WAR 2-25-2017-to-03-03-2017_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...th-Korea-fires-missile-per-White-House-review

For links see article source.....
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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...e/news-story/bd982b32718357c5a842bb279be45b6a

WALL STREET JOURNAL

US military strike threat if North Korea fires missile

Carol E. Lee, Alastair Gale
The Wall Street Journal
12:00AM March 3, 2017

An internal White House review of strategy on North Korea includes the possibility of military force or regime change to blunt the country’s nuclear-weapons threat, people familiar with the process said, a prospect that has some US allies in the region on edge.

While President Donald Trump has taken steps to reassure allies that he will not abandon agreements that have underpinned decades of US policy on Asia, his pledge that Pyongyang would be stopped from ever testing an intercontinental ballistic missile — coupled with the two-week-old strategy review — has some leaders bracing for a shift in American policy.

The US review comes as recent events have strained regional *stability. North Korea launched a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan last month, and the *estranged half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was assassinated in Malaysia.

Chinese and North Korean *officials are holding talks in Beijing, the first known high-level meeting in nearly a year, and *Beijing recently curtailed coal imports from North Korea.

US officials have underscored the possible military dimensions of their emerging strategy in recent talks with allies, according to *people familiar with the talks. During Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s two-day summit with Mr Trump last month, US *officials stated several times that all options were under consideration to deal with North Korea, *according to a person familiar with the talks.

It was clear to the Japanese side that those options encompassed a US military strike on North Korea, possibly if Pyongyang appeared ready to test an ICBM, this person said. The Japanese side found that scenario “worrisome”, he said.

US allies in recent years have closely aligned with Washington in trying to increase diplomatic and economic pressure on Pyongyang to force it to drop its nuclear program.

But the new US policy review has generated anxiety in Japan and South Korea about a radical shift. After North Korea said earlier this year it was ready to test an ICBM, Mr Trump wrote on Twitter, “It won’t happen!”

Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland convened a meeting with national-security officials across the government two weeks ago and asked them for proposals on North Korea, including ideas that one official described as well outside the mainstream.

The request was for all options, ranging from US recognition of North Korea as a nuclear state to military action against Pyongyang. Ms McFarland’s directive was for the administration to undergo a comprehensive rethink of America’s North Korea policy.

The national-security officials reported back to Ms McFarland with their ideas and suggestions two days ago.

Those options now will undergo a process under which they will be *refined and shaped before they are given to the President for consideration.

The heightened prospect of US military action in North Korea could encourage China, which fears the fallout of a military confrontation with its neighbour, to take steps Washington has long sought to choke off Pyongyang’s economic lifeline.

In the wake of Mr Trump’s election, leaders in Tokyo and Seoul have sought to intensify the existing US strategy of exerting economic and diplomatic pressure against North Korea.

“We will make sure that the North changes its erroneous calculations by further enhancing sanctions and pressure,” South Korean acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn said on Wednesday.

South Korea and the US kicked off major annual military exercises on Wednesday, part of a long-running strategy of prioritising defensive military preparedness to ward off North Korean aggression.

After North Korea tested a ballistic missile last month just as Mr Abe and Mr Trump were meeting in Florida, the Japanese leader called for Pyongyang to comply with a UN ban on such tests and said Tokyo and Washington would strengthen their alliance.

In his own brief remarks after Mr Abe, Mr Trump didn’t mention North Korea, saying only that the US “stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 per cent”.

Japan is concerned it could get sucked into a regional conflict by a US military strike on North Korea, said Tetsuo Kotani, a senior fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs, a Tokyo think tank.

Another fear for Japan is a scenario in which the US instead holds talks with North Korea and reaches a deal that would lead to Washington disengaging from the region, he said.

Under its pacifist constitution, Japan remains heavily dependent on US military support, not only to counter North Korea, but also China, which has stepped up a *territorial challenge against Japanese-administered islands in the East China Sea.

“Direct talks between Mr Trump and Kim Jong-un would be a nightmare scenario for Japan,” Mr Kotani said.

Mr Trump has recently stated the US commitment to defending both Japan and South Korea to leaders of both countries.

As annual military exercises were set to begin, US Defence *Secretary Jim Mattis spoke to South Korean Defence Minister Han Min-Koo, emphasising that “any attack on the United States or its allies will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons will be met with a response that is effective and overwhelming”, said Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis.

The US is in the process of installing advanced missile defences, known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system, in South Korea.

As part of that, South Korea said this week that it has completed a transfer of land needed as a station for the system, Captain Davis said.

The Wall Street Journal

 

[Housecarl]

Morons: Islamic State Pledges To Attack China Next.
Started by*mzkitty‎,*Yesterday*01:59 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ns-Islamic-State-Pledges-To-Attack-China-Next.

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-39137420

'All-out offensive' in Xinjiang risks worsening grievances

Carrie Gracie
China editor
3 hours ago
From the section
China

China is in the midst of what it calls a "people's war on terror" in its far west. What sparked this latest campaign was a knife attack.

After five people were killed on 14 February in Xinjiang, home to China's Muslim Uighur minority, Beijing began an "all out offensive". It flew in thousands of armed troops to hold mass police rallies and deploy columns of armoured vehicles on city streets.

Xinjiang's Communist Party boss Chen Quanguo urged these forces to "bury the corpses of terrorists in the vast sea of a people's war".

Mass police rallies held in Xinjiang
China to track cars in terrorism crackdown
Why is there tension between China and the Uighurs?
More about Xinjiang

Judging from the reaction on Chinese social media, at least some people approve.
"Terrorists will never be stamped out unless we weaken Muslim religious forces," urged one post on China's Twitter-like Weibo.

Then on Monday the so-called Islamic State released a video, which appeared directly to threaten China and which showed Uighur fighters training.

http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/04B7/production/_94770210_mediaitem94770209.jpg

But the ethnic Uighur population of Xinjiang has no discernible voice. In the midst of an "all-out offensive" it is dangerous for them to speak up, unless to echo the government's message.

One contact in Kashgar told the BBC that the situation is "hypersensitive", with all business in the city closed down by night. He said members of his family are summoned to weekly meetings to demonstrate political allegiance.

"We are reliving the Cultural Revolution", he said.

Uighurs and Xinjiang

• Uighurs are ethnically Turkic Muslims
• They make up about 45% of Xinjiang's population; 40% are Han Chinese
• China re-established control in 1949 after crushing the short-lived state of East Turkestan
• Since then, there has been large-scale immigration of Han Chinese
• Uighurs fear that their traditional culture will be eroded

Who are the Uighurs?

So what lies behind China's biggest show of force in Xinjiang in nearly a decade?

The incident in Pishan on 14 February is the only deadly attack to be reported this year. Details are still scarce but there is no suggestion of the kind of outside involvement or large scale co-ordination which might explain such an enormous response.

Instead, unofficial reports suggest the trigger for the attack may have been something far more personal: the police punishment of a Uighur family who held a Muslim prayer meeting at home.

This is surely not the kind of scenario which requires the deployment of thousands of paramilitary reinforcements.

But the state controlled Xinjiang Daily newspaper has urged security forces to prepare "for a battle between good and evil, lightness and dark" and the region's Communist Party boss warned of "grim conditions" in the fight against terrorism.

So are conditions really grim?

Notwithstanding the video threat, outside Xinjiang, there has been no significant terrorist attack in China since 2014 and reported attacks in the region have been sporadic and small-scale.

By contrast, France has seen numerous terror attacks in recent years, including several major atrocities. But the French government did not declare a frontline, fly in thousands of troops or mount mass armed rallies on city streets.

It's hard to escape the conclusion that China is wielding a hammer to crack a nut. But Xinjiang's security forces are already well armed with every form of "nutcracker", including highly trained manpower, rapid response units, mobile police stations, surveillance cameras, helicopters, drones, satellite tracking of vehicles, biometrics and grid style management of every community right down to the individual household.

So what explains the force?

It's possible that the current security situation in Xinjiang is worse than appears and that there are many attacks going unreported.

Or that China has a very different risk calculus from other countries and feels a hammer is the appropriate response to every nut.

A third possibility is that warning of "grim conditions" in counter-terrorism serves an unrelated purpose and the nut must be redefined as an existential threat to justify the hammer.

My feeling is that all three explanations play a part.

The first is the least significant.

It's hard to verify occasional unofficial reports of small scale attacks in remote parts of Xinjiang because it's extremely difficult and dangerous for local Uighurs to contact foreign reporters. But it's unlikely that the authorities could cover up a major atrocity even if they wished to.

The risk calculus is a much bigger factor. It's a sweeping generalisation unsupported by hard evidence, but in my experience Chinese citizens are risk averse.
They have a higher expectation than, for example, British citizens, that their government must keep them safe.

China's growing authoritarianism means there is no vocal constituency arguing that civil liberties are worth a certain price in national security. Besides which, low trust in official news sources makes Chinese society susceptible to rumour and panic.

So China's leaders have to be risk averse when dealing with a high density population, which is only grudgingly loyal in the first place and unlikely to be resilient to terror or tolerant of failure to prevent it.

In Xinjiang, recent attacks may be small, but Beijing needs to show its public that it is doing something about them, even if that something is ineffectual or worse, counter-productive.

Turning to the third possible motive for an "all-out offensive" against scattered enemies armed only with knives, China has powerful vested interests whose objectives are advanced by talking up the security threat.

The politicians involved want to strengthen their hand before a crucial Communist Party Congress in the autumn, the security services want to expand their bureaucratic empire, and the businesses producing surveillance equipment and software have money to make.

Despite China's best efforts to cut off the routes of escape via Central and South East Asia, more than 100 Uighur fighters have made their way to Iraq and Syria. And now, IS is using footage from Xinjiang in its propaganda videos.

It's impossible to judge how far this would have happened without policies of religious and cultural repression in Xinjiang.

Banning beards and head scarves in public places, forcing Muslims to break their rules on fasting, demolishing mosques, micromanaging religious education, exacting outward shows of ideological loyalty serves to alienate Uighurs in Xinjiang.

In many countries terror triggers the impulse to repress and punish the community which appears to harbour the "terrorist". But other societies debate the dangers of alienation and the risk that those criminalised may become even more vulnerable to exploitation by extremists.

In 2014, making the case for an honest appraisal of the dangers of repression earned the Uighur academic Ilham Tohti a life sentence in prison.

The risk of demonising such mild dissent is to leave China's Uighurs only the voice of the separatist, the "terrorist" or the religious fundamentalist.

At present, the cost of this silence is experienced only by Uighurs and by Han Chinese who live and work in Xinjiang. But this may change.

Already the technologies of an Orwellian police state are advancing across China. Security services have no inhibitions about accessing social media accounts and private financial records to build an increasingly complete picture of the lives of persons of interest.

A vaguely worded new anti-terror law and accompanying narrative of foreign threats justify every constriction of civil liberties and detention of human rights lawyers, labour activists, religious believers and feminists.

Occasionally the Chinese public pushes back with complaints on social media about aggressive policing or miscarriages of justice.

And China does have traditions of soft power as well as hard - strains of Confucian paternalism in which a benign emperor rules through wisdom and natural authority, not through fear.

But in 2017, these strains are absent in Xinjiang. There's no significant pushback to the Communist Party message that the security of the state trumps the liberty of the citizen.

So China will go on failing to win the battle for hearts and minds in Xinjiang, and failing to convince the outside world that its offensive there is a clear-cut battle between good and evil.

More on this story
Chinese police hold 'anti-terror' rallies in Xinjiang
28 February 2017
Chinese police to track cars in Xinjiang in terror crackdown
21 February 2017
China confiscates passports of Xinjiang people
24 November 2016
Xinjiang territory profile
17 November 2016
Why is there tension between China and the Uighurs?
26 September 2014
Who are the Uighurs?
30 April 2014
Could China's Trump tactics actually be working?
24 February 2017
China's gamble for global supremacy in era of Trump
27 January 2017

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/pulls-back-syrias-palmyra-monitor-072131017.html

Syrian army battles IS inside Palmyra

Maya Gebeily
AFP
March 2, 2017

Beirut (AFP) - Syrian troops have pushed into Palmyra as they battle to retake the iconic city from the Islamic State group, but their advance was slowed Thursday by landmines laid by retreating jihadists.

Bolstered by Russian air strikes and ground troops, Syrian government forces have been battling through the desert for weeks to reach Palmyra.

The oasis city has traded hands several times during the six-year civil war and become a symbol of IS's wanton destruction of cultural heritage in areas under its control.

The jihadist group first seized Palmyra in May 2015 and began to systematically destroy and loot the UNESCO world heritage site's monuments and temples. IS fighters were driven out in March 2016 but recaptured the city last December.

The latest offensive to retake the city saw government forces break through its western limits late Wednesday, forcing IS fighters to retreat into eastern districts, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"IS withdrew from most of Palmyra after laying mines across the city. There are still suicide bombers left in the eastern neighbourhoods," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"Government forces have not yet been able to enter the heart of the city or the eastern parts," he added.

They have also not yet entered the celebrated ruins that make up the southwestern part of the city.

"There are no IS fighters left in most of the Old City, but it is heavily mined," Abdel Rahman said.

Before IS first entered the city, Palmyra boasted temples, colonnaded alleys and elaborately decorated tombs that were among the best preserved classical monuments in the Middle East.

But many of the monuments have been destroyed and much of the heritage looted for sale on the black market.

Moscow's support has been key in the Syrian army's push towards Palmyra, and its warplanes continued to bombard IS positions inside and near the city on Thursday, the Observatory reported.

A decades-old ally of Damascus, Moscow launched an air campaign in September 2015 to help President Bashar al-Assad's forces in their fight against what the regime and its allies say are "terrorists."

After losing ground in the early years of the war, Assad's regime has regained significant territory -- including by pushing rebel forces out of second city Aleppo last year -- thanks in large part to Russian support.

- Turkey threatens US allies -
In the north, fighters of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced they would cede several villages to the government as part of a deal brokered by Russia to avoid conflict with Turkey.

Turkey launched a cross-border operation in late August, that it said aimed to counter both IS and the SDF, which is dominated by Kurdish fighters that Ankara sees as "terrorists".

The surprise announcement by the SDF marks the first time that US-supported fighters will cede territory to Assad's forces.

It said the territory to be handed over lay between Manbij and Al-Bab, which Turkish-backed fighters captured last week from IS, to create a buffer zone between them.

Ankara meanwhile renewed its threat to bomb Kurdish fighters unless they withdrew from Manbij, a former bastion of IS that is now under SDF control.

"We will strike the YPG if they do not retreat," Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told journalists, referring to the Kurdish People's Protection Units.

"We do not want our ally the United States to continue cooperating with terror organisations that target us," he added.

The Turkey-backed rebels launched their advance on Manbij on Wednesday, initially seizing two villages but losing them to the SDF by Thursday.

The profusion of forces operating in Syria has led to a very complicated battlefield and on Wednesday a US general said Russian warplanes had bombed SDF fighters mistakingly believing they were IS jihadists.

The Russian defence ministry denied carrying out the air strikes.

- Sputtering peace talks -
This week, Moscow called for "terrorism" to be added to the agenda of UN-sponsored peace talks between opposition and government delegations in Geneva.
The sputtering negotiations so far have focused on three so-called "baskets": governance, the constitution, and elections.

But the main opposition group -- after an unprecedented meeting with a Russian minister -- said late Wednesday that it would refuse to add terrorism to the areas of discussion.

"We will not deal with it, and if (UN mediator Staffan de Mistura) adds it in any time we will not deal with it or discuss it," said Yehya Kodmani of the High Negotiations Committee (HNC).

The opposition has accused Assad's regime of wanting to turn the focus to terrorism as a distraction from political questions.

The Geneva talks, the fourth round of UN-sponsored negotiations in the six-year war, are expected to end before or during the coming weekend, though no formal timeframe has been set.

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[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/pakistans-uncertain-future/

Pakistan’s uncertain future

2 Mar 2017|Mohammed Ayoob

On 16 February a suicide bomber blew himself up in the main hall of the shrine of Pakistan’s most popular sufi saint, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, killing at least 88 people, including 21 children. The shrine is located in Sehwan in Pakistan’s Sindh province, which has a strong tradition of sufism going back several centuries.It was obvious that the bombing was the work of one or more salafi (puritanical) groups that have been regularly targeting sufi shrines in Pakistan for the past couple of years. For what it’s worth, ISIS—itself a product of salafi ideology—has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack. It’s more likely, however, that it was the handiwork of one of the many salafi terrorist groups active in Pakistan, like Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, which also claimed responsibility.

The attack has once again exposed two major tensions in Pakistan’s polity. The first tension is the struggle in Pakistan between an inclusive version of Islam, a product of the syncretic culture of the Indian subcontinent, and the rigid salafi interpretation of the religion that has become increasingly popular in South Asia thanks to the funding of madrasas (religious schools) and mosques by Wahabbi-ruled Saudi Arabia. To the salafis—literally those who follow the path of the “righteous ancestors”—the sufi tradition, with its syncretic features, is anathema as they consider it a major deviation from the pristine form of Islam and its followers heretics if not unbelievers. Unfortunately, inclusive Islam, represented by the Sufi shrine in Sehwan, is on the defensive in Pakistan and has been so for the past three decades since the rule of General Zia-ul-Haq who had allied himself with Saudi Arabia in the context of the anti-Soviet insurgency in Afghanistan which both supported.

The second and equally important tension exposed by the attack in Sehwan is the inability of the Pakistan Army and government to keep in check ultra-fundamentalist terrorist groups operating in the country. The Pakistan army, especially its intelligence arm, initially sponsored these groups as surrogates in its struggle both to wrest Kashmir from India and to protect Pakistan’s strategic interests in neighboring Afghanistan torn by civil strife. However, several of them now operate largely outside the control of the armed forces and have become major agents for chaos and anarchy in the country as demonstrated by the Sehwan massacre.

Additionally, Islamabad has been able to amass a respectable nuclear arsenal and delivery systems, both missile and aircraft, that can cause havoc if they fall into the hands of terrorist elements that seem to be running wild in the country. Moreover, even in “responsible” hands—namely, those of the military high command—these nuclear weapons are a major cause for concern.

One can’t rule out the possibility that escalating tensions with India over Kashmir (and they seem to be escalating by the day) and Pakistan-based terrorist attacks that are becoming increasingly frequent, especially against Indian military targets, can lead to a full-fledged shooting war across the LOC in Kashmir and the international border.

The Modi government has become increasingly bellicose in its statements following recent attacks by Paksitani terrorists on Indian military targets. Those attacks have caused sizable Indian casualties and led to several pinpoint strikes by Indian forces against “terrorist targets” in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. India’s Hindu nationalist government is under considerable pressure from its hardline domestic constituency to escalate counter-attacks. Afraid of losing its credibility with its political base, New Delhi may not be able to resist such pressure for too long and a major retaliatory attack could lead to all-out war between the two neighbors. The Pakistani military could be tempted to use tactical nuclear weapons against Indian military targets in such a contingency, which could quickly turn into a fully-fledged nuclear exchange devastating the subcontinent and contaminating much of Asia for decades.

Even a sub-nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan is likely to throw the region into turmoil with major consequences particularly for the US and its allies engaged in containing the Taliban threat in Afghanistan. The Taliban, although some of its factions may have turned against Pakistan lately, were Pakistani creations and even now the Pakistani military is in a position to use them for its strategic purposes in Afghanistan. Since Pakistan’s goals in Afghanistan—containing Indian influence in the country, keeping its surrogate forces functioning, and keeping the Afghan government off-balance—diverge from those of the US and its allies, it mightn’t be averse to stoking the fires of civil war in that country at the expense of American and allied interests.

Pakistan is literally sitting on a powder keg. The increasing ascendancy of militant salafi Islam, the military’s patronage of terrorist groups that it’s now unable to fully control, plus its nuclear arsenal and continuing confrontation with India over Kashmir, have created an explosive mixture that make it a classic case of impending state failure. If that happens it could mark the beginning of major chaos and mayhem in South Asia thus making the region increasingly resemble the Middle East next door.

Author
Mohammed Ayoob is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of International Relations, Michigan State University, and Senior Fellow, Center for Global Policy; author most recently of Will the Middle East Implode?*Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...ets-in-yemen-as-war-against-al-qaida-persists

America

U.S. Strikes Terrorism Targets In Yemen As War Against Al-Qaida Persists

March 2, 20171:05 PM ET
Philip Ewing

American warplanes in Yemen conducted more than 20 airstrikes overnight against the local branch of al-Qaida, the Pentagon said, in what may be the first U.S. counterterrorism operation there since a deadly special operations raid in January.

The U.S. aircraft targeted "militants, equipment, infrastructure, heavy weapons systems and fighting positions" of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Defense Department spokesman.

American commanders coordinated the operation with the rump Yemeni government that the U.S., Saudi Arabia and other Middle East allies are supporting amid the chaos of Yemen's civil war.

Officials did not connect the attack early Thursday with the fateful special operations raid in January that killed Chief Special Warfare Operator William Ryan Owens and many civilians — the aftermath of which has become a political football in Washington, D.C.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., called the raid a "failure." National security officials suggested in media reports that it was bungled and yielded nothing of value.

President Trump and his top lieutenants, however, have said the SEAL special operations team that attacked an AQAP compound recovered computers and other material that could help the fight against the terror group.

What's more, Trump lashed out at McCain and others for criticizing the raid: "He only emboldens the enemy!"

The White House has stood fast — on Tuesday, Trump featured Owens' widow, Carryn, during his address to a joint session of Congress and affirmed again that "Ryan was a part of a highly successful raid that generated large amounts of vital intelligence that will lead to many more victories in the future against our enemies."

But even as Trump has insisted the operation was worth doing, he also has disclaimed responsibility for Owens' death. Planning for the raid took place before he took office, Trump said on TV, and so, per the president, it was the generals who "lost Ryan."

Critics were outraged by that statement, and Owens' father, William, has refused to meet with Trump. William Owens seethed at the president in an interview with the Miami Herald over White House's decision to switch to a raid rather than attack AQAP from the air.

Before, Owens said, "everything was missiles and drones — because there was not a target worth one American life. Now, all of a sudden, we had to make this grand display?"

Trump, the White House and Pentagon also have been keen to emphasize what they called the value of the intelligence gained in the January operation after a messaging misfire last month. U.S. Central Command invited reporters to a briefing about a video recording found at the AQAP compound, a video instructing terror recruits about how to make bombs.

But the defense officials quickly cancelled their news conference once they realized the video was about 10 years old and had circulated in public years before. The Pentagon declined to detail what else the special operations troops brought back because it was classified, limiting the administration's ability to make a case in public.

The Yemen story, however, is not over. Central Command and other defense agencies are investigating the raid and incidents that surrounded it, including the loss of an MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor transport aircraft. It crash-landed near the site of the attack and was deliberately destroyed by U.S. troops to keep it from being compromised.

And Davis, the Pentagon spokesman, said the American counterterrorism push against AQAP in Yemen would not let up.

"AQAP has taken advantage of ungoverned spaces in Yemen to plot, direct, and inspire terror attacks against the United States and our allies," Davis said. "U.S. forces will continue to work with the government of Yemen to defeat AQAP and deny it the ability to operate in Yemen."

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://breakingdefense.com/2017/03/white-house-needs-to-curb-irans-cruise-missiles/

Air, Congress, Strategy & Policy

White House Needs To Curb Iran’s Cruise Missiles

By Jonathan Ruhe and Blake Fleisher
on March 02, 2017 at 9:58 AM
3 Comments

McMaster, President Trump’s newly appointed National Security Advisor, must ensure the new administration reverses a decades-old pattern of neglecting Iran’s nuclear-capable cruise missile*capabilities and their importance to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.*The White House had no trouble marshaling evidence for its decision to put Iran “on notice” last*month but then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn failed to mention an Iranian nuclear capable cruise missile*test earlier that week.

Usually, it’s Iran’s ballistic missiles that*grab the headlines. The largest such arsenal in the Middle East, they can strike anywhere in the region, and Tehran has transferred thousands to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran*also tests new nuclear-capable versions regularly, as they have done*in recent weeks. During Iran’s annual military parade, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) inscribes its most bellicose threats against Israel on these missiles.

Despite their design as nuclear delivery vehicles, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s nuclear program places no restrictions on these weapons. In fact, U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231 implementing the deal dropped the legally-binding ban on Iranian ballistic missile development, replacing it with a mere admonition against such activities. Nevertheless, even this much weaker language still encourages international condemnation, and occasionally sanctions, when Tehran conducts new tests.

That same resolution, like the JCPOA, does not address cruise missiles. This is somewhat unsurprising, as Iran first acquired a small handful of nuclear-capable cruise missiles very surreptitiously. In 2000, Tehran obtained twelve Russian

http://breakingdefense.com/wp-conte...17/02/Irans-Soumar-cruise-missile-768x531.jpg

Kh-55s from Ukraine through front companies, corrupt officials and falsified contracts, with several individuals involved dying mysteriously. This transaction occurred well before crippling sanctions focused attention on Iran’s elaborate shell games to hide its aggressive procurement efforts.

Nevertheless, this small arsenal could ultimately prove to be a strategic game-changer for Tehran. The most recent cruise missile tested – the Soumar – is a reversed-engineered version of the Kh-55. This suggests significant indigenous production capability, despite years of economic sanctions and arms embargoes. It helps that the IRGC dominates the economic sectors furnishing raw and finished materials for these weapons, as does the JCPOA’s sanctions relief for these industries.

The nuclear deal will raise this high ceiling for Iran’s cruise missile program even further. It rescinds the conventional weapons embargo no later than 2020. No later than 2023, it permits financing to develop Iran’s nuclear delivery systems and unfreezes assets of Iranian entities blacklisted for proliferation-sensitive activities.

By boosting Tehran’s ongoing development of turbofan and turbojet engines, and its plans to develop supersonic cruise missiles, these windfalls could swell an arsenal of more sophisticated, longer-range cruise missiles that will be harder to intercept. Terminating the arms embargo will allow Iran to simply buy advanced models like the stealthy Kh-55 upgrade used by Russia in Syria.

Israel recently completed testing the David’s Sling air defense system, which can intercept cruise missiles. But the rest of the Middle East is falling behind Iran. U.S. allies from the Persian Gulf to Cairo – all within range of the Kh-55 and Soumar – are buying advanced weapons at record levels. Yet these are mostly offensive systems, ill-suited for cruise missile defense.

The United States and its allies must act to halt Iran’s progress. Unlike its predecessor, the Trump Administration should utilize the nuclear deal’s Procurement Working Group to block Tehran’s illicit missile technology acquisition efforts. It is time to demand verification – as authorized by the JCPOA – of the end use of sensitive Iranian imports. Because Resolution 2231 was passed under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, the United States and its partners should consider enforcement actions, including sanctions and use of force, against any material breaches by Iran.

Furthermore, despite sanctions on seemingly everything else, no U.S. law specifically targets Iran’s nuclear cruise missile program, nor are such provisions included in pending ballistic missile sanctions legislation. This can be remedied easily, without contravening the JCPOA.*

The United States itself also must get serious about cruise missile defense. The Pentagon should forward-deploy a fraction of its growing Aegis-equipped fleet to the Persian Gulf, as it does in Europe and Asia. By avoiding oceanic transits, fewer of these ships – which recently intercepted cruise missiles fired by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen – could provide the same defense against Iranian missiles. This should form part of a new multi-layered air defense system including David’s Sling, which would benefit Gulf allies already targeted by Houthi missiles. Furthermore, the advanced U.S. aircraft purchased by these allies could be equipped to intercept cruise missiles.

The new administration is making clear its intent to stop tolerating Iranian aggression. Translating this into action means the United States can no longer turn a blind eye to Iran’s nuclear cruise missile program.

Jonathan Ruhe is the associate director, and Blake Fleisher is a policy analyst, at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....ADA/BMD/IADS for CONUS?....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://breakingdefense.com/2017/03/...nses-against-russian-chinese-strikes-experts/

Congress, Strategy & Policy

Build Limited Missile Defenses Against Russian, Chinese Strikes: Experts

By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
on March 01, 2017 at 4:00 AM
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http://breakingdefense.com/wp-conte...vinsk-Russian-SSN-FoggoFritz-F2-June-16_1.jpg
Russia’s most advanced attack submarine, the Severodvinsk class, could approach the US coast and launch nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. (Navy graphic)

WASHINGTON: It’s time to build up missile defenses against limited attacks from Russia and China, leading experts gingerly suggest in a forthcoming study. While we can’t stop an all-out nuclear barrage, they say, we can and should reduce the temptation for Moscow or Beijing to risk a small strike. Such limited nuclear strikes are an important part of modern Russian military doctrine in particular, which prescribes them as a way to quickly end a losing conventional war — a technique incongruously called “escalate to deescalate.”

None of the contributors to Missile Defense and Defeat is proposing a Reaganesque Star Wars shield. They don’t think it’s feasible, affordable, or even desirable, since just trying to build one would undermine the Mutually Assured Destruction that has kept the nuclear peace for 70 years. But as China and Russia grow both more capable and more confrontational, several of the authors argue, we need to break the taboo on discussing any kind of missile defense against great powers. A congressionally chartered review now underway in the Pentagon is a great place to start.

“The reemergence of a belligerent Russia with the largest missile inventory in the world… presents an existential threat to the United States and its allies,” writes Henry “Trey” Obering, former director of the Missile Defense Agency. “We must use this inflection point to build the next generation of missile defense needed, not only to meet the rogue nation threat (i.e. North Korea and Iran), but also the threats posed by Russia and China as well.”

In particular, “it is time for America to prioritize homeland cruise missile defense,” writes former MDA deputy director Kenneth Todorov. Historically, missile defense has focused on ballistic missiles flying high and fast; cruise missiles are lower, slower, and a distinctly different problem. “The threat to the U.S. homeland from cruise missiles, predominantly from China and Russia, is increasing at an alarming rate,” writes Todorov, and “the use of these weapons in such scenarios has been part of Russia’s publicized doctrine for years.”

Co-author Keith Payne, a senior member of Strategic Command’s Senior Advisory Group, is especially concerned about threats to America’s ICBM fields. While the Nixon Administration’s Safeguard system was meant to keep our capacity to retaliate intact through a Russian first strike, he writes, we’ve largely ignored active defenses for our ICBMs since, relying on purely passive defenses like hardened silos. While Payne says stopping a large-scale Russia or Chinese attack would require dramatic technological breakthroughs, he’s more optimistic about what he calls “a ‘thin’ missile defense to protect against limited missile threats or attacks from any origin, including Russia and China.”

Likewise, “(while) the United States should not seek homeland missile defense against Russia and China,” writes Lawrence Livermore’s Brad Roberts, “the protection against limited ballistic missile strikes (should) be extended to protection against limited cruise missile strikes on the homeland.” Particularly in Europe, where Aegis systems ashore and at sea are officially only aimed at Iran, Roberts writes, “the objective (is) taking Russia’s ‘cheap shots’ at the alliance off the table (–) that is, Russia’s use of a very small number of strikes, with the threat of more to come, to persuade NATO not to act militarily to secure an interest (–) as opposed to the large-scale strikes of which Russia is also capable.”

Lead author and collection editor Tom Karako, missile defense director at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, is actually more cautious than his four co-authors in discussing defense against the Russian threat. But even he recommends beefing up missile defenses with, for example, interceptors fired from non-descript cargo containers, intermingled with empty decoys in a gigantic shell game: That, he told me with satisfaction, “will drive the Russians bananas.”

None of these ideas is about creating a perfect defense, Karako emphasized. “This isn’t about any sort of bubble,” he said. “It’s about raising the threshold” — making a limited strike less likely to succeed, and therefore less tempting.

The venue in which Karako & co. hope these out-of-the-box ideas get discussed is the “review of the missile defeat capability, policy, and strategy of the United States” ordered by the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act and due back to Congress by Jan. 31st, 2018. Unlike the last such study, which was narrowly couched as a Ballistic Missile Defense Review, this Missile Defeat Review explicitly includes cruise missile threats, new dangers such as hypersonic weapons, cooperation with allies, and “left of launch” solutions such as blowing up the enemy missiles on the launchpad (a way to “defeat” that’s not “defense). “It’s not just about ballistics any more, and (the) legislative mandate is pretty up front about that,” Karako told me.

What’s more, rather than just tasking the policy wonks in the Office of the Secretary of Defense to conduct the study, Congress specifically ordered the Joint Staff to participate as well this time, which Karako expects will give the new review a “much more operational flavor.” This is the kind of comprehensive review, Karako said, that then Navy and Army chiefs Jonathan Greenert and Ray Odierno called for in their “eight-star memo” saying the current approach to missile defense was “unsustainable.”