WAR 12-29-2018-to-01-04-2019___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(348) 12-08-2018-to-12-14-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...2-14-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(349) 12-15-2018-to-12-21-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...2-21-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(350) 12-22-2018-to-12-28-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...2-28-2018___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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Interesting.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/...on/sectioncollection/world&version=highlights

On the Front Line of the Saudi War in Yemen: Child Soldiers From Darfur

By David D. Kirkpatrick
Dec. 28, 2018

KHARTOUM, Sudan — The civil war in Darfur robbed Hager Shomo Ahmed of almost any hope. Raiders had stolen his family’s cattle, and a dozen years of bloodshed had left his parents destitute.

Then, around the end of 2016, Saudi Arabia offered a lifeline: The kingdom would pay as much as $10,000 if Hager joined its forces fighting 1,200 miles away in Yemen.

Hager, 14 at the time, could not find Yemen on a map, and his mother was appalled. He had survived one horrific civil war — how could his parents toss him into another? But the family overruled her.

“Families know that the only way their lives will change is if their sons join the war and bring them back money,” Hager said in an interview last week in the capital, Khartoum, a few days after his 16th birthday.

The United Nations has called the war in Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. An intermittent blockade by the Saudis and their partners in the United Arab Emirates has pushed as many as 12 million people to the brink of starvation, killing some 85,000 children, according to aid groups.

Led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudis say they are battling to rescue Yemen from a hostile faction backed by Iran. But to do it, the Saudis have used their vast oil wealth to outsource the war, mainly by hiring what Sudanese soldiers say are tens of thousands of desperate survivors of the conflict in Darfur to fight, many of them children.

At any time for nearly four years as many as 14,000 Sudanese militiamen have been fighting in Yemen in tandem with the local militia aligned with the Saudis, according to several Sudanese fighters who have returned and Sudanese lawmakers who are attempting to track it. Hundreds, at least, have died there.

Almost all the Sudanese fighters appear to come from the battle-scarred and impoverished region of Darfur, where some 300,000 people were killed and 1.2 million displaced during a dozen years of conflict over diminishing arable land and other scarce resources.

Most belong to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, a tribal militia previously known as the Janjaweed. They were blamed for the systematic rape of women and girls, indiscriminate killing and other war crimes during Darfur’s conflict, and veterans involved in those horrors are now leading their deployment to Yemen — albeit in a more formal and structured campaign.

Some families are so eager for the money that they bribe militia officers to let their sons go fight. Many are ages 14 to 17. In interviews, five fighters who have returned from Yemen and another about to depart said that children made up at least 20 percent of their units. Two said children were more than 40 percent.

To keep a safe distance from the battle lines, their Saudi or Emirati overseers commanded the Sudanese fighters almost exclusively by remote control, directing them to attack or retreat through radio headsets and GPS systems provided to the Sudanese officers in charge of each unit, the fighters all said.

“The Saudis told us what to do through the telephones and devices,” said Mohamed Suleiman al-Fadil, a 28-year-old member of the Bani Hussein tribe who returned from Yemen at the end of last year. “They never fought with us.”

“The Saudis would give us a phone call and then pull back,” agreed Ahmed, 25, a member of the Awlad Zeid tribe who fought near Hudaydah this year and who did not want his full name published for fear of government retaliation. “They treat the Sudanese like their firewood.”

A few thousand Emiratis are based around the port of Aden. But the rest of the coalition the Saudis and Emiratis have assembled is united mainly by dependence on their financial aid.

The Pakistani military, despite a parliamentary vote blocking its participation, has quietly dispatched 1,000 soldiers to bolster Saudi forces inside the kingdom. Jordan has deployed jets and military advisers. Both governments rely heavily on aid from the Gulf monarchies. (A report by a United Nations panel suggested Eritrea may have sent about 400 troops as well.)

But in Sudan, which has played a far larger role, the Saudi money appears to flow directly to the fighters — or mercenaries, as critics call them. It benefits the economy only indirectly.

“People are desperate. They are fighting in Yemen because they know that in Sudan they don’t have a future,” said Hafiz Ismail Mohamed, a former banker, economic consultant and critic of the government. “We are exporting soldiers to fight like they are a commodity we are exchanging for foreign currency.”

A spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition said in a statement that it was fighting to restore the internationally recognized government of Yemen and that coalition forces upheld all international humanitarian and human rights laws, including “abstaining from child recruitment.”

“The allegations that there are children among the ranks of the Sudanese forces are fictitious and unfounded,” the spokesman, Turki al-Malki, said in the statement. Saudi officials said their soldiers have also died in Yemen, but declined to disclose how many.

The Sudanese ground troops unquestionably have made it easier for the Saudis and Emiratis to extend the war. The Sudanese have insulated the Saudis and Emiratis from the casualties that might test the patience of families at home.

The Sudanese are sometimes deployed to defend the flanks of the Yemeni militiamen who spearhead attacks. But the Sudanese fighters insist they are also the main barrier against the Saudis’ Yemeni foes, the Houthis.

“Without us, the Houthis would take all of Saudi Arabia, including Mecca,” Mr. Fadil said.

Ambassador Babikir Elsiddig Elamin, a spokesman for Sudan’s Foreign Ministry, declined to comment on troop levels, casualties or paychecks in Yemen. He said that Sudan was fighting “in the interest of regional peace and stability.”

“Other than that,” he added, “we don’t have any national interest in Yemen.”

Sudan’s defense minister threatened last May to withdraw from the conflict, pointedly announcing that Khartoum was “reassessing” participation in light of Sudan’s “stability and interests.” Diplomats called the statement a veiled demand that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates provide more financial assistance.

They did not, and the Sudanese economy teetered.
Khartoum backed down. The flow of fighters continued.

But President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan has gained valuable allies, easing his international isolation after years as a virtual pariah.

The United States has designated Mr. Bashir’s government a state sponsor of terrorism for more than two decades. The International Criminal Court has issued warrants for his arrest, charging him with directing the Darfur war crimes.

Until recently, the Saudis and Emirates kept their distance, suspicious of Mr. Bashir’s roots in political Islam and relations with Iran and Qatar, both Saudi rivals.

The war in Yemen, however, has enabled Mr. Bashir to win at least diplomatic support from its Gulf leaders, and he has thanked the Saudis and Emiratis for pressing Washington to upgrade relations.

The Saudi payments to the soldiers have become increasingly significant to Sudan, where inflation has hit 70 percent and even in the capital residents line up for bread, fuel and bank withdrawals. At least nine people have been killed this month by security forces.

Darfur has furnished mercenaries to other conflicts as well.

Rebel groups who fought the Janjaweed have turned up fighting in Libya for the anti-Islamist Gen. Khalifa Hifter, according to the findings of a United Nations panel and other reports.

But far more have fought in Yemen.

The five fighters who had returned from Yemen and two brothers of fighters who died there all gave similar accounts. Sudanese jets departed Khartoum or Nyala, Darfur, carrying 2,000 to 3,000 soldiers at a time to Saudi Arabia.

They were delivered to camps inside the kingdom, where some said they saw as many as 8,000 Sudanese gathered.

The Saudis issued them uniforms and weapons, which the Sudanese fighters believed were American made. Then Saudi officers provided two to four weeks of training, mainly in assembling and cleaning their guns.

Finally, they were divided into units of 500 to 750 fighters, they said. Then they traveled over land to Yemen, to battles in the Midi Desert, the Khalid ibn Walid camp in Taiz, or around Aden and Hudaydah.

All said they fought only for money. They were paid in Saudi riyals, the equivalent of about $480 a month for a 14-year-old novice to about $530 a month for an experienced Janjaweed officer. They received an additional $185 to $285 for any month they saw combat — every month for some.

Their payments were deposited directly into the Faisal Islamic Bank of Sudan, partly owned by Saudis. At the end of a six-month rotation, each fighter also received a one-time payment of at least 700,000 Sudanese pounds — roughly $10,000 at the current official exchange rate.

By comparison, a Sudanese doctor working overtime at multiple jobs might earn the equivalent of $500 a month, said Mr. Mohamed, the economic consultant.

Abdul Raheem, a 32-year-old member of the Rezeigat tribe whose full name was withheld to prevent reprisals, said that last year his family paid a local militia leader a bribe worth $1,360 so an older brother could go to Yemen as an officer.

The brother, Abdul Rahman, died in combat in February 2018. “Life is like that,” Abdul Raheem said, stone-faced.

Abdul Rahman’s wife and three children received the equivalent of $35,000 in Sudanese pounds, although banking restrictions have hindered access to it.

Some Sudanese officers had told the soldiers explicitly, “Don’t fight harder than the money is worth, don’t fight more than you are paid for,” recalled Ahmed, of the Awlad Zeid tribe.

All the fighters complained of Houthi rockets and mines, and they recounted casualty levels ranging from 135 in Mr. Fadil’s unit to about 200 in Ahmed’s. When they returned they bought livestock, a Korean-made pickup truck or a small grocery store.

Hager, who went to Yemen at 14 and returned in November 2017, wore a matching khaki shirt and pants to an interview in Khartoum. His cheeks were clean. His mustache was just beginning.

His unit lost 20 men during their overland journey to a camp near Aden, where they lost 22 more in a first battle and 35 in a second — 180 after six months.

He had been terrified every day, he said, hunching forward in his seat when he talked about combat. But his Sudanese officers let him call his parents from time to time, and now they are happy. Besides a house, he bought the family 10 cattle.


Declan Walsh and Saeed al-Batati contributed reporting from Yemen.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/2...l-saudi-arabia-united-states-china-kurds-ypg/

2019: The Year Ahead

10 Conflicts to Watch in 2019

As U.S. leadership fades, authoritarian leaders are competing to see how much they can get away with.

By Robert Malley
December 28, 2018, 1:51 AM

In a world with fewer rules, the only truly effective one is knowing what you can get away with. The answer today, it turns out, is: quite a lot.

As the era of largely uncontested U.S. primacy fades, the international order has been thrown into turmoil. More leaders are tempted more often to test limits, jostle for power, and seek to bolster their influence—or diminish that of their rivals—by meddling in foreign conflicts. Multilateralism and its constraints are under siege, challenged by more transactional, zero-sum politics.

Instruments of collective action, such as the United Nations Security Council, are paralyzed; those of collective accountability, including the International Criminal Court, are ignored and disparaged.

Nostalgia can be deceptive. Too fond a portrayal of the era of Western hegemony would be misleading. Iraq’s chemical weapons use against Iran in the 1980s; the 1990s bloodletting in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Somalia; the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; Sri Lanka’s brutal 2009 campaign against the Tamils; and the collapse of Libya and South Sudan: all these happened at a time of—in some cases because of—U.S. dominance and a reasonably coherent West. A liberal and nominally rules-based order hardly stopped those setting the rules from discarding them when they saw fit. The erosion of Western influence, in short, looks different from Moscow, Beijing, and the developing world than it does from Brussels, London, or Washington.

Still, for better and for worse, U.S. power and alliances have for years shaped international affairs, set limits, and structured regional orders. As the West’s influence declines, accelerated by U.S. President Donald Trump’s contempt for traditional allies and Europe’s struggles with Brexit and nativism, leaders across the world are probing and prodding to see how far they can go.

In their domestic policies, many of those leaders embrace a noxious brew of nationalism and authoritarianism. The mix varies from place to place but typically entails rejection of international institutions and rules. There is little new in the critique of an unjust global order. But if once that critique tended to be rooted in international solidarity, today it stems chiefly from an inward-looking populism that celebrates narrow social and political identity, vilifies minorities and migrants, assails the rule of law and independence of the press, and elevates national sovereignty above all else.

Trump may be the most visible of the genre, but he is far from the most extreme. The wind is in the sails of strongmen worldwide. They realize, at times perhaps to their surprise, that constraints are crumbling, and the behavior that results often fuels violence or crises.

The wind is in the sails of strongmen worldwide. They realize, at times perhaps to their surprise, that constraints are crumbling, and the behavior that results often fuels violence or crises.

Myanmar’s mass expulsion of 700,000 Rohingya, the Syrian regime’s brutal suppression of a popular uprising, the Cameroonian government’s apparent determination to crush an Anglophone insurgency rather than tackle the grievances fueling it, the Venezuelan government’s economic warfare against its own people, and the silencing of dissent in Turkey, Egypt, and elsewhere are but a few examples. All are motivated in part by what leaders perceive as a yellow light where they used to see solid red.

Beyond their borders, these leaders test norms, too. Having annexed parts of Georgia and Crimea and stoked separatist violence in Ukraine’s Donbass region, Russia is now throwing its weight around in the Sea of Azov, poisoning dissidents in the United Kingdom, and subverting Western democracies with cyberwarfare. China obstructs freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and arbitrarily detains Canadian citizens—including the International Crisis Group’s Michael Kovrig. Saudi Arabia has pushed the envelope with the war in Yemen, the kidnapping of a Lebanese prime minister, and the gruesome murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its consulate in Istanbul. Iran plots attacks against dissidents on European soil. Israel feels emboldened to undermine ever more systematically the foundations of a possible two-state solution.

Such actions are hardly new or equal in magnitude. But they are more brazen and overt. They have this much in common: They start with the assumption that there will be few consequences for breaches of international norms.

The U.S. government has hardly been an innocent bystander. Trump’s disdain for human rights and penchant for transactional diplomacy have set a strikingly negative tone. So too has his flouting of America’s international commitments: tearing up the Iran nuclear deal and, worse, threatening to impose economic punishment on those who choose to abide by it; hinting he will leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty if U.S. demands are not met rather than working within it to press Russia to comply; and signaling, through attacks on the International Criminal Court and chest-thumping speeches about U.S. sovereignty, that Washington regards its actions and those of its friends as beyond accountability.

The danger of today’s free-for-all goes beyond the violence already generated. The larger risk is of miscalculation.

Overreach by one leader convinced of his immunity may prompt an unexpected reaction by another; the ensuing tit for tat easily could escalate without the presence of a credible, willing outside power able to play the role of arbiter.
True, not everyone gets away with everything all the time. Bangladesh seemed poised to forcibly return some Rohingya refugees to Myanmar but stopped, almost certainly in response to international pressure. The feared Russian-backed reconquest of Idlib, the last rebel stronghold in Syria, has, for now, been averted, in no small measure due to Turkish, European, and U.S. objections. The same is true (again: for the time being) when it comes to a potential Saudi-led offensive on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah, with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi largely deterred by warnings about the humanitarian impact and cost to their international standing.

Elsewhere, leaders anticipating impunity have been taken aback by the severity of the response: Russian President Vladimir Putin, for example, by the stiff sanctions and show of united resolve that Western powers have maintained since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and the killing of its former agent on British soil; Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman by the outrage that followed Khashoggi’s murder.

Overall, though, it is hard to escape the sense that these are exceptions that prove the absence of rules. The international order as we know it is unraveling, with no clear sense of what will come in its wake. The danger may well lie less in the ultimate destination than in the process of getting there. As the following list of 10 Conflicts to Watch in 2019 amply illustrates, that road will be bumpy, and it will be perilous.

Performers dance during a rally to mark three years of war in Yemen, in the capital, Sanaa, on March 26. (Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty Images)

1. Yemen
If one place has borne the brunt of international lawlessness over the past year it is Yemen. The humanitarian crisis there—the world’s worst—could deteriorate further in 2019 if the key players do not seize the opportunity created over the past weeks by U.N. Special Envoy Martin Griffiths in achieving a partial cease-fire and encouraging a series of confidence-building steps.

After more than four years of war and a Saudi-led siege, almost 16 million Yemenis face “severe acute food insecurity,” according to the U.N. That means one in two Yemenis doesn’t have enough to eat.

Fighting started in late 2014, after Houthi rebels expelled the internationally recognized government from the capital. It escalated the following March, when Saudi Arabia, together with the United Arab Emirates, began bombing and blockading Yemen, aiming to reverse the Houthis’ gains and reinstall the dislodged government. Western powers largely endorsed the Saudi-led campaign.

In late 2018, Yemeni militias backed by the United Arab Emirates surrounded Hodeidah, a Houthi-controlled port, through which aid for millions of starving Yemenis passes. The coalition appeared determined to move in, convinced that taking the port would crush the rebellion and make the Houthis more pliant. But the consequences of such an offensive would be almost unimaginable. The top U.N. relief official, Mark Lowcock, has warned it could provoke a “great big famine.”

That, and the fallout from Khashoggi’s murder, prompted Western powers to begin restraining the Gulf coalition. On Nov. 9, the United States announced it would no longer refuel coalition jets conducting air raids in Yemen. A month later, Griffiths, with Washington’s help, reached the “Stockholm agreement” between the Houthis and the Yemeni government, including a fragile cease-fire around Hodeidah.

There are other glimmers of light. U.S. pressure to end the conflict could intensify in 2019. The Senate has already voted to consider legislation barring all U.S. involvement in the war.

Once the Democrats assume control of the House of Representatives in January 2019, they could move more aggressively in this direction.

That and more will be needed to end the Yemen war or at least avoid it taking another turn for the worse. All parties—the Houthis and their Yemeni adversaries, but also the Saudis and Emiratis—seem to believe that time is on their side. Only pressure from Europe, Oman, and Iran on the Houthis; from the United States on Saudi Arabia and the UAE; from those two Gulf countries on the Yemeni government; and from Congress on the U.S. administration stands a chance of making a difference.

An Afghan police truck transports injured victims following a suicide attack in Kabul on July 22. (Noorullah Shirzada/AFP/Getty Images)

2. Afghanistan
If Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, Afghanistan suffers its deadliest fighting. In 2018, by one tally, the war killed more than 40,000 combatants and civilians. Trump’s reported decision in mid-December that half of U.S. forces in Afghanistan would leave brought further unease. In principle, Washington’s signal that it is ready to pull out could advance diplomatic efforts to end the war by focusing belligerents’ and regional actors’ minds. But the ad hoc nature of the decision—seemingly made without looping in top officials—and the specter it raises of the United States cutting and running could bode badly for the coming year.

In 2018, the war exacted a higher toll than at any time since the Taliban were ousted from Kabul more than 17 years ago.

A three-day cease-fire in June, which the Taliban and the government enforced and which prompted joyous celebration by fighters and civilians alike, offered a short respite, though fighting resumed immediately afterwards. Taliban fighters now effectively control perhaps half the country, cutting off transport routes and laying siege to cities and towns. A sharp uptick in U.S. airstrikes has not curbed their momentum.

In September, Washington appointed the veteran diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad as an envoy for peace talks—a welcome sign that it was prioritizing negotiations to end the war. Taliban leaders appear to be taking the talks seriously, though the process is stuck over their continued insistence that the United States commit to a timeline for full withdrawal of international forces as a precondition for a wider peace process involving other Afghan factions, a sequence that would be a win for the Taliban while saddling other Afghans with uncertainty.

Only days after Khalilzad’s latest talks with the Taliban came Trump’s bombshell. Withdrawing 7,000 troops in itself will probably not be militarily decisive. Indeed, there could be value to the United States making clear it is serious about bringing troops home. All sides understand that a rapid pullout could provoke a major new civil war, an outcome nobody, including the Taliban, wants. With a U.S. drawdown in the cards, the Taliban’s suspicion about Washington’s motives might ease, propelling talks forward.

Neighboring countries and others involved in Afghanistan—notably Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and China—all want the Americans out eventually, but none of them wants a precipitous withdrawal. They may be more inclined to support U.S. diplomacy if they believe that Washington will eventually give up its strategic foothold in South Asia. Trump’s announcement could therefore spur them to help end the war, but regional powers could just as easily increase their meddling by doubling down on Afghan proxies to hedge their bets.

Unfortunately, the rashness of Trump’s decision risks outweighing any potential silver lining. Its timing appeared to catch everyone—from Khalilzad and top U.S. military chiefs to the Afghan government—off guard. The fact that it was not coordinated with Khalilzad meant that the envoy could not extract any concessions from the Taliban in return for such a key pledge that partially addressed their core demand. In Kabul, the sense of betrayal was palpable. A few days later, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani nominated two hard-line anti-Taliban officials as his defense and interior ministers, suggesting a move away from his compromising tone of the past year.

The festivities that greeted the June cease-fire revealed broad support for peace, and there are signs that the war’s core protagonists are open to a settlement. But that was always an uncertain bet. Trump’s decision has only added to the uncertainty.

U.S., Philippine, and Japanese marines simulate an amphibious landing as part of their annual joint military exercise northwest of Manila in the disputed South China Sea on May 9. (Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images)

3. U.S.-Chinese Tensions
The standoff between China and the United States is not a deadly conflict, no matter how bitter the trade war between Washington and Beijing has become. Still, rhetoric between the two is increasingly bellicose. If relations, already at their lowest ebb since the Tiananmen protests almost three decades ago, continue to deteriorate, the rivalry could have graver geopolitical consequences than all of the other crises listed this year.

In a deeply divided Washington, one position that wins bipartisan consensus is that China is an adversary with which the United States is inexorably locked in strategic competition.

Most U.S. policymakers concur that Beijing has exploited institutions and rules to its own end—joining the World Trade Organization or signing up to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, for example, even as it acts inconsistently with the spirit of both. President Xi Jinping’s ending of term limits, rapid expansion of China’s military, and extension of the Communist Party’s control across state and society confirm to many in Washington the dangerous turn the country has taken under his stewardship. The U.S. government’s 2018 National Defense Strategy cites “inter-state strategic competition” as its primary concern, with China and Russia named as primary competitors, after many years in which terrorism took the top spot.

Heightening the sense of lawlessness is Beijing’s unjust detention of three Canadians—including one of my colleagues, the Northeast Asia expert Michael Kovrig—widely seen as a tit for tat for Canada’s arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, wanted for Iran sanctions violations by the United States, with which Canada has an extradition treaty.

In reality, China likely has no short-term desire to fundamentally challenge the world order. Nor will it match Washington’s global clout anytime soon, provided the Trump administration takes steps to stop hemorrhaging allies and credibility. But Beijing is ever readier to throw its weight around in multilateral institutions and its region. In Asia, it expects a Chinese sphere in which neighbors are sovereign but deferential. U.S. policymakers mostly regard such an arrangement as inimical to U.S. alliances and interests.

Mounting U.S.-Chinese tension has implications for conflicts in Asia and beyond. For the two superpowers, pooling efforts to end crises has never been easy. An increasingly bitter rivalry would make it much harder. China would be less likely to back either tougher sanctions against North Korea, if stuttering talks between Washington and Pyongyang break down, or U.S. diplomatic efforts in Afghanistan.

Risks of direct conflict remain slim, but the South China Sea is a troubling flash point. The past two decades have seen occasional run-ins between Chinese forces and U.S. planes. Beijing stakes claim to 90 percent of the South China Sea, stopping mere miles from the Vietnamese, Malaysian, and Philippine coastlines, and has aggressively built bases on strategic natural and man-made islands. From Beijing’s perspective, such maneuvers are standard operating procedure for what Xi calls a “big country.” China wants what the United States has: pliant neighbors, influence around its periphery, and the capacity to control its sea approaches and transport lanes. Others, of course, see it differently. The smaller Southeast Asian nations object, and some look to Washington for protection.

Beijing and Washington could reach some form of trade deal in the months ahead, which would help ease tensions. But any respite is likely to be short-lived. On both sides, leaders believe a long-festering geopolitical and economic clash has reached a point of rupture.

An Israeli flag is seen placed on Mount Bental in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on May 10. Israel’s army said it had carried out widespread raids against Iranian targets in Syria after rocket fire toward its forces that it blamed on Iran. (Jalaa Marey/AFP/Getty Images)

4. Saudi Arabia, the United States, Israel, and Iran
Much like 2018, 2019 presents risks of confrontation—deliberate or inadvertent—involving the United States, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Iran. The first three share a common view of the government in Tehran as a threat that has been emboldened for too long and whose regional aspirations need curbing. For Washington, this has translated into withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, the restoration of sanctions, more aggressive rhetoric, and threats of powerful retaliation in the event of Iranian provocation. Riyadh has embraced this new tone, and— mainly in the voice of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—suggested it will fight back and seek to counter Iran in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, and even on Iranian soil. Israel has focused on Syria, where it has regularly struck Iranian and Iranian-aligned targets, but it has also threatened to target the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

So far, Iran—confident in long-term trends and deterred by the possibility of retaliation—has opted to hunker down. While it has resumed missile testing, and the United States has accused it of using its Shiite proxies in Iraq to threaten the U.S. presence there, its response appears calculated not to invite a harsh reply. But as economic pressure builds on Iran, this posture may not last. Moreover, the risk of an accidental clash originating in Yemen, in the Persian Gulf, in Syria, or in Iraq cannot be discounted.

The main source of tension, so far, has been the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal and the reimposition of secondary sanctions against countries engaged in business with Tehran. That Iran has not responded in kind to what it describes as economic warfare owes much to the efforts of the deal’s other signatories, namely European countries, Russia, and China. Their attempts to preserve a modicum of space for trade coupled with their continued diplomatic engagement with Tehran have given sufficient reason for Iran’s leaders to adhere to the terms of the deal. Those leaders also seem to be hoping for a one-term Trump presidency.

This calculus could change. While U.S. and Saudi hopes that sanctions will force Iran to modify its disruptive behavior or prompt regime change almost certainly will be disappointed, the economic squeeze is hurting ordinary Iranians.

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

As more pain is inflicted on Iran’s citizens, hard-line voices urging the Islamic Republic to eschew the agreement will grow louder, especially as jockeying for President Hassan Rouhani’s and, possibly, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s posts heat up. Even if they comply with nuclear constraints, the temptation could grow in Tehran to make Washington pay a price for its actions by taking aim at its presence in the region, for example by encouraging attacks by Iraqi Shiite militias against U.S. targets in Iraq.

Hostility between Saudi Arabia and Iran is playing out in proxy struggles across the Middle East, from Yemen to Lebanon. Any of these conflicts could escalate. Yemen is arguably the most dangerous. Should a Houthi missile inflict casualties in a Saudi city or if the Houthis target international commercial shipping in the Red Sea—a move they have long threatened to make—the conflict could enter a far more dangerous phase.

In Syria, Israel has so far been adept at striking Iranian targets without prompting a wider war. Iran, no doubt aware of the potential cost of such escalation, calculates that it can absorb such attacks without endangering its deeper interests and longer-term presence in Syria. But the Syrian theater is congested, Iranian forbearance is not limitless, and the likelihood of a miscalculation or an attack gone awry remains a risk.

Hanging over these dynamics will be continued reverberations of the October assassination of Khashoggi. The murder amplified criticism in the United States of both Saudi foreign policy and the seemingly unconditional U.S. support for it. These feelings will intensify next year as Democrats assume control of the House. One can only hope this leads to stronger U.S. pressure on Riyadh to end the war in Yemen and to greater congressional scrutiny of U.S. and Saudi escalatory policies toward Iran.

A Syrian child walks past the rubble of destroyed buildings in an opposition-held neighborhood of the southern city of Daraa on Oct. 2. (Mohamad Abazeed/AFP/Getty Images)

5. Syria
As 2018 came to a close, it looked as if the Syrian conflict would continue along the same path. It seemed that the regime of Bashar al-Assad, with Iranian and Russian help, would win its battle against the opposition. The war against the Islamic State would approach the finish line. Foreign actors would maintain a fragile equilibrium in various parts of the country: among Israel, Iran, and Russia in the southwest; Russia and Turkey in the northwest; and the United States and Turkey in the northeast. But with a mid-December phone call to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announcing the withdrawal of U.S. troops, Trump upended that balance; increased the odds of a bloody conflict involving Turkey, its Syrian allies, Syrian Kurds, and the Assad regime; and, in so doing, potentially gave the Islamic State a new lease on life by fueling the chaos on which it thrives.

The Trump administration’s earlier policy of indefinitely retaining a military presence in Syria was always of questionable value. It was unclear how 2,000 U.S. troops could curb Iranian influence or create meaningful pressure on the Assad regime. The fight against the Islamic State is not over, but it need not require maintaining U.S. troops on the ground. That said, a precipitous withdrawal presents one major risk: It will leave the People’s Protection Units (YPG)—the Kurdish-dominated armed group that partnered with U.S. forces against the Islamic State and now controls roughly one-third of Syrian territory—perilously exposed.

The YPG could now face an attack from Turkey (which considers it a terrorist organization due to its affiliation with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK) or by the Assad regime (which aims to reassert control over the entirety of the country, including the oil-rich northeast). Should disorder ensue, the Islamic State could seize the opportunity to stage a comeback by regrouping and recapturing some of the territory it has lost over the past two years.

In short, the real question for the United States should not have been whether to stay or go, but under what timetable and what conditions to withdraw.

Both the United States and Russia should have an interest in preventing an all-out scramble for the territory abandoned by the United States because it could revitalize the Islamic State and because (from Russia’s perspective) it could result in Turkey controlling more of Moscow’s ally’s land. Averting this scenario will require Washington and Moscow (separately or in tandem) to persuade Turkey not to launch an assault on YPG-held territory, to persuade the YPG to lower its armed profile, and to facilitate a deal between Damascus and the YPG that entails the return of the Syrian government to the northeast coupled with a degree of Kurdish self-rule in the area. Such an outcome would simultaneously allow Syria to restore its sovereignty, reassure Turkey by limiting YPG authority and firepower, and protect the Kurds from military attack. It might be too late to achieve this goal. It is not too late to try.

Women line up to cast their votes during the Osun State gubernatorial election in Ede, southwest Nigeria, on Sept. 22. (Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images)

6. Nigeria
Nigerians will go to the polls in February 2019 to elect a president and new federal legislature, and again in March to choose state governors and lawmakers. Nigerian elections are traditionally violent affairs, and conditions this time around are particularly combustible.

The presidential contest between incumbent Muhammadu Buhari and his main rival, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, will be hard fought. Relations between Buhari’s ruling All Progressives Congress and Abubakar’s People’s Democratic Party—which governed for 16 years until Buhari came to power—are as acrimonious in the capital as they are in hots pots across the country. Disputes between Buhari and the leaders of parliament’s two chambers, both of whom defected from the ruling party in July, delayed funding for the electoral commission and security agencies, hindering election preparations. The opposition’s distrust of both the commission and security forces heightens risks of protests during and after the vote. Such protests have a troubled precedent: Demonstrations after the 2011 polls morphed into attacks on minorities across northern Nigeria in which more than 800 people died.

The election comes atop other challenges. Levels of violent crime and general insecurity remain high across much of the country. Civilians in parts of the northeast bear the brunt of the brutal conflict between government troops and a resilient Islamist Boko Haram insurgency. One militant faction, known as Islamic State West Africa Province, appears to be gaining ground. Violence in Nigeria’s Middle Belt this past year between predominantly Muslim herders and mostly Christian farmers escalated to unprecedented levels, killing approximately 1,500 people. Though that bloodshed has calmed over past months, it has frayed intercommunal relations—especially between Muslims and Christians—in those areas, which are likely to see fiercely fought elections, as ballots from there could swing the national presidential vote.

Already, politicians are stoking divisions for political ends, including by using inflammatory, identity-based language against rivals.

In the oil-rich Niger Delta, too, tensions between locals and the federal government could boil over this year, given simmering anger at the latter’s failure to fulfill pledges to clean up oil pollution, build infrastructure, and increase social investment over the past few years.

The immediate priority for the government must be to avert an election crisis by beefing up security in vulnerable states and taking steps to ensure that security forces act impartially, while all parties pledge to campaign peacefully and handle disputes lawfully. That in itself will not resolve Nigeria’s many problems. But it would be a necessary start.

Rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition, a South Sudanese anti-government force, patrol around their base in Panyume, South Sudan, near the border with Uganda, on Sept. 22. (Sumy Sadurni/AFP/Getty Images)

7. South Sudan
Since South Sudan’s civil war erupted five years ago, 400,000 people have died. In September, President Salva Kiir and his main rival, the former vice president-turned rebel leader Riek Machar, signed an agreement to hold fire and rule together until elections in 2022. The deal satisfies—for now at least—the two antagonists’ interests and those of Presidents Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, the two regional leaders with the most sway in South Sudan. Most importantly, it has reduced violence. For now, this is reason enough to support the accord. Yet the odds remain stacked against it ushering in a new era of stability.

First, the deal is worryingly similar to a pact the two men signed in August 2015, which collapsed the following year, triggering a surge in fighting. By envisaging elections in 2022, the deal perpetuates the Kiir-Machar rivalry until then, paving the way for another showdown.

It also remains a work in progress. Most alarming, security arrangements for Juba, the capital, remain contested, as do plans for unifying a national army.

In Sudan, meanwhile, Bashir faces what could be a serious challenge to his own rule. In mid-December, protesters took to the streets in many towns and cities decrying high prices and urging the president to step down. The protests’ endgame is unclear. But a prolonged crisis in its northern neighbor could be hugely destabilizing for South Sudan.

Finally, donors, wary of funding deals that have collapsed in the past, are now mostly sitting on the sidelines. The United States, which until recently spearheaded Western diplomacy in South Sudan, has stepped back. Others are waiting to see tangible steps forward by Kiir and Machar before opening their checkbooks.

Such caution is understandable. But if this deal fails, it is not clear what would replace it, and the country could collapse into major bloodshed again. Some form of third-party shuttle diplomacy among regional heads of state, who back different sides and largely focus on protecting their own short-term interests, will be necessary. An envoy, clearly backed by Western and other actors outside the region, might help keep regional leaders focused on ensuring the deal does not fall apart, as well as build consensus for a wider settlement that shares power across South Sudan’s groups and regions. Without that, the fragile opportunity for peace that currently exists could evaporate.

Cameroonian soldiers secure the perimeter of a polling station in Lysoka, near Buea, southwestern Cameroon, during the presidential election on Oct. 7. (Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images)

8. Cameroon
A crisis in Cameroon’s Anglophone areas is on the verge of escalating into civil war and destabilizing a country that was once considered an island of relative calm in a troubled region.

The tempo of the crisis has escalated steadily since 2016, when Anglophone teachers and lawyers took to the streets to protest the creeping use of French in the education and legal systems. Their demonstrations morphed into wider protests over the marginalization of Cameroon’s English-speaking minority, which represents about one-fifth of the country’s population. The government refused to acknowledge the Anglophones’ grievances or engage their leaders as security forces violently repressed protests and jailed activists.

The response fueled Anglophones’ anger at the central government, pushing many protesters who had initially called only for autonomy and rights into the arms of separatist groups, whose attacks started in late 2017. A disputed presidential election this October, which President Paul Biya, aged 85 and in power for 36 years, won and in which few Anglophones voted, hardly helped.

Nearly 10 separatist militias now battle government forces, while two organizations provide direction from abroad: the interim government of Ambazonia (the putative name of the self-proclaimed Anglophone state) and the Ambazonia Governing Council. The separatists are pitted not only against Cameroonian security forces, but also against pro-government “self-defense” groups. Criminal gangs in Anglophone areas have taken advantage of the chaos to expand their activities.

According to the International Crisis Group’s estimates, fighting has already killed nearly 200 soldiers, gendarmes, and police officers, with some 300 injured, and killed more than 600 separatists. At least 500 civilians have died in the violence. The U.N. counts 30,000 Anglophone refugees in Nigeria and 437,000 internally displaced in Cameroon.

Defusing the crisis will first require confidence-building measures. These should include the government’s release of all political detainees, including separatist leaders; a pledge from both sides to implement a cease-fire; and support for a planned Anglophone conference, which would allow Anglophones to select leaders to represent them in negotiations. These steps could pave the way for talks between the government and Anglophone leaders, followed by some form of national dialogue in which options for decentralization or federalism would be on the table.

Cameroonian authorities made a welcome move in mid-December when they released 289 Anglophone detainees, though hundreds, including separatist leaders, are still behind bars. It remains unclear whether this signals a genuine change of heart by the government, which has appeared determined to crush insurgents rather than address Anglophone concerns. Nor is it clear whether the release can, on its own, persuade hard-line separatists to talk rather than fight.

Without meaningful, mutual compromise, Cameroon is in danger of sliding toward a major and destabilizing conflict.

Tens of thousands of far-right activists and veterans of the conflict between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists in the east of Ukraine walk through Kiev, lighting flares and shouting slogans, during a rally on Oct. 14. (Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images)

9. Ukraine
The war in Ukraine continues to smolder with no end in sight. Sparked by Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and its subsequent support for separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region, it also fuels the wider geopolitical standoff between Russia and Western powers. The latest flash point is the Sea of Azov, where in November Russian and Ukrainian vessels clashed and Russia effectively blocked access to the Kerch Strait, at the mouth of the sea. The confrontation suggests that neither side sees any advantage in compromising.

As Kiev sees it, the attack on Ukrainian military ships and seizure of two dozen sailors is the culmination of months of Russian attempts to squeeze Ukrainian boats out of those waters, violating a 2003 bilateral treaty

that guarantees both countries free shipping. Moscow claims the boats were entering its coastal waters and that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko provoked the skirmish to shore up Western backing and his domestic base ahead of presidential elections scheduled for March 2019. Poroshenko’s subsequent efforts to introduce martial law didn’t help; the Kremlin, together with the president’s domestic critics, painted it as a political stunt. Either way, the incident clearly showcased Moscow’s newfound willingness to use overt force against Ukraine.

Meanwhile, fighting in the Donbass continues, and civilians living along front lines—abandoned by both Kiev and the separatists—are paying the price. Neither Ukraine nor Russia has taken steps to end the war. Kiev refuses to devolve power to Donbass—something it pledged to do as part of the Minsk agreements that set out a path to end the war—until Russia withdraws arms and personnel from separatist-held areas, which Moscow shows scant willingness to do. Proposals for possible peacekeeping missions have not gone far.

Absent a meaningful shift in tack by either side, 2019 will most likely see more of the same. Kiev is unlikely to budge before elections (in addition to the presidential vote, parliamentary polls are due before the year’s end). Russia may chafe at the cost of keeping separatist-held areas afloat, but it is unlikely to give up influence in the Donbass any time soon. The Ukrainian elections or domestic developments in Russia might bring opportunities for peacemaking. But as the Azov spat shows, the danger of escalation is ever present.

Members of the Bolivarian militias take part in the launching ceremony of the Plan Republica, the security operation for the presidential election, in Caracas, Venezuela, on May 15. (Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images)

10. Venezuela
Home to enormous oil reserves, Venezuela ought to be the envy of its neighbors. Instead Latin America is watching apprehensively as the country’s implosion threatens to provoke a regional crisis.

Venezuela’s economy is in freefall, with a devastating social impact. Poverty and malnutrition are rampant. Once-eradicated diseases, such as diphtheria, have made a comeback. Some 3 million of Venezuela’s 31 million people have fled the country, primarily to Colombia and other neighbors. The U.N. expects that number to climb to 5.3 million by the end of 2019.

President Nicolás Maduro’s ruling clique, having badly mismanaged the economy, now refuses to admit the depth of Venezuela’s agony or accept most humanitarian relief. The government has dismantled the country’s institutions, stripping the opposition-controlled parliament of its powers and stage-managing the election of a rubber-stamp legislature in its place. On Jan. 10, 2019, Maduro will start a second term, though neither his domestic opponents nor much of the outside world consider his re-election credible. For its part, the opposition is paralyzed by infighting, with a vocal faction (mostly in exile) calling upon foreign powers to topple Maduro by force.

Venezuela’s neighbors are struggling to accommodate the influx of people fleeing and anxious at the prospect of more.

One barometer of Latin American impatience is the stance of Luis Almagro, the secretary-general of the Organization of American States: In September, he said the region “should not exclude any option,” implying a military intervention could be coming. The Trump administration has made similar hints. Such talk may be just that, and one of Maduro’s strongest critics, new Colombian President Iván Duque, disavowed it in October—fortunately, given that external military action would almost certainly provoke further chaos.

There are few good policy options. The United States and Europe have targeted Maduro’s inner circle with sanctions, with Washington adding financial restrictions, though broader trade penalties are inadvisable, as they would harm the population. Peru and others suggest cutting diplomatic ties, but that would isolate Venezuelans as their plight worsens.

If concerned outsiders are to help while discouraging talk of armed intervention, they should press for a peaceful transition, likely involving negotiations on political and economic reform between the government and opposition and some form of transitional administration. Maduro has little incentive to agree to such a step, of course. But Latin American leaders could increase the pressure by imposing their own sanctions on top Venezuelan officials, to be lifted if the government complies (although such regional sanctions would be almost unprecedented).

Without such steps, Venezuela’s collapse remains possible, and the suffering of its people looks set to continue, with the country’s neighbors left to pick up the pieces.



Robert Malley is president and CEO of the International Crisis Group. He served as a special assistant for the Middle East under President Barack Obama.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm…..

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/28/turkey-is-lying-about-fighting-isis/

Voice

Turkey Is Lying About Fighting ISIS

Erdogan promises to finish America's fight against the Islamic State, but it's the Kurds that he's out to destroy.

By Steven A. Cook | December 28, 2018, 2:46 PM

Last summer I wrote a piece for Foreign Policy called “Trump Is the First President to Get Turkey Right.” Some of my colleagues and friends thought I gone quite mad as the U.S. president brought his ferocious Twitter feed to bear on Turkish officials and Turkey’s economy. It was not, of course, the intemperate tweets that I was applauding, but the willingness of the Trump administration to bring public pressure on Ankara over a variety of issues—whether the arrest and unjust imprisonment of American citizens, the targeting of journalists, the intention to buy advanced weapons from Russia, or the threats at U.S. soldiers serving in Syria. When Andrew Brunson, a North Carolina pastor who had been in Turkish custody for two years, was released in October, it confirmed for me that playing hardball with Turkey was superior to the intensive private diplomacy that previous administrations had tried with Ankara.

Life moves pretty fast, though. Turkey has apparently gone from antagonist to partner in just a few months. The man whom Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused of waging “economic warfare” on Turkey will now visit the country in 2019. The two leaders have had two phone calls in 10 days. The sudden thaw is, of course, directly related to President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw American forces from Syria as soon as possible, leaving Erdogan, who previously threatened U.S. officers with an “Ottoman slap” and who did everything he could to complicate the fight against the self-declared Islamic State in Syria, to mop it all up and stabilize the area.

Can Erdogan live up to his apparent commitments? It is not at all clear that he will—but not because Turkey is not capable. Rather, even though the United States and Turkey seem to have patched up their differences, their interests in Syria do not actually align.

No one is certain why Trump decided on Dec. 19 to announce that the U.S. mission in Syria had been accomplished. It is likely some combination of presidential whim and the president’s previously articulated misgivings about open-ended military deployments overseas. Regardless, the U.S. withdrawal from Syria will effectively end the relationship with the Syrian Democratic Forces, the primary component of which is a Kurdish fighting force called the People’s Protection Units (YPG).

On the long list of issues that have divided the United States and Turkey, the biggest problem has been the American military relationship with the YPG. For the U.S. soldiers working with the group, the YPG is America’s reliable ground force against the Islamic State. Turks see things differently, arguing that the YPG is actually the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) by another name. The PKK, designated as a terrorist group by both the Washington and Ankara, has been waging a violent campaign against Turkey since the 1980s. The understandably outraged Turks feared that the United States was midwifing a terrorist state on its border. That is all over now, which is why Trump will be feted in Turkey in 2019.

In an odd way, the president’s moves on Syria and Turkey are related to his Iran policy. There are those within the administration who believe that by giving up the YPG—and agreeing to sell the Turks Patriot missiles—the United States will pull Turkey back into Washington’s orbit. This renewed American-Turkish alignment will in turn render Erdogan a willing partner to contain Iran. Yes, one of the justifications for having U.S. forces in Syria was rolling back Iran, but the Turks had never actually been a partner in this effort. They helped Iran evade sanctions during a good portion of Barack Obama’s presidency, and even now Ankara is demanding a permanent waiver to buy Iranian crude oil.

This is because Turkish officials do not regard Iran as a threat. To them, Turkey’s neighbor is an economic opportunity and provides diplomatic leverage with the United States. Often during the Obama era when there was tension between Washington and Ankara, Erdogan or other high-ranking Turkish officials would show up in Tehran praising the Iranian leadership and even providing cover for its nuclear activities. This was all an effort to compel the United States to drop whatever issue was making Washington unhappy with Turkey at the time. That pattern continues. It was only a few weeks ago that Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was photographed smiling and holding hands with his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, in Istanbul. What makes anyone think that the United States leaving Syria will prompt the Turks to turn on Iran is a mystery.

Trump has not actually mentioned his administration’s convoluted Iran reasoning, preferring to focus on the Islamic State’s defeat. According to the White House, at least initially, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s forces had been vanquished, thus there was no reason to remain in Syria (a perfectly legitimate argument). The president later amended this claim, declaring that Turkey would finish the job begun by U.S. forces and the YPG, and then make sure the Islamic State does not come back.

In the abstract, it is not a bad idea to work with Turkey against the Islamic State. The country has the second-largest military in NATO with all kinds of high-tech weaponry and special forces operators. Yet the Turkish government has been lukewarm, at best, about joining the fight. When the Obama administration went looking for allies against the Islamic State in the summer of 2014, the Turks said that the best way to solve the problem was regime change in Damascus. Ankara declared it had other priorities—notably, fighting Kurdish nationalism. A year later, it agreed to take on the Islamic State but never actually joined the fight. It is true that the Turkish police have busted up alleged cells of extremists, including Islamic State fighters, but on the battlefield it has been all the YPG and its American advisors.

Now we’re supposed to believe Erdogan is committed to fighting the Islamic State to the end? This is almost certainly Trump hearing what he wants to hear, or a lie by either the American or Turkish president. Turkey’s overriding concern has always been and will continue to be the destruction of a Syrian Kurdish autonomous zone that the YPG and its political affiliate, the Democratic Union Party, dominate. For Erdogan, a U.S. withdrawal from Syria clears the primary obstacle for destroying the YPG. There is no reason to believe that the Turks will turn their attention to the Islamic State when they have been so focused on the Kurdish threat to their security.

Perhaps once they dispose of the YPG—which given the long fight against the PKK may not be as easy as Turkish officials have led themselves to believe—the Turkish military will turn their attention to the Islamic State. That would be a positive development, but the professionals at the Pentagon have long harbored their doubts. They regard Turkey’s Syrian proxies, which would presumably be used to destroy the Islamic State, as poorly trained and untrustworthy.

The turnaround in U.S.-Turkey relations has been stunning in its speed and tone. The analysts, bureaucrats, and diplomats in Washington who have argued that the United States must save the strategic partnership with Turkey must be relieved. Yet even in this rapprochement, the differences between the two countries are clear. Trump wants to bring his troops home because he believes it is best for the United States not to be tied down in a foreign land with no clear objectives. Fair enough.
Erdogan wants American troops to go home not so he can do America’s final bidding in Syria, but so that he can pursue Turkish interests there. The blood of more Syrians, Kurds, and Turks will be shed as a result. There are some good arguments for getting out of Syria, but handing Turkey everything it wants from the United States in the process is not good for anyone.

Steven A. Cook is the Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. His latest book is False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and Violence in the New Middle East. @stevenacook

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0005450685

N. Korea continues missile development

2:30 pm, December 30, 2018
The Yomiuri Shimbun

North Korea has continued its development of intercontinental ballistic missiles despite declaring a halt to launches, having conducted a missile-linked radio wave experiment early this month, it has been learned.

Despite sanctions limiting the North’s petroleum supply, the North Korean military is continuing to train at its usual levels. In response, the Japanese and U.S. governments plan to increase their surveillance of smuggling and other activities on the high seas, according to military and diplomatic sources.

North Korea conducted a launch test of its radio telemetry, which is transmitted from equipment in a missile’s components such as warhead. When a ballistic missile is launched, telemetry provides essential information about the missile’s angle, location, speed and other factors to observers on the ground.

In 2016 and 2017, North Korea launched about 40 missiles, including ICBMs. Ground-based telemetry tests are often conducted prior to an ICBM launch, and are considered an important sign of an impending missile launch.

The U.S. military, Japan Self-Defense Forces and South Korean military are constantly monitoring North Korea for radio waves.

According to the sources, the tests have two objectives: first, to serve as a check on the United States due to a lack of progress in negotiating a relaxation of sanctions; and second, as a necessary part of missile development.

North Korea’s last ballistic missile launch came in November 2017. In April, a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea adopted a decision stating a halt to nuclear weapons testing and ICBM test launches.

However, Japanese, U.S. and South Korean defense authorities believe North Korea has maintained a posture that would enable it to resume missile launches.

Analysis of satellite images and other data has indicated that since the start of the year, the North Korean Navy and Air Force have been training at roughly the same intensity as in other years.

The U.N. Security Council last December approved additional sanctions on North Korea limiting imports of refined petroleum products to 500,000 barrels per year. Nevertheless, the frequency of military drills and other matters have not changed compared to before the resolution, the sources said.

The Japanese and U.S. governments strongly suspect North Korea is securing enough fuel via ship-to-ship transfers of contraband refined petroleum and other products on the high seas near China and Russia. They plan to increase surveillance in this area.Speech

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.longwarjournal.org/arch...state-arm-reportedly-seizes-nigerian-town.php

Islamic State arm reportedly seizes Nigerian town

By Thomas Joscelyn | December 29, 2018 | tjoscelyn@gmail.com | @thomasjoscelyn

The Islamic State West Africa (ISWA) reportedly seized the town of Baga in northeastern Nigeria earlier this week. Reports from the region are often murky, and it is possible that ISWA’s men will not continue to hold the town, if they still do. But the group released a series of images today that purportedly document its advances there. The photos show captured spoils, including military vehicles and weaponry, as well as dead Nigerian soldiers.

The Nigerian military issued its own statement on recent events, disputing a media report suggesting that Boko Haram had captured the town and pinned down the Army’s forces. The Nigerian military’s statement did not mention ISWA, which has its own footprint in the region.

In its statement on Dec. 28, the Army claimed that there are “ongoing clearing and mop up operations in the general area” and therefore “no one could give accurate details of the encounter yet, as the troops have been reinforced and are busy with pursuit and mopping up operations against the terrorists.”

However, independent reporting suggests that the Nigerian military is downplaying ISWA’s recent gains, even if they prove to be fleeting.

Citing “three residents” of Baga, BBC News reported that “[h]undreds of people have fled the fishing town…after the militants overran it” on the night of Dec. 26-27. “The militants seized weapons from a military base, and torched a naval base on the shores of Lake Chad, they said.” BBC added that, according to one resident, the jihadis had taken control of the town mosque as of the morning of Dec. 27.

BBC News also reported, citing “other residents,” that the jihadis “had captured heavy armored tanks, boats and a large cache of weapons during the raid on the military and naval bases.” One of the bases “was the local headquarters of the multinational task force, which includes troops from neighboring states fighting the militants.”

This account is generally consistent with the Islamic State’s own reporting. The group’s media arm issued a statement claiming that “dozens of apostate Nigerian Army personnel” had been killed or injured during ISWA’s assault on an army barracks in Baga. In the same statement, the Islamic State claimed that its loyalists in West Africa had captured “an assortment of weapons and ammunition.”

The Islamic State then released a photo set earlier today (Dec. 29) documenting its spoils and the damage done to the Nigerian military. The images, with the exception of two showing the corpses of Nigerian soldiers, can be seen below.

ISWA photos from the raid in Baga, a town in northeastern Nigeria near Lake Chad:

Gallery

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018...anistan-peace-talk-offer-181230082443475.html

Taliban dismisses Afghanistan's peace talk offer

Taliban refuses to hold formal talks with the 'Western-backed' Afghan government next month in Saudi Arabia.

22 hours ago

The Taliban has rejected Kabul's offer of talks next month in Saudi Arabia where the armed group, fighting to restore strict Islamic law in Afghanistan, will meet the United States officials to further peace efforts, a Taliban leader said.

Representatives from the Taliban, the US, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Pakistan met this month in the UAE for talks to end the 17-year war in Afghanistan.

But the Taliban has refused to hold formal talks with the Western-backed Afghan government.

"We will meet the US officials in Saudi Arabia in January next year and we will start our talks that remained incomplete in Abu Dhabi," a member of the Taliban's decision-making Leadership Council told Reuters news agency on Sunday.

"However, we have made it clear to all the stakeholders that we will not talk to the Afghan government."

Position remains the same
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid also said the leaders of the group would not talk to the Afghan government.

In a statement released on Saturday, Mujahid accused media outlets of spreading "baseless" rumours that the group would hold talks with the Kabul administration in Saudi Arabia.

It also stressed the Taliban position "remains the same and has not changed".

The armed group has insisted on first reaching an agreement with the US, which it sees as the main force in Afghanistan since US-led forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001.

"We are advancing [the] negotiations process [with] the US under a strong and extensive plan to bring an end to the occupation of our country Afghanistan," the Taliban says.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict have intensified after Taliban representatives started meeting US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad earlier this year.

Officials from the warring sides have met at least three times to discuss the withdrawal of international forces and a ceasefire in 2019.

But the US has insisted that any final settlement must be led by the Afghans.

According to data from the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission published in November, the government of President Ashraf Ghani has control or influence over 65 percent of the population but only 55.5 percent of Afghanistan's 407 districts, the lowest since 2001.

The Taliban says it controls 70 percent of the country.

A close aide to Ghani said the government would keep trying to establish a direct line of diplomatic communication with the Taliban.

"Talks should be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned," the aide said on condition of anonymity. "It is important that the Taliban acknowledge this fact."

US President Donald Trump has announced a pullout of American troops from Syria, a decision that prompted the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis, and there have been reports that he is considering a partial pullout from Afghanistan.

 

[Lilbitsnana]

Instant News Alerts
‏ @InstaNewsAlerts
1h1 hour ago

#BREAKING: A US citizen was reportedly arrested in #Moscow #Russia on charges of spying

 

[danielboon]

EndGameWW3
EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3
Russia Detains American in Moscow Over Suspected Spying:

Russia Detains American in Moscow Over Suspected Spying
themoscowtimes.com
12:02 PM · Dec 31, 2018 · https://t.co/JiGoAUh7ND?amp=1

 

[Housecarl]

BTT...I should have looked at the thread title closer....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/taliban-kill-21-afghan-security-forces-threaten-city-150001268.html

World

Taliban kill 21 Afghan security forces, threaten city: official

AFP
5 hours ago

Taliban fighters killed more than 20 Afghan security forces in simultaneous raids on a provincial capital and district in northern Afghanistan, an official said Tuesday, as the city braced for further violence.

Hundreds of militants were outside Sar-e-Pul city, which provincial governor spokesman Zabihullah Amani said was at risk of falling to the Taliban if reinforcements were not sent.

The Taliban have stepped up attacks on security forces across the country, slaughtering police and soldiers in record numbers, as the threat of a US drawdown complicates American-led efforts to end the 17-year conflict.

"The enemy is still amassing forces outside the city," Amani told AFP.

"We have deployed all the forces available in the city, but no reinforcements have arrived from outside so far.

"The people inside the city are very worried."

Taliban fighters launched the attacks on Sar-e-Pul and neighbouring Sayad district on Monday night, which Amani said were aimed at seizing control of several oil wells on the outskirts of the city.

At least 21 local forces, including police and intelligence, were killed and another 23 wounded in the attacks, Amani said.

"They have attacked the city many times in the past, but this time the threat is more serious," he said.

A security official, who spoke to AFP on the condition of anonymity, put the death toll slightly lower at between 15 and 20 members of local forces.

Kabul-based interior ministry deputy spokesman Nasrat Rahimi confirmed there had been casualties, but would not provide details.

He said reinforcements had been deployed to Sar-e-Pul and dismissed concerns that the provincial capital was at risk of falling to the insurgents.

The Taliban confirmed the attacks, saying their fighters had captured three checkpoints and killed or wounded 50 members of the security forces.

Afghanistan's largest militant group made significant territorial gains in 2018, including overrunning Ghazni city -- a few hours' drive from Kabul -- which they held for several days before being pushed back with the help of US airpower.

At the time, officials said Ghazni remained in government hands. But residents told AFP that the insurgents were in the streets, burning buildings and targeting civilians.

The Taliban's increased aggression on the battlefield coincided with a flurry of diplomatic efforts aimed at bringing the group to the negotiating table.

In recent days, Taliban representatives have met with Iran, as Tehran makes a more concerted and open push for peace ahead of a possible US drawdown.

The Taliban delegation discussed with Iran "the post-occupation situation, restoration of peace and security in Afghanistan and the region", the militants said in a statement posted on social media and emailed to journalists on Tuesday.

It signals a growing confidence among the Taliban that US troops will pull out of Afghanistan, after US officials last month told various media outlets that President Donald Trump had decided to slash the number of boots on the ground.

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/pakistan-military-taliban-fighters-kill-4-security-forces-163212804.html

Associated Press

Pakistan military: Taliban fighters kill 4 security forces

Associated Press
5 hours ago

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan's military and a Taliban spokesman say four militants stormed a security forces facility in the southwestern town of Loralai, triggering a battle that left four security forces and the attackers dead.

In a statement, the military said the "terrorists," who included a suicide bomber, failed Tuesday to enter a main residential area where families of the soldiers and security forces live.

The assailants instead entered another compound near a security checkpoint, the statement said, where three of the assailants were shot and killed by troops and the fourth, the suicide bomber, detonated his explosives.

Mohammad Khurasani, spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack without giving details.

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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/taiwans-tsai-says-taiwanese-want-maintain-self-rule-021946077.html

President Tsai says Taiwanese want to maintain self-rule

RALPH JENNINGS, Associated Press 17 hours ago

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwanese treasure their autonomy from China, the leader of the self-governing island said Tuesday, warning city and county officials to be open about and exercise caution in any dialogue with the Chinese.

President Tsai Ing-wen's remarks come after major gains by a Beijing-friendly opposition party in local elections in late November.

"The election results absolutely don't mean Taiwan's basic public opinion wants us to give up our self-rule," she said in an 11-minute New Year's address at the presidential office. "And they absolutely don't mean that the Taiwanese people want us to give ground on our autonomy."

China and Taiwan have been governed separately since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists lost to Mao Zedong's Communists. The Nationalists rebased their government to Taiwan, but China insists that the two sides must eventually unite, by force if necessary.

The Nationalist Party, which in recent years has favored closer ties with Beijing, won 15 of 22 major seats in the local elections, reversing an advantage held by Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party. Tsai takes a more guarded view toward relations with China.

"What's really needed between the two sides is a practical understanding of the differences between values, beliefs and lifestyles," she said.

China resents Tsai for declining to recognize its condition for dialogue: that each side sees itself as part of one China. Beijing has sent military aircraft near the island, squeezed Taiwan's foreign diplomacy and scaled back Taiwan-bound group tourism.

A New Year's statement from the Chinese official in charge of Taiwan affairs accused Tsai's party of obstruction and deliberate provocation.

"The broad masses of Taiwan compatriots are strongly dissatisfied with the hostility caused by the DPP authorities across the Taiwan Strait," Liu Jieyi, the director of the Taiwan Affairs Office, said, referring to Tsai's party by its acronym.

"To achieve the complete reunification of the motherland and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is the common aspiration of all Chinese people," he said in a message published in an official magazine.

Experts say that China will likely offer economic incentives to Taiwanese cities and counties where officials take pro-Beijing views. Tsai warned officials against any reliance on "vague political preconditions" or "forced submission of secret passwords," a reference to giving away secrets.

"We don't oppose normal cross-strait exchanges, and even more we don't oppose city-to-city exchanges," she said. "However, exchanges across the strait need to be healthy and they need to be normal."

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to give a speech Wednesday aimed at Taiwan on the 40th anniversary of the "Message to Compatriots in Taiwan," a pro-unification statement from China that called for steps to end the isolation between the two rivals.

Tsai would probably condemn any local official talking privately with Xi, said Shane Lee, political scientist at Chang Jung Christian University in Taiwan.

"She thinks that's not only immoral but even illegal, because foreign affairs are the power of the central government, not the local government," Lee said.

Lo Chih-cheng, who heads the international department of the Democratic Progressive Party, said Tsai cannot do more with China, because Beijing would credit any progress to the Nationalists.

She will do nothing radical to provoke China, but some voters are looking for more action, he said in an early December interview. "People enjoy the status quo, but it's not enough to win the elections," Lo said.

Tsai also announced that her government was introducing a three-year plan to attract Taiwanese investors home from China, where some face import tariffs raised by Washington in the U.S.-China trade dispute.

She said that Taiwan wants China to share data on an outbreak of African swine fever. Taiwanese officials are on alert against any infection on their island, which lies 160 kilometers (100 miles) across the Taiwan Strait.
___

Associated Press researcher Henry Hou in Beijing contributed to this story.

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[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fighting-erupts-between-rival-insurgent-groups-syria-141958429.html

World

Fighting erupts between rival insurgent groups in Syria

Associated Press 5 hours ago

BEIRUT (AP) — Clashes broke out between two powerful insurgent groups in northern Syria on Tuesday, leaving up to seven people dead in the most serious fighting in months in the last major rebel stronghold in the country.

The al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — Arabic for Levant Liberation Committee — and the Turkey-backed Nour el-Din el-Zinki group blamed each other for triggering the fighting in the northern province of Aleppo.

Nour el-Din el-Zinki is part of a 15-member coalition known as the National Liberation Front that has clashed with extremists in the past. Other factions in the NLF have been sending reinforcement to rebel-held parts of Aleppo to back their allies against al-Qaida-linked gunmen raising fears that the fighting will escalate.

According to activist collectives in northern Syria, both groups used heavy weapons, including tanks, in the fighting.

The rebel-held area is mostly in the northwestern province of Idlib that has witnessed sporadic violence since a Russia and Turkey agreed on a truce in September that averted a government offensive on the area.

Idlib has been plagued by assassinations over the past months that left scores of people dead including al-Qaida-linked fighters.

The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said the al-Qaida-linked fighters captured the villages of Taqad, Saadiyah and Habata. It added that fighting is ongoing in the town of Daret Azzeh.

The Levant Liberation Committee said Nour el-Din el-Zinki militants shot dead five people, including four of its fighters, last week. It added that a local court released an official with the Nour el-Din el-Zinki after questioning him leading to tensions in the area.

The clashes are the first between the two former allies since they reached a deal to end similar fighting in October.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says two civilians, including a nurse at a clinic in Daret Azzeh, were killed. SCMM said five al-Qaida-linked fighters were killed as well.

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[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...*WINDS****of****WAR****&p=7133698#post7133698

Posted Today 01:14 PM #30 by Zagdid

Russian hypersonic missile scientists arrested, accused of treason
https://www.news.com.au/technology/...s-story/83c9381b58311a3ca4fc2f603be3d8fb(fair use)
Jamie Seidel, AP News Corp Australia Network JANUARY 1, 2019 10:37 AM

Rusian President Vladimir Putin lauded the test as a ‘game changer’, a ‘big success and victory’.

Russia had just fired its hypersonic ‘Avangard’ ballistic guided missile system. And everything seemed to work fine.

Putin declared Russia to be ‘untouchable’ as no other nation had such ‘invincible’nuclear-capable missiles can skip through the upper atmosphere at up to 20 times faster than the speed of sound.

Put simply, no defense system exists that can track it fast enough, react fast enough or hit it fast enough to prevent it reaching its target.

The Avangard (Vanguard) glider, which can reportedly change course mid-flight to confuse opponents, hit its target some 6000km from the launch site.

“It was hard and time-consuming work which required breakthrough solutions in principal areas, and all this was done by our scientists, designers and engineers,” Putin said.

What he neglected to say was many of these are now behind bars.

They’re charged with treason.
They’re accused of leaking secrets to other nations.

The Daily Beast reports that at least 10 Roskosmos (Russia’s space agency) researchers had their homes raided and were seized by secret police.

Among the Federal Security Service (FSB) detainees was reportedly 75-year-old Viktor Kudryavtsev, a specialist intrinsicly involved in the construction of two hypersonic weapons systems — Avangard and the air-launched Kinzhal (Dagger).

Kudryavtsev’s lawyer says the top specialist was detained last week. He faces 20 years in prison for sending two emails to European colleagues in 2013.

These discussed simulations of one of the key challenges of hypersonic vehicles — the intense friction caused by airflow over its surface during ultra-high speed flight. They were directed at European researchers at the Von Karman Institute working with him at the time on a joint Russian-European Union Roscosmos/ESA space project.

The FSB now accuses him of leaking key military secrets to NATO.

His lawyer told The Daily Beast that masked uniformed officials subjected Kudryavtsev to “unusually abusive and harmful treatment”.

SPECIAL REPORT: How hypersonic weapons will change warfare forever

“Russian state institutions, including the Foreign Ministry and the Defence Ministry, have lists of secrets, which are also secret, so scientists often have no idea what they are not supposed to speak about,” Pavlov said. “Kudryavtsev could not know back in 2013, when the government approved his research with foreign partners, that the Von Karman Institute would become a number one enemy.”

Details of the other detainees are unknown beyond their involvement in the hypersonic weapons program.

A year ago, Kudryavtsev’s business colleague — 76-year-old designer Vladimir Lapygin — was also arrested and convicted of leaking key hypersonic simulation software to the Chinese.

NUCLEAR STANDOFF

Amid rising tensions with the West, the Vladimir Putin has focused on updating Russia’s military arsenals.

It can no longer afford overwhelming numbers under crushing sanctions imposed over its annexation of Crimea. Instead, the Kremlin is focusing on producing game-changing new ‘super weapons’.

Putin used his state-of-the-nation speech in March 2018 to present an array of new nuclear weapons, including the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle and an underwater drone fitted with an atomic warhead designed to create a devastating tsunami.

Vladimir Frolov, a Moscow-based foreign policy expert, says Putin’s statements — then and now — are part of his efforts to persuade the West to sit down for talks.

“His goal is to win attention, fear and respect from the West, to get the right of veto regarding Western policies,” Frolov said. “He’s pushing for talks on Russia’s conditions and without any unilateral concessions.”

Putin warned that the proposed US exit from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (which the Kremlin is accused of already breaching with some of its new arsenal) would trigger a Russian response.

In an ominous statement this month, he lamented that global fears of a nuclear war have ebbed, leaving the world blind to a rising doomsday threat.

Stanovaya noted that Putin’s talk reflected growing instability in the absence of a common agenda between Russia and the West.

“Moving further along the same track would inevitably lead to the point where it would become more difficult to control the situation regarding nuclear weapons,” Stanovaya said. “Putin believes that nuclear weapons are Russia’s ultimate argument that should influence Western politicians’ thinking.”

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/mexican-mayor-gunned-down-after-being-sworn-n953601

Mexican mayor gunned down after being sworn in

Gov. Alejandro Murat confirmed the killing of Tlaxiaco Mayor Alejandro Aparicio Santiago via his Twitter account Tuesday.

an. 1, 2019 / 2:33 PM ýPST / Updated 2:41 PM ýPST
By Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — The governor of Mexico's southern state of Oaxaca is condemning the slaying of a local mayor shortly after he took office.

Gov. Alejandro Murat confirmed the killing of Tlaxiaco Mayor Alejandro Aparicio Santiago via his Twitter account Tuesday. He promised a thorough investigation and said a suspect was already in custody.

The state prosecutor's office said in a statement that Aparicio had just been sworn in and was headed to a meeting at city hall when an unknown number of gunmen opened fire at him. He was taken to a hospital, but died there later.

Four other people were wounded in the attack.

Tlaxiaco is the hometown of Yalitza Aparicio, star of the film "Roma." It was not immediately known if she was related to the victim.
------

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...g/1200px-Oaxaca_regions_and_districts.svg.png

 

[northern watch]

Jon Hutson‏ @JonHutson · Dec 31

Photo: Russian-manufactured military-style truck photographed near an Aman Petroleum station and radio tower in Khartoum on Dec. 26. Observers reported that the armed forces, wearing green camouflage uniforms, spoke Russian.

3bdullah‏ @alsauq · 23 Dec 2018

Sudan is uprising against the dictatorship, massive protests are happening, death tolls increasing, social media had been suppressed by telecom companies. Please, help us to highlight regime awful practices against demonstrators. Pass our voices to your media.
#SudanUprising

 

[northern watch]

Send in Charlton Heston

 

[Housecarl]

Jon Hutson‏ @JonHutson · Dec 31

Photo: Russian-manufactured military-style truck photographed near an Aman Petroleum station and radio tower in Khartoum on Dec. 26. Observers reported that the armed forces, wearing green camouflage uniforms, spoke Russian.

3bdullah‏ @alsauq · 23 Dec 2018

Sudan is uprising against the dictatorship, massive protests are happening, death tolls increasing, social media had been suppressed by telecom companies. Please, help us to highlight regime awful practices against demonstrators. Pass our voices to your media.
#SudanUprising

Huh, considering the degree of investment by Beijing I'm kind of surprised to not hear mention of them yet.....

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...58c33d6c8c7_story.html?utm_term=.dddb1c246b0d

Afghan forces use artillery to repel multiple Taliban assaults that kill at least 21

By Alex Horton and
Sayed Salahuddin
January 1 at 10:39 AM

KABUL — At least 21 Afghan police officers were killed in three simultaneous Taliban assaults Monday night in northern Afghanistan. Although civilians were nearby, security forces fired artillery rounds to repel the militant advances.

The hours-long attack focused mostly on overtaking oil wells and vehicles near the capital in Sar-e Pol province, officials said, as the Taliban bids to demonstrate power and undermine government control during peace talks to end the 17-year-old war.

Militants used rifles and rocket-propelled grenades in the assault, which also injured at least 23 police officers, Zabihullah Amani, a spokesman for the provincial governor, told The Washington Post on Tuesday.

“The areas are with the government, but they are under range of Taliban fire,” Amani said. “We still have not received any assistance.”

Three senior security officials — an intelligence officer and two police commanders — were killed in the attacks, said Mohammad Noor Rahmani, provincial council chief.

Afghan forces fired Soviet-era D-30 howitzers to repel militants on the capital outskirts, Amani said. The Associated Press reported this forced civilians to flee, although officials said there were no reports of civilian casualties.

The Taliban, which asserted responsibility for the attack, suffered casualties in the assault, Amani said. But officials have not said how many militants were killed or wounded.

The assault joins a stream of near-daily Taliban strikes designed in part to exert pressure during peace negotiations between the militants, the United States and regional powers. Militants infiltrated a government building in Kabul on Dec. 24, killing 29 people.

Analysts have said President Trump’s sudden announcement that he would withdraw about half of the 15,000 U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan would strengthen the Taliban’s negotiating position as Afghan forces struggle to maintain security, suffering record-high casualties in 2018.

[Afghan government puts brave face on U.S. withdrawal, but experts are alarmed]
There are signs those attacks will continue through the winter, a time the Taliban historically has used to rest and regroup in Pakistan through bitterly cold months, said Khalid Pashtun, a lawmaker in Kandahar.

“This year we have noticed they’re staying inside Afghanistan,” he said, adding that it was possible Afghan forces have been caught off guard after expecting assaults to become less frequent.

Monday’s attack also may have been a bid to claim territory to further undercut Islamic State militants mustering in the north, he said. In August, more than 150 Islamic State fighters surrendered to government forces after battling the Taliban in neighboring Jowzjan province.

Government forces also have battled Islamic State militants; the latest offensive came Tuesday in eastern Nangahar province, in which 27 Islamic State fighters were killed, the AP reported.

Read more:
Afghanistan’s presidential election delayed until July
Afghan momentum on peace slows to a crawl
Death toll rises to 43 in attack on two Afghan ministries
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

14 Comments

 

[Housecarl]

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/20...latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

Attack on Mali Village Kills 37 in Ethnic Violence

By The Associated Press
Jan. 1, 2019

BAMAKO, Mali — Mali's government said that armed men attacked a central village, killing 37 civilians, in what appeared to be ethnic violence.

State television broadcast a government announcement that men dressed as Dozo hunters attacked Kouloghon village early Tuesday.

The Fulani Association head Tabital Pulaaku said those killed were from the Fulani ethnic group and included the village chief.

The violence highlights the continuing tensions in central Mali between the Fulani, who are accused of being linked to al-Qaida, and the Dozo militia.

Mali's government has started a disarmament campaign to take weapons from the rival groups. This attack is expected to make local groups unhappy to give up their arms.

Several human rights groups have reported several hundred civilians killed in central Mali because of attacks by armed groups.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.voanews.com/a/afghan-forces-repulse-taliban-attack-on-oil-fields/4724271.html

South & Central Asia

Afghan Forces Repulse Taliban Attack on Oil Fields

January 01, 2019 10:50 AM
Ayaz Gul

https://gdb.voanews.com/EBBEC0F2-1472-4683-945F-16C2B595ADAD_w1597_n_r1_s.png

ISLAMABAD —
The Taliban has killed more than 20 pro-government forces and captured several security outposts in northern Afghanistan.

The insurgents staged the deadly offensive to try to take control of oil fields in Sayyad district in Sar-e-Pol province, a local government spokesman told VOA Tuesday.

Zabihullah Amani said that Afghan security forces, including police and intelligence operatives, deployed to the facility on the outskirts of the provincial capital, also called Sar-e-Pol, repulsed Monday night's attack by the Taliban.

Amani added that at least 23 Afghan forces were also wounded in several hours of fierce clashes. Senior police commanders and officers of the intelligence agency were said to be among the dead.

SEE ALSO:
Taliban Rejects Peace Talks Offer From Afghan Government

A Taliban spokesman claimed government forces lost more than 50 personnel and insurgents overran three security posts in the area. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the claims made by either side and insurgent battlefield details are often inflated.

Insurgents also attacked the Chimtal district in the province late Monday where Afghan officials said fierce battles raged into the next day, but gave not details of casualties.

The Taliban has inflicted heavy casualties on embattled Afghan military and police forces during 2018 and captured more territory in the process.

An insurgent report issued Monday claimed that the Taliban has brought 61 out of Afghanistan's 407 districts under its control in the previous year. The Afghan government has not offered any reaction to the militant claims

SEE ALSO:
Top US Commander in Afghanistan Sees Peace Opportunity in 2019

The United States has recently stepped up diplomatic efforts to seek a political resolution to the Afghan war and held several rounds of talks with Taliban representatives in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Officials say the interaction is meant to persuade the Taliban to join a peace process with the Afghan government. But the insurgent group refuses to hold any intra-Afghan dialogue until the U.S. agrees on a date or timeline for pulling out all foreign forces from Afghanistan.

 

[danielboon]

EndGameWW3
EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3
China will not 'give up use of military force' over Taiwan: Xi Jinping (link: http://toi.in/tgcVmb/a24gk) toi.in/tgcVmb/a24gk via
@TOIWorld

China will not 'give up use of military force' over Taiwan: Xi Jinping - Times of India
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
10:57 PM · Jan 1, 2019 ·

 

[danielboon]

Kim says ready to meet Trump 'anytime,' warns of 'new path'
Reuters|Published: 01.02.19 , 08:25
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said on Tuesday he is ready to meet U.S. President Donald Trump again anytime to achieve their common goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, but warned he may have to take an alternative path if U.S. sanctions and pressure against the country continued. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5439592,00.html

 

[Housecarl]

EndGameWW3
EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3
China will not 'give up use of military force' over Taiwan: Xi Jinping (link: http://toi.in/tgcVmb/a24gk) toi.in/tgcVmb/a24gk via
@TOIWorld

China will not 'give up use of military force' over Taiwan: Xi Jinping - Times of India
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
10:57 PM · Jan 1, 2019 ·

Well that'll encourage non-proliferation....

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/are-mexico-el-salvador-and-honduras-under-insurgent-attack

Are Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras Under Insurgent Attack?

Stephen B. Young | Mon, 12/31/2018 - 5:15am | 0 comments

Failure of national authorities in Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras pose risks to the well-being of the United States. First, state failure in El Salvador and Honduras creates migrant flows seeking refuge in the United States as a safe-haven for families. Second, state failure in each of these countries could grow into complete collapse of state authority and the rise to power of authoritarian regimes such as in Cuba and Venezuela which will collaborate with geo-political rivals of the United States in contravention of the Monroe Doctrine. Third, instability of social orders, economics, and politics in the countries immediately to our south will decrease regional progress towards higher living standards, undermining quality of life in our part of the world.

The Wall Street Journal of Dec 26 carried a story from Mexico on the rise in murders and kidnappings. That paper on Dec 24 had already published a story that gangs in Mexico run a parallel government as an extortion economy. In 2017 there were 6.6 million cases of extortion of individuals and 525,000 cases of extortion against companies.

The Journal on Dec 19 carried a story that, in El Salvador, when 17-year-old Andrea Guzman refused advances from a gang leader, “he responded by dispatching seven underlings dressed in black to the two-room house she shared with her family in this hamlet amid corn and bean fields. They tied up her parents and older brother, covered Andrea’s mouth and forcibly led her out into the night in her flip-flops. Hours later, one of her abductors fired a shot into her forehead in a field nearby.”

But we don’t call conditions in Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras “insurgencies”. Therein lies a major failure in our thinking about world events and their claim to our attention for protecting a global order favorable to our way of life and future prosperity.

The Latin roots of our word “insurgency” come from the prefix “sub” or below and the verb “regere” or manage or guide. The root of “insurgency” means to lead from below, or to rise up against superior authority. “Regere” evolved from the Into-European root stem “reg” which indicated movement in a straight line. From the stem “reg” also derived the Latin word “rex” or king and the English words “royal”, “realm”, “right”, “rectify”, “correct”, and “to direct”.

In the Oxford English Dictionary, early uses of the word “insurgency” were:
1765 FALCONER Demagogue 377 “His sanction will dismay, And bid th' insurgents tremble and obey.”

1801 WELLINGTON Mem. Seringapatam in Gurw. Desp. (1837) I. 348 “In regard to the insurgents in Malabar, the war against them cannot be carried on at all without assistance.”

1812 G. CHALMERS Dom. Econ. Gt. Brit. 164 “[Why] it was, that the vast strength of Britain did not beat down the colonial insurgents, not in one campaign, but in three.”

1851 GALLENGA Italy 133 “He acceded to all the immediate demands of the insurgents”.

Underneath our word “insurgency” then is concern for the human phenomenon of governance: who will lead us in a straight line, properly, so that we will be correct? But the term insurgency points to governance from the bottom up, not from the top down. The problem of insurgency correctly understood is how does higher authority actually provide effective governance at subordinate levels of society and culture? In other words, counter insurgency is the challenge of acquiescing to subsidiarity in decision-making while insuring that those holding decentralized power are in alignment on high priority goals and behaviors with the norms and practices legitimated by higher authority.

Accordingly, we should adjust our theories of insurgency and its counter-measure – counter-insurgency away from strictly military interventions using forces and coercion towards understanding which embrace politics, local leadership, community building, and other mechanisms promoting social order.

Thus, brigandage, gangs, and mafia networks as well as political movements seeking to overthrow and replace a governing regime can be sources of insurgency. Each in its own way provides “management” of people from below in defiance of national authorities.

Our Department of Defense definition of insurgency as “An organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of subversion and armed conflict" Is too narrow. Any attempt to disrupt the central government by means considered illegal by that government should be considered an insurgency.

The United States can better protect its interests in Mexico and Central America where gang-based insurgencies thrive and deny citizens the benefits of good government once it redefines those dysfunctional communities as under insurgent attack. It then remains for the United States to counter such insurgences with cost-effective strategies and tactics.

Consider the case of Mexico. From 2007 to 2014, 164,000 Mexicans died violently, more than the 103,000 civilians killed in Iraq and Afghanistan during those years. In 2016 Mexico surpassed Iraq and Afghanistan to become, after Syria, the world’s second deadliest war zone, according to the Annual Armed Conflict Survey of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

In 2016 there were more than 50,000 lives lost in Syria, 23,000 in Mexico, 17,000 in Afghanistan and 16,000 in Iraq. IISS director general John Chipman said ““Mexico is a conflict marked by the absence of artillery, tanks or combat aviation.” Deaths were caused by small arms. The largest number of fatalities occurred in Mexican states that have become “key battlegrounds for control between competing, increasingly fragmented cartels,” Chipman said, with violence flaring as gangs try to clear areas of rivals so they can monopolize drug trafficking routes.

In 2017 some 31,174 persons lost their lives in Mexico More were taken away and their fate not yet known.

El Salvador has the world’s highest homicide rate. The MS-13 gang operates in 248 of the country’s 262 municipalities. In the capital San Salvador, gangs control the local distribution of consumer products, including diapers and Coca-Cola. They extort commuters, call-center employees, restaurant and store owners. In rural villages, gangs threated to burn sugar fields unless the farmers pay up.

Gang violence, a form of war-lord-ism, negates public authority and reduces citizens to a state of nature along the lines described by political philosopher Thomas Hobbes: “the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” Those circumstances certainly apply to war, declared or un-declared, conventional or limited. They apply to most of Syria today, to Iraq during the years of sectarian conflict, and today to large parts of Afghanistan. Hobbesian realities also happen in cases where government fails to meet its basic police responsibilities; provide quality of social life, security of persons and property, and economic well-being.

Mexico is not alone in facing collapse of government in many local communities El Salvador and Honduras have exceptionally high murder rates as well, concentrated in some localities. Gangs in all three countries are more dominant than government police forces in the lives of many citizens. When some 8 years ago Mexico sent its armed forces to suppress drug cartels, the cartels defeated them to maintain control of many communities.

The gangs function as states within the national state, which is such a state in name only. Gang control of people and territory follows Mao’s dictum that “political power flows from the barrel of a gun.”

We also know that in Afghanistan criminality in the drug trade contributes to the efficacy of the Taliban, blurring any sharp distinction between crime and sectarian dedication. For both Mexican drug cartels and Taliban insurgents, community control for recruitment and sabotage of government deployments of the military, policy, education, economic development, is a common strategic objective.
To defeat either the drug cartels or the Taliban, converting the rural people into front line counterinsurgents is necessary for government success in the struggle for power.

In El Salvador the civil war of the 1980s, a classic ideological insurgency to overthrow a traditional ruling elite, was not won by the government. No counterinsurgency program was brought to the field. Our military advisors worked with the El Salvadoran government on an attrition strategy. The will of the guerillas to fight on just outlasted the Americans and their local partners. Rural villages had 40% unemployment for young men, providing the insurgents with all the recruits they needed to defeat an attrition strategy. Finally, a political compromise was reached. It left the national government weak and inefficient. Gangs then stepped into the power vacuum at local levels in effect sustaining conditions of insurgency under another name.

El Salvador’s gangs earn about $20 million a year from extortion, including $3 million from businesses in the history center of San Salvador, the Capital. The two gangs MS-!3 and Barrio 18 hire 60,000 people as lookouts, collectors, and assassins. In2016 the Central Bank estimated the economic cost of this “insurgency” to be $4 billion a year, or 16% of GDP. El Salvador’s Minister of Justice and Security says, “you don’t know where the state ends and the criminal organizations begin.”

As in political insurgencies, gangs function as mini-police forces and routine local governments. They form social authorities fragmented and dispersed among the population using their power for private purposes. Their effect is to deny the people ordinary and salutary public governance under some legitimate rule of law. Gang based insurgency compromises government not so much by using violence to impose a political program but with corruption to divert government officials from their duties. Gang based insurgencies are more a persistent low-level infection than a mortal, metastasizing cancer. But they can destroy civil order and public happiness just the same.

Gangs in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras now profit from extorting their neighborhoods, not selling drugs to foreigners. They are in effect collecting taxes based on their control of violence.

As gang-engendered violence proliferates, the middle and upper classes hire protection. In every central American country private security forces outnumber the police, further fragmenting the power to establish good government for the society.

Politicians choose to work with groups having a mastery of violence in local communities, giving them immunity in exchange for bribes, campaign contributions, assistance in suppressing opposition voters. Corrupt security forces tend to turn criminal. The only law is that of the gun.

The Gene Pitney song “the Man who Shot Liberty Valance” brings forth the reality:
When Liberty Valance rode to town
The women folk would hide, they'd hide
When Liberty Valance walked around
The men would step aside
Because the point of a gun
Was the only law that Liberty understood
When it came to shootin' straight and fast
He was mighty good
From out of the East a stranger came
A law book in his hand, a man
The kind of a man the West would need
To tame a troubled land
'Cause the point of a gun
Was the only law that Liberty understood
When it came to shootin' straight and fast
He was mighty good
Many a man would face his gun and many a man would fall
The man who shot Liberty Valance
He shot Liberty Valance
He was the bravest of them all
Let us consider some maps to see the correspondence between insurgent wars and gang-based insurgency:


Afghanistan: Who Controlled What – 2009-2010



Syria: Who Controlled What – December 2016


South Vietnam: Who Controlled What
Government control and violence against civilians in third and fourth corps in South Vietnam. Green means full government control, yellow means mixed control, and red means full rebel control. Large dots indicate government officials assassinated, and small dots indicate citizen assassinated.


Mexico: Who Controlled What – 2015


El Salvador: Who Controlled What – 2003-2016



San Salvador: Who Controlled What – May 2015


Honduras: Who Controlled What
Since 2008, the United States Congress has appropriated over $1 billion to help Central American governments strengthen state institutions, build functional police forces, and take back neighborhoods held by gangs and organized criminals. But there has been no application by our partners of best counterinsurgency practices. No clear, hold and build. No COIN.

Recommendation: Adopt a CORDS Program to Establish Civic Order in Bang-based Insurgencies
CORDS (Civil Operations Rural Development Support) was the unique US civil/military program which partnered with Vietnamese nationalists at village, district, province, region, and national levels to mobilize the people of South Vietnam to defeat the Viet Cong by 1972 starting in 1967.

The strategy of CORDS was to fight a people’s war against communist led insurgents. The tactics of CORDS were to consider the people as the frontline fighters against the insurgents and to support them with decentralized governing authority, self-defense, and self-development programs. The self-interest of rural communities coupled with anti-communist family and personal values were promoted to mobilize the people.

A gang-based mafia or mini-warlord insurgency has its own characteristics which distinguish its strategy and tactics from political/ideological insurgencies. The gang-based insurgency does not seek to become an official ruling authority. It does not want to be a government. It is more a private collaboration seeking money and power in local communities. In some ways a gang-based insurgency resembles a terrorist network.

A gang-based insurgency focuses on terror and intimidation without recruiting any mass political following. It does not have political cadres, only armed terrorists. It does not seek to inspire the people, only to intimidate them and so subject them in support of criminal activity.

When dealing with defeat of a gang-based insurgency, we must distinguish the CORDS approach from the COIN approach. Under COIN principal responsibility for success lies with either foreign forces or forces of the central government. The strategic objective of COIN is to protect the people. Neither foreign forces nor host government forces are capable of providing sufficient protection of the people in gang-based insurgencies.

Unlike COIN approaches and small unit tactics designed for low-intensity armed conflicts, the CORDS strategy for defeating insurgencies puts governance of the local community at the center of the anti-insurgent campaign.

In cases of gang-based insurgency, foreign forces will not be available other than in advisory and support capacities and foreign support is most likely to be civilian – police, economic development and social capital enhancement. And, central government deployments (police, army, civil officials) will be ineffective or even sustaining of the insurgents due to corruption and insurgent intimidation.

In the CORDS approach, the people are to be the principal source of their own protection, supported by government assets in finding, fixing, fighting, and finishing insurgent cadres to reduce the threat nearby and inside local communities, coming to the immediate assistance of local self-defense teams, gathering necessary intelligence and acting on it promptly, and providing public services.

The best practices of counterinsurgency under the CORDS approach are:
Arm the people
Provide them with effective local government
Give them hope for better lives under their own control
Eliminate the insurgents by gathering correct, timely intelligence, arrest, and apprehension
Pardon those who abandon gang life and employ them productively

In Mexico and Central America, cultural factors drive gang-based insurgencies. These powerful psycho-social dynamics must be, first, offset, and, second, overcome by countervailing psycho-social dynamics. Fear of the government created by violent repression is most often insufficient to offset cultural aspirations of having personal power, easy money, and being respected by the community for having a certain kind of personal charisma.

In Mexico and Central America, there is a cultural residue of the conquistador life-style where machismo and personal dominance are valued. The Spanish conquistadors used force and violence to become the protecting patron, a “Don” so to speak, having clients who depended on him as “Jefe” or Chief of the social unit for security and economic well-being. The system was named the encomienda society. Under Spanish rule, a Spanish encomendero was granted a number of native laborers who would pay tributes to him in exchange for his protection. In Mexico after the revolution the system took the form of haciendas or, today, patron/client networks.

From a sociological perspective, gangs today in Mexico and Central America simply carry on illegally the rudiments of this encomienda system of local over-lordship taking care of loyal clients.

In Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras where businesses and the more well-to-do employ their own security guards, such private security forces can be converted into local militias with powers of arrest along the lines of an authorized posse comitatus.

In Common Law, the posse comitatus is all able-bodied males over the age of 15 within a specific county, when mobilized in whole or in part by the conservator of peace – usually the sheriff – to suppress lawlessness or defend the county. The posse comitatus originated in ninth century England simultaneous with the creation of the office of sheriff. Though generally obsolete throughout the world, it remains theoretically, and sometimes practically, part of the United States legal system. In Minnesota where I live, this reserve security force is, under statute, the “unorganized militia”.

Minnesota Statues, Chapter 191.05, provides that:
GOVERNOR MAY CALL MILITIA. Whenever the governor deems it necessary for any purpose authorized by the state constitution or by law, may by public proclamation call out the militia or such part or number thereof as the governor may designate for military duty in the service of the state, and may provide for the enrollment, assembly, and muster into service by voluntary enlistment or by draft, as the governor may determine, of the militia so called out. For that purpose, the governor may make orders and rules and enforce the same, appoint all necessary officers and fix their compensation, and may require all proper public officers to perform such duties as the governor may direct.

Second, In El Salvador and Honduras where gang-based insurgents have adopted a “uniform” of body tattoos to distinguish members of the insurgent force from civilians, the uniform cannot be easily removed when an insurgent seeks to relinquish membership in the gang. Thus, some novel device must be found to give those who have defected from the insurgency and seek to resume the status of a citizen in good standing to be recognized, appreciated and protected.

One possible approach would be to form and fund a national patriotic or social movement for better lives. This movement would have local chapters, sports and educational programs for youth, skill and craft markets for women, continuing education for adults, cultural festivals. The middle class, civil society organizations, religions would be recruited to participate in and lead such organized activities. The insurgents would be bit by bit socially and culturally alienated from the mass of the population. Their ability to attract clients would atrophy and the insurgency, in classic fashion, would evaporate.

The principal challenges to successful application of a CORDS approach to gang-based insurgency in Mexico and Central America are: corrupt police forces; failure of national elites to institutionalize rational/legal institutions at the national and provincial levels; military cultures incapable of engaging with local communities in partnerships by intuitively acting as conquistador; politicians who seek only to reward their clients and have little sense of the common good.

Categories: Mexico - El Centro - El Salvador - insurgency - counterinsurgency - drug trafficking - counter-drug operations
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About the Author(s)

Stephen B. Young
Stephen B. Young served with the CORDS program in the Republic of Vietnam from 1967 to 1971 as a Deputy District Advisor in Vinh Long province and as Chief, Village Government Branch. Young's service with CORDS was recognized by President Richard Nixon, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, and CIA Director William Colby. A fluent speaker of Vietnamese he has written on human rights in traditional Vietnam, Vietnamese legal history, Vietnamese nationalism, and with his wife translated Duong Thu Huong's novel The Zenith into English. Young is a graduate with honors of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He is a former Assistant Dean of the Harvard Law School and Dean and Professor of Law at the Hamline University School of Law. He is Global Executive Director of the Caux Round Table and the author of Moral Capitalism and The Road to Moral Capitalism. His most recent book is The Theory and Practice of Associative Power: CORDS in the Villages of Vietnam 1967-1972.

 

[Housecarl]

Coming to a major metropolitan area near you too in the likely near future...…..

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https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/lockheed-martin-hired-missile-defense-135200273.html

Business

Lockheed Martin Hired to Provide Missile Defense for Hawaii

Rich Smith, The Motley Fool,Motley Fool Tue, Jan 1 5:52 AM

2018. What a year.
It's been nearly 12 months since the great "Hawaii false missile alert" happened. On Jan. 13, at 8:07 a.m. local time, Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency mistakenly broadcast a warning about an incoming ballistic missile threat. Recipients might have been inclined to disregard the warning as a mere drill -- but for the fact that the alert specifically urged them to understand that "this is not a drill." Panic erupted across the islands, alongside calls for beefed-up missile defense in the U.S. Senate.

12 months later, that's starting to happen.

Lockheed Martin to the rescue
Earlier this month, in a publicly disclosed contracts update, the Pentagon announced that it has awarded Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) $585.2 million to "design, develop, and deliver" a "Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii (HDR-H)" system to ensure "autonomous acquisition and persistent precision tracking and discrimination to optimize the defensive capability of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) and counter evolving threats."

In a press release responding to the award, Lockheed Martin clarified that it will utilize its Long Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR), currently under construction in Clear, Alaska, and expected to go online in 2020, "to provide the lowest risk and best value HDR-H solution to [the U.S. Missile Defense Agency]" in Hawaii as well. HDR-H is to be built on the island of Oahu by the end of 2023.

Once both are ready, LRDR and HDR-H will be incorporated into Lockheed's Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS), incorporating both shipborne and "Aegis Ashore" elements. In this way, Lockheed and the Pentagon will respond to Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's demand that the military put "a missile defense system in place in Hawaii to defend Hawaii."

What this contract means to investors
Hawaiians should be happy to hear that. Lockheed Martin investors should be pretty pleased, too. Thanks to Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency snafu, their company is about to be gifted $585 million in extra revenue that might otherwise never have been awarded.

Granted, for a business as big as Lockheed Martin, with $51 billion in annual revenue, even a half-billion dollars won't really move the needle very much. This entire contract, spread over five years of performance, will amount to barely 0.2% of the company's annual business. Still, there are at least a couple reasons investors might want to pay attention to it.

The first is because Lockheed's HDR-H contract will fall under the ambit of the company's Missiles and Fire Control (MFC) business. Although Lockheed's smallest unit by revenues ($7.6 billion in revenue last year), MFC is Lockheed's most profitable business unit by far. In 2017, MFC earned a whopping 13.9% operating profit margin for Lockheed, 320 basis points better than Lockheed's flagship Aeronautics business earns and 230 basis points better than Lockheed's overall, companywide profit margin.

Those extra points of margin could become even more important if the Pentagon decides to expand its investments in missile defense in the future. Lockheed notes that it is designing LRDR and HDR-H with an "open, scalable architecture for future growth." This suggests the company has hopes of winning additional missile defense awards of a type similar to HDR-H -- and, presumably, at similar profit margins. With Lockheed Martin stock currently trading for a rich 24 times earnings -- earnings that, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, are little better than what the company was earning five years ago -- every little bit of extra revenue helps.

And the bigger the profit margins on those revenues, the better.

View reactions (73)

 

[danielboon]

ELINT News Retweeted

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[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
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https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-urges...n-afghanistan-soviet-union-ussr/29689008.html

Russia

Trump Calls On Russia, Pakistan To Take More Active Role In Afghan Conflict

Last Updated: January 03, 2019 08:34 GMT
By RFE/RL

WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trump urged other countries, specifically Russia, Pakistan, and India, to become more involved in the fighting in Afghanistan as he argued against continued long-term presence of U.S. troops in the war-torn country.

In televised comments to reporters during a cabinet meeting on January 2, Trump also asserted that Moscow’s involvement in Afghanistan in the 1980s led to the “bankruptcy” and breakup of the Soviet Union.

Speaking of the fight against Taliban and Islamic State (IS) extremist fighters in Afghanistan, Trump called on other countries that are closer to the region to take up the fight.

“You take a look at other countries…Pakistan is there. They should be fighting,” he said.

“Russia should be fighting,” he said.

“The reason Russia was in Afghanistan [in the 1980s] was because terrorists were going into Russia," Trump said. "They were right to be there.”

“The problem was it was a tough fight," he added. "And they literally went bankrupt. They went to being called Russia again, as opposed to the Soviet Union.”

“Why isn’t Russia there [now]? Why isn’t India there? Why isn’t Pakistan there?” Trump continued. “Why are we there and we’re 6,000 miles [9,656 kilometers] away?”

The Soviet Union invaded and occupied Afghanistan from 1979-88 and battled a variety of mujahedin forces battling for control of Kabul in a bloody civil war. Soviet forces withdrew in 1988-89 after years of costly losses, and the U.S.S.R. officially broke up on December 26, 1991.

Trump's suggestion that the Soviet Union was "right" to invade Afghanistan and his account of the catalyst for that invasion veered from the widely accepted view -- that Moscow's goal was to prop up a communist client government -- and drew criticism on social media.

Trump did not talk specifically about reports of a possible drawdown in the estimated 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan currently leading a NATO effort to train and advise local troops. Western forces have been in Afghanistan since 2001, when they drove the Taliban from power.

In his comments, Trump also criticized Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the funding of an unidentified library in Afghanistan.

Modi has been "constantly telling me he built a library in Afghanistan," Trump said.

"You know what that is? That's like five hours of what we spend," he said.

"And we're supposed to say, 'Oh, thank you for the library.' I don't know who's using it in Afghanistan," Trump added.

The U.S. president did not specify the library project to which he was referring.

Afghanistan and India have traditionally had warm relations.

In a speech hosted by Brookings India in 2017, Afghanistan’s ambassador to India, Shaida Abdali, said India was the largest regional donor to Afghanistan with more than $3 billion in assistance since 2011.

Afghanistan’s relations with Pakistan have been strained. Kabul and Washington have accused Pakistan of providing a safe haven for insurgents conducting operations in Afghanistan. Islamabad denies the charge.

U.S. officials have also accused Russia of aiding insurgents in Afghanistan. Moscow also denies the charge.

With reporting by AFP, Newsweek, and USA Today

 

[Housecarl]

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/niger-army-kills-least-280-boko-haram-militants-021404533.html

Niger army kills at least 280 Boko Haram militants: ministry

AFP • January 2, 2019

Niamey (AFP) - Niger's army killed more than 280 Boko Haram militants near the southeast border with Nigeria in days of land and air raids, the defence ministry said Wednesday.

More than 200 jihadists were killed in air strikes and a further 87 by ground troops since the offensive began on December 28, the ministry said in a statement read on state television.

It comes after Western African leaders held talks in November on the escalating attacks by the Nigerian Islamist group in the Lake Chad area, a strategic region where the borders of Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger converge.

The operations were carried out on the islands of Lake Chad and along the Komadougou Yobe river which serves as a natural border between Niger and Nigeria, which has suffered a string of recent attacks on its military bases.

The Niger army said it had lost no troops or equipment in its offensive and had seized eight canoes and two rocket launchers as well as assault weapons, ammunition and vehicles.

In December, Niger's defence minister said he feared Boko Haram would launch renewed attacks on its positions from January, when the Komadougou Yobe river's waters which usually prevent incursions begin to recede.

Niamey was particularly concerned by the situation in Nigeria where "military bases have been defeated," Defence Minister Kalla Moutari said in parliament.

"Boko Haram fighters were able to get supplies, they were able to reinvigorate themselves," said Moutari.

Boko Haram's bloody insurgency began in northeastern Nigeria in 2009 but has since spread into neighbouring countries, prompting a regional military response.

Some 27,000 people have been killed and two million others displaced, sparking a dire humanitarian crisis in the region.

Militants have targeted both soldiers and civilians and have been blamed for abductions of children and employees of foreign companies.

In November, around a dozen girls were taken in raids on several border villages in southeastern Niger.

In the same month, seven local employees of a French drilling firm and a government official were killed after suspected Boko Haram gunmen stormed their compound.

That attack shattered months of relative calm in the Diffa region near the Lake Chad basin.

23 reactions

Top Reactions

Soturian
9 hours ago
Dear AFP; When the insurgents control a large base area and coordinate into armies, they aren't insurgents anymore but an actual army.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm…..

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.realcleardefense.com/ar..._environment_two_challenges_ahead_114074.html

The Emerging Nuclear Environment: Two Challenges Ahead

By Keith B. Payne
January 03, 2019

My assigned task here is to discuss challenges ahead in the nuclear environment. There are, of course, a variety of interrelated challenges in the international environment that cross multiple domains, but my task here is to discuss nuclear challenges. That will be my focus.

There are two distinct but related nuclear challenges: 1) the challenge of external nuclear developments among potential adversaries; and, 2) the internal challenge of establishing an enduring, effective Western response to those foreign developments.

External Nuclear Developments
There are multiple emerging or potential nuclear challenges, including from North Korea, China, and Iran. But, here I will comment on only the most apparent, immediate external nuclear challenge—which I believe to be Russia. The Russian nuclear challenge follows from the combination of Russia’s goal to revise the existing international political order, and the apparent role Moscow envisages for its nuclear forces in advancing that goal.

What is the geographic extent of Russia’s revisionist goal? The answer to this key question is unclear. Perhaps the geographic extent corresponds to that of the former territory of the Soviet Union, or perhaps to the expanse of the earlier Imperial Russia. It is not obvious what the current leadership in Moscow believes to be the rightful boundaries of Russia. Whatever may be the case, it is clear that Moscow’s leadership aspires to return to past greatness, and doing so involves geography.

While political geography may seem an archaic national focus to many in the West, it remains a prominent theme in Russian security thinking. This should be no surprise given Russian history and the value of its expansive territory for power and survival—from Napoleon’s invasion in 1812 to Hitler’s invasion in 1941.

It also is unclear whether, or how much of Russia’s geographic goal would be satisfied with: 1) Political/economic hegemony over its desired historic space; 2) the actual incorporation within Russian borders of now-external territory and ethnic Russian populations; or, 3) a combination of these two.

The first of these—seeking political/economic hegemony–is a threat to the sovereignty of Russia’s neighbors. The second of these–the incorporation of territory and ethnic Russian populations into the Russian homeland–is a possible threat to neighbors’ national survival.

Over the past ten years, we have seen evidence of both approaches: Russia’s operations in Crimea suggest the goal of expanding Russian borders and absorbing ethnic Russian populations. Russia’s political and economic efforts elsewhere suggest the goal of establishing a form of economic and political hegemony.

Whatever are the parameters and nature of Russia’s territorial ambitions, it is clear that, given the expansion of NATO since the end of the Cold War, Russia’s revisionist goal may be satisfied at the expense of our allies’ and partners’ sovereignty or territory. As a former U.S. intelligence official reportedly stated, “Everything for Vladimir Putin is a zero-sum game, and we are his main enemy. The Russians are continually probing us, and they’re going to keep going as far as they can until we push back in such a way that we deter them from taking even more aggressive action.”[1] This Russian ambition and perspective is the disturbing reality we now confront.

In contrast to this disturbing reality, the possible good news is that the Putin regime–while revisionist and expansionist—also appears to be pragmatic and calculating. These characteristics are significant because a potential opponent’s pragmatism, and related willingness to stand back following the calculation of risk, are necessary for deterrence to operate to prevent or defer aggression.

The good news here is that Russia appears not to be akin to National Socialist Germany in this regard. Where contemporary Russia appears pragmatic and calculating, Hitler had set expansionist goals and a timeline, and his dedication to the realization of those goals was not highly subject to pragmatism or the calculation of risk. Instead, Adolf Hitler often boasted of his unalterable goals and unhesitating decisions: “Neither threats nor warnings will prevent me from going my way. I follow the path assigned me by Providence with the instinctive sureness of a sleepwalker.”[2] With such an adversary, effective strategies of deterrence may be extremely difficult or even impossible. But, that does not appear to be Russia.

This difference between contemporary Russia and National Socialist Germany of the 1930’s is critical. Where Russia sees opportunity and the potential for expansion at tolerable risk and cost, it will likely act, including with hard and soft power. However, where Russia’s geographic appetite is opposed by countervailing Western power, Russia’s behavior will likely be limited by its pragmatism and related willingness to stand back in the face of too much calculated risk and cost.

I do not mean by this that Russia is likely to adopt amicable intentions in response to Western power. While an amicable relationship is a long-term goal, deterrence is not about creating amicable intentions. It is about preventing aggression in the context of less-than-amicable relations. The combination of Russian pragmatism and risk calculation suggests that in the face of countervailing Western power, there is room for Moscow to moderate its provocative pursuit of revisionist goals. This is good news because it means that there is the potential for Western power to deter extreme Russian behavior, at least in principle.

A Nuclear Challenge
The key question that follows is: How are these apparent Russian geopolitical aspirations and regime characteristics related to a Russian nuclear challenge? A very concise answer is as follows: Russia’s leadership reportedly believes that Moscow can use the threat of nuclear first-use, or actual limited nuclear first-use if necessary, to help advance its goal of revising the political order in Eurasia.[3]

In short, there is a link between Russia’s nuclear capabilities and its expansionist goals that includes two mechanisms. First, Moscow appears to believe that it can use nuclear threats against U.S. allies and partners to move them away from policies and positions Moscow opposes, and to compel their conciliation in crises. This apparent coercive role for nuclear threats is a return to Soviet Cold War practice.[4] It goes beyond traditional Western notions of limiting the scope and purpose of nuclear deterrence to the protection of a country’s existence.

Rather, Russia appears to have lowered the threshold for making nuclear threats to include preventing Western actions that seem to have little to do with threats to Russia’s survival; to put it differently, Russia appears to have expanded the range of foreign behaviors it believes it can influence via explicit nuclear threats.

For example, Russia has made explicit nuclear threats to allies regarding participation in the U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) program: In 2015, Russia’s Ambassador to Denmark, Mikhail Vanin, reportedly made an explicit nuclear targeting threat: “I don’t think that Danes fully understand the consequence if Denmark joins the American-led missile defence shield. If they do, then Danish warships will be targets for Russian nuclear missiles.”[5]

The second linkage between Russia’s geographic aspirations and nuclear weapons is that Moscow appears to believe that it can employ limited nuclear strikes against U.S. allies and possibly against the U.S. itself to prevent a cohesive, powerful Western response to Russia’s use of hard power in support of its expansionist goals. This is the much-discussed Russian approach to “de-escalation.” The underlying concept appears to be that a conflict is de-escalated because Russia’s opponent decides to cease resistance in the face of limited Russian nuclear use.

In 2015, NATO Deputy Military Commander, Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Bradshaw, pointed out, “Russia might believe the large scale conventional force it has shown it can generate on very short notice…could in the future be used not only for intimidation and coercion but potentially to seize NATO territory after which the threat of escalation might be used to prevent reestablishment of territorial integrity.”[6] This apparent Russian notion again has little to do with Russia using nuclear threat or escalation in the protection of its existence; escalation here would be in the service of expansion.

I believe that this combination of Russian expansionist goals and nuclear concepts is the most obvious and immediate nuclear challenge. The questions that arise from this combination are: First, what is the basis for Russia’s felt freedom to lower the threshold for nuclear threats and potentially nuclear first-use? What are the gaps, as perceived by Moscow, in the existing Western deterrence position that allow this perceived freedom? And, second, how can the West moderate Russian views about the potential value of nuclear threats and nuclear first-use in support of its expansionist goals?

The short answer to this latter question is that the West must take advantage of Russian pragmatism and risk calculation to move it away from nuclear threats and any anticipation of success via nuclear first use. What does this require in principle? The West must move Russia to see that:

its frequent nuclear threats are counterproductive; and
any level of nuclear first use would risk unleashing an uncontrollable process with potentially intolerable consequences for Russia.

This does not mean that the West must adopt the apparent Russian view that nuclear escalation is controllable. No, it means that the West must lead Russia to understand that: 1) it cannot fracture NATO cohesion via nuclear threats; and 2) it would not be able to control nuclear escalation to its advantage and success. Rather, such escalation would always entail too much risk. Western nuclear deterrence posturing and capabilities alone probably cannot produce this change in Russian thinking, but it cannot be accomplished without nuclear deterrence.

A Domestic Nuclear Challenge
At the outset of this discussion I suggested that there are two different but related nuclear challenges. One external, the other domestic. I have briefly described what I believe to be the most obvious and immediate external nuclear challenge: It is the linkage between Russian national aspirations and Moscow’s apparent views regarding the value of nuclear weapons in the pursuit of those aspirations. The domestic challenge confronting us is whether there will be clear-eyed recognition of these external nuclear threat developments, and the corresponding establishment of an enduring and responsive deterrence policy and posture. Throughout much of the Cold War, the United States sustained a bipartisan deterrence policy and posture vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. It was sufficiently effective to help bound U.S.-Soviet hostilities throughout the Cold War.

Doing so again in this new post-Cold War era will cut against considerable established thought: For almost three decades, the common Western expectation has been that great power nuclear threats were a thing of the past. That expectation led the United States and allies in a very particular direction. This direction was generally based on the underlying bipartisan presumption that nuclear deterrence and capabilities were of sharply declining value, and that continually reducing and limiting nuclear capabilities was synonymous with reducing nuclear dangers. That is, the security value of continuing to reduce and limit U.S. nuclear systems was deemed to be greater than the potential value of continuing to modernize and replace those nuclear systems.

If you doubt my point, I encourage you to read or reread President George H. W. Bush’s landmark September 21, 1991 speech introducing the Presidential Nuclear Initiative, and President Obama’s landmark 2009 Prague speech in favor of nuclear disarmament. The common apparent underlying current in each noted speech is the presumption that the great power nuclear environment was moving in an increasingly benign direction, would continue to do so, and that continuing reductions in U.S. nuclear forces would reduce nuclear dangers rather than risk endangering Western security.

There is this enduring strain in U.S. thinking about nuclear capabilities–that they should continually be reduced because greater safety is to be found in ever-lower numbers and greater limitations. I understand and would agree with that thought in the right context, but not in the context of the deep U.S. nuclear reductions already made and the emerging external nuclear challenges we now see.

Instead, effective nuclear deterrence appears to be of increasing value, and U.S. nuclear capabilities again are needed to make deterrence as effective as possible given the reality of external nuclear challenges. That is, modernizing U.S. nuclear forces now in support of deterrence is more likely to reduce nuclear dangers than would their continuing reduction at the possible expense of sustaining effective deterrence capabilities.

This does not mean that the United States needs to increase the number of its strategic nuclear weapons, nor that future nuclear reductions must be avoided. Rather, it means recognizing that sustaining nuclear deterrence, and the needed nuclear posture for deterrence at multiple levels, is again a key to addressing emerging external nuclear dangers. That recognition should underlie how we think about these issues. The related internal challenge is whether the United States and key allies will be able to establish and sustain the domestic political consensus necessary for an enduring countervailing nuclear policy and posture designed to help address the gaps that Russia apparently perceives in the West’s deterrence position. These are the gaps that appear to give Russia, according to its perceptions, the liberty to: 1) engage in unprecedented coercive nuclear threats, and, 2) potentially engage in coercive nuclear first-use to “de-escalate” or end a conflict on its favored terms.

That Russia perceives such liberty is, I believe, unarguable given its open statements and behavior. What may be the Western deterrence gaps in Russian perception is an important question for another day. The answer may be a moving target with multiple parts, but it is important to note that this is all about Russian perceptions and decision making. It is Moscow’s perceptions that matter in this regard; it is irrelevant whether or not we in the West believe that Moscow should perceive whatever gaps it may see. Whether they are real or not by our calculations, they need to be addressed to move Russian views in a more benign direction.

Consequently, I will conclude with the two basic questions regarding our internal nuclear challenge. Will we have the courage and stamina to ask ourselves, without flinching, what are the possible gaps in our deterrence position as perceived by Russia? And, will we have the unity and stamina to do what we must do, possibly over many years, to address those gaps? That is the domestic challenge. It is the flip side of the external challenge.

I will conclude here by noting that I have no doubt that we will successfully address the external nuclear challenges if we are able to address the internal nuclear challenge. To do so will require the level of consistent bipartisanship that last enabled us to more than survive the Cold War.

Dr. Keith B. Payne is a co-founder of the National Institute for Public Policy, head of the Graduate School of Defense and Strategic Studies at Missouri State University and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense.

This article appeared originally at National Institute for Public Policy.
Notes:

[1]. Quoted in Guy Taylor and Ben Wolfgang, “’Zero-sum game’: Russian Aggression tests Trump, US Power,” The Washington Times, November 27, 2018, at https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/27/russia-ukraine-kerch-strait-incident-tests-trump-u/.

[2]. Adolf Hitler, Speech, Munich Exhibition Halls, March 14, 1936. Quoted in Max Domarus, Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations 1932-1945, The Chronicle of a Dictatorship, Vol. II, 1935-1938 (Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1992), p. 790.

[3]. See the discussion in, Mark Schneider, “Russia and Conventional Deterrence,” Information Series, No. 434, National Institute Press, December 13, 2018.
[4]. See Hans Speier, Force and Folly (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1969), pp. 70-99.

[5]. Julian Isherwood, “Russia warns Denmark its warships could become nuclear targets,” The Telegraph, March 21, 2015, available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/11487509/Russia-warns-Denmark-its-warships-.

[6]. Adrian Bradshaw, “The Latest Security Challenges Facing NATO,” Royal United Services Institute, February 20, 2015, https://rusi.org/multimedia/latest-security-challenges-facing-nato.

The views expressed in this article reflect those of the author and do not reflect those of the National Institute for Public Policy or any institution with which the author is associated. This article is adapted from remarks delivered by the author at The 7th Annual D.C. Triad Conference, “The Emerging Strategic Nuclear Environment: Challenges Ahead,” Minot Chamber of Commerce in association with Geostrategic Analysis, Washington, DC, October 9, 2018.

For additional information about this publication or other publications by the National Institute Press, contact: Editor, National Institute Press, 9302 Lee Highway, Suite 750 |Fairfax, VA 22031 | (703) 293-9181 |www.nipp.org. For access to previous issues of the National Institute Press Information Series, please visit http://www.nipp.org/national-institute-press/information-series/.

Related Topics: China, North Korea, U.S. Nuclear Forces, Nuclear Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Cold War


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[Housecarl]

Hummm…..

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://news.yahoo.com/mexico-looks-recruit-50-000-national-guard-162553359.html

Mexico looks to recruit 50,000 to National Guard

Associated Press • January 2, 2019

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador used his first news conference of 2019 to start recruitment for his new National Guard, which will become the country's primary security force.

Lopez Obrador says the government hopes to recruit about 50,000 civilians to add to the guard's initial composition of military personnel and federal police.

Those interested in applying will do so through the existing army and navy recruitment centers. The military will provide the National Guard's command structure.

Lopez Obrador also deflected questions Wednesday about a pledge from leftists in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas to block construction of his "Train Maya." He says they're entitled to dissent, but he's not worried.

The Zapatistas harshly criticized Lopez Obrador this week during the 25th anniversary of their brief 1994 armed uprising.

28 reactions

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm…..

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://news.yahoo.com/us-colombia-aim-restore-venezuelas-democratic-heritage-224008990.html

US, Colombia aim to restore Venezuela's 'democratic heritage'

AFP • January 2, 2019

Cartagena (Colombia) (AFP) - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Colombian President Ivan Duque discussed Wednesday how to help restore democratic rule to crisis-wracked Venezuela and reject its "dictatorship."

Pompeo followed up a trip to Brazil to meet with new far right President Jair Bolsonaro with a visit to Colombia for talks on the migrant exodus from neighboring Venezuela, and its regime led by President Nicolas Maduro.

"Our conversations today covered how we can collaborate with regional and international partners to help those fleeing and help Venezuelans recover their democratic heritage," Pompeo said from the Caribbean city of Cartagena.

He described Colombia as "a natural leader on regional efforts to support democracy and the rule of law in Venezuela," its neighbor.

Right-wing Duque, who succeeded Juan Manuel Santos in August, said that "all the countries that share the value of democracy should unite to reject the Venezuelan dictatorship and do everything necessary to restore democracy and constitutional order."

Pompeo praised Colombia for its support of the one million Venezuelans that have crossed the border and "fled the crisis caused by the Maduro regime's authoritarian misrule."

According to the United Nations, 2.3 million Venezuelans have escaped poverty and economic meltdown since 2015 as those who remain face shortages of basic necessities such as food and medicine, as well as failing public services, including water, electricity and transport.

Pompeo said the US has dedicated almost $92 million in aid to help Colombia deal with its influx of Venezuelan migrants.

During his visit to Brazil, Pompeo agreed with his Peruvian and Brazilian counterparts to increase the pressure on Maduro, with Venezuela's government reacting by decrying interference.

Maduro will begin his second mandate as president on January 10, although the result of last year's election was branded a fraud by the US, European Union and Organization of American States.

Relations between Bogota and Caracas have been tense since Duque came to power.

Maduro has accused Colombia and Brazil of collaborating with Washington to overthrow and assassinate him, although both neighboring South American countries have dismissed any suggestions of a military intervention.

US President Donald Trump has ramped up sanctions against the Maduro regime since succeeding Barack Obama.

6 reactions

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your..._term=Editorial - Military - Early Bird Brief

New in 2019: From tanks to Strykers, major brigade combat team conversions are coming this year

By: Todd South  
1 day ago

Just as the Army shifted from a division-level focus to “modular” brigade combats teams early in the Iraq war for post-9/11 combat, the service has begun changes to the existing BCTs to pivot back to the near-peer fight.

This year will bring more of the changes that have been ongoing in recent years as a Stryker BCT morphs into an armored BCT.

The 1st Armored Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team at Fort Bliss, Texas, will convert from Stryker to armored in 2019.

The base of the ABCT relies on the Abrams tank, Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the Paladin artillery piece.

And in spring 2020, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado, will convert from infantry to Stryker.

Reactivated unit gives 82nd Airborne an armored component that packs a Marine Corps-style punch
The new unit revives a legacy of airborne armor that lasted through most of the Cold War.
By: Todd South

Fort Bliss and Fort Carson won out primarily for two reasons: their extensive training areas and their ability to provide force projection, or deploy rapidly or move equipment to theater, said Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for operations, or G-3.

He said at the time of the announcement that previous thinking looked at a division that included one of each type of brigade combat team — infantry, Stryker and armored. But experience has shown flaws with that model.

“What we learned over time was when you tried to deploy BCTs where you only have one like kind on an installation, it’s hard on some of our manning numbers,” Anderson said.

Due to training requirements, non-deployable statuses and other factors, individual units from that installation couldn’t always build a full-strength unit to get out the door for the mission, he said.

These latest brigade conversions come after last year’s conversion of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 2nd BCT at Fort Stewart, Georgia, from an infantry brigade to an armored brigade.

Work to convert these next two BCTs is already underway.

The equipment and infrastructure refurbishing and refitting will take an estimated 18 to 24 months.

Simultaneously, individual soldier movement, training and, later, unit training to build BCT readiness for combat training center rotations will continue.

Secretary of the Army Mark Esper said in September that the conversion “ensures the Army remains the world’s most lethal ground combat force, able to deploy, fight and win against any adversary, anytime and anywhere.”

It also offers some shuffling opportunities for soldiers in those units and job fields.

Some soldiers will stay on post and shift to the new units, some new soldiers will come in from the various career courses and initial training. Others may decide to retrain or re-enlist to join the new units.

The changes over the past few years and those coming up will put the Army at a total of 31 BCTs in the regular Army, comprised of 11 armored. 13 infantry and seven Stryker brigades once complete.

The Army National Guard will hold 27 BCTs, among them five armored, 20 infantry and two Stryker brigades. This gives the total Army 58 BCTs.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.defensenews.com/global/...ny-defense-and-diplomacy-assignments-in-2019/

Germany picks up two thorny defense and diplomacy assignments in 2019

By: Sebastian Sprenger  
1 day ago

COLOGNE, Germany — Germany begins the new year with two prominent defense and diplomacy assignments: leadership of NATO’s highest-alert combat formation, and a two-year seat on the United Nations Security Council.

The two new responsibilities follow recent pledges by Berlin to play a more active role in global affairs, offering German Chancellor Angela Merkel an instant test to make good on those proclamations during the final years of her tenure.

As of Jan. 1, Germany is on the hook to provide 5,000 soldiers for NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, or VJTF. The formation must be ready to fight wherever it is needed within 48 to 72 hours. Partner nations for this year’s rotation include the Netherlands, Norway, France, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Latvia and Lithuania, bringing the total package to about 8,000.

A key rationale for the quick-reaction force is to display to Russia the ability to rapidly ferry combat power across Europe at a time when speed is believed to be a Russian advantage. European governments are still wary from the 2014 Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea, and more recently from a naval standoff between the two countries in the Sea of Asov. Both incidents fit into a pattern of Russia steering clear of outright war while trying to shake up the post-Soviet order around its borders, according to issue experts.

The German Defence Ministry’s logistics planning for the VJTF role takes into account the need to quickly move combat gear if needed. Its acquisition office last month announced a $110 million support contract to ensure rapid access to military rail transport from civilian providers during Germany’s one-year tenure.

The Bundeswehr, plagued by equipment shortfalls, management problems or both — depending on who is asked — has had to dig deep to assemble the needed equipment for the task force lead. In the end, funneling supplies from across the force to the tip of the spear appears to have worked, but it has depleted the readiness of many units, said Christian Mölling, an analyst with the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations.

“It means the rest of the Bundeswehr is no longer the kind of deterrent it is meant to be,” he said in an interview.

Germany unveils growth plan for the Bundeswehr
Government officials in Berlin are trying to lay the groundwork for a hefty defense-spending boost, but will it fly?
By: Sebastian Sprenger

With the task force now on high alert, Mölling said, the thing to watch will be Germany’s national decision-making process in the event that it will be called up. Parliament and the government, he argues, lack a well-rehearsed process for assessing whether a given conflict warrants deploying the task force, potentially kicking off a comprehensive national debate that would negate any hope of a rapid reaction.
That is especially the case because of Moscow's penchant to keep its activities just below the conflict threshold that would trigger Article 5, NATO's clause for collective defense when one member is attacked.

Amid deepening global crises and a deteriorating relationship between Europe and the U.S., a German government debating the definition of a worthy VJTF deployment would probably lead to Russian President Vladimir Putin “grabbing a bag of popcorn,” Mölling quipped.

“We just don't have the necessary routine for a case like that,” he said.

Germany, US haggle over access to secret missile-performance data
Germany wants an anti-missile system that can work against the Russian Iskander missile and threats flying at hypersonic speed.
By: Sebastian Sprenger

As a nonpermanent member of the U.N. Security Council, it’s easy to foresee the animosity between Germany and the Trump administration in Washington coming to a head in New York, said Ulrike Franke, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

Many Germans are deeply wary of the U.S. president and his knocking of NATO and other multilateral institutions that have brought Berlin back from the devastation of World War II. That is even more the case since Jim Mattis, a vocal believer in America’s global alliances, called it quits as defense secretary last month.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Jan. 1 tweeted a list of objectives for Germany during its Security Council tenure. They include countering climate change and related global security effects, and a commitment to arms control and disarmament — issues that the Trump administration has dismissed.

When it comes to the voting pattern of Berlin and Washington, often aligned on the Security Council stage, things could get a little awkward, Franke predicts.

In practical terms, however, “I’m pessimistic that a lot will change,” she said. But Germany’s term holds the promise that government leaders here will get into the habit of developing truly global foreign policy positions and selling them to audiences foreign and domestic, she said.

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Gid On
If the writer of this article would make any greater effort to avoid stating Trump's grievance - that is, Germany does not pay her share of defense spending - he would do himself an injury. Germany, and much of NATO, were comfortable over the years that the US would pay for their defense both in blood and in treasure. Now that a US president has called them out and demanding a correcton, they are "deeply wary" of the US and suddenly view the US as an "unreliable" ally.
Quite frankly, Europeans who spout this stuff, should be ashamed of themselves.
Like · Reply · 2 · 19h


Phil Salvatore
Trumps critique ignores how much military hardware NATO members buy from us. What is the economic value of all those allies buying F-16s, F-4s, F-104s and now F-35s, not to mention all the Sidewinders, AMRAAMs, Harpoons and SYP-1 radars for their warships. What is the economic value of that to us? How much cost reduction in our own arms purchases are the result of the additional production volume for our allies? The critique also ignores how many of our allies have bled alongside our own forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere. When we went to war in Afghanistan it was the Luftwaffe that deployed to the US to fly the continental air defense mission allowing the USAF to deploy more of its force abroad.
Like · Reply · 6h


Rocco Zaccardi
With Merkel Germany loses!
Like · Reply · 1 · 11h


Phil Salvatore
With Rocco posting D-N readers loose.
Like · Reply · 6h


Rocco Zaccardi
Phil Salvatore don't let me pick on you again and make you cry, loser.
Like · Reply · 5h

 

[Zagdid]

Sinking US aircraft carriers will resolve tension in South China Sea, says Chinese admiral

https://www.foxnews.com/world/sinki...nsion-in-south-china-sea-says-chinese-admiral (fair use)
By Bradford Betz | Fox News Published 15 hours ago Last Update 13 hours ago

The deputy head of a Chinese military academy told an audience in Shenzhen last month that tensions in the South China Sea could be resolved by sinking a pair of U.S. aircraft carriers, reports said.

"What the United States fears the most is taking casualties," said Rear Admiral Lou Yuan, deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, news.com.au reported. He said sinking one carrier would kill 5,000 and sinking two would double that number.

Brad Glosserman, a China expert and professor at Tokyo’s Tama University, said Lou’s comments reflect a growing belief in China that the United States has lost its stomach for war, according to a report from military.com.

The Chinese believe that "Americans have gone soft … [they] no longer have an appetite for sacrifice and at the first sign of genuine trouble they will cut and run," Glosserman said.

In his speech, Loui said there were "five cornerstones of the United States" open to exploitation: their military, their money, their talent, their voting system -- and their fear of adversaries, according to the news.com.au report.

 

[Zagdid]

Russian Military Resurrects Air Mobile Groups

https://tsarizm.com/analysis/2019/01/04/russian-military-resurrects-air-mobile-groups/ (fair use)
by Tsarizm StaffJanuary 4, 2019

The Ground Troops of Russia’s Southern MD are resurrecting air mobile groups. Recent Mil.ru press-releases have highlighted them. Though clearly still developing, they are far enough along to advertise them.

Shortly after the December 1 start of Russia’s new training year, Southern MD Commander General-Colonel Aleksandr Dvornikov declared that every battalion, regiment, brigade, and division in his AOR will establish and train air mobile groups.

He continued:

“Up to 40 helicopters of various designations — strike, combat-transport and transport — must support the completion of the combat-training missions of each company tactical group.”

Forty helos is a stiff requirement even for the Southern MD with a brigade plus two independent regiments of rotary wing air support.

Air mobile groups have been established in the Volgograd-based 20th MRB. According to Mil.ru, they have spent a month on the Prudboy range training for tactical air assaults, employing helicopter fire support, landing on different terrain day and night, and using night vision goggles.

The 150th MRD in Rostov oblast has air mobile groups. Mil.ru reported on Mi-8AMTSh Terminator helos flying in support of them. The site indicated that the groups are outfitted with the RPG-7B, AGS-17 Plamya grenade launchers, 2S12 Sani mortars, Igla (SA-18) MANPADS, and Belozer satellite comms.

Mil.ru showed the 136th MRB’s air mobile groups with buggy-like light vehicles.

Air mobile groups sound like platoons, so several groups will probably constitute a company-sized unit for divisions or brigades.

In Soviet times, combined arms armies also had air mobile battalions.

 

[Housecarl]

https://www.foxnews.com/world/sinki...nsion-in-south-china-sea-says-chinese-admiral (fair use)
By Bradford Betz | Fox News Published 15 hours ago Last Update 13 hours ago

The deputy head of a Chinese military academy told an audience in Shenzhen last month that tensions in the South China Sea could be resolved by sinking a pair of U.S. aircraft carriers, reports said.

"What the United States fears the most is taking casualties," said Rear Admiral Lou Yuan, deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, news.com.au reported. He said sinking one carrier would kill 5,000 and sinking two would double that number.

Brad Glosserman, a China expert and professor at Tokyo’s Tama University, said Lou’s comments reflect a growing belief in China that the United States has lost its stomach for war, according to a report from military.com.

The Chinese believe that "Americans have gone soft … [they] no longer have an appetite for sacrifice and at the first sign of genuine trouble they will cut and run," Glosserman said.

In his speech, Loui said there were "five cornerstones of the United States" open to exploitation: their military, their money, their talent, their voting system -- and their fear of adversaries, according to the news.com.au report.

Once you start talking about strategic assets like aircraft carriers, particularly in the manner of this PLA officer (and thus Beijing itself) you're in a whole different territory of "action" and "reaction"....

 

[danielboon]

EndGameWW3
EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3
Invasion of Venezuela very soon...

Navy Tests 'Littoral Combat Group' Concept That Pairs DDG, LPD in South America Deployment - USNI...
news.usni.org
5:30 PM · Jan 4, 2019 · https://t.co/sATHFJ8pPG?amp=1

·
3m
Replying to
@EndGameWW3

Brazil Conducts Joint Military Operations on the Coastline
dialogo-americas.com
https://t.co/ddf0rerAdU?amp=1
2m
Replying to
@EndGameWW3

Peru, US Participate in Combined Maritime Exercise Waves of Solidarity
dialogo-americas.com https://t.co/QPAGl8RVkB?amp=1

Replying to
@EndGameWW3

Brazil's Bolsonaro says he is open to hosting a U.S. military base
reuters.com. https://t.co/b6Mx6UtwpA?amp=1

 

[danielboon]

Once you start talking about strategic assets like aircraft carriers, particularly in the manner of this PLA officer (and thus Beijing itself) you're in a whole different territory of "action" and "reaction"....

Indeed nukes will come in to play if that happens

 

[danielboon]

More on south America

EndGameWW3
EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3
1~4~19~AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT FORCES IN FINAL PLANNING AND PREPARATION FOR V... (link: https://youtu.be/DTSuDeod7bw) youtu.be/DTSuDeod7bw via
@YouTube

1~4~19~AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT FORCES IN FINAL PLANNING AND PREPARATION...
www.youtube.com
5:43 PM · Jan 4, 2019 ·
https://t.co/oNYlezEz1F?amp=1

 

[danielboon]

EndGameWW3
EndGameWW3
@EndGameWW3
Brazil to send military police to state amid wave of attacks (link: https://fxn.ws/2F6pp8h) fxn.ws/2F6pp8h #FoxNews

Brazil to send military police to state amid wave of attacks
foxnews.com
5:35 PM · Jan 4, 2019 ·