WAR 01-11-2020-to-01-17-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

Sorry for the delay....HC

(400) 12-28-2019 -to- 01-03-2020__****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
WAR - 12-28-2019-to-01-03-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****


(401) 01-04-2020-to-01-10-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

WAR - 01-04-2020-to-01-10-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

Sorry for the delay....HC (399) 12-14-2019-to-12-20-2019___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** WAR - 12-14-2019-to-12-20-2019___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** WAR -...

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The Suleimani Killing and the New Order of Armed Conflict

We asked Paul Bracken, a professor of management and political science, what the capability to pinpoint enemy leaders from afar in real time means for modern warcraft.

insights.som.yale.edu

The Suleimani Killing and the New Order of Armed Conflict
Paul Bracken January 10, 2020

The killing of Iran’s Qassim Suleimani exposed the developing power of military technology and intelligence to pinpoint enemy leaders from afar in real time. We asked Paul Bracken, a professor of management and political science, what this dramatic capability means for modern warcraft.

• Competitive Strategy
• Three Questions

What does the Suleimani killing say about the expansion of the U.S. military’s ability to target specific individuals?
What we are seeing is the B2B digital revolution transforming military affairs the way it’s transforming business. Cloud computing, data analytics, AI, and cyber can now be used for new tasks that were unimaginable a few years ago. In this instance, it was tracking a leadership target in real time. It’s an apt business case study of technology leadership; i.e., of deciding the direction to take an organization, and using new technology to get there.
How does it change strategy when one or more combatants have this capability?
This is a good question. We don’t understand the strategic interactions of two or more countries with these capabilities. I would put it like this. The U.S., China, and others are on a learning curve. It’s a dangerous learning curve for sure, because they need to figure out what the accepted rules of behavior are so that the interaction doesn’t erupt into uncontrolled war. In some ways, this is like the new order now developing in fintech, retail, and social media—but much more dangerous. The old arms control regime from the Cold War is totally obsolete for this world. We need a great deal of work in this area to develop a replacement structure.

What other lessons do you draw from the U.S.-Iran conflict?
It’s worth pointing out that Iran sent advance signals to Washington through back channels and open communications in the clear to warn the U.S. by several hours of their impending attack on two military bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq. That’s one reason no one was killed in the strikes. This is fascinating, because it reveals the subtle use of communication and bargaining in high-tech arenas. Right now, Facebook, Google, and others are doing something similar: signaling regulatory authorities in the EU and Washington about what they’d consider “acceptable” regulation. These government authorities, in turn, are signaling the technology companies. De-escalation and signaling are important in both war and business.

Paul Bracken

Professor of Management & Professor of Political Science

 

[Housecarl]

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More than 50 'terrorists' killed in French commando operations in Mali

Supported by helicopters, jets and armed Reaper drones, commandoes deployed to Operation Barkhane conducted three helicopter-borne assaults in Mali

thedefensepost.com

More than 50 ‘terrorists’ killed in French commando operations in Mali
Supported by armed Reaper drones helicopters and fighter jets, commandoes deployed to Operation Barkhane conducted three helicopter-borne assaults in Mali
Fergus Kelly January 10, 2020
3 minutes read





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More than 50 “terrorists” were “put out of action” in a series of operations conducted in Mali by forces deployed to Operation Barkhane between December 20 and January 5, the French Armed Forces Ministry said.
The first operation between December 20 and 21 had previously been announced by French President Emmanuel Macron.
In a helicopter-borne assault on a large camp in a densely forested area of central Mali’s Mopti region, “33 terrorists were neutralized by several dozen commandos supported by Tigre helicopters in fighting that lasted several hours,” the ministry said in a Thursday, January 9 release.
Previous AFP reporting put the location of the commando raid in the Ouagadou forest, 150 km (90 miles) from Mopti town.
At the end of the day on December 21, commandoes were attacked as they searched the area. A Reaper drone that was then supporting the operation conducted an airstrike “to neutralize seven GAT [armed terrorist group] fighters who had infiltrated by motorcycle.”
This was the first airstrike carried out by a French armed drone, and came just two days after Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly announced that the testing of remotely-piloted drones for armed operations was completed. France has a total of five Reaper drones. The three MQ-9 Reapers based near Niger’s capital Niamey are each capable of carrying two GBU-12 Paveway II 500-pound laser-guided bombs. France is due to receive six more Reapers that will be capable of firing Lockheed Martin’s Hellfire air-to-surface missiles in 2020, and the fleet is set to increase to 24 by 2030. Parly made the decision to arm France’s surveillance drones in September 2017.
A Malian gendarme and a member of the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) who had been held hostage were freed, and “several vehicles, including one equipped with an anti-aircraft gun,” and a large quantity of weapons were ‘neutralized,’ the release said.
Another helicopter-borne assault was conducted on December 30, when a “gathering of several terrorists was spotted,” also in the Mopti region.
Supported by Tigre and Gazelle helicopters, Barkhane commandos put six “terrorists” out of action, while “three armed individuals fleeing the area” were struck by a Reaper drone.
A third operation was carried out overnight on January 4 to 5, this time in the Serma area. An airstrike conducted by a Mirage 2000 jet was followed by another helicopter-borne assault against a “GAT training site.” A dozen fighters were “neutralized” and around 15 motorcycles were destroyed.
Operation Barkhane
Many armed groups including Islamic State are active in Mali and the wider Sahel region, but the majority of attacks are attributed to JNIM, which formed in March 2017 from a merger of several smaller groups. JNIM’s leadership has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Mali has been struggling to contain a complex insurgency since 2012, when a Tuareg separatist uprising was exploited by Islamist extremists who took key cities in the desert north.
France began its Operation Serval military intervention in its former colony early the next year, driving the jihadists from the towns, and the MINUSMA peacekeeping force was then established.
But the militant groups have morphed into more nimble formations operating in rural areas, and the insurgency has gradually spread to central and southern regions of Mali and across the borders into neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. Large swathes of Mali remain outside government control, and inter-ethnic bloodshed is a regular occurrence.
Serval evolved in August 2014 into Operation Barkhane, and roughly 4,500 French troops are deployed in the region, including around 2,700 soldiers in Mali. Barkhane focuses activity in insurgent-hit Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, and troops work alongside other international operations, including the roughly 14,000-strong MINUSMA U.N. stabilization mission in Mali and the G5 Sahel Joint Force (FCG5S), a planned 4,500-strong joint counter-terrorism force comprising troops from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger and Mauritania.
Barkhane has a growing international dimension, with European partners sending more troops and equipment. Denmark has deployed two helicopters and up to 70 troops to support Barkhane and Estonia is to almost double the size of its Barkhane contingent this year. Chinook helicopters from the United Kingdom currently support the operation.
France has also been trying to build international support for a new military force to work alongside Barkhane.
French plans for a new international special operations task force for the Sahel were first reported in early October, and on November 5, Parly said that France expected the new force – dubbed “Takuba” – to deploy in Mali by 2020.
Estonia was the first partner to confirm a special operations forces deployment to Takuba. A defense ministry spokesperson told The Defense Post that special forces will deploy to Mali in the second half of 2020 and that force will ‘assist, advise and accompany’ the Malian Armed Forces. Belgium and the Czech Republic have also signaled that they will participate, but Germany has declined to join the task force.
President Macron and the presidents of the G5 Sahel group of states are due to meet on January 13 to discuss security and the presence of France-led forces in the region. In November, Macron said France was “confirming and consolidating its commitment” to the Sahel, noting that additional military resources would be forthcoming by early 2020, and that decisions would soon be announced on revamping the G5 Sahel Joint Force.
In November, senior officials said the United States is seeking a meeting of the Coalition against ISIS early in 2020 to focus on threats in West Africa and the Sahel.

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featured France helicopters Mali Mopti MQ-9 Reaper Operation Barkhane Paveway Sahel

 

[Housecarl]

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At least 25 Niger soldiers, 63 'terrorists' killed in attack on army base in Tillaberi region

Insurgents attacked a Niger military base in the Tillaberi region leading to clashes that killed at least 25 soldiers and 63 "terrorists"

thedefensepost.com

At least 25 Niger soldiers, 63 ‘terrorists’ killed in attack on army base in Tillaberi region
Fergus Kelly January 10, 2020
4 minutes read





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Insurgents attacked a military base in Niger on Thursday, January 9, leading to clashes that killed at least 25 soldiers and 63 “terrorists,” the defense ministry said.
The raid began at 1 p.m. (1200 GMT), when “terrorist elements on board several vehicles and motorcycles” attacked a military outpost at Chinagodrar in the western Tillaberi region, the ministry said in a release.
RFI reported that the attack came from two directions – heavily armed vehicles came from west of Chinagodrar, while “several dozen motorcycles” came from the Ikrafane forest east of the base.
The ministry’s provisional assessment was 25 dead and six injured on the “friendly side,” and “63 terrorists neutralized” and several motorcycles burned on the enemy side.
Chinagodrar (also rendered Chinagodar, Chinagoder , Chinegodar and Sinegodar) is around 12 km (7 miles) south of the volatile frontier with Mali.
“The response with the combined air support of the Niger air force and partners made it possible to carry out strikes and rout the enemy outside our borders,” the defense ministry said, adding that clearance operations were ongoing.
According to the RFI report, both U.S. and French aircraft responded to the incident. According to the report, French Mirage 2000 fighter jets were scrambled and were over Chinagodrar within 15 minutes, and U.S. drones conducted two strikes – one struck vehicles on the Mali border and a second targeted a group of motorcycles.
However, U.S. Africa command told The Defense Post that no airstrikes were conducted in Niger or Mali.
Update January 10 French airstrikes played a “decisive” role in repelling the attack on Chinagodrar, a Nigerien security source told AFP.
“Air intervention by our allies, especially the French, played a decisive role,” the source said. “The heavily-armed terrorists arrived in large numbers by motorbike and in cars.”
The French army said in a Friday statement that the intervention “followed an alert put out by the Nigerien army at 1:00 pm,” adding that a patrol of Mirage 2000s then tracked the attackers “and forced them to flee.
Update January 11 Operation Barkane confirmed on Friday that a French Mirage patrol had conducted a show of force at Chinagodrar.
Citing four security sources, Reuters reported that at least 89 members of Niger’s security forces who were killed in the attack were buried Niamey on Saturday. One source said that others were buried in Chinagodrar after Thursday’s attack.
No new official toll was released.
France has three armed Reaper drones and four Mirage 2000-D fighter jets deployed to its Operation Barkhane counter-terrorism mission in the Sahel. The aircraft are based near Niger’s capital Niamey, around 220 km southwest of Chinagodrar. U.S. drones fly from Air Base 101 at Niamey airport, and from Nigerien Air Base 201 in the northern city of Agadez. The CIA also operates a separate drone base in Niger.
The Chinagodrar attack in Niger’s Tillaberi region occurred around 180 km east of Inates, where 71 Niger soldiers were killed in a December attack claimed by Islamic State that saw dozens of insurgents storm a military camp near the border with Mali. It was the deadliest attack on Niger’s military since Islamist extremist violence began to spill over from neighbouring Mali in 2015.
The Inates attack spurred leaders of the Sahel nations to yet again call for closer cooperation and international support in the battle against the insurgent threat.
French President Emmanuel Macron and the leaders of the G5 Sahel group of states – Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger – are due to meet next week to discuss security and the presence of France-led forces in the region, a summit postponed until January 13 due to the Inates attack.
In November, Macron said France was “confirming and consolidating its commitment” to the Sahel, noting that additional military resources would be forthcoming by early 2020, and that decisions would soon be announced on revamping the G5 Sahel Joint Force (FCG5S).
Also in November, senior officials said the United States is seeking a meeting of the Coalition against ISIS early in 2020 to focus on threats in West Africa and the Sahel.
Islamist insurgency in Niger
One of the world’s poorest countries, Niger lies in the heart of the fragile Sahel region.
Niger faces insurgency on two fronts: the southeastern Diffa region near Lake Chad is increasingly frequently hit by Nigeria-based Islamic State West Africa Province insurgents, while militants based in Mali, including al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters, are active in the west of the country and the wider Sahel.
Attacks carried out by ISIS-affiliated militants in the Sahel have previously been attributed to Islamic State in the Greater Sahara but since May 2019, Islamic State has attributed insurgent activities in the Mali-Burkina Faso-Niger tri-border area to ISWAP, rather than ISGS.
But the majority of attacks in the Sahel are attributed to JNIM, which formed in March 2017 from a merger of several smaller groups. JNIM’s leadership has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Analysts note an escalation in the insurgents operational tactics, which seem to have become bolder and more complex in recent months.
The complex insurgency in the Sahel began in 2012, when a Tuareg separatist uprising was exploited by Islamist extremists linked to al-Qaeda who took key cities in Mali’s desert north. France began its Operation Serval military intervention in its former colony early the next year, driving the jihadists from the towns, and the MINUSMA U.N. stabilization mission was established.
But the militant groups have morphed into more nimble formations operating in rural areas, and the insurgency has gradually spread to central and southern regions of Mali and across the borders into neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. Large swathes of Mali remain outside government control, and inter-ethnic bloodshed is a regular occurrence.
Serval evolved in August 2014 into Operation Barkhane, and roughly 4,500 French troops are deployed in the region, including around 2,700 soldiers in Mali. Barkhane focuses activity in insurgent-hit Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, and troops work alongside other international operations, including the 14,000-strong MINUSMA U.N. stabilization mission in Mali and the G5 Sahel Joint Force, a long-planned 4,500-strong joint counter-terrorism force comprising troops from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger and Mauritania.
Barkhane has a growing international dimension, with European partners sending more troops and equipment. Denmark has deployed two helicopters and up to 70 troops to support Barkhane and Estonia is to almost double the size of its Barkhane contingent this year. Chinook helicopters from the United Kingdom currently support the operation.
France has also been trying to build international support for a new military force to work alongside Barkhane.
French plans for a new international special operations task force for the Sahel were first reported in early October, and on November 5, Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said that France expected the new force – dubbed “Takuba” – to deploy in Mali by 2020.
Estonia was the first partner to confirm a special operations forces deployment to Takuba. A defense ministry spokesperson told The Defense Post that special forces will deploy to Mali in the second half of 2020 and that force will ‘assist, advise and accompany’ the Malian Armed Forces. Belgium and the Czech Republic have also signaled that they will participate, but Germany has declined to join the task force.
With reporting from AFP. This post was updated on January 10.

 

[Housecarl]

Well this isn't going on a good vector.....

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North Korea: US Must ‘Unconditionally Accept Our Demands’

Senior foreign ministry official rules out nuclear talks for time being

www.voanews.com

North Korea: US Must ‘Unconditionally Accept Our Demands’
By William Gallo

January 11, 2020 08:39 AM

SEOUL - North Korea will not resume nuclear talks unless the United States unconditionally accepts its demands, a senior North Korean official said Saturday.

“We have wasted our time with U.S. for more than a year and a half,” said Kim Kye Gwan, a North Korean vice foreign minister, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.




Trump Wishes North Korea’s Kim a Happy Birthday

The U.S. president sent a message to the Kim Jong Un via South Korea’s national security adviser

Kim, a senior diplomat, said Kim Jong Un’s relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump remains positive, noting that Kim recently received birthday greetings from Trump.

“But it is a personal thing and our chairman, who represents the state and works for the benefit of the state, will not make decisions based on his personal relationship,” Kim added.

"For dialogue to happen, the U.S. must unconditionally accept our demands. However, we know that the U.S. is not ready to do so, or cannot do so,” he added.

The North Korean diplomat did not say what North Korea is demanding. North Korea regularly complains about U.S. and international sanctions, as well as joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises and weapons sales.



Trump Administration Gives Korean Leader Benefit of Doubt

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expresses hope Kim Jong Un will 'choose peace and prosperity over conflict and war'

The U.S.-North Korea talks have been stalled since February, when a Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi ended abruptly over a disagreement on how to pair sanctions relief with steps to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program.

Kim, the North Korean diplomat, said “there will be no negotiations like in Vietnam, in which we proposed exchanging a core nuclear facility of the country for the lifting of some U.N. sanctions.”

Over the last two years, Trump and Kim have exchanged personal letters. Trump has hinted the two also talk on the phone. Last week, Trump insisted the relationship remains “very good,” despite U.S.-North Korea talks being stalled.

Birthday greetings

The latest reported Trump-Kim interaction came this week, when Trump sent birthday greetings to the North Korean leader, who is believed to have turned 36 on Wednesday.

South Korea said Friday it had relayed the birthday message following a meeting between Trump and South Korea’s national security adviser.

However, KCNA reported Saturday that North Korea had already received Trump’s greetings directly in the form of a personal letter. KCNA mocked South Korea for attempting to mediate between Washington and Seoul.

“They seem not to know that there is a special liaison channel between the top leaders of the DPRK and the U.S.,” the diplomat Kim said, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

“It seems [South Korea] still has lingering hope for playing the role of ‘mediator’ in the DPRK-U.S. relations," he said, saying it is "presumptuous for south Korea to meddle in the personal relations between Kim and Trump."

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has prioritized dialogue with the North, met with Kim three times in 2018. The inter-Korean relations at least initially helped smooth the way for the Trump-Kim talks in early 2018.

As U.S.-North Korea negotiations stalled, though, Pyongyang abandoned the inter-Korean talks, apparently in frustration over Seoul’s unwillingness to move ahead with joint projects without U.S. support.




North Korea's Kim Touts Strategic Weapon Amid Stall in Talks

Kim has used the diplomatic stalemate to expand his military capabilities by intensifying tests of shorter-range weapons

Two years into dialogue with North Korea, the only apparent remnant is the occasional Trump-Kim letter. Even that relationship may be at risk, however, if North Korea resumes longer-range missile or nuclear tests, as it has been hinting.

“Personal relationships at the top can get a dialogue going, but personal relations alone don’t result in deals," said Daniel DePetris, a fellow at Defense Priorities, a Washington-based research organization. "This is what Trump doesn’t appear to understand. He’s banking on his ‘friendship’ with Kim to lead the way to denuclearization."

“Friendship or not, denuclearization left the barn a long time ago,” DePetris added.

Many analysts are pessimistic about the short-term chances for talks.

“North Korea has made clear it will not return to the talks unless the U.S. offers new proposals,” Kim Dong Yub, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University's Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said at a Seoul conference Friday.

The North Korean leader has not likely abandoned talks altogether, however, Kim said. “The U.S. is the only country that can help North Korea be a normal nation in the international community,” he added.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

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China-hostile Incumbent Wins Re-election in Taiwan, Vows to Pursue Talks

Incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen wins more than 57% of the vote Saturday, giving her four years to 'break a stalemate' with old foe China

www.voanews.com

East Asia Pacific
China-hostile Incumbent Wins Re-election in Taiwan, Vows to Pursue Talks
By Ralph Jennings

Updated January 11, 2020 01:25 PM

TAIPEI, TAIWAN - Taiwanese voters re-elected incumbent Tsai Ing-wen on Saturday by a landslide, renewing her mandate to keep holding off the island’s long-time military rival, China, after a year of fast-changing threats.

But the 63-year-old U.S.-educated law scholar’s approach to China over the next four years might depart from her first four. Shortly after winning the election with more than 57% of the vote, Tsai suggested her government would speak with angry officials in Beijing if they don't treat Taiwan as an equal partner.

"As president, I must handle relations with China according to popular opinion, and I will do my utmost to break the stalemate and improve cross-Strait relations,” Tsai told a news conference outside her Taipei campaign headquarters after receiving more than 8 million votes."

So, I’d like to appeal to leaders in Beijing to respect Taiwanese people’s opinion and consensus for peace and equal treatment,” she said. “Then we can set up a sustainable as well as a healthy communication mechanism that is able to meet expectations for people’s welfare.”

Resumption of dialogue would ease a festering military flashpoint in Asia. China maintains the world’s third strongest military and has not ruled out use of force, if eventually needed, to capture Taiwan.

The government in Beijing considers Taiwan part of its own territory that must eventually unify with China. Taiwanese said in surveys last year they prefer today’s democratic autonomy over unification. The two sides have been self-ruled since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to the island and re-based their government here.

Events in 2019 further hardened many people’s views against China, endearing them instead to Tsai as someone who won’t engage Beijing on its terms: that both sides come to the table as parts of one country.

A year ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a speech advocating that China rule Taiwan under a “one country, two systems” model that’s supposed to allow a measure of local autonomy. Beijing has ruled Hong Kong that way since 1997, but the former British colony was hit by months of anti-China protests last year. Also in 2019 China sailed aircraft carriers near Taiwan twice and within a week persuaded two Taiwanese diplomatic allies to break ties in favor of Beijing.



Taiwanese Vote in Presidential Election Dominated by China Relations

Voters lined up in an early sign of strong turnout in a presidential election that will chart the future of the island’s relations with China
Chen Li-chin, a 43-year-old mother from suburban Taipei, decided to vote for Tsai because the president shows willingness to resist China.

"To safeguard Taiwan’s democracy and that’s the most important thing the government can do,” she said. “In comparing candidates on this issue, it’s Tsai Ing-wen. We can still carry on cooperative relations state to state (with Beijing) as long as China doesn’t take Taiwan to be part of its own country.”

The two sides never spoke formally in Tsai’s first four years. She irritated Beijing last year particularly by rejecting “one country, two systems.”

Lin Chong-pin, a retired strategic studies professor from Tamkang University in Taiwan, believes Tsai is already working on ways to start talks. “I think both sides will do something gradually, but they need to do it quietly before it surfaces to the public eye,” he said. “I think they probably are doing it already.”

Beijing may drop its “one China” condition for dialogue if Tsai’s government makes a concession in return, one Washington-based scholar said last month.

But other analysts expect Tsai to make no change from the past four years, which would mean sidelining Beijing in favor of stronger ties with other countries to boost Taiwan’s international standing.
Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told a news conference Thursday his government would try to deepen relations with Europe, Japan and the United States if Tsai was re-elected.

U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo congratulated Tsai on Saturday and lauded Taiwan’s democratic process. “Under her leadership, we hope Taiwan will continue to serve as a shining example for countries that strive for democracy, prosperity, and a better path for their people,” he said in a statement.

On Saturday, Tsai beat Han Kuo-yu of the Nationalist party, also called the KMT. Han, the 62-year-old mayor of Taiwan’s chief port city Kaohsiung, had advocated trade and investment talks with China on Beijing’s condition that both sides are two parts of one country.

His policies follow from those of ex-president Ma Ying-jeou. Over Ma’s eight years in office before 2016, China and Taiwan signed more than 20 trade and investment deals while setting aside the political dispute. But by 2014 many Taiwanese feared Ma was getting dangerously cozy with China and staged mass street protests in Taipei

Taiwanese on Saturday also renewed Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party majority in parliament, giving it control of the foreign affairs budget and a clear channel to pass any laws related to Taiwanese people’s interactions with China.


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As Taiwan Votes for New President, US Emphasizes Free Process

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By Nike Ching

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Voters younger than 40 tend to follow the election campaign on the likes of Facebook, but they’re increasingly exposed to fake news, which is illegal to spread

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Fri, 01/10/2020 - 05:03

 

[Housecarl]

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US threatens sanctions if China keeps buying Iranian oil

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the administration's goal is to cut off oil revenues going to "bad acts."

www.foxbusiness.com

China
Published 5 hours ago
US threatens sanctions if China keeps buying Iranian oil
US and China are working together on the issue of Iranian oil, Mnuchin says

By Evie Fordham
FOXBusiness

Video

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he is working with China to cut off the minimal flow of Iranian oil exports to the country on "Sunday Morning Futures" with Maria Bartiromo.
"We've cut off probably over 95% of the oil revenues, so there's a very small amount of oil revenues, and you're right, a component of that, a big component of that is China," Mnuchin said. "I sat down with the Chinese officials. They flew in a delegation to meet with us and the State Department to talk about this. They've cut off all of the state companies from buying oil, and we're working closely with them to make sure that they cease all additional oil activities."
AMERICA WOULD HIT 3 PERCENT GROWTH WITHOUT BOEING PROBLEMS: MNUCHIN
Mnuchin said the administration's goal is to cut off oil revenues going to "bad acts."

He pointed out that China and even European countries could face U.S. sanctions over Iranian oil.
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"China is subject to sanctions just like everybody else," Mnuchin said. "We actually sanctioned some of their shipping companies that were involved in the oil, and we will continue to pursue sanctions activities against China and anybody else around the world that continues to do business with them."
"The Europeans are adhering to our primary sanctions..." Mnuchin added, using France as an example. "They would be subject to secondary sanctions, and they understand that."
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Conversation(376)

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

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Russia Nuclear Breakout and the New START Treaty

In December 2019, former Under Secretary of State and Chief Negotiator of the New START Treaty Rose Gottemoeller argued in favor of the extension of the New START Treaty because, “…the Ru

www.realcleardefense.com

Russia Nuclear Breakout and the New START Treaty
https://www.realcleardefense.com/ar...w_start_treaty_114973.html#comments-container
By Mark B. Schneider
January 14, 2020

In December 2019, former Under Secretary of State and Chief Negotiator of the New START Treaty Rose Gottemoeller argued in favor of the extension of the New START Treaty because, “…the Russians could rapidly add several hundred more warheads, some say up to a thousand warheads, to their existing deployments of ICBMs without deploying a single additional missile.”[1] This is certainly true, but it is rather odd that one of the most important defects in the New START Treaty should be presented as a reason for extending it. The New START Treaty omitted the many provisions of the original START Treaty designed to prevent or limit a Treaty breakout. These included: 1) provisions that limited the number of warheads that could be tested on each type of ICBM and SLBM; 2) throw-weight (missile payload) limits for the entire strategic missile force; 3) limits on the throw-weight of individual missile types (ICBM sand SLBMs); 4) the near abolition of the New START Treaty requirements regarding the provision of missile telemetry (which provides information on the technical characteristics of missiles); 5) the START Treaty warhead attribution rules; 6) limitations on downloading (reducing the number of accountable warheads); 7) provisions for the monitoring of the number of mobile ICBMs produced; and 8) the prohibition on the creation of “new types” of heavy ICBMs and SLBMs.[2]

Article V of the New START Treaty (2010) and Article V of the original START Treaty (1992) have the same function – listing types of weapons systems that are prohibited. Article V of the New START Treaty has 125 words. Article V of the original START Treaty contains 1,863 words. Thus, the prohibitions contained in the original START Treaty related to limiting breakout and cheating were simply gutted in the New START Treaty. This combined with other provisions and counting rules contained in the START Treaty that did not make it into the New START Treaty and a similar gutting of the START Treaty verification provisions relating to mobile ICBMs, created an almost unlimited breakout, circumvention, and cheating potential.


The risk of a Russian breakout from the New START Treaty and Russian cheating under the New START Treaty are actually two sides of the same coin. Concerning the declared Russian strategic nuclear force, it takes exactly the same technical capabilities to breakout of the Treaty or to cheat while the Treaty is in effect. To do either, it is necessary to have enough throw-weight to deliver the extra warheads to an intercontinental distance, enough space in the missile’s front section to mount the extra warheads, and it is certainly desirable to be able to test the missile with the increased number of warheads.[3] All of this was either prohibited or limited in the original START Treaty; this is allowed and unrestricted in the New START Treaty.[4]

While there are many other ways of cheating,[5] adding more nuclear warheads on the declared missile force is the cheapest. Nuclear warheads are cheap compared to the cost of the booster missile. That is why multiple warhead missiles (MIRV) became so widespread during the Cold War. As then-Senator Christopher (Kit) Bond (R-MO), then Vice Chairman of the Senate Selection Committee on Intelligence, stated during the New START ratification process, “The Select Committee on Intelligence has been looking at this issue closely over the past several months. As the vice chairman of this committee, I have reviewed the key intelligence on our ability to monitor this treaty and heard from our intelligence professionals. There is no doubt in my mind that the United States cannot reliably verify the treaty’s 1,550 limit on deployed warheads.”[6] There are many reasons for this, some of which go beyond the scope of this essay. However, the inability of the New START Treaty verification regime to detect the deployment of more than the claimed number of warheads on declared Russian ICBMs and SLBMs is clearly one of the most important.

Cheating on nuclear warhead numbers under the New START Treaty is essentially a covert breakout from New START. The mechanism for hiding the number of warheads actually present on inspected Russian missiles was extensively used by Russia during the duration of the original START Treaty. It was a Russian Treaty violation written up in the 2005 edition of the State Department’s annual report on compliance with arms control agreements. The 2005 report has the distinction of being the only State Department report after the George H.W. Bush administration that met the legal requirement for this report. This should be required reading for anyone considering the extension of New START.

The mechanics of the START Treaty inspection of warheads (reentry vehicles) is described in the 2005 report: “…the inspected Party [is allowed to] cover RVs [Reentry Vehicles]….Under the Treaty, such covers must not hamper inspectors in ascertaining that the front section contains no more RVs than the number of warheads attributed to a missile of that type. Russian RV covers, in some instances, are too large; consequently, they fail to meet this requirement.”[7] Former Assistant Secretary of State Paula De Sutter has pointed out:

The verification measures in the New START treaty add nothing to what was there before in the original START treaty. They are using the original START Reentry Vehicle On-Site Inspection regime, complete with all of the same shrouds and covers that were used during the original START, some of which we found to violate the Treaty because we couldn’t confirm the number of Reentry Vehicles (RVs). And those are all still permitted.[8]

The inability to verify the maximum number of warheads on a missile being inspected, at a minimum, means that the cover supposedly covering one warhead could not conceal a second warhead. The implication of oversized warhead covers is that the missile force could actually have at least twice the number of warheads than are declared by the Russians. Thus, the breakout actually happens not at the end of the Treaty period but while the Treaty is legally in force. The Russian breakout/cheating potential has significantly increased during the last decade and is about to skyrocket due to the deployment of the new Sarmat heavy ICBM, which Deputy Minister of Defense Yuri Borisov said can deliver payloads of up to 10 metric tons.[9] By comparison, a U.S. Minuteman ICBM has just under one metric ton of throw-weight.[10] A number of the characteristics of the Sarmat would have been prohibited by Article V of the original START Treaty but are allowed under New START.

With the continuing deployment of the new Russian Yars/SS-27 Mod 2 ICBM and the Bulava-30 SLBM on 955A (Borei-A) submarines, Russia’s breakout/cheating potential is growing. In December 2019, Russian Defense Minister General of the Army Sergei Shoigu announced that another two 955A class submarines will be produced, increasing the number to seven.[11] With the three existing 955 submarines, the strength of the Borei (955/955A) ballistic missile force will increase to ten submarines. However, the biggest increase in Russian breakout/cheating potential will involve the deployment of the new Sarmat heavy ICBM.

In December 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin was told by a Defense Ministry official that, “It is planned to rearm 20 missile regiments with the Sarmat and put them on combat duty from 2020 to 2027.”[12] Since Russian heavy ICBM regiments contain either 6 or 10 deployed missiles[13], this translates into 120 to 200 deployed Sarmat missiles. This is an enormous increase from the previous program of 46 reported years ago by TASS.[14] Since the Russians plan to complete ICBM modernization by 2024,[15] any Sarmat deployment after 2024 has to be force expansion.

The Sarmat is reportedly capable of carrying 10 heavy or 15 medium nuclear warheads.[16] State-run RT has just reported that, “According to the Ministry of Defense, "Sarmat" will be able to carry up to 20 warheads of small, medium, high power classes.”[17]

The Sarmat is also reportedly capable of carrying three to five of the large new Avangard hypersonic boost-glide vehicles.[18] The Avangard reportedly weighs 2,000-kg.[19] By comparison, the ballistic warheads deployed on the Bulava-30 SLBM and the Yars/SS-27 Mod 2 ICBM reportedly weigh 90 kg.[20] There are a number of reports in the Russian press that Russia has developed a 100-kg warhead of 100-kt.[21] Thus, a cover designed to cover the Avangard could clearly cover at least several existing Russian missile warheads, including the reported large, medium and small ballistic warheads.

A photograph of what is apparently the Avangard vehicle[22] covered by an accent shroud has appeared on the internet. It gives a clear indication of the size of the Avangard. The people appearing in this photo give a rough comparison to the size of an ordinary missile warhead and the Avangard. It is clear that the Avangard, when deployed on the Sarmat, will create an unprecedented monitoring problem. What purports to be a covered Avangard glide vehicle could easily cover a number of the much smaller ballistic warheads.

We don’t know how many heavy SS-18 heavy ICBM silos the Russians have that could be converted into launchers for the Sarmat. The release of information of this type, which was unclassified under the original START Treaty, is prohibited under the New START Treaty.[23] The New START Treaty in Article VII, paragraph 5 prohibits the release of a very large part of the data exchanged under New START without Russian consent. The START Treaty only required that one-half of the 308 Soviet SS-18 heavy ICBM silos be dismantled. Russian START Treaty data released by the State Department in 2009 indicated Russia had 108 deployed SS-18 ICBMs. There is no indication from the Russian government that they dismantled any additional SS-18 silos after the expiration of the original START Treaty in 2009. Thus, they apparently have enough SS-18 silos that could be modified to deploy Sarmats to allow over twice the earlier reported number of 46 Sarmats. It may also be possible for the Russians to rebuild SS-18 silos that went through START Treaty elimination procedures, which only required a limited amount of damage be done to the silos, although this would be substantially more costly. Theoretically, Russia could build new silos if this were required.

The maximum number of warheads deployable on a Sarmat is certainly not limited to the 15 medium warheads reported in the Russian press. If the Russians deploy some with small warheads, a larger number is obviously possible. For example, the Liner SLBM, a modernized Soviet SS-N-23 SLBM, according to its manufacturer, can carry both “medium” and “light” warheads, the numerical difference being four “medium” vs. 9-12 “light” warheads.[24] The Russians reportedly plan to deploy, at least eventually, 10 warheads on the Yars ICBM/SS-27 Mod 2 and the Bulava-30 SLBM, which would require an even lighter warhead if the range of the missiles is to be maintained.[25] According to one Russian press report, the intent is to integrate “10 super-lightweight warheads for the Bulava’s nose section….”[26] There is no reason why this warhead could not be deployed on an ICBM if the Russians see a need for more warheads. Light warheads would be the easiest to conceal.

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

The enormous size of the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle opens up the possibility that some Sarmat ICBMs supposedly carrying the Avangard are actually carrying large numbers of much smaller ballistic warheads hidden by a cover of a size necessary to cover the Avangard. This would open up a new and unprecedented type of cheating scenario. To hide several warheads or more, an Avangard cover would not necessarily be oversized, creating a new legal problem.
Conclusion

If we do not learn from our arms control mistakes, we will make them again. Pretending that the New START Treaty protects us from breakout is completely false. Under New START, the only real limit is what the Russians can afford to do – essentially the same situation as no arms control. Without Article V of the original START Treaty, there is virtually no limit on breakout (and cheating), and that is far from the only problem with New START. Placebo arms control has never worked. The Sarmat went from a 100-ton missile to a 200-ton missile[27] because this option was created in New START due to the elimination of Article V of the original START Treaty.

While 20 regiments of Sarmat ICBMs were unexpected, it is actually consistent with a statement by then-Russian Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov to the effect that Russia intended to increase the number of its delivery vehicles to the limit allowed under New START (700 deployed delivery vehicles and 800 deployed on non-deployed delivery vehicles) by 2028.[28] The program described to Putin would put Russia close to achieving this objective. It would also give Russia a massive cheating or breakout potential.

The combination of the very large size of the Avangard vehicle and at least three types of ballistic missile warheads to be deployed on the Sarmat makes it easy for Russia to cheat. Thus, the breakout potential under New START is not the only threat we face. There are also reported Russian programs to circumvent the New START Treaty with weapons that are not limited by it.[29] The real Russian breakout/cheating potential is measured in thousands of warheads, and this will grow with the passage of time if New START is extended. The Russians are not about to stop their nuclear modernization programs, which are broad and far ranging. Russia talks about continuous modernization, and it means it. According to President Vladimir Putin, “…our goal is not a one-time rearmament, after which we can forget about the Army and Navy for decades. The Army and Navy must always have the best equipment and technology.”[30]


Dr. Mark B. Schneider is a Senior Analyst with the National Institute for Public Policy. Before his retirement from the Department of Defense Senior Executive Service, Dr. Schneider served in a number of senior positions within the Office of Secretary of Defense for Policy including Principal Director for Forces Policy, Principal Director for Strategic Defense, Space and Verification Policy, Director for Strategic Arms Control Policy and Representative of the Secretary of Defense to the Nuclear Arms Control Implementation Commissions. He also served in the senior Foreign Service as a Member of the State Department Policy Planning Staff.
Notes:

[1] “US May Lose Nuclear Parity With Russia Without START - Ex-NATO Deputy Chief,” Sputnik, December 6, 2019, available at Sign in to ProQuest fulltext/16E4CBE4E1D213FDCE5/3?accountid=155509&site=professionalnewsstand&t:ac=16E4CBE4E1D213FDCE5/1&t:cp=maintain/resultcitationblocksbrief&t:zoneid=transactionalZone_16ee73d1b23.

[2] “New START: Potemkin Village Verification,” (Washington D.C.: The Heritage Foundation, June 24, 2010), available at http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/06/new-start-potemkin-villageverification?query =New+START.: Senator Christopher Bond, “The New START Treaty.” The Congressional Record, November 18, 2010, available at http: //www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r111:34:./temp/~r111MwN34p.; James Woolsey, “Old Problems with New START,” Wall Street Journal, November 15, 2010, available at http://www.sroblog.com/2010/ 11/15/r-james-woolsey-old-problems -with-new-start-wsj/.; Mark B. Schneider, New START: The Anatomy of a Failed Negotiation, (Fairfax Va.: National Institute Press®, July 2012), pp. 5-9, 12, available at Timebomb 2000. org/wp-content/uploads/ 2014/12/New-start.pdf.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Mark Schneider, “The Nuclear Posture Review, New START, and the Russian Nuclear Buildup,” Real Clear

Defense, June 5, 2017, available at RealClearDefense - Opinion, News, Analysis, Video and Polls articles/2017/06/05/the_npr_new start_

andtherussiannuclearbuildup111520.html.

[6] Bond, “The New START Treaty.” op. cit.

[7] Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control and Nonproliferation Agreements and Commitments, (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of State, August 2005), available at U.S. Department of State Archive t/avc/rls/rpt/ 51977.htm.

[8] Paula DeSutter, “Verification and the New START Treaty,” (Washington D.C.: The Heritage Foundation, July 12, 2010), available at Verification and the New START Treaty.

[9] “Formidable Sarmat: Satan’s successor that can pierce any defense,” TASS, October 25, 2016, available at http:// tass.com/defense/908575.

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[Housecarl]

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[10] START Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms Signed in Moscow July 31, 1991, (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of State, October 1991), p. 120.

[11] “First serial submarine of Project Borei-A, Knyaz Oleg, to be delivered to Russian Navy in 2020 – Shoigu,” Interfax, December 24, 2019, available at Sign in to ProQuest 2330056313/fulltext/16EA336814A25636AF4/45?accountid=155509&site=professionalnewsstand&t:ac=16EA336814A25636AF4/3&t:cp=maintain/resultcitationblocksbrief&t:zoneid=transactionalZone_16f3de14cea.

[12] “Russia plans to finalize tests of new Sarmat ICBM in 2021 - National Defense Control Center (Part 2),” Interfax, December 24, 2019, available at thttps://dialog.proquest.com/professional/professionalnewsstand/docview/ 2330058625/fulltext/16EA95F44AC53E23FA3/115?accountid=155509&site=professionalnewsstand&t:ac=16EA95F44AC53E23FA3/6&t:cp=maintain/resultcitationblocksbrief&t:zoneid=transactionalZone_16f43e5c4d1. State-run Sputnik News confirmed the story although it characterized the units as “divisions”. This has to be a mistranslation because Russian missile divisions have several regiments resulting in an astronomical number of missiles. “Russia to Finish Testing New Sarmat ICBM in 2021 – Military,” Sputnik, December 24, 2019, available at https://dialog.proquest.com/professional/professionalnewsstand/docview/2330046793/fulltext/16EA95F44AC53E23FA3/198?accountid=155509&site=professionalnewsstand&t:ac=16EA95F44AC53E23FA3/10&t:cp=maintain/resultcitationblocksbrief&t:zoneid=transactionalZone16f4400297f. State-run Ria Novosti also reported 20 planned regiments of the Sarmat. “Highlights of Russia's arms procurement programme for 2018-2027,” BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union, December 30, 2019, available at https://dialog.proquest.com/ professional/professional newsstand/docview/2331240824/fulltext/16EE61E9B4F3E41099/9?accountid=155509&site=professionalnewsstand&t:ac=16EE61E9B4F3E41099/1&t:cp=maintain/resultcitationblocksbrief&t:zoneid=transactionalZone_16f809d68c8

[13] START Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms Signed in Moscow, op. cit., pp. 159-163.

[14] Pavel Podvig, “Sarmat Tests to Begin in 2015,” Russianforces.org, January 26, 2015, available at Timebomb 2000 forces.org/blog/2015/01/sarmatteststobeginin2015.shtml.

[15] “In 2024 the share of modern missile systems will reach to 100%,” Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation, January 5, 2020, available at Страница не найдена ?id=12269 654@egNews.

[16] “New Heavy ICBM to Be Put Into Service in 2018 - Expert (Part 2),” Interfax, May 5, 2011, available at http:// www.interfax.co.uk/russia-cis-military- news-bulletins-in-english/new-heavy-icbm-to-be-put-into-servicein-

2018-expert-part-2-2/: “Russia to build RS-20 ‘Voyevoda’ successor,” Interfax-AVN, July 21, 2011, available at Interfax.com.

[17] Translated at “Guaranteed defeat of enemy infrastructure: how the Sarmat ballistic missile will enhance the combat potential of the Strategic Missile Forces,” RT, December 16, 2019, available at Guaranteed defeat of enemy infrastructure: how the Sarmat ballistic missile will enhance the combat potential of the Strategic Missile Forces | tellerreport.com.

[18] Franz-Stefan Gady, “Russia to Test Fire RS-28 Sarmat ICBM in Early 2019,” The Diplomat, October 3, 2018, available at Russia to Test Fire RS-28 Sarmat ICBM in Early 2019.

[19] “Explained: Why Russia Avangard missile will have US worried,” Indian Express, December 29, 2019, available at https://dialog.proquest.com/professional/professionalnewsstand/docview/2331017772/full text/16EBDD77AE466 C7B052/1?accountid=155509&site=professionalnewsstand&t:ac=16EBDD77AE466C7B052/1&t:cp=maintain/resultcitationblocksbrief&t:zoneid=transactionalZone16f58564568.

[20] Pavel Podvig, “How many warheads?,” Russian Forces.org, May 27, 2007, available at Timebomb 2000. org/ blog/2007/05/how_many_warheads.shtml.

[21] “Section II: Minimum Deterrence: Fragile Hope of a Constant and Benign Threat Environment,” (Fairfax Va.: National Institute for Public Policy, September 14, 2014), p. 21, available at https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/ 54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/Other/Litigation% 20Release%20-%20Section%20II%20Minimum% 20Deterrence%20Fragile%20Hope.pdf.

[22] Pavel Podvig, “Avangard begins combat duty,” Russian Forces.org, December 27, 2019, available at http:// russianforces.org/blog/2019/12/avangardbeginscombatduty.shtml.

[23] Schneider, New START: The Anatomy of a Failed Negotiation, op. cit., pp. 2, 39-43.

[24] "Russia Thursday successful tested its new sea-based intercontinental ballistic missile, the defense ministry said," IANS/Ria Novosti, September 30, 2011, available at India Forums | Latest Entertainment News.

[25] U.S. Department of State, “Russian Federation MOU Data,” U.S. Department of State, January 1, 2009, available at http://2001-2009.state.gov/documents/organization/83235.pdf.: Charles P. Vick, “A Highly Modified Topol-M/SS-27,” Globalsecurity.org, October 10, 2013, available at http://www.global security.org/wmd/world/russia/rs-24.htm.; "'Nuke trains' with up to 30 Yars missiles rolling out from 2018 – Russian defense source," RT, December 26, 2014, available at https://www.rt.com/news/217795-russia-nuclear-missile-trains/.; “New START: Potemkin Village Verification,” op. cit.

[26]“New START: Potemkin Village Verification,” op. cit.

[27] “New Russian Sarmat ICBM to be deployed in two regions – paper,” BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union, December 30, 2014, available at https://dialog.proquest.com/professional/professional newsstand/docview/ 1640813574/fulltext/16ED2EB622D6C2FD745/1?accountid=155509&site=professionalnewsstand&t:ac=16ED2EB622D6C2FD745/1&t:cp=maintain/resultcitationblocksbrief&t:zoneid=transactionalZone_16f6d6a2ff7.

[28] “Russia to reach New START ceilings by 2028 (Part 2),” Interfax, January 14, 2011, available at https://dialog. proquest.com/professional/professionalnewsstand/docview/839957225/fulltext/16EC85C265E5B00642/ 3?accountid=155509&site=professionalnewsstand&t:ac=16EC85C265E5B00642/1&t:cp=maintain/resultcitationblocksbrief&t:zoneid=transactionalZone_16f62daf3c1bstract (summary).

[29] Mark B. Schneider, “Trading Arms Control for Nuclear Modernization: An Old Scam,” Real Clear Defense, June 12, 2019, available at https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2019/06/12/trading _arms_control_for_nuclear_ modernization__an_old_scam_114499.html.: “Putin: my nuclear bombs cannot be stopped: Russian leader stakes claim for a new term as president as he trumpets deadly new arsenal of hi-tech weapons,” The Daily Telegraph, March 2, 2018, available at https://dialog.proquest. com/ professional/professionalnewsstand/docview/ 2009453 568/fulltext/16ED311934A485788AF/37?accountid=155509&site=professionalnewsstand&t:ac=16ED311934A485788AF/2&t:cp=maintain/resultcitationblocksbrief&t:zoneid=transactionalZone_16f6d949c7e.; “Russia to start flight tests of Sarmat heavy ICBM in spring,” TASS, December 27, 2018, available at http://tass.com/defense/1038120.

[30] “Defence Ministry Board meeting,” Kremlin.ru, Deember24, 2019, available at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/ president/news/62401.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Officials Rethinking Acquisition Sustainment Model for Sealift Platforms

Officials Rethinking Acquisition Sustainment Model for Sealift Platforms

www.nationaldefensemagazine.org

SNA NEWS: Nation’s Strategic Sealift Ships Reach Critical Status

1/16/2020
By Jon Harper

In the wake of a recent readiness test that yielded troubling results, officials in charge of managing the nation’s strategic sealift assets are rethinking how they invest in recapitalization efforts.

In September, the Maritime Administration and Military Sealift Command performed a “turbo activation” to test the readiness of the Ready Reserve Force fleet and other military sealift assets to mobilize quickly for a major contingency, Maritime Administration Director Mark Buzby said Jan. 16 at the Surface Navy Association’s annual conference in Arlington, Virginia.

It was the largest exercise of its kind, he noted. Thirty-nine ships out of a total fleet of 61 vessels were called to mobilize, he said.

Only 64 percent were ready for tasking, and only about 40 percent of the fleet was prepared to conduct operations at the level they were expected to, he said.

“That’s not a good metric,” Buzby said. “But it’s the reality. … That’s a readiness issue we’re facing today.”

That’s a major problem because the military’s sealift capabilities would be critical in the event of a great power war, he noted.

“This is how we move our forces from [the continental United States] to anywhere else in the world,” he explained. “We can stuff some of it in the back of a C-17 [aircraft] but not a whole lot. … If you're going to take real combat power someplace, it's got to be in a ship and it's primarily going to be these ships” performing that task.

The results from last year’s stress test have caused officials to reconsider how they might go about recapitalizing and sustaining the sealift fleet, he said.

“It's driving our thinking as to, is this a workable, sustainable model for the future?” he said.

“We're looking at, maybe it makes more sense rather than invest all our money on the back end and trying to keep ships going and modifying them, … we [instead] partner with commercial operators to build new ships on the front end,” he said.

“We [could] make some investments in military utility on the front end, build that in in the beginning much like China is doing with their merchant marines, and those commercial operators operate those ships for 10, 15, 20 years — whatever is economically viable — and then they roll to us” when the commercial firms no longer want them, he explained.

Those up front investments would aid the commercial shipbuilding industry, he noted.

“We're giving … new ships to commercial operators, and we know we're going to get a ship that we can use on the other end,” he said. “That may be a more viable model in the future.”

Discussions about potentially pursuing this strategy are still in the early stages, he said.

The Maritime Administration’s force is in need of recapitalization, with an average age of 45 years, he noted. They also have outdated technology. Twenty-seven of the 46 ships in the Ready Reserve Force — more than half — are steam powered.

“I have the largest group of steamships in the world right now that I'm not real proud of,” he said. “It's increasingly difficult to find the people that know how to operate these ships.”

For now, the plan for bolstering the aging fleet is three-pronged and includes service-life extensions, purchasing used commercial ships on the open market and building new vessels.

Twenty-six of the ships currently in the fleet will receive service-life extensions to enable them to reach 60 years, Buzby said. Funding for purchasing a small number of used vessels is targeted for fiscal years 2021 and 2022.

“We're trying to accelerate that going on the open market,” he said. “We're probably going to be buying a ship that's in the 18 to 22-year [old] range, which would be a brand new ship to me” relative to the ones currently in the fleet, he said. “We're working with the Navy on that.”

The Maritime Administration is part of the Department of Transportation, and it will have to compete with the Navy’s high-priority modernization programs to get the resources it needs to acquire new-build ships from the industrial base, he noted.

Buzby sounded a note of pessimism in this regard.

“I have no illusions, and not high expectations on this,” he said. “I’m a realist.”

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Pompeo warns Silicon Valley execs not to work with Chinese military

American technology firms should get rich from doing business in China but must do their part to counter the national security dangers posed by a Communist nation, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a speech Monday.

www.washingtontimes.com

Pompeo warns Silicon Valley execs not to work with Chinese military
Trump administration working to stop China's tech theft

By Bill Gertz - The Washington Times - Tuesday, January 14, 2020

American technology firms should get rich from doing business in China but must do their part to counter the national security dangers posed by a Communist nation, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a speech Monday.

Speaking in the heart of Silicon Valley, Mr. Pompeo said the amazing advances produced in the region are a direct result of American freedom and democracy.

“In this system, our idea of capitalism and free markets has produced the greatest wealth and prosperity that the world has ever seen, and technology has played a huge role in that,” he said. “It is very clear that only in America could the titans of tech have risen from the garages and dorms of Palo Alto and Mountain View and made and continue to make American freedoms possible.”

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However, tech executives needs to “honestly confront tough questions about the national security consequences of doing business in a country controlled by the Chinese Communist Party,” Mr. Pompeo said.

The secretary of state made the remarks to the Silicon Valley Leadership Group just days before U.S. and Chinese officials are set to sign a “Phase One” trade agreement at the White House after years of trade tensions.

Mr. Pompeo declined to comment on the deal other than to say “I have seen the Phase 1 deal it is real progress, it is good stuff.”

He praised President Trump for convincing the Chinese government that resolving trade issues “wasn’t just something we should talk about for the next 50 years, but rather had to be dealt with in real-time.”

“There were those that critiqued that path forward and his use of tariffs,” he said, “but I think it ultimately has gotten us to a place where we will have a better set of trade relationships come this Wednesday than we had before that with a lot of work still in front of us.”

Critics say Chinese companies engage illicit practices that include hacking of corporate secrets, massive theft of intellectual property, and the pilfering of manufacturing know-how that is then used by the Chinese to sue American rivals out of business.

“China’s rampant theft of intellectual property is real and that it’s not just a problem for the particular company affected because that capacity to invest and create and protect those property rights
underpins the entire innovation economy that we have here in the United States,” Mr. Pompeo said.

About 1,000 FBI cases related to Chinese intellectual property theft are currently open, he said.

“But as you know it is the application of that property that is just as troubling,” Mr. Pompeo added.

The secretary of state noted the example of one Chinese hacker group he identified as APT 10, or “advanced persistent threat 10,” who is working with the Ministry of State Security, the civilian intelligence service that U.S. officials say is engaged in widespread hacking operations against American firms.

“Under [President] Xi Jinping, the CCP has prioritized something called military-civil fusion — many of you will know this. It is a technical term but a very simple idea.”

A major worry are government rules requiring all Chinese companies and researchers to share technology with the Chinese military.

“The goal is to ensure that the People’s Liberation Army has military dominance and the PLA’s core mission is to sustain the Chinese Communist Party’s grip on power, that same Chinese Communist Party that has led China in increasingly authoritarian direction and one that is increasingly repressive as well,” Mr. Pompeo said.

China’s dictatorial system is completely contrary to the American views of tolerance, he said.

“So even if the Chinese Communist Party gives assurances about your technology being confined to peaceful uses, you should know there is enormous risk, risk to America’s national security as well,” he said.

“This is a real problem, given that many of our most innovative companies have formed partnerships with the Chinese government and companies that are linked to it.”

Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford noted in testimony to Congress last year that Web search giant Google is one U.S. firm assisting the Chinese military. “The work that Google is doing in China is indirectly benefiting the Chinese military,” he said.

“I know your job is to make money for your shareholders. The Trump administration is all for it,” Mr. Pompeo said. “Invent new things, change the world, I get that.”

However, Mr. Pompeo urged Silicon Valley leaders that the United States is increasingly at risk from Chinese actions that could undermine American freedom.

“This is not to be alarmist, it is not to be threatening, it is for all of us to be aware of,” he said.

American companies rallied to support the war effort in World War II and financial institutions in New York helped authorities identify the terrorists behind the September 11 attacks. Similar efforts are needed by the tech industry today in dealing with China, Mr. Pompeo said.

“We need to make sure American technology doesn’t empower a truly Orwellian surveillance state. We need to make sure American principles aren’t sacrificed for prosperity,” he said.

The Trump administration is taking action to confront China over what U.S. officials say are its theft of technology and predatory economic practices.

The Phase 1 trade deal to be signed Wednesday is one example.

Another is imposing export controls on equipment and parts used by China for its nationwide surveillance systems, Mr. Pompeo said, citing a U.S. pressure campaign to convince allies not to use Chinese high-tech giant Huawei in their next-generation communications networks.

“We have applied much greater scrutiny to technology exports that could have military use,” Mr. Pompeo said. “Our government agencies are cooperating in new ways to stop the Chinese military from using our own innovation against us and we are putting our allies and partners on notice about the massive security and privacy risk connected to letting Huawei construct their 5G networks inside of their country.”

Mr. Pompeo concluded by noting that defending freedom and national security is not solely the role of government. The private sector must do its part.

National security questions posed by China do not have easy answers and Mr. Pompeo said he is not seeking to tell technology leaders what the answers are.

“Every company is different,” he said. “I know you all will figure it out.”

On a lighter note, Mr. Pompeo noted that one of the region’s “earthshaking innovations” was Twitter.

“I know I watch one Twitter account, in particular, each and every day,” he said — referring to President Trump’s frequent use of the social media platform.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

The US Army is thinking about the threat of nuclear war again and wants to make sure it has the right people to deal with it

The Army is at an "inflection point," its chief of staff said this week, and preparing for what comes next will require the right people.

www.businessinsider.com

The US Army is thinking about the threat of nuclear war again and wants to make sure it has the right people to deal with it

Christopher Woody
6 hours ago

• The US military's shift to focus on competition with Russia and China has put renewed attention on the threat of nuclear weapons.
• Nuclear war remains an extremely unlikely but dangerous threat, and one the Army is thinking more about, the service's chief of staff, Gen. James McConville, said this week.
• Responding to it and other challenges effectively requires the right people with the right skills, and the Army has several programs meant to ensure it has them, McConville said.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The US's shift to "great-power competition" with Russia and China has focused attention on the array of sophisticated weaponry those countries field, from growing submarine fleets to thickets of anti-aircraft systems.

But which of those weapons is most concerning?
"Nuclear weapons ... absolutely," Gen. James McConville, the Army chief of staff, said Tuesday during an event at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC.
"At the end of the day," McConville added, nuclear weapons create "an existential threat, and we don't ever want to get to a nuclear war. People talk about great-power conflict or great-power war, but a nuclear exchange between great powers, no one wants to go there, so that is absolutely it."
Nuclear arms have only gotten more powerful since 1945, when the US became the first and so far only country to use them. Concern about a superpower war going nuclear eased after the Soviet Union collapsed, and the US's focus on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism over the past two decades further shifted attention from the nuclear threat.

A US soldier assigned to 4th Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Company, 23d CBRN Battalion, 2nd Sustainment Brigade, searches for possible radiation contamination on Camp Carroll, December 12, 2018. US Army/Spc. Adeline Witherspoon
Asked on Tuesday if he thought the Army was spending enough time preparing for a potential of nuclear exchange, McConville said the service, driven by the National Defense Strategy, was "doing a lot more thinking about those types of things."

"We see ourselves at an inflection point. The last 18, 19 years you've focused on the fight you have, and the fight you had was irregular warfare. It was counterterrorism. It was counterinsurgency."
"There's a shift going on right now," he added. "So when we do our war games — when our troops do their training at the tactical level; when we're doing the training at our level, the operational, strategic level — those challenges are integrated into the type of exercise we're doing."
To handle that challenge and others, the Army is also looking at the people it has and seeking the right personnel with the right skill sets, McConville said.
"That's why ... I want to get a much more agile personnel system and a talent-management system, and we're starting to get those type of things."

"So you want to talk nuclear ... I can hire someone, right now, a major, lieutenant colonel — I've got a nuclear problem, I can go out there and go out to industry and say, Hey, want to be a lieutenant colonel? Come in. Any data scientists? I'm looking for them. Someone that's really good, that understands data, I'll make you a major or something like that. You come on in, you can serve, and you can help us solve these problems."
'A war for talent'

Pennsylvania Army National Guard members arrive at an airport in Vilnius, Lithuania, June 5, 2016. AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis
The Army's personnel are its "most important weapon system," McConville said Tuesday.
"But I believe that we have to compete for talent. We're in a war for talent. We've got to get the right people in the right jobs," he added, echoing a sentiment expressed by other senior military leaders.
To that end, McConville said the Army was rolling out a new assessment program for what he called "the most consequential job" in the Army: battalion command.

"That lieutenant colonel influences 500 or 600 people, whether they want to stay in the Army or get out of the Army. It's a level of leadership that I think is the most important," McConville said. "If you take a look at officers that may have gotten out early of the Army, you ask them how their battalion commander was, it was probably not who they wanted or inspired them to serve."
As part of the Battalion Command Assessment Program, announced in November after a pilot last summer, majors and lieutenant colonels who wanted battalion command went through a board process that narrowed the field to 800.
Those 800 field-grade officers began arriving at Fort Knox on Wednesday for a weeklong testing process to "make sure they're fit, make sure they're deployable, take a look at their comprehensive leadership and potential," McConville said. "They'll take a look at their peer reviews and subordinate reviews, there'll be a blind board, there'll be a psych [evaluation] — all these type of things so we know we're putting people in the right place, the right job."

US Army Lt. Col. Brandon H. Ungetheim passes unit colors to Capt. Emma Neal, incoming commander of the 355th Movement Control Team, at a change of command ceremony in Germany, November 21, 2019. US Army
Under the old system, a promotion board would review officers' files "for about two and a half minutes," whereas the new approach is like the NFL combine, McConville said.

"You could be Heisman Trophy winner or you could be at some state school, and you come together and they know the knowledge, skills, and behavior that they need in their future players, and they run them through the system, and that's why sometimes you see someone coming out of nowhere that maybe wasn't a Division 1 player that can actually make it in the pros."
What "we want to do is take a look at people and put them in the right place, so I think that is fairly substantial," McConville said.
The promotion system for noncommissioned officers has also changed to reward merit over time served.
"We used to do it by time and grade," McConville said. "So if you are really outstanding noncomissioned officer, a staff sergeant, you'd have to wait until all the people ahead of you got a chance to get promoted. Now if you're the most qualified person, you're going to the top of the list and you're getting promoted."

Those changes are just two Army efforts to find talent and revamp training in order to prepare soldiers and the service as a whole for modern warfare, which is likely to present an array of new and deadly challenges, even without nuclear weapons.
"We have a sacred obligation. There's parents out there that send me their kids, and they expect us to take care of them ... In order to do that, we've got to train them hard, because combat is unforgiving," McConville said Tuesday. "We've got to make sure that our soldiers are the most highly trained, disciplined, and fit soldiers on the battlefield."


SEE ALSO: The US Navy's recent visit to a vital WWII hub is another sign it's thinking about how to fight in the Pacific

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

Trump wants to make nuclear weapons easier to use — and his plan is 'a roadmap for nuclear war'

A document leaked to HuffPost suggests President Trump is pushing for "low-yield" nukes, which may spur the proliferation and use of atomic weapons.

www.businessinsider.com

Trump wants to make nuclear weapons easier to use — and his plan is 'a roadmap for nuclear war'

Dave Mosher
Jan 17, 2018, 11:26 AM

• HuffPost has published a leaked, January 2018 draft of the Trump administration's Nuclear Posture Review, due out in February.
• While the document echoes the Obama administration's nuclear modernization plan, it contains major differences and is laced with "dark perspective."
• One reversal is a push for additional "flexible" and "low-yield" nuclear weapons in the US arsenal.
• One US Senator said the document's contents "are a roadmap for nuclear war."

A little more than a year ago, Donald Trump made two of the most alarming statements of his political career. Now they appear poised to become US policy, in light of a government document leaked to HuffPost.

The first statement occurred on December 22, 2016, when Trump tweeted that the US "must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes."
Trump's aides claimed he wasn't starting a nuclear arms race. But he betrayed their spin the following day with a second statement.
"Let it be an arms race," Trump reportedly told MSNBC "Morning Joe" host Mika Brzezinski over the phone, adding: "We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all."
Both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations have worked for decades to reduce US and global nuclear weapons stockpiles, so Trump's views represented a reversal of longstanding efforts at denuclearization. Because he was president-elect at the time, doubts existed as to whether he — once sworn in and surrounded by presumably experienced and competent cabinet members — would act on them.

But what little room for doubt was left is now gone.

The first page of a January 2018 Nuclear Posture Report draft. DoD via HuffPost/DocumentCloud
On Thursday, HuffPost senior reporter Ashley Feinberg published what appears to be a January 2018 draft of the Nuclear Posture Review.
An NPR, as it's also called, is a roadmap for US nuclear strategy published every four years. It is assembled by the Secretary of Defense, who is currently Jim Mattis, and other administration officials based on the president's input.
The 64-page document is not a call for stockpiling massive numbers of new atomic bombs, but it outlines the Trump administration's plans to not only expand nuclear weapons capabilities, but also make the devices eminently easier for military forces to use.

When asked about the document's authenticity, Feinberg told Business Insider via tweet that it "comports with what industry people/lobbyists/the people quoted in my post have heard and seen."
A final version of the NPR is slated for publication in February, according to HuffPost, and — given a year of work put into the report — it is unlikely to change much by that time.
And that should frighten us all, with some members of Congress going so far as to label it "a roadmap for nuclear war."
Why Trump thinks the US needs more nukes

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stands before what may be part of a miniaturized thermonuclear warhead. KCNA/Reuters
Trump is worried about the nuclear weapons modernization efforts of Russia, which in 2014 violated a key arms reduction treaty. He's also concerned with North Korea's maturing intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear test programs.

His tough-guy response to these threats, however, echoes escalatory Cold War-era logic: outmatch your adversaries, or risk a nation-destroying preemptive strike.
For example, during a gathering of national security officials in July 2017, NBC News wrote that Trump said he wanted the US to boost its active stockpile to 1960s levels (a tenfold increase). This was reportedly after Trump was shown a chart of the US nuclear arsenal since 1945, and how its size changed over time.

A chart showing the changes in the size of the US nuclear arsenal by presidential administration over 70 years. Federation of American Scientists
His attitude not only ignores disquieting facts about nuclear weapons and risks their proliferation in foreign countries, but also threatens to increase the chances of nuclear accidents and catastrophes.
The draft 2018 NPR is far from a rubber stamp of Trump's desires. Its goals resemble former President Barack Obama's 30-year, $1.2-trillion plan to modernize the US nuclear arsenal along with the outdated command-and-control systems required to use the weapons. The text also acknowledges international agreements not to create more weapons.

But the new report contains notable differences — such as reversing Obama's move to limit "low-yield" nukes — and is lined with contradictions and "dark perspective," arms control experts told HuffPost.
The biggest problem is its logic behind giving the US arsenal more nuclear weapons which pack smaller blasts and are easier to use.
The slippery slope of 'flexible' and 'low-yield' nuclear weapons

US Department Of Energy
The US and Russia have committed to taking thousands of warheads offline since 2010 as part of the New START treaty. However, technological proliferation can occur even when the total number of nuclear weapons decreases.
The new NPR cites the advances in Russia's battlefield-ready nuclear arms, then effectively reverses the Obama-era position of not making similar "low-yield" and "flexible" nuclear weapons to match them.

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

"To be clear, this is not intended to, nor does it enable, 'nuclear war-fighting.' Expanding flexible U.S. nuclear options now, to include low-yield options, is important for the preservation of credible deterrence against regional aggression," the NPR states. "It will raise the nuclear threshold and help ensure that potential adversaries perceive no possible advantage in limited nuclear escalation, making nuclear employment less likely."
But "low-yield" is a misnomer: This category of weapons can rival the atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan in 1945, each of which led to about 100,000 casualties.
Modern low-yield weapons are also easier to deploy than larger, more powerful weapons, leading to a higher likelihood that they will be used in what may have previously been traditional combat. They're also more accurate.
For example, the US military's B61-12 gravity bomb — available to fighter jets in 2021 — will recycle four older-style bombs that fell to targets with a precision of about 300-550 feet. But weapons experts say the gravity bomb is effectively a new weapon with new capabilities, since the rebuilt weapons will have new pop-out fins and thrusters to guide them to a target with a precision of under 100 feet.


The military can also "tune" the B61-12's blast yields from several times higher to several times lower than the first atomic bombs. Submarine cruise missiles with "low-yield" warheads are also in the works, the NPR states.

Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has previously criticized the enormous cost of the US nuclear weapons modernization effort, spoke out against the NPR on Wednesday, calling its contents "a roadmap for nuclear war" in a statement.
"Simply put, President Trump wants new nuclear weapons and more ways to use them. We don't need new nuclear weapons, 'low yield' or otherwise, and we certainly should not be creating more ambiguity about the military scenarios in which we might use our nuclear weapons," Markey said in the statement." Threatening to use nuclear weapons to respond to and deter conventional threats is unnecessary when we have the most powerful conventional military in the world. President Trump's approach is destabilizing, makes the world less safe, and increases the risk of nuclear war."
In addition to lowering the threshold for use and making the taboo against use of any nuclear weapons likely to fall apart, the NPR — if followed — may also increase the chances for catastrophic miscalculation.
People and machines are flawed

Right now, hundreds of US nuclear weapons are already primed to use at a moment's notice. This dangerous Cold War-era policy means such weapons can be launched within a few minutes of detecting an adversary's preemptive nuclear strike — or a false signal of one.

Many strategic weapons, like Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) deployed across middle America, can't be disabled once they leave a silo.
Yet no human creation is perfect. You can build the world's smartest, most seemingly foolproof machine, and it will still contain flaws. In the case of nuclear weapons systems, such flaws run the risk of accidental launch, detonation, and incredible loss of life.
Tallying up nuclear weapons accidents is exceedingly difficult, especially due to their classified nature, but information that has been released is alarming.
"[M]any dozens of incidents involving nuclear warheads are known to have occurred in the United States — and likely many more that have not been made public," according to a 2015 fact sheet by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Thirty-two known incidents were "broken arrows," when a nuclear weapon was accidentally launched, fired, detonated, stolen, or lost. Eleven are weapons the US military never recovered, including one of two powerful thermonuclear bombs it accidentally dropped on and nearly detonated over North Carolina.

The test launch of a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile. USAF Writer Eric Schlosser has chronicled some of these all-too-common misadventures in "Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety". The 2014 book closely follows the story of a Titan II ICBM that exploded in its silo, nearly setting off a powerful warheadthat could have laid waste to Arkansas and nearby states. (The cause? A maintenance worker who accidentally dropped a tool.)
In light of Trump's statements as president-elect in December 2016, Schlosser revisited some of his book's material in a recent piece for The New Yorker, in which he described alarming, ongoing technical problems with "aging and obsolete" nuclear weapons and their command-and-control systems.
Schlosser also highlighted the risks of being human. Using Minuteman III system as one example, he wrote for The New Yorker:
"[In 2014], almost a hundred Minuteman launch officers were disciplined for cheating on their proficiency exams. In 2015, three launch officers at Malmstrom Air Force Base, in Montana, were dismissed for using illegal drugs, including ecstasy, cocaine, and amphetamines. That same year, a launch officer at Minot Air Force Base, in North Dakota, was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for heading a violent street gang, distributing drugs, sexually assaulting a girl under the age of sixteen, and using psilocybin, a powerful hallucinogen. As the job title implies, launch officers are entrusted with the keys for launching intercontinental ballistic missiles."

National leaders who can order nuclear strikes are also fallible humans.
Take Pakistan's defense minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, who publicly rattled his nation's nuclear sabers in late December after reading (and apparently believing) a fake news article about Israel threatening his country with nuclear weapons.
Making more lower-yield nukes in any country — whether Pakistan or the US — would also heighten the risk of a smaller weapon falling into the hands of terrorists and attacking a city.
What is the solution?

A view of Africa taken by Apollo 11 astronauts on July 20, 1969. NASA/Flickr
The more nuclear weapons that exist — and the easier they are to use — the more likely they are to intentionally or accidentally explode and lead to catastrophe, perhaps a global one.

As Alexandra Bell, a former senior adviser at the State Department and current senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, told HuffPost: "[W]e have 4,000 nuclear weapons in our active stockpile, which is more than enough to destroy the world many times over ... I don't think you can make the case that this president needs any more capabilities."
The solution is not easy but straightforward: Do not expand any nuclear arsenals or their capabilities. Instead, continue to reduce weapons stockpiles, ideally until they are all gone, while making the ones that remain safer.
Plenty of non-nuclear alternatives exist to keep adversarial countries in check until the world rids itself of nukes.
Take cyberwarfare. Given the cleverness and scope of Stuxnet, a computer virus that took down Iran's uranium-enriching centrifuges, it's not unreasonable to suggest covert and preemptive attacks on nuclear weapons systems themselves are possible or even ongoing.

Diplomacy, sanctions, embargoes, and treaties may not always be popular, but they have helped prevent countries like Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. They've also helped reduce weapons stockpiles by more than a factor of 10. Conventional warfare can also help strip a nation of its nuclear weapons facilities.
Most importantly, however, as Schlosser and others argue, it's past time that we stop assuming nuclear weapons are safe and irrelevant relics of the Cold War.
Instead, we all need to have frank discussions — in our homes, at work, and with elected officials — about the reality of nuclear weapons, including their numbers, risks, cost, and imminent threat to the future of humanity. Every weapon we dismantle is one step away from the worst kind of mishap imaginable.
This story has been updated with new information. It was originally published on January 13, 2018, at 11:15 a.m. ET.

This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author(s).

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Business Insider.


SEE ALSO: Nearly 15,000 nuclear weapons exist today in the arsenals of these 9 nations
DON'T MISS: If a nuclear bomb goes off, this is the most important thing you can do to survive
NOW WATCH: Here's how easy it is for the US president to launch a nuclear weapon

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

The ISIS insurgency in the Sinai continues despite Egyptian Army efforts | FDD's Long War Journal

Islamic State attacks in the Sinai persist despite Egyptian military operations against it.

www.longwarjournal.org

The ISIS insurgency in the Sinai continues despite Egyptian Army efforts
By Joe Truzman | January 17, 2020 | jtruzmah@gmail.com | @Jtruzmah

Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham – Sinai Province – الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام – ولاية سيناء‎
There is no end in sight to Wilayat Sinai’s guerrilla campaign against the Egyptian Army and other foes, despite the launch of multiple counter-insurgency operations by the Army since 2013. The Islamic State’s so-called Sinai “province” has also remained loyal to the group’s overall leadership, even with the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and several of his key lieutenants.
The jihadists’ attacks against army posts and check points continue to be successful against an army that benefits from air-support, APCs, tanks and superior armament.

ISIS video message posted via Amaq News Agency’s Telegram channel
On January 15th, the ISIS’s Amaq News Agency posted a message on one of its affiliated Telegram channels.
“An Egyptian intelligence spy, called “Suleiman Mutawe,” was killed after Islamic State fighters captured him near the city of “Sheikh Zuweid” in the Sinai.”
The video accompanied the message that was posted about the execution. In the video, Mutawe, makes a statement about being an informant for the Egyptian Army.

Mutawe statement in recording via Amaq News Agency.
“I am Suleiman Hamed Mahammed Mutawe, age 48 years. Major Hosam, the [Egyptian] Border Intelligence Bureau officer, assigned us to maintain the area we work in and inform him of anything we see. I reported several explosive devices, smuggling operations and some coordinates.”

Execution of Mutaw via Amaq News Agency Telegram channel
After his statement, the scene changes to an ISIS gunman standing behind Mutawe. After a brief statement, the gunman executes him.

November 2019: Wilaya Sinai pledges allegiance to the new ISIL leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi
Due to the death of ISIS’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, during an American Special Forces raid in the Idlib Governorate, the Islamic State in the Sinai pledged allegiance to the new leader of ISIS, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi.
Since the death of their former leader, hit-and-run attacks have continued throughout the areas of the northern Sinai. Amaq News Agency has posted dozens of statements including videos of attacks and extrajudicial killings of alleged Egyptian Army collaborators on their affiliated Telegram channels.

Wilaya Sinai fighter attacks an Egpytian Army bulldozer via Amaq News Agency
In a video posted in October 2019, several scenes show different attacks by ISIS gunmen against Egyptian Army bulldozers west of Sheikh Zuweid.

• 
• 

ISIS claims Israel’s Air Force bombed their position in 2018
Egypt has had a difficult time containing the insurgency occurring in the north of the country. The terrain in this part of the country offers excellent cover for hit-and-run attacks against Egyptian Army outposts which are located too far and between one another.
Israel has long been suspected of assisting the Egyptian Army in combating ISIS near the southern Israeli border. According to a 2018 New York Times report, “For more than two years, unmarked Israeli drones, helicopters and jets have carried out a covert air campaign, conducting more than 100 airstrikes inside Egypt, frequently more than once a week — and all with the approval of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.”
Even with the military assistance of Israel, Egypt has not been able to control the insurgency in the northern part of the country. Egypt’s President el-Sisi and the Army will have to rethink their counterinsurgency strategy against the threat in the north. Until a viable strategy is produced, ISIS will continue to flourish and succeed in its tactics and strategy to defeat the Egyptian Army.

Joe Truzman is a contributor to FDD's Long War Journal.

 

[jward]

Iran: Missile attack on US base in Iraq just a ‘warning,’ don’t test us

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Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami speaks at the Conference on International Security in Moscow, Russia, April 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Iranian Defense minister Amir Hatami issued a warning to Washington on Friday, saying that Iran’s missile attacks on a US base in Iraq in response to the drone killing of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani were “just a slap.” Hatami also vowed to respond forcefully to US “adventurism.”

“I hope the enemies will not try to test the Iranian people’s resolve, because what has been done was just a slap and a warning,” Hatami said during a speech in a military academy, according to the Tehran Times.
US President Donald Trump ordered the drone strike in Iraq on January 3 that killed Soleimani, the head of the extraterritorial Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and one of Iran’s most powerful officials. At the time, Trump said Soleimani was planning attacks against US troops in the region but White House officials have since given different justifications for the killing, including one of deterrence. On Saturday, CNN reported that Trump recently held a fundraising dinner for GOP donors where he gave a minute-by-minute account of the drone strike and said Soleimani was “saying bad things” about the US, which led to his decision to authorize the killing.

In response to the drone strike, Iran fired volleys of ballistic missiles at Iraqi bases housing US troops. There were no reported casualties at the time but it has since been revealed that eight US troops suffered injuries.

This satellite image provided on January 8, 2020, by Middlebury Institute of International Studies and Planet Labs Inc. shows the damage caused from an Iranian missile strike at the Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq. (Planet Labs Inc./Middlebury Institute of International Studies via AP)
Hatami warned on Friday that Iran was “prepared to give a powerful response to any adventurism,” and said Tehran targeted the US military base “in self-defense.” These remarks were made as part of a phone conversation with Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, the Tehran Times reported.

“After this action, the United States realized that they will face a stronger response if they take a stupid action again,” he added during the call, according to the report.
Hatami said the US killing of Soleimani was a “strategic mistake” and called on “all independent countries in the world, especially in the region, to strongly condemn” the operation.
The strike exacerbated already high tensions between the US and Iran which have been steadily escalating since Trump withdrew Washington from the 2015 nuclear accord. The agreement, negotiated under the US administration of Barack Obama, had imposed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.

A burning vehicle at the Baghdad International Airport following an airstrike in Baghdad, Iraq, in which Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani was killed January 3, 2020. (Iraqi Prime Minister Press Office via AP)
The US has since imposed crippling sanctions on Iran, including its vital oil and gas industry, pushing the country into an economic crisis that has ignited several waves of sporadic, leaderless protests.

Also on Friday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a sermon that America had been “cowardly” when it killed the most effective commander, Soleimani, in the fight against the Islamic State group.
Khamenei said the missile attack in response was a “blow to America’s image” as a superpower. In part of the sermon delivered in Arabic, he said the “real punishment” would be in forcing the US to withdraw from the Middle East.

In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, leads the Friday prayers at Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 17, 2020 (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
Trump later tweeted a sharp response to Khamenei: “The so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ of Iran, who has not been so Supreme lately, had some nasty things to say about the United States and Europe. Their economy is crashing, and their people are suffering. He should be very careful with his words!”

After the US drone strike on Soleimani, as Iran’s Revolutionary Guard braced for an American counterattack that never came, it mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian jetliner shortly after takeoff from Tehran’s international airport, killing all 176 passengers on board, mostly Iranians.
Authorities concealed their role in the tragedy for three days, initially blaming the crash on a technical problem. When it came, their admission of responsibility triggered days of street protests, which security forces dispersed with live ammunition and tear gas.

Khamenei called the shoot down of the plane a “bitter accident” that he said had saddened Iran as much as it made its enemies happy. He said Iran’s enemies had seized on the crash to question the Islamic Republic, the Revolutionary Guard and the armed forces.

Posted for fair use

Iran to US: Don’t test us; missile attack on base in Iraq was just a ‘warning’

Defense minister says Tehran prepared to respond forcefully to US 'adventurism' following drone strike that killed Soleimani

www.timesofisrael.com