 50 covert action (except that there is no requirement of a Presidential Finding and the oversight runs to SASC and HASC rather than SSCI and HPSCI). Kill/capture missions conducted as covert action will trigger oversight under that existing system, but such missions when conducted under Title 10 authority (note the potential relevance here of the "traditional military activities" exception to the statutory definition of covert action)*would not trigger that particular system (despite presenting many of the same underlying concerns). *In short, the new SMO oversight architecture helps minimize*oversight dropoff when it is JSOC rather than CIA that is conducting a kill/capture mission outside the "hot battlefield" areas.
Well, the new NDAA will tweak the SMO oversight system a bit. *According to the Conference Report, Section 1036 of the NDAA will make the following changes:*

TIMING OF NOTIFICATIONS: Section 1036*requires notifications to be delivered to SASC/HASC within 48 hours of the SMO, in contrast to the current approach which simply says that notification must be timely.*

UPDATES ON NOTIFICATION PROCEDURES: Section 1036*requires SecDef to give notice to SASC/HASC within fourteen days if and when DOD changes its procedures for ensuring*compliance with the SMO*notification requirement.

QUICKER NOTICE IN THE EVENT OF A LEAK:*Section 1036 also*requires SecDef to give immediate notice of an SMO, if possible, in the event there is an unauthorized disclosure of that*SMO. (It would seem this would only be useful when the leak occurs within 48 hours of the SMO and when the regular notification has not already been given. *I suppose the idea is that there could be an immediate leak right after an SMO, and SASC and HASC don't want to sit around for up to two days waiting to hear about the SMO through formal channels in such circumstances). *

CHANGING THE SCOPE OF WHAT TRIGGERS THIS OVERSIGHT SYSTEM:*Section 1036 also changes the definition of what counts as an SMO in the first place. *The current version of section 130f defines SMOs as follows:

(d)*Sensitive Military Operation Defined.—The term “sensitive military operation” means a lethal operation or capture operation conducted by the armed forces outside the United States and outside a theater of major hostilities pursuant to—

(1)*the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107–40;*50 U.S.C. 1541*note); or
(2)any other authority except—
(A)*a declaration of war; or
(B)*a specific statutory authorization for the use of force other than the authorization referred to in paragraph (1).
*
(e)*Exception.—
(1)*The notification requirement under subsection (a) shall not apply with respect to a sensitive military operation executed within the territory of Afghanistan pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107–40;*50 U.S.C. 1541*note).
(2)*The exception in paragraph (1) shall cease to be in effect at the close of*December 31, 2017.
*
Put in plainer terms, a kill/capture operation currently counts as an SMO only if it is:*(i) conducted by the military; (ii) occurs neither in the US nor in a theater of major hostilities; and (iii) occurs under color of either the 2001 AUMF or stand-alone Article II authority (but*not*any other AUMF, such as the 2002 Iraq AUMF); *(iv) but operations in Afghanistan under the 2001 AUMF are categorically excluded until the end of next year (i.e.,*they don't count as SMOs even if one thinks Afghanistan no longer is a theater of major hostilities).*
*
So how does section 1036 change this? *It ditches the old definition (including the Afghanistan exclusion) altogether, in favor of something that looks designed to be a bit broader (and that more clearly encompasses the use of lethal force in defense of others). *Under the new version, 10 USC 130f(d) will define an SMO to encompass four scenarios, without respect to the domestic law basis for the operation:

(1) A lethal operation or capture operation--
(A) conducted by the armed forces outside a declared theater of active armed conflict; or
(B) conducted by a foreign partner in coordination with the armed forces that targets a specific individual or individuals.
*
(2) An operation conducted by the armed forces outside a declared theater of active armed conflict in self-defense or in defense of foreign partners, including during a cooperative operation.

Let's unpack that a bit, for it is formulated a bit unclearly. *The gist of this definition is to define several distinct scenarios that require SMO oversight:

SMO scenario 1--US kill/capture away from hot battlefield:*Part (1)(A)*is similar to the status quo. *It focuses on the US military conducting*a kill/capture operation outside of places like Iraq and Syria (i.e., locations of publicly-acknowledged active combat operations).*

SMO scenario 2--Foreign kill/capture with US military "coordination": Part (1)(B) is novel and quite interesting. *Here, the idea is that the lead entity is a*foreign entity (e.g.,*a foreign government's military*or other security services, or for that matter a non-state*armed group), but with some unspecified degree of US military support. *Note that location this time is irrelevant. *If a Pershmerga unit takes the lead in trying to kill or capture an Islamic State target in Syria, with*JSOC coordination, it would count as a SMO subject to the notification system.

SMO scenario 3--Self-defense of US forces, self-defense of "foreign partners":*Part (2) is a bit of a mystery to me. *Part (1)(A) already covers US military kill/capture operations outside the hot battlefield, without reference to the underlying purpose or legal theory. *Part (2) (which is specific to scenarios in those same locations but only where the aim is self-defense of either US forces or "foreign partner" forces) thus seems superfluous at first blush. *So what might explain it? *One possibility is that this is meant to encompass a type of activity other than a kill/capture operation. *Go back and re-read (2), and you'll see that it just refers to "an operation," not a "lethal operation or capture operation" as in (1). *Perhaps it's just an oversight, since the self-defense scenario certainly does imply force being used (and it's not clear to me why SASC/HASC would want to bring non-lethal, non-capture activities into the SMO framework anyway). *At any rate, it seems more likely to me that inclusion of (2) was an excess-of-caution specifically intended to ensure that when force is used in self-defense of allies*and the scenario is in the nature of*a force-protection strike on an enemy force rather than a carefully-planned attempt to kill or capture a particular person--as seems to have happened some in Somalia--it is crystal clear that it still counts as a SMO. *

Bottom line:*Just in time for a potential expansion of the range of circumstances in which the U.S. military (particularly JSOC) engages in kill/capture operations, we are getting at least a slight expansion of oversight by the Senate and House Armed Services Committees. *Seems like a good thing.

About the Author:

Bobby Chesney is the Charles I. Francis Professor in Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Texas School of Law. He also serves as the Director of UT-Austin's interdisciplinary research center the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law. His scholarship encompasses a wide range of issues relating to national security and the law, including detention, targeting, prosecution, covert action, and the state secrets privilege; most of it is posted here. Along with Ben Wittes and Jack Goldsmith, he is one of the co-founders of the blog.
@bobbychesney

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.lawfareblog.com/todays-headlines-and-commentary-1205

Today's Headlines and Commentary

By Quinta Jurecic Friday, December 9, 2016, 12:16 PM

President Obama has ordered a “full review” of efforts to disrupt the presidential election through the hacking and leaking of Democratic Party information, homeland security advisor Lisa Monaco said on Friday. Reuters writes that the report will be released before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20th and will be distributed to Congress and “a range of stakeholders."

The Syrian government continues to push into the last remaining rebel enclave in Aleppo, though its gains have slowed in recent days. Despite Russian government claims that the regime ceased military operations on Thursday, observers say that rocket attacks have bombarded eastern Aleppo as civilians flee in mass numbers, the New York Times reports. The United Nations and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimate that rebel-held Aleppo now contains between 100,000 and 120,000 civilians, down from over 250,000 residents prior to the most recent government offensive. Reuters and the AP have more.

The Times notes reports of summary executions of Syrian men escaping from rebel-held sections of Aleppo to areas under government control as the United Nations grows concerned over targeted reprisals by the regime of opposition supporters. Reports also indicate that some rebel forces may have killed or kidnapped civilians who attempted to leave the rebel enclaves. “Civilians are caught between warring parties that appear to be operating in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law,” a spokesman for the U.N. high commissioner for human rights said.

A group of Berlin-based peace activists is planning a march on foot from the German city to Aleppo to protest the humanitarian catastrophe, the Daily Beast reports. Officials have expressed concern that the march, which will likely take over six months to wind across Europe, will place activists in serious danger.

Dutch police have arrested a man suspected of planning an ISIS-inspired attack in Rotterdam, the Telegraph writes. Police discovered loaded AK-47, explosives, cash, and a painting of the ISIS flag when they searched the man’s apartment. He was detained only a day after Belgian police arrested a group of suspected ISIS supporters reportedly working to recruit foreign fighters for the Islamic State.

Libyan forces have driven ISIS out of the Libyan city of Sirte, but the extremist group still poses an important threat to Libya and its neighbors in both northern Africa and Europe, the Times tells us. The Director of the National Counterterrorism Center and officials at the Pentagon’s Africa Command have warned of the Islamic State’s potential to reorganize as an underground insurgent force and make alliances with fellow militant Islamist organizations.

An explosion in Cairo killed six members of the Egyptian security forces and wounded three others this morning. The Wall Street Journal reports that a group known as Hasm, which the Egyptian government claims is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, has claimed responsibility for the attack. Egypt has recently weathered a string of attacks from the Islamic State’s franchise in the Sinai Province.

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter made a surprise visit to Afghanistan today in what will be his last trip to the country under the current administration, the Times writes. Carter plans to speak to American troops and meet with Afghan officials, with whom he will likely discuss Afghanistan’s worsening security situation as the government faces a resurgent Taliban and pockets of ungoverned territory.

Opponents of the Kremlin are increasingly claiming that Russian intelligence services are planting child pornography on their computers to discredit them through cyberattacks. The practice is of a piece with Russia’s broader efforts to use “cybermischief-making” to attack its critics and spread disinformation. The Times has more.

Donald Trump has shown no signs of willingness to moderate his online attacks on perceived critics now that he is President-elect, and his angry tweets may present a serious danger. The Washington Post and the Times profile two cases in which Trump has turned his Twitter account on private citizens—one a college student who asked the candidate a pointed question at a political forum, and one a union leader critical of Trump’s much-publicized deal with the Carrier manufacturing plant in Indiana—leading to a cascade of death threats and other harassment from the President-elect’s most fervent supporters.

Trump is receiving security briefings roughly once a week, a much lower rate than previous Presidents-elect have recently requested. Reuters reports that Trump has requested briefings on a handful of specific subjects, which have so far not included Russia or Iran. Vice-President Mike Pence is reportedly being briefed at least six times a week.

The Senate overwhelmingly passed the NDAA, which will now head to President Obama’s desk with a veto-proof majority, Politico writes. The bill includes provisions calling for an increased military budget and a halt to decreases in the size of the Army and Marine Corps, authorizing more troops than the Pentagon requested.

The Miami Herald reports on the government’s efforts to send a Kenyan Guantanamo detainee to Israel for prosecution. Abdul Malik has reportedly admitted his involvement in two terrorist attacks in Kenya targeting Israelis, but has never been charged with a crime. Yet for reasons that remain unclear, the FBI has failed to provide Israel with information requested to aid in Malik’s prosecution, which has caused the transfer deal to stall.
*
ICYMI: Yesterday, on Lawfare
Adham Sahloul argued that Secretary of State John Kerry has a responsibility not to whitewash the Obama administration’s legacy on Syria.

Quinta Jurecic covered Monday and Tuesday’s pretrial hearings in the 9/11 case.

Paul Rosenzweig asked what we want in a Secretary of Homeland Security.

Bobby Chesney noted some interesting provisions of the NDAA involving oversight of kill/capture operations conducted outside areas of major hostilities.

Email the Roundup Team noteworthy law and security-related articles to include, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook for additional commentary on these issues. Sign up to receive Lawfare in your inbox. Visit our Events Calendar to learn about upcoming national security events, and check out relevant job openings on our Job Board.

About the Author:

Quinta Jurecic is a research assistant at the Brookings Institution, where she focuses on national security law and policy. She was previously a National Security Intern at Brookings. She graduated from Wesleyan University in 2015, where she completed an honors thesis on moral theories of political leadership and drone warfare under the Obama administration.
@qjurecic

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.spiegel.de/international...-with-nuclear-deterrent-debate-a-1125186.html

12/09/2016 06:08 PM

Elephant in the Room

Europeans Debate Nuclear Self-Defense after Trump Win

For decades, American nuclear weapons have served as a guarantor of European security. But what happens if Donald Trump casts doubt on that atomic shield? A debate has already opened in Berlin and Brussels over alternatives to the U.S. deterrent. By SPIEGEL Staff

The issue is so secret that it isn't even listed on any daily agenda at NATO headquarters. When military officials and diplomats speak about it in Brussels, they meet privately and in very small groups -- sometimes only with two or three people at a time. There is a reason why signs are displayed in the headquarters reading, "no classified conversation."

And this issue is extremely sensitive. The alliance wants to avoid a public discussion at any cost. Such a debate, one diplomat warns, could trigger an "avalanche." The foundations of the trans-Atlantic security architecture would be endangered if this "Pandora's box" were to be opened.

Great Uncertainty

The discussion surrounds nuclear deterrent. For decades, the final line of defense for Europe against possible Russian aggression has been provided by the American nuclear arsenal. But since Donald Trump's election as the 45th president of the United States, officials in Berlin and Brussels are no longer certain that Washington will continue to hold a protective hand over Europe.

It isn't yet clear what foreign policy course the new administration will take -- that is, if it takes one at all. It could be that Trump will run US foreign policy under the same principle with which he operates his corporate empire: a maximum level of unpredictability.

With his disparaging statements during the campaign about NATO being "obsolete," Trump has already created doubts about the Americans' loyalty to the alliance. Consequently, Europe has begun preparing for a future in which it is likely to have to pick up a much greater share of the costs for its security.

But what happens if the president-elect has an even more fundamental shift in mind for American security policy? What if he questions the nuclear shield that provided security to Europe during the Cold War?

For more than 60 years, Germany entrusted its security to NATO and its leading power, the United States. Without a credible deterrent, the European NATO member states would be vulnerable to possible threats from Russia. It would be the end of the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Could the French or British Step In?

In European capitals, officials have been contemplating the possibility of a European nuclear deterrent since Trump's election. The hurdles -- military, political and international law -- are massive and there are no concrete intentions or plans. Still, French diplomats in Brussels have already been discussing the issue with their counterparts from other member states: Could the French and the British, who both possess nuclear arsenals, step in to provide protection for other countries like Germany?

"It's good that this is finally being discussed," says Jan Techau, director of the Holbrooke Forum at the American Academy in Berlin. "The question of Europe's future nuclear defense is the elephant in the room in the European security debate. If the United States' nuclear security guarantee disappears, then it will be important to clarify who will protect us in the future. And how do we prevent ourselves from becoming blackmailable over the nuclear issue in the future?"

An essay in the November issue of Foreign Affairs argues that if Trump seriously questions the American guarantees, Berlin will have to consider establishing a European nuclear deterrent on the basis of the French and British capabilities. Germany's respected Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, meanwhile, even contemplated the "unthinkable" in an editorial: a German bomb.

'The Last Thing Germany Needs Now'

Politicians in Berlin want to prevent a debate at all costs. "A public debate over what happens if Trump were to change the American nuclear doctrine is the very last thing that Germany needs right now," says Wolfgang Ischinger, head of the Munich Security Conference. "It would be a catastrophic mistake if Berlin of all places were to start that kind of discussion. Might Germany perhaps actually want a nuclear weapon, despite all promises to the contrary? That would provide fodder for any anti-German campaign."

The debate however, is no longer relegated the relatively safe circles of think tanks and foreign policy publications. In an interview that gained attention internationally in mid-November, Roderich Kiesewetter, the chairman for the conservative Christian Democrats on the Foreign Policy Committee in German parliament proposed a French-British nuclear shield in the event Trump calls into question American protection for Europe. "The US nuclear shield and nuclear security guarantees are imperative for Europe," he told Reuters. "If the United States no longer wants to provide this guarantee, Europe still needs nuclear protection for deterrent purposes."

Last weekend, Angela Merkel's chief of staff, Peter Altmaier, said in an interview that providing a nuclear shield for Europe was in America's "security policy interest." Besides, he said, "two EU member states possess nuclear weapons."

Unpopular and Politically Explosive

Kiesewetter argues that Europe must prepare for all eventualities. "There can be no limits placed on our security debate," he says. The CDU security policy expert is a former colonel in the German armed forces and also did stints at both NATO headquarters in Brussels and at the alliance's military headquarters in Mons, Belgium. After Trump's election, he spoke not only to French and British diplomats, but also explored views within the German government.

He says he spoke with Christoph Heusgen, Merkel's security adviser, and with Defense Ministry Policy Director Gésa von Geyr. Kiesewetter says the issue is not one that either the Chancellery or the Defense Ministry is taking up. At the same time, he says, he also didn't get the impression that his ideas had been dismissed as fantasy either.

It's understandable that the German government wants to quickly end the debate. The issue is politically explosive and would also be highly unpopular. In polls, more than 90 percent of Germans have opposed the idea of Germany possessing its own nuclear bomb. The American nuclear shield has so far offered Germans the luxury of standing on the right side of the moral debate even as Washington guarantees their security.

'The Wrong Message'

Officials in Brussels also aren't thrilled by the statements coming out of Berlin. "The fact that these considerations have been made public is deeply concerning," a diplomat representing one NATO member state says. "It would send the wrong message to America but also the grotesquely wrong message to Russia," says Ischinger. He warns that the message cannot be sent to Washington that Europe is in the process of exploring alternatives to the American protective shield.

But military officers and diplomats are addressing the issue inside NATO headquarters. One diplomat says that these ideas have been circulating "informally and off-the-record" inside NATO headquarters for a few months now. "The statements made by Mr. Kiesewetter reflect the concerns that exist everywhere in Europe over what Trump's inauguration will mean for US engagement and its strategy on nuclear deterrent."

On the nuclear question, Trump has attracted attention primarily for off-the-cuff remarks he made during the campaign. "If we have nuclear weapons, why can't we use them?" he allegedly said during a foreign policy briefing in the summer.

During the campaign, he also toyed with the idea of eliminating the US nuclear shield that provides protection to Japan and South Korea. Essentially, he bluntly suggested that the two Asian nations ought to develop their own nuclear weapons. Europeans have worried ever since that a similar threat could be directed at them.

Such comments come at a time when Moscow is more focused on its role as a nuclear power than it ever has been since the end of the Cold War. Like the United States, Russia is currently in the process of modernizing its nuclear arsenal. For a few years now, veiled threats about Moscow's nuclear arsenal have become part of the standard repertoire in President Vladimir Putin's rhetoric.

The British and French Deterrents

Europe would face very high hurdles if it sought to create its own nuclear shield. Why would Britain, currently in the process of leaving the European Union, even agree to it? And why would the French give the Germans any say when it comes to their Force de Frappe deterrent? Both have allegedly declined to consider the notion in initial probes in Brussels. But there's yet a bigger issue. Even if they were to cooperate, would the nuclear arsenal held by European nuclear powers even be sufficient to guarantee a nuclear deterrent?

Likely, yes. Taken together, Britain and France may only have 10 percent as many nuclear weapons as the Americans, but their second-strike capability is strong enough to effectively deter potential attackers.

The nuclear shield the United States has created for NATO member states is comprised of two components: The strategic element consists of hundreds of intercontinental ballistic missiles, a massive bomber fleet and around a dozen Ohio-class submarines. Each submarine has over 20 Trident II (D5) missiles with multiple warheads at its disposal.

The tactical element specially designed for a European theater of war is comprised of a little more than 180 B61-3 and -4 aircraft-carried missiles that are stationed at six air bases in five different NATO member states. Up to 20 nuclear bombs are stored in the village of Büchel, Germany, deployable on German Tornado fighter jets.

Together, France and Britain have around 450 nuclear warheads. France uses four strategic ballistic missile submarines, with each capable of carrying 16 missiles with four to six multiple warheads. The country also has around 50 nuclear strike-capable Mirage 2000N and Rafale fighter jets that are each equipped with nuclear-armed cruise missiles.

Britain has four strategic Vanguard-class missile submarines that also hold Trident II (D5) missiles that can carry up to 160 nuclear warheads. Technologically, however, the British are dependent on the Americans.

'Sufficient for Defending Germany'

"Viewed entirely from a military perspective, the nuclear weapons held by France and Britain would likely be sufficient for defending Germany," says the American Academy's Techau. The fact that they don't have the same number of nuclear weapons as Russia doesn't really matter. "The second-strike capability, which is decisive for deterrence, exists."

Politically, though, things get more complicated. France has always viewed its nuclear capability as a national asset and has never placed its weapons under a NATO mandate. It coordinates with Brussels, but would decide independently of the alliance on any potential deployment of its nuclear weapons.

Even during the Cold War, several political efforts were made to establish German-French nuclear cooperation, but nothing ever came of them.

Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss had hoped to work together with Paris. But Charles de Gaulle immediately halted the secret project as soon as he was elected in 1958.

Later, two years after he got voted out of office, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) also proposed a deal. He suggested that France expand its nuclear deterrent to include Germany. In exchange, West Germany would offer its "capital and financial strength" in order to help finance the French nuclear weapons program.

France Shunned Germany

Helmut Kohl, who was chancellor at the time, dismissed the idea as an "intellectual gimmick." A secret protocol dating from December 1985 -- and only made public at the beginning of this year -- showed why Kohl's distrust had been justified. In it, French President François Mitterrand admits to Kohl that France would be unwilling to "provide Germany with nuclear protection." He said France's nuclear potential could only serve to protect "a small territory" -- in other words, France. If Paris were to extend its protection, the French leader said, it would expose his country to a "lethal threat." In other words, Mitterrand did not want to risk dying to defend Germany.

Even if France were to change its position, it would be tricky under international law for Germany to participate militarily in a European nuclear shield. Whether or not Germany's participation in NATO's nuclear shield is permitted under international law has already been the subject of considerable debate. An actual German bomb would violate the terms of both the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Two Plus Four Agreement, the treaty which resulted in Germany's reunification.

By becoming a signatory to the NPT in 1975, the Germans committed "not to receive the transfer from any transferor of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly." During negotiations over German reunification in 1990, then-Chancellor Kohl also affirmed Germany's "renunciation" of the manufacture, possession and control of nuclear weapons. The provision became an integral part of the Two Plus Four Agreement.

A European Nuclear Power?

But the Germans always left a few loopholes open. In diplomatic notes attached to German NPT ratification documents, the government in Bonn stated at the time it had signed it "convinced that no stipulation in the treaty can be construed to hinder the further development European unification, especially the creation of a European Union with appropriate capabilities." Wolfgang Mischnick, parliamentary floor leader of the Free Democratic Party, which shared power with Kohl's Christian Democrats at the time, publicly clarified what that meant during a session of the Bundestag on February 20, 1974: "It is still possible to develop a European nuclear power," he said.

Forty years later the issue is actually now being raised for the first time. With it also comes the question of the degree to which Europeans actually trust each other. The real test will come if the United States decides to withdraw its nuclear support from Europe. Then Europeans would be forced to ask whether Paris and London were prepared to guarantee security for Germany and other Europeans. And also: Would Germans place their trust in a nuclear shield provided by their European partners?

For France, which always found Europe's reliance on NATO to be suspect, a European nuclear shield could also present an opportunity. A nuclear arsenal under French leadership, but large parts of which were financed by the Germans, would place the economically weakened country in a dominant position in terms of European security.

By Konstantin von Hammerstein, Christiane Hoffmann, Peter Müller, Otfried Nassauer, Christoph Schult and Klaus Wiegrefe
URL:
http://www.spiegel.de/international...-with-nuclear-deterrent-debate-a-1125186.html
Related SPIEGEL ONLINE links:
'Extreme and Unprecedented Uncertainty': NATO Prepares for Trump Presidency (11/16/2016)
http://www.spiegel.de/international...mp-threat-to-european-security-a-1121536.html
The Great Unknown: Head-Scratching in Berlin over Future US Relations (11/09/2016)
http://www.spiegel.de/international...lations-with-a-president-trump-a-1120570.html
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2016
All Rights Reserved
Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH

 

[Housecarl]

German Lawmaker Pushes For European Nuclear Deterrence Plan (Use UK & France's Nukes)
Started by*Possible Impact‎,*11-16-2016*11:27 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ar-Deterrence-Plan-(Use-UK-amp-France-s-Nukes)

EU Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Demands United European ARMY
Started by*Possible Impact‎,*06-27-2016*08:27 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-Committee-Chair-Demands-United-European-ARMY

REPORT: Germany ‘Annexing’ Dutch Military As Secretive EU Army Begins To Take Shape
Started by*Intestinal Fortitude‎,*04-21-2016*10:03 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ary-As-Secretive-EU-Army-Begins-To-Take-Shape

----------

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://observer.com/2016/12/indefensible-the-plan-for-a-pan-european-military-force-is-a-mistake/

Observer
Opinion

Indefensible: The Plan for a Pan-European Military Force Is a Mistake

EDAP could unravel NATO

By Dr. Herbert London • 12/08/16 11:56am

While the Euro declines in value reaching parity with the dollar, with*debt overwhelming the underbelly of European states and with serious*questions arising about the viability of the Union itself, the EU at*the Bratislava Summit in September 2016 concluded that the time has*come for its own military force.

The report EDAP (European Defense Action Plan) indicated that the 27*Member States “need the EU not only to guarantee peace and democracy,*but also the security of our people.” Presumably a coherent EU*response is called for.

So what could only be considered an ironic touch, participants at the*conference contended that a strong EU force and a strong NATO are*mutually reinforcing. However, it was not revealed how this might*occur. With limited resources, the more likely scenario is a reduction*in allocations to NATO in return for the generation of an independent*European force, one that does not include the United States.

Moreover, the EU position has broadened priorities to include space,*border and maritime surveillance and cyber defense. EDAP maintains*that this defense arrangement will lead to cooperation as a common*practice rather than the exception.

Reference is made in the report to a reliance on U.S. funding for the*defense of Europe, noting EU Member States have decreased defense*spending since 2015 by 12 percent. By contrast, in the last decade*China increased its defense spending by 150 percent. This decrease in*spending has not been accompanied by European cooperation. Since*Member States act independently, there is duplication, a lack of*interoperability and technological gaps at an annual cost of between*25 and 100 billion euros.

Should the EU force be adopted, there isn’t enough*European capital to sustain billions for a new entity and the billions*Trump will request for NATO. Something has got to give.

Although the EDAP states explicitly that it will not compete with or*replace NATO, there is little doubt that an EU defense force without*the U.S. will be much less of a “force” and may indeed be a response*to an equivocal U.S. commitment to NATO in the future.

Standing in the backdrop of this report are two individuals: Vladimir*Putin and Donald Trump. Putin would very much like to see a weakened*NATO, an alliance that cannot offset his plans for the Finlandization*of the Baltics states and the colonization of the Ukraine. He reckons*that a European force is ostensibly the death knell of NATO and he may*be right.

Donald Trump has indicated an uneasiness about NATO unless member*states live up to their financial obligation of spending two percent*of GDP on defense. Should the EU force be adopted, there isn’t enough*European capital to sustain billions for a new entity and the billions*Trump will request for NATO. Something has got to give. That something*may be the future of NATO.

In my opinion that would be a mistake. NATO, as a bulwark against*Russian aggression, has served the European continent well. American*participation has added dramatically to capability and logistical*thrust. Far better to enhance NATO with funding and an additional*anti-terrorist mission than starting an EU force de novo. But, as I*see it, the European Union is grasping at straws in its desire to*maintain unity. The tide of history as seen through recent votes in*England, Italy and the Czech Republic suggest fracturing.

Can a continental military force achieve what politics cannot? My*suspicion is that EDAP is a mistake on two counts: It cannot be the*source of unity and ultimately it weakens Europe’s response to*potential threats. NATO is in its seventh decade; it surely needs a*shot of adrenaline in the form of resources and mission alignment, but*it isn’t dead and should not be buried under the cloak of a new*European force.

Dr. Herbert I. London is the*President of the London Center for Policy Research

 

[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?507548-China-Preparing-for-Anti-Satellite-Missile-Test

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-prepares-satellite-missile-test/

China Prepares for Anti-Satellite Missile Test

(Updated) DN-3 missile spotted preparing for launch

BY: Bill Gertz Follow @BillGertz
December 9, 2016 5:00 am

China is preparing to conduct a flight test of a new missile capable of destroying satellites in space, one of Beijing’s most potent asymmetric warfare weapons.

Test preparations for the Dong Neng-3 anti-satellite missile were detected at a military facility in central China, according to Pentagon officials familiar with reports of the impending test.

Intelligence agencies were alerted to the impending test by China’s announcement of air closure zones covering the expected flight path of the DN-3.

The flight test could come as early as Thursday, the officials said.

No other details of the missile test were available.*A Pentagon spokesman and a State Department official both said, “We do not comment on intelligence matters.”

Asia watcher Henri Kenhmann reported on his website Eastpendulum.com this week that missile tests were expected from the People’s Liberation Army satellite launch facility known as Jiuquan, located in Inner Mongolia, and a second launch complex at Korla, located in Xinjiang, western China.

The expected tests were based on Chinese government announcements of air closure areas for Dec. 7 and Dec. 8 near those sites.

Kenhmann said the flight tests could involve a missile defense interceptor test.
China’s ballistic missile defense and anti-satellite missile programs are closely intertwined.

After Beijing came under international criticism following a 2007 anti-satellite missile test that left thousands of pieces of floating debris in space, it*began conducting its anti-satellite missile program under cover of a missile defense system.

The last time China tested a DN-3 anti-satellite missile was Oct. 30, 2015 from the Korla Missile Test Complex.

“The PLA is acquiring a range of technologies to improve China’s counterspace capabilities,” the Pentagon’s latest report on the Chinese military said.

“In addition to the development of directed energy weapons and satellite jammers, China is also developing anti-satellite capabilities and has probably made progress on the anti-satellite missile system it tested in July 2014.”

In addition to missiles and lasers, China also is working on small maneuvering satellites that can grab and destroy orbiting satellites.

Richard Fisher, a China military affairs specialist, said the DN-3 appears to be based on the Kuaizhou-1 (KZ-1) mobile space launch vehicle.

“It’s about the same size as the DF-31 solid fuel mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM),” he said.

Fisher, senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said the DN-3 could be capable of hitting satellites more than 18,640 miles away in space—more than enough to reach large U.S. surveillance satellites that occupy orbit 186 to 620 miles from earth.

“In late 2016 or by mid 2017 the PLA may test a larger solid fuel mobile space launch vehicle called the KZ-11, with a 2-meter diameter motor similar in size to the new large and multiple warhead armed DF-41 ICBM,” Fisher said.

Another space launcher on a mobile transporter is being developed called the Long March-11 (LM-11).

“Both the KZ-11 and the LM-11 are four-stage solid fuel mobile missiles that could also be used for anti-satellite missions,” Fisher said.

“The bottom line is that the PLA now has at least two deployed ground-launched, mobile, solid fueled direct-ascent ASAT [anti-satellite] systems and may be able to soon field two more larger third generation ground-launched ASAT systems,” he added.

The anti-satellite weapons programs are believed to be under the PLA’s new Strategic Support Force, a dedicated space warfare and cyber warfare service set up in late 2015.

The developmental KZ-11 and LM-11 systems may be used by China to target U.S. Defense Support Program (DSP) early warning satellites, along with high-orbit Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation satellites.

The DN-3 is known as a direct-ascent anti-satellite missile that destroys satellites with a warhead that rams into orbiting systems at high speeds. The DN-3 is also said to have the capability to intercept ballistic missiles in flight.

If the DN-3 test is carried out, it will be China’s ninth known anti-satellite missile test. An earlier anti-satellite missile test was carried out in July 2014.

For both the October 2015 and July 2014 tests, China asserted the tests were part of a missile defense interceptor program.

U.S. officials, however, said both test involved anti-satellite weapons.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman did not return an email seeking comment.

Frank Rose, assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification, and compliance said in February 2015 that Beijing engaged in deception about the 2014 test.

“Despite China’s claims that this was not an ASAT test; let me assure you the United States has high confidence in its assessment, that the event was indeed an ASAT test,” Rose said.

“The continued development and testing of destructive ASAT systems is both destabilizing and threatens the long-term security and sustainability of the outer space environment,” he added.

Chinese netizens posted photos of the purported 2015 ASAT test near Korla, showing contrails said to be the result of the missile.

China also has two additional anti-satellite missiles known as the SC-19 and DN-2.

Update 11:01 A.M.:*This article has been updated to reflect that a Pentagon spokesman said, “We do not comment on intelligence matters.”