WAR 01-18-2020-to-01-24-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

Again, sorry for the delay....HC

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

(402) 01-11-2020-to-01-17-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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

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****...

xf.timebomb2000.com

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Posted today by Jward at 2:01 PM:
WAR - 01-11-2020-to-01-17-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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Posted for fair use.....

Commandant calls for ‘best and brightest’ Marines to serve in the III Marine Expeditionary Force

“Commanding Generals, Commanding Officers, Senior Enlisted Leaders, and mentors of every rank should actively mentor and identify our highest quality NCOs, SNCOs, and officers for duty in the Pacific."

www.marinecorpstimes.com

Commandant calls for ‘best and brightest’ Marines to serve in the III Marine Expeditionary Force

Philip Athey
1 day ago

Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David Berger has called on Marine leaders to identify the best performing Marines and mentor them into serving in the Pacific, according to an administrative message released Tuesday.

The MARADMIN is part of a general push by Berger in his planning guidance to build a Marine Corps focused on countering the rising military threat of China.

“Commanding Generals, Commanding Officers, Senior Enlisted Leaders, and mentors of every rank should actively mentor and identify our highest quality NCOs, SNCOs, and officers for duty in the Pacific,” Berger wrote.

Your next commandant: Can he push the Marine Corps past the era of counterinsurgency?
Why Lt. Gen. David H. Berger was chosen to lead Marines into the next big fight.
Shawn Snow

Berger has said he sees China’s developing naval force and increasing expansion in the Pacific as a game-changer, one that requires the Marine Corps to build up new capabilities and increase its integration with the Navy.

One of the most important units in the commandant’s plan is the III Marine Expeditionary Force, headquartered in Okinawa, Japan, often seen as one of the least desirable postings in the Marine Corps ― an attitude Berger acknowledges in the message.

Berger’s visions for the Marine Corps emphasizes a renewed focus on priority toward “III MEF’s ability to provide ready, stand-in forces in support of INDO-PACOM and Commander, 7th Fleet,” the MARADMIN reads. “Ultimately, this requires a change of attitude about what it means to serve in the Pacific."

The commandant’s sentiments were echoed by Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, Sgt. Maj. Troy Black, during the Force Level Summit in Okinawa, Japan mid-January.

“III MEF, as far as the Marine Corps is concerned, has not been the staffing priority,” said Black. “As we see this strategic shift towards the pacific, III MEF can no longer be at the end of the food chain," according to III MEF release on DVIDS.

In order to get the top Marines to serve in the Pacific, Marines “should first consider opportunities to serve overseas,” whenever those positions are available, Berger said in the MARADMIN.

“Marines are ‘first to fight’, always moving to the sound of the guns,” he wrote in the MARADMIN. “My priorities towards INDO-PACOM ultimately require our best and brightest to seek assignments with III MEF because the problem at hand will require our collective problem-solving skills to overcome."

About Philip Athey

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

USS Shiloh Transits Taiwan Strait a Week After Presidential Election - USNI News

USS Shiloh (CG-67) transited the Taiwan Strait Thursday, less than a week after voters reelected an island Leader opposed to close ties with the mainland.

news.usni.org

USS Shiloh Transits Taiwan Strait a Week After Presidential Election

By: Ben Werner
January 17, 2020 2:08 PM


Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Shiloh (CG-67) transited the Taiwan Strait on Thursday, less than a week after voters on the island reelected a leader opposed to closer ties between Taipei and Beijing.



Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense announced the transit Friday, in a statement saying, “U.S. ships carried out general navigation missions through the Taiwan Strait, and the National Army used joint intelligence surveillance and investigation to master the relevant dynamics of the sea, airspace, and aircraft around us. There was no abnormality during this period. Please rest assured.”

Chinese government officials responded to the transit, stating they tracked the warship’s route, hinting they were not pleased with the message being sent by the U.S. Navy.

“China paid close attention to and monitored from start to end the passage of the U.S. military vessel through the Taiwan Strait. The Taiwan question is the most important and most sensitive issue in China-US relations as it bears on China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. We urge the US to abide by the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiques, prudently handle issues relating to Taiwan to avoid harming China-US relations and affecting peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” Geng Shuang, the spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said during a Friday media briefing, according to the ministry’s official English translation.

Neither Taiwan nor China named the ship. Several media accounts stated Shiloh was the warship that conducted the passage through the 110-miles wide body of water separating Taiwan from the mainland.

Bloomberg first posted a story about Shiloh’s transit Thursday night. U.S. Navy officials were contacted by USNI News but did not immediately provide a statement.

During her reelection campaign, President Tsai Ing-wen stated she intended to maintain the status quo with China. Tsai and party, though, are and have consistently stated Taiwan is independent of China.

On Dec. 26, two weeks before the election in Taiwan, China sailed its own message past the island. The People’s Liberation Army Navy’s new aircraft carrier Shandong steamed through the Taiwan Strait the same say Shiloh transited Thursday.

The U.S. relationship with Taiwan is complicated. Since 1979, the U.S. has “recognized the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China, acknowledging the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China,” according to the U.S. State Department.

While the U.S. does not support Taiwan becoming an independent nation, the U.S. government maintains a strong “unofficial relations” with Taiwan, according to the State Department.

The U.S. routinely sends warships through the strait. A U.S. aircraft carrier hasn’t transited the strait in more than a decade.

In the days following her reelection, Tsai sent tweets to several world leaders and politicians that have supported Taiwan. To U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Tsai sent the following tweet, “Taiwan is & will ever be great friends of the US. We are grateful for the actions you’ve taken to protect free markets, democracy & freedom around the world. Taiwan stands with you & we will be that bastion of freedom in the Indo-Pacific.”

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Mexico's President Wants The Marines To Destroy The Cartels (Once And For All)

Not America's.

nationalinterest.org

January 17, 2020 Topic: Security Region: Americas Blog Brand: The Buzz Tags: MarinesCartelsMilitaryWarDrugs
Mexico's President Wants The Marines To Destroy The Cartels (Once And For All)

Not America's.

by Caleb Larson



Key point: When based on land, will the Mexican Navy, and Naval Infantry be able to preserve their reputation as a disciplined, effective quick-reaction force?
Compared to their counterparts in the United States, the United States Navy and Marine Corps, the Mexican Navy is small— around sixty-six thousand. The Mexican Naval Infantry, their Marine Corps, is even smaller— numbering only about eighteen thousand.
In contrast to the United States Marine Corps and the United States Navy, the Mexican Navy’s main missions have typically been coastal protection, which in the United States would fall to the U.S. Coast Guard. Assisting the civilian populace following earthquakes or other natural disasters, defending oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, intercepting boat-born migrants, and drug interdiction through boarding and seizing boats and semi-submersible narco submarines.
Despite their small size, they are the go-to force when combating the Mexican criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking—widely trusted and seen as more reliable than the Army. They’ve also racked up a string of successes, despite being many times smaller than the Mexican Army.
An Ossified Army:
For historical reasons, United States troops in Mexico are a taboo topic. An intensely nationalistic streak runs through the Mexican Army. Lingering resentment against the United States runs deep. For this reason, the Mexican Army conducts little training with the United States.
The Mexican Navy was spared most of the humiliation experienced by the Army during the 1916–1917 American expedition into Mexico to capture Pancho Villa, or during the 1914 American occupation of Mexican port city Veracruz. Being sea-based, the Mexican Navy also did not suffer nearly as many losses as the Army during the Mexican-American war, which was predominantly a land conflict. As a result, Mexico is one of the least connected of the Latin American countries to the United States, militarily speaking.

Therein lies the reason for the Navy’s reputation as an efficient and professional fighting force, unhampered by deep-rooted corruption endemic in the Mexican government and military. “In the last 10 years, UIN [Mexican Naval Intelligence] has become the most trusted Mexican intelligence service for the DEA and DIA,” explained Dr. Raúl Benitez-Manaut, a professor at the National University of Mexico, and an expert on Mexican security and defense issues. “[The Navy’s] construction was based on a lot of training in the United States, UK, France, and Spain. It has civilian and military intelligence teams unlike the Army, which are only military.”
Part of their success lies simply in being based at sea, rather than land. Unlike the Mexican Army, Mexican Naval Infantry does not have extensive inland bases, giving them a measure of insulation from cartels—and corruption opportunities.

Since it is a significantly smaller branch than the Army, the Navy is much more tight-knit. Naval officers have a closer relationship with each other, as most are graduates of Mexico’s naval academy. Closer personal ties help to prevent secrets deals and backdoor cash—subjecting officers to random polygraph tests also helps.
American Intel, Mexican Manpower:
Despite disagreements over tariffs and trade, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Defense Intelligence Agency have managed to cultivate close ties with Mexico.
Beginning with the signing of the 2008 Mérida Initiative, a cross-border training and capacity-building cooperation agreement between the United States and Mexico, U.S.-Mexican cooperation increased, with a particular focus on the Mexican Navy and Naval Infantry. In a surprise 2009 statement, the Navy moved to keep all intelligence communications with the United States secret, in an effort to preserve secrecy and prevent potentially dangerous information leaks, further cementing ties, albeit quietly.

Ties between U.S. intelligence and the Navy splashed across the news in 2012, when a U.S. diplomatic vehicle transporting two CIA officers and a Mexican Navy captain was shot at. The two CIA officers were wounded. Mexican Naval officials downplayed the incident, aware of the fact that cooperation with the United States could harm them at home, where they have much less domestic clout in government than their Army, with whom they compete for funding and resources.
Fit to Fight:

Since the late 2000s, the Naval Infantry’s mandate has steadily expanded, from exclusively littoral or deep-water operations, to include land missions deep within Mexico, far removed from the blue.
The Navy enjoys a high degree of trust from the Mexican people. According to a recent poll conducted by the Mexican newspaper El Financiero, the Navy, at 69 percent, is the most trusted organization in Mexico. This trust stems in large part from the steadily rising number of successful land operations they’ve conducted since their expanded responsibilities.

“One of the Naval Infantry’s most important achievements was the dismantling of the criminal structure of the Los Zetas group, in the state of Veracruz, from 2008 to 2012,” said Dr. Benitez-Manaut. Unlike the Army, the Navy has sought out help from the United States and American Special Forces in honing their capabilities in order to improve the chances of mission success against various cartels and criminal groups.
In addition to significantly damaging Los Zetas, Naval Infantry was responsible for killing the drug kingpin Arturo Beltrán Leyva in December 2009 in Cuernavaca, less than 50 miles from the capital. While 50 miles is not far removed from Mexico’s largest city, a large Army regional headquarters was even closer—mere blocks away.

Two hundred Naval Infantry rappelled from helicopters to a luxury mansion where “El Muerte” had been having a party. There, they laid siege to the compound. In the ensuing firefight, six cartel members, along with Beltrán Leyva himself were killed. One Naval Infantry member also died.
In Los Mochis, a city near the Pacific coast in Sinaloa, the Navy scored their biggest victory to date. The Navy and Naval Infantry’s most notable achievement has been Operation Black Swan in 2016, the operation that resulted in “El Chapo” Guzman’s third and final capture. Black Swan was reportedly conducted in tandem with American Special Forces, which would be evidence of a very high level of cooperation between the United States and Mexican Navy.

The National Guard— A National Disaster?:

President López Obrador has made the creation of the National Guard, or Guardia Nacional, as it is known in Spanish, the centerpiece of his new security strategy, where pacification in some form, other than military force, is to be used to end the war on drugs.
“The president decreed the end of the war on drugs on January 31, 2019,” emphasized Dr. Benitez-Manaut. “The Navy was excluded from the main efforts of the President in his new security strategy. Its most important members come from the Army.” Dr. Benitez-Manaut estimates that roughly 80 percent of the members of the National Guard came from the Army, most in leadership positions. Only 8 percent have a naval background.
This raises serious questions about the future efficacy of the National Guard, especially considering the pervasive corruption question. When based on land, will the Mexican Navy, and Naval Infantry be able to preserve their reputation as a disciplined, effective quick-reaction force? Only time will tell.
Caleb Larson holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. He lives in Berlin and writes on U.S. and Russian foreign and defense policy, German politics, and culture. This article first appeared earlier last year.

 

[jward]

Russia's Hostile Measures Combating Russian Gray Zone Aggression Against NATO in the Contact, Blunt, and Surge Layers of Competition by Ben Connable, Stephanie Young, Stephanie Pezard, Andrew Radin, Raphael S. Cohen, Katya Migacheva, James Sladden Related Topics: Low-Intensity Conflict, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Russia, Soviet Union, Threat Assessment Citation Embed Research Questions What hostile measures has Russia employed historically, and in what circumstances? What motivates Russia's use of hostile measures, and what are the warning signs of their use? How does the history of Soviet power dynamics inform Russia's use of hostile measures in the post-Soviet era? Where have hostile measures been successful in helping Russia achieve its tactical and strategic objectives, and where have they fallen short? Where are there opportunities for NATO and other Western powers to deter, prevent, or counter Russian hostile behavior and limit the risk of conventional military engagement? posted for fair use. PDF avail. for free at source. Understanding Russia's Hostile Measures and How to Counter Them Russia has used hostile measures to sow disorder, weaken democratic institutions, and undermine NATO cohesion. But it also has a long track record of strategic shortfalls and even ineptitude. Exploring opportunities to deter, prevent, and counter Russia's behavior is critical in both the gray... www.rand.org

Russia's conventional capabilities pose a serious threat to NATO that remains mostly untested. Where it has historically succeeded is in using various types of hostile measures to sow disorder, weaken democratic institutions, and undermine NATO cohesion and what Russia perceives as the eastward expansion of Western institutions. However, Russia also has a long track record of strategic shortfalls, and even some ineptitude. Formulating strategies for addressing these actions demands a clear understanding of how and why Russian leaders employ hostile measures—for example, economic embargoes, limited military incursions, cyberattacks, and information campaigns.


A historical review of Soviet-era power dynamics and detailed case studies of Russian hostile measures in the post-Soviet era help clarify the conditions under which Russia employs hostile measures and the vulnerabilities it exploits in the countries it targets—as well as the messages these measures send to other key audiences, such as Russia's domestic public, the Russian diaspora, and Western powers that Russia perceives as encroaching on its sphere of influence.
NATO and other Western powers will benefit from exploring opportunities to deter, prevent, and counter Russian hostile behavior in the so-called gray zone short of war, where daily adversarial competition occurs. Many of the behaviors that Russia exhibits in the gray zone will no doubt extend to conventional war.
Key Findings
Russia's use of hostile measures is not new

• The foundations for Russia's recent use of hostile measures date to the Russian Revolution and the development of the political and security institutions that reinforced the Soviet sphere of influence.
• Over the past century, Soviet and, later, Russian leaders have exploited vulnerabilities in a range of sectors in the countries they have targeted with hostile measures—for example by intervening in political movements, enlisting proxies to engage in a country militarily, launching disinformation campaigns, implementing economic sanctions, leveraging cultural influence, and reinforcing dependence on Russian energy supplies.
• A particular hostile measure may have several target audiences beyond the direct party to a dispute with Russia, including Russia's domestic public, Russian populations in other countries, former Soviet republics that are considering strengthening their relationships with the West, countries that are economically dependent on Russia, and potential allies and partners of the primary target country.

Patterns in Russian gray-zone behavior make it possible to forecast Russia's use of hostile measures

• General patterns in Russian gray zone behavior lend themselves to forecasting, and Russia often issues formal indications and warnings before making use of hostile measures.
• There are patterns to the motivations behind Russia's decisions to employ specific types of hostile measures and in the sources of influence it chooses to leverage.
• Russia's use of hostile measures is not infallible. On the contrary, it is tactically adroit but strategically shortsighted. Russia typically fails to achieve strategic success, and this trend points to opportunities to deter and counter these behaviors.

Recommendations

• NATO has engaged in a limited effort to resist Russian hostile measures in Eastern Europe, but this effort would benefit from strategies informed by a historical understanding of Russian motivations, tactics, patterns of behavior, and record of success.
• NATO can improve the prospects of deterrence if it can increase Russia's perception of the risk of using hostile measures and reduce its aggressive behavior without triggering a war. This may involve using forces that are also capable of deterring a Russian conventional attack.
• NATO should sustain a measured forward presence in Europe indefinitely and leverage conventional force enablers to deter and counter Russian hostile measures.

Table of Contents

• Chapter One
  Russian Hostile Measures in Every Context
• Chapter Two
  The Evolution and Limits of Russian Hostile Measures
• Chapter Three
  Gray Zone Cases and Actions During High-Order War
• Chapter Four
  Deterring, Preventing, and Countering Hostile Measures
• Appendix A
  An Evolutionary History of Russia's Hostile Measures
• Appendix B
  Detailed Case Studies of Russia's Use of Hostile Measures

RAND Corporation (@RANDCorporation) Tweeted: New report: Russia's use of hostile measures is not infallible. On the contrary, it's tactically adroit but strategically shortsighted. Understanding Russia's Hostile Measures and How to Counter Them https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1218631902493585408 View: https://twitter.com/RANDCorporation/status/1218631902493585408?s=20

 

[Housecarl]

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Thousands-strong Hong Kong protest cut short by clashes

HONG KONG (AP) — Clashes broke out between protesters and police in Hong Kong on Sunday, cutting short a rally after thousands had gathered at a park to call for electoral reforms and a boycott of the Chinese Communist Party.

apnews.com

Thousands-strong Hong Kong protest cut short by clashes

By ALICE FUNG and CAROL MANGtoday

HONG KONG (AP) — Clashes broke out between protesters and police in Hong Kong on Sunday, cutting short a rally after thousands had gathered at a park to call for electoral reforms and a boycott of the Chinese Communist Party.
Police fired tear gas near the park, known as Chater Garden, after some protesters attacked men whom they believed to be plainclothes officers, in a return to the violence that has roiled the Chinese territory off and on for months.
Sporting their movement’s trademark black clothing and face masks, rally participants had earlier packed into Chater Garden, located near the city’s Legislative Council building. They held up signs that read “Free Hong Kong” and waved American and British flags.
“We want real universal suffrage,” the protesters chanted. “Disband the police force, free Hong Kong!”
Ventus Lau, the rally’s organizer, was arrested in the evening for allegedly breaching the authorities’ conditions for the rally and repeatedly obstructing officers, police officer Ng Lok-chun told reporters at a news briefing.
Earlier in the day, Lau said he believes more large-scale protests are needed for global attention to return to Hong Kong, with the protest movement losing some of its momentum in recent weeks.
“I think Hong Kong has not been the focus of the world anymore,” he said, urging other countries to launch sanctions against Hong Kong’s government if it does not allow residents to directly elect Legislative Council members this year.
A former British colony, Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997. While the framework of “one country, two systems” promises the city greater democratic rights than are afforded to the mainland, protesters say their freedoms have been steadily eroding under Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Frictions between democracy-minded Hong Kongers and the Communist Party-ruled central government in Beijing came to a head last June, when proposed extradition legislation sparked months of mass demonstrations.
The bill — which would have allowed Hong Kong residents to be sent to mainland China to stand trial — has been withdrawn, but the protests have continued for more than seven months, centered around demands for voting rights and an independent inquiry into police conduct.
While the protests began peacefully, they increasingly descended into violence after demonstrators became frustrated with the government’s response. They feel that Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has ignored their demands and used the police to suppress them.
In response to Sunday’s rally, Hong Kong’s government released a statement that warned against any foreign involvement. Beijing has repeatedly accused foreign countries like the U.S. of inciting riots in Hong Kong in a bid to sabotage China’s development.
The statement outlined the “universal suffrage of ‘one person, one vote’ as an ultimate aim” enshrined in the city’s de facto constitution, known as the Basic Law. This step must be implemented in line with “gradual and orderly progress,” the statement said.
Underpinning the protests is a deep distrust for the central government and Xi, who is widely considered China’s most authoritarian leader in decades. Some protesters have accused Lam of being “Beijing’s puppet,” a label she has rejected.
Demonstrators have routinely thrown bricks and gasoline bombs at riot police, who have responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and — on rare occasions — live rounds.
The months of unrest have sent the financial hub’s economy reeling, as shops have shuttered during clashes and tourists have stayed away.
Hong Kong police gave approval for Sunday’s rally, but not for a march that organizers had also planned. The march didn’t happen, and the protest was curtailed by clashes after police ordered an end to the rally hours before the pre-approved finishing time.
Protesters used bricks, umbrellas and traffic barriers to barricade a road. They ran for cover after riot police appeared around Chater Garden and raised yellow warning flags, telling demonstrators that they should disperse because they were participating in an illegal assembly.
Two officers were bleeding from the head after a group of “rioters” attacked them with wooden sticks, police said in a statement, adding that some also lobbed water bottles and other objects at law enforcement. Others threw paint bombs at buildings in the Central business district, according to police.
Several young protesters were handcuffed outside the park, as officers made arrests and conducted searches into the evening. One man who refused to be searched retreated into a public restroom that was promptly surrounded by riot police.
Ng, senior superintendent of police operations in the Hong Kong Island region, told reporters that authorities had no choice but to call an end to the rally in light of the “rampant rioting.” He described the two attacked officers as “community relations officers” who were sent to Chater Garden as a “gesture of goodwill.”
___
Associated Press writer Yanan Wang in Beijing and photographer Ng Han Guan in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Violence escalates in Beirut as protesters clash with police

BEIRUT (AP) — Security forces fired tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets in clashes Sunday with hundreds of anti-government protesters outside Lebanon's Parliament, as violence continued to escalate in a week of rioting.

apnews.com

Violence escalates in Beirut as protesters clash with police
By SARAH EL DEEB and ANDREA ROSA
2 hours ago

BEIRUT (AP) — Security forces fired tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets in clashes Sunday with hundreds of anti-government protesters outside Lebanon’s Parliament, as violence continued to escalate in a week of rioting.
At least 114 people were injured in the protests, according to the Red Cross and the Lebanese Civil Defense teams, with 47 taken to hospitals for treatment. Most of the wounds were from rubber bullets, some in the face and upper body, an Associated Press reporter said. Among the injured from rubber bullets were at least two journalists, including one from the local TV station Al-Jadeed news who was struck in the hand.
Demonstrators threw rocks and other projectiles and even shot a stream of fire from ignited aerosol cans. Security forces responded with tear gas and water cannons before turning to rubber bullets to try to disperse the crowds. A few protesters tried to climb metal barriers separating them from the riot police. Hundreds more, some chanting “Revolution,” gathered farther down the blocked street that leads to the Parliament in central Beirut.

Army troops were deployed to the area briefly, and the violence stopped as protesters cheered the troops. But the army pulled out minutes later, and the clashes resumed with security forces barricaded behind the barriers.
By late Sunday night, security forces and army troops were deployed in large formations to the blocked streets. Amid a downpour of rain and the advance of security forces, protesters retreated and the situation calmed in central Beirut. Army patrols briefly roamed the streets to prevent protesters from returning to outside the Parliament.
During the rioting, protesters smashed the windows of two stores affiliated with an outgoing minister from the government they had accused of corruption. In one of the stores, a telecommunication company, the protesters smashed the windows and trashed the contents of the store as security alarms blared.
Security forces reinforced the metal barriers surrounding the Parliament building earlier in the day, after the worst night of violence since the unrest erupted several months ago.
There were nine hours of street battles with security forces Saturday as some protesters tried to scale the barriers. Those clashes left at least 377 people injured, the Red Cross and the Lebanese Civil Defense said. More than 120 were treated in hospitals, including a protester with an eye injury, as well as members of the security forces. Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces said 142 of its members were injured, including seven officers, some with serious concussions.
Lawyers defending protesters said 43 were arrested Saturday, including two minors. They said 11 were released the same day, and the other 32 were released Sunday, pending investigation. Most of the detainees were beaten while in custody, the lawyers added.
The military made a show of force Sunday, with large numbers deployed in downtown Beirut and in southern Lebanon, patrolling ahead of the rallies. Riot police were in the front line guarding the Parliament.
The clashes took place amid a rapidly worsening financial crisis and an ongoing impasse over the formation of a new government. Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the rest of the government resigned in late October. Prime Minister-designate Hassan Diab had been expected to announce a new 18-member Cabinet on Sunday after meeting with President Michel Aoun, but there was no announcement after a 90-minute meeting, signaling another delay among the fractious political leaders.

The protests, which began in October, took a violent turn last week as popular frustration began to rise. Demonstrators say the political elite has ignored their calls for forming an independent government to tackle the deepening crisis.
“We don’t accept the government the way they are forming it. They are using the old method to form the government ... so it’s not acceptable,” said protester Jil Samaha. “We want a different way of forming a government.”
Demonstrators have been rallying against those who have held power since the end of the 1975-90 civil war. They blame politicians for widespread corruption and mismanagement in a country that has accumulated one of the largest debt ratios in the world.
Panic and anger have gripped the public as the Lebanese pound, pegged to the dollar for more than two decades, plummeted in value. It lost more than 60% of its value in recent weeks on the black market. The economy has seen no growth and flows of foreign currency dried up in the already heavily indebted country that relies on imports for most basic goods.
Protesters targeted commercial banks, which have imposed informal capital controls, limiting the withdrawal of dollars and foreign transfers.
Interior Minister Raya El Hassan on Saturday condemned the attacks on security forces and public and private property as “totally unacceptable.”
However, Human Rights Watch described the response by the security forces as “brutal,” and called for an urgent end to a “culture of impunity” for police abuse.
“There was no justification for the brutal use of force unleashed by Lebanon’s riot police against largely peaceful demonstrators in downtown Beirut,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at HRW.
Security forces and the military had prepared for more violence by blocking access to some buildings in central Beirut with razor wire, and closing access to areas that included a popular tourist site. Workers also welded fencing together across roads leading to Parliament.
On Beirut’s rain-dampened streets early in the day, shopkeepers, banks and other businesses swept up broken glass and boarded up windows. Workers at one bank took down a large sign to remove any identification to avoid angering protesters, who smashed the windows and the facade of Lebanon’s Banking Association headquarters with metal bars on Saturday night. The demonstrators widely blame financial institutions, alongside government corruption, for the crippling economic crisis.
Soot and ashes still littered the ground where security forces burned the tents of the protesters who staged a sit-in.
___
Associated Press writers David Rising and Dalal Mawad in Beirut contributed.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Cyprus blasts 'pirate state' Turkey's new gas drilling bid

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus on Sunday denounced Turkey as a “pirate state" that flouts international law as Turkey's bid to drill for natural gas in waters where Cyprus has economic rights rekindled tensions over energy reserves in the eastern Mediterranean. Cyprus said Turkey was now...

apnews.com

Cyprus blasts ‘pirate state’ Turkey’s new gas drilling bid

By MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS
today

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus on Sunday denounced Turkey as a “pirate state” that flouts international law as Turkey’s bid to drill for natural gas in waters where Cyprus has economic rights rekindled tensions over energy reserves in the eastern Mediterranean.
Cyprus said Turkey was now attempting to drill inside an exploration area, or block, south of the ethnically split Mediterranean island nation that’s already licensed to energy companies Eni of Italy and Total of France.
This would be Turkey’s fourth such drilling effort since last July when it dispatched a pair or warship-escorted drill ships to the island’s west and east. It would also mark the second time a Turkish ship was drilling in a block licensed to Eni and Total.

Overall, the two energy companies hold licenses to carry out a hydrocarbons search in seven of Cyprus’ 13 blocks off its south coast. Other companies holding such licenses include ExxonMobil and partner Qatar Petroleum, as well as Texas-based Noble Energy and Israeli partner Delek.
Cyprus said despite emerging energy-based partnerships among the countries in the eastern Mediterranean, Turkey has opted to “go down a path of international illegality” of its own accord. It said Turkey has “provocatively ignored” repeated European Union calls to stop its illegal activities.
The EU has also adopted a mechanism to sanction individuals or companies involved in illegal drilling off Cyprus.
Greece’s foreign ministry said in a statement Sunday that Turkey’s latest action comes on top of numerous violations of international law in the wider region that aim “to serve expansionist aspirations.”
The ministry said in a statement that such breaches of international law won’t be made legal no matter how many times they’re repeated.
Turkey, however, insists it’s protecting its rights and interests, and those of breakaway Turkish Cypriots, to the region’s energy resources. It says it’s carrying out drilling activities as part of an agreement with the Turkish Cypriots.
Cyprus was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of union with Greece. A Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence in the island’s northern third is recognized only by Turkey. Cyprus joined the EU in 2004, but only the southern part, seat of the island’s internationally-recognized government, enjoys membership.
Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said Sunday that Turkish Cypriots have as much right to the island’s gas deposits as Greek Cypriots and that “no one should doubt” that Ankara would continue safeguarding their rights.
Aksoy said a Turkish Cypriot proposal to share potential gas revenues remains in play. He also blasted the EU for “double standards” in its approach to Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots, whose “existence and rights” he said the bloc ignores.
The Cyprus government dismissed Turkey’s assertions of protecting Turkish Cypriot rights as “cynical and hypocritical” since Ankara claims 44% of the island’s exclusive economic zone as its own.
It also said any gas exploration deal that Turkey has signed with Turkish Cypriots is legally invalid according to U.N. resolutions.
The Cypriot government said Turkish Cypriot interests are protected by an investment fund approved last year for potential gas proceeds.

 

[jward]

Ri Yong Ho replaced as N. Korea's top diplomat: report
January 19, 2020 (Mainichi Japan)

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho is pictured at Beijing's airport in December 2018. (Kyodo)
BEIJING (Kyodo) -- North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, a career diplomat, has been replaced, North Korea-focused news site NK News reported Sunday, possibly signaling a shift in the country's dealings with Washington and Seoul.

Ri, who served as North Korea's top diplomat since 2016, has been succeeded by Ri Son Gwon, head of the Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, a state agency in charge of handling inter-Korean affairs, the report said, citing multiple unnamed sources in Pyongyang.

Ri Yong Ho did not appear in a group photo of top officials of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea following a meeting of its Central Committee at the end of last year, sparking questions about his status.

Some speculated whether he was dismissed over the ongoing deadlock in denuclearization negotiations between North Korea and the United States.

North Korean ambassadors including those to China and the United Nations have in recent days returned to Pyongyang, possibly for a meeting of the country's senior diplomatic corps following the change at the top of the ministry.

Ri Son Gwon is a former officer in the Korean People's Army.

Posted for fair use

Ri Yong Ho replaced as N. Korea's top diplomat: report - The Mainichi

BEIJING (Kyodo) -- North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, a career diplomat, has been replaced, North Korea-focused news site NK News reported Sund

mainichi.jp

 

[jward]

Iran will go beyond missile strikes to avenge Soleimani
And that will cause even more instability in the Middle East and beyond.
by Sara Bazoobandi
1 hour ago

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After the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani on January 3, many feared a major war would break out in the Middle East. Iran's retaliation came quickly but it did not provoke a conflict.
On January 8, two bases hosting US and coalition troops were hit by a barrage of missiles. Many perceived the attack as a sign of de-escalation as it did not result in human loss and the Iraqi authorities were warned about it in advance.

Since then, Tehran has been sending contradictory signals about the country's next move in this crisis. While Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced that the attacks "concluded proportionate measures in self-defence", Esmail Qaani, the new commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), declared that Iran will hit its "enemy in a manly fashion".

On January 17, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei outlined the way forward for Iran. In a rare speech during Friday prayers in Tehran, he called the Quds Force, "the fighters without border", declared that the European Union should not be trusted "because of their track record and their support for Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War", and called on Iranians to put their collective efforts into "strengthening themselves in every aspect".

Khamenei's speech signals that Iran will likely seek to avoid a full-scale war and adopt the following strategy: start advancing its nuclear capacity and seek to continue power projection abroad through the Quds Force and its regional allies.

In the aftermath of the assassination, Iran announced that it was abandoning nuclear deal limits. On January 15, European countries triggered a dispute mechanism that can lead to the return of the United Nations sanctions on Iran. The Iranian authorities could respond by quitting the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which will pose a set of serious risks for the West and the Middle East.

Apart from that, Iran could seek to escalate tensions in the region through its political and military allies.

In its campaign to resist US presence in the region, Tehran has invested heavily in various armed groups. Over the past decade, under the leadership of Soleimani, the IRGC has mobilised and equipped tens of thousands of fighters in the region (mainly in Iraq and Syria).

Groups such as Kata'ib Hezbollah, Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, Badr, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, Kata'ib al-Imam Ali, Liwa Zeinabiyoun, Liwa Fatemiyoun, Quwat Imam al-Baqir, Liwa al-Sayyida Ruqayya, and Quwat al-Ridha have been receiving Iranian material support and strategic guidance.

This is in addition to a strong alliance with Hezbollah in Lebanon and strategic engagement with the Houthis in Yemen.

On January 7, the supreme leader ordered the allocation of an additional $220m budget for the Quds Force, part of which will probably be dedicated to strengthening these Iranian-backed armed groups.

In the aftermath of the assassination of Soleimani, the IRGC threatened to attack the city of Haifa in Israel and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, in the event of an attack on Iranian soil.

The risk of retaliatory attacks by Iranian proxies across the region will remain high. Iranian-backed militias are determined to fight US forces. Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah warned that US "military bases, soldiers, officers, and warships" will be targeted.

Iran's desire for revenge will also affect the region politically.

In Syria, where Iran has had an uncomfortable partnership with Russia, the IRGC will likely seek to further entrench its presence. Russian attempts to curb Iranian military presence in response to US and Israeli calls may not be successful. In Yemen, Iran will also seek to secure its gains as an "indispensable diplomatic stakeholder".

In Iraq, Iran will continue to exert influence over internal political affairs, which will lead to further destabilisation as the country tries to cope with major political unrest.

Already suffering from major divisions, Iraq will likely see cleavages between supporters and opponents of Iran deepen. On January 5, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution obliging the government "to work towards ending the presence of all foreign troops on Iraqi soil". The Kurdish and some of the Sunni members of the parliament did not attend the parliamentary session that approved this decision.

Many Shia political and religious leaders are in favour of the departure of foreign forces, but the US military presence is an integral element of the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) security, especially in the aftermath of the 2017 independence referendum. Thus the push to expel US troops will become another point of contention between Baghdad and Erbil.

Soleimani's assassination also prompted calls for unity among Shia forces in Iraq which, until recently, were divided over the Iraqi protests. This means the demands by the protesters for political reform and desectarianisation of the political system are unlikely to be met. This will likely complicate the government formation efforts in coming months and could further exacerbate tensions between the various ethno-religious components of the country.

In Lebanon, the fallout of Soleimani's killing is also likely to be felt. Hezbollah is the most important strategic asset of the Islamic republic in the region and therefore, it is likely to continue its financial support of the group.

Like Iraq, Lebanon is experiencing social upheaval, with protesters demanding an overhaul of the political system. A stronger Hezbollah will likely be more assertive in its political negotiations with other forces within the country, especially as Saudi Arabia, the main backer of former Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, has indicated it does not wish to escalate against Iran.

In the Gulf, the escalation in the US-Iran confrontation has caused much anxiety, especially as last year Saudi Arabia and the UAE witnessed Iran's military capabilities with the drone strikes on Aramco and the attacks on tankers near the Strait of Hormuz.

Fearing for their key oil sectors and economic stability, both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have made it clear that they want to avoid any further escalation with Iran.

After the assassination of Soleimani, Prince Khalid bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's deputy defence minister, travelled to Washington and London to meet with political and defence officials to express the need for de-escalation.

Saudi Arabia has reduced its airstrikes in Yemen and emphasised that the Houthis can assume a role in the future Yemeni government. Before his resignation in November, Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi had taken the role of a mediator between Riyadh and Tehran, actively facilitating negotiations for a de-escalation between the two. Although, this has not been confirmed by either Saudi Arabia or Iran, it seems to be the only expected approach for the Saudi leaders in the coming months.

The UAE also recently initiated negotiations with Tehran to re-establish diplomatic and possibly economic collaboration. The Emiratis have already started to scale back their military involvement in Yemen by pulling out their troops in the summer of 2019.

In October, reports surfaced that Emirati officials visited Tehran to spearhead talks for normalisation and de-escalation, and that Abu Dhabi had released $700m in Iranian funds previously frozen due to the US sanctions.

By contrast, Qatar has maintained good relations with Iran, which supported it during the blockade initiated by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain. Doha has made long-standing efforts to act as a mediator and partner for its big neighbour. Just a day after Soleimani's assassination, Qatar's Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani travelled to Tehran to seek to de-escalate tensions. A week later, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani also visited the Iranian capital and called for a dialogue.

Despite efforts to mediate by Qatar and others in the region, more instability and confrontation is on the horizon.

In his keynote speech at the last Doha Forum in December 2019, Iran's Zarif said the Middle East was afflicted by a "cognitive disorder" which has caused countries to perceive security as a zero-sum game - ensuring one's security by depriving one's neighbours of it - and to pursue ever-growing weapons deals.

The problem is that Iran's overall strategy in the region does not really differ from this "cognitive disorder". And the assassination of Soleimani has opened a new chapter in its confrontation with the West. A withdrawal from the nuclear deal will only deepen the crisis.

posted for fair use

Iran will go beyond missile strikes to avenge Soleimani

And that will cause even more instability in the Middle East and beyond.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Catalan ex-police chief on trial for role in secession bid

MADRID (AP) — The former head of Catalonia's regional police and three others are standing trial on charges of rebellion and sedition for their alleged roles in the illegal bid by the Catalan regional government to break away from Spain in 2017.

apnews.com

Catalan ex-police chief on trial for role in secession bid
Associated Press
yesterday

MADRID (AP) — The former head of Catalonia’s regional police and three others are standing trial on charges of rebellion and sedition for their alleged roles in the illegal bid by the Catalan regional government to break away from Spain in 2017.

The trial starting Monday in the National Court could inflame secessionist sentiment again in Catalonia after several weeks of calm in the northeastern region. It also comes as new Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez promises to try to resolve the regional conflict with political talks rather than legal actions.

The state prosecution has asked for former Mossos police chief Josep Lluís Trapero to be sentenced to 11 years on charges of rebellion for allegedly conniving with regional authorities in the failed secession push led by former Catalan regional President Carles Puigdemont and his deputy, Oriol Junqueras.

Puigdemont, now a European Parliament member, fled Spain to Belgium following the push. Spain is seeking his extradition. Junqueras and eight other Catalan politicians and activists received prison sentences last October for their roles.

Also charged with rebellion are former Catalan regional interior ministry official, César Puig and former regional police director, Pere Soler. Senior regional police officer Teresa Laplana is charged with sedition.

The trial is expected to last two months and several of those in prison are expected to testify.
___
This story has been corrected to show that the name of the Catalan ex-regional police chief is Josep Lluís Trapero, not José Luis Trapero.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Iraq’s sidelined Sunnis weigh options amid US-Iran conflict

Iraq’s Sunni politicians, who are facing great challenges in managing areas still recovering from the damage caused by the Islamic State, worry that Iran-US tensions will have an added negative effect.

www.al-monitor.com

Iraq Pulse

Iraq’s sidelined Sunnis weigh options amid US-Iran conflict



Shelly Kittleson
January 20, 2020

Article Summary

Iraq’s Sunni politicians, who are facing great challenges in managing areas still recovering from the damage caused by the Islamic State, worry that Iran-US tensions will have an added negative effect.

Facebook/mohammad.alkarboli
Mohammed al-Karbouli (L), a prominent Sunni member of the Iraqi parliament, meets with representatives of a youth program in Baghdad. Posted Dec. 22, 2019.




BAGHDAD — As tensions between the United States and Iran escalated in recent weeks, Iraqi Sunnis have for the most part simply watched warily and wearily.
Sunni and Kurdish members of parliament largely boycotted a Jan. 5 parliamentary session on a resolution urging the government to force foreign armed forces out after the outcry that followed a US drone attack at the Baghdad airport that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani and Kataib Hezbollah militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
“We told them at that time that yes, you (Shiite parties) are the majority and we do not hate you. But is this the right decision, against the US, now?” prominent Sunni member of parliament Mohammed al-Karbouli told Al-Monitor in an extended interview in the Iraqi capital Jan. 14.
“And now they are all in Iran and talking there. Engaging in negotiations there, with Iran. And they are saying we simply want to put someone in place as leader and then we will prepare for another election,” he said.
Also read



Iraq bank to 'stop' Iran gas payment transfers if US waiver ends: chairman




Before the killing of Muhandis, “We were speaking for hours daily about the constitution” as a result of the protesters’ demands, “while now there is a constitutional void and the way Shiites consider themselves rulers of the country will lead the country to collapse.”
Karbouli stressed the need for a strategy behind whatever decision is made and not simply reactions followed by stronger reactions. “If the coalition forces are forced to leave, then we must find alternatives and we must know how to deal with them,” he said. “If the coalition forces remain, then they must remain with only the specific powers granted to them by Iraq.”
“The western region of Anbar, Salahuddin and Ninevah,” provinces all inhabited mainly by Sunnis, “are large areas and contain many Islamic State [IS] hideouts. It will be impossible for the army to deal with them alone in the future” without outside assistance, he said.
“There was a kidnapping recorded a few days ago in the Qaim area. IS fighters attacked a group of civilians and kidnapped three of them. The lack of stability in Syria and in the wider region will be a major problem. We expelled IS from our regions physically but the mentality is still there,” he warned.
In reference to the idea of possibly forming a “Sunni autonomous region” along the lines of the Kurdistan Regional Government area, Karbouli said, “Clearly, we believe in the unity of Iraq” but that “they think an autonomous region means the division of Iraq. I think, personally, that it could be a way to rebuild the country.” He added that the Iraqi Constitution allows for the creation of autonomous regions.
“The central government failed to rebuild the country and make it strong again. It has failed since 2003 in the south and center” and the recent protests in those Shiite-majority areas are “the result of these failures, including the failure to create employment,” he said.
During the interview, the three-time and current member of parliament addressed several issues important to Sunnis, especially in his native Anbar province.
Anbar constitutes roughly a third of Iraq's territory but is sparsely populated. It is, however, rich in untapped resources, Karbouli said.
Anbar is also where Iran-backed, Shiite-led armed groups are accused of committing massacres of civilians and where a major demand remains finding out what happened to men who were forcibly disappeared.
Another member of parliament from Anbar, Yahia al-Mohamedy, who also sits on the legal committee of the lawmaking body, told Al-Monitor in an interview that one of the primary demands of the people in his hometown of Saqlawiyah is to know what happened to the Sunni men and boys who went missing after security forces separated them from women for checks there and at the Razaza checkpoint during the battle against IS. Thousands were never heard from again, he said.
Mohamedy said several of his friends disappeared at that time, including a teacher he had gone to school with, and that Iranian-backed armed groups answering to Iraqi Shiite political leaders stand accused of being behind their disappearance.
That Iraqi Sunnis feel they are treated as “second-class citizens” was voiced by both Mohamedy and Karbouli.
There are differences between Sunni areas, however, including how they were treated during the war against IS.
In Anbar, some of the local Popular Mobilization Units were trained and equipped by coalition forces; however, local fighting groups in Salahuddin have told this reporter that when they asked for help from the United States against IS, they did not get it. Iran, instead, stepped in.
Yazan al-Jabouri, whose local Sunni-led PMU in Salahuddin was widely known for having received arms from Iran and support from Iran-backed Iraqi politicians, scoffed at what he said is a ridiculous idea by Sunni politicians for more autonomy.
“We fought IS with all its military power and crushed its project to create a Sunni region,” he told Al-Monitor in a WhatsApp conversation.
“I don’t think that some politicians with their childish play supported by a Gulf country can succeed in such a game,” he said. He did not want to discuss the tensions between the United States and Iran.
Karbouli told Al-Monitor that Iraqi Sunnis, in general, prefer state control of the military, while Shiite-led PMU tend toward more militia-style organizations.
He said Aaly al-Furat Brigade, a local PMU in his native Qaim along the Syrian border, takes orders from the army, “even though it got training and equipment from the coalition and help from me. I helped it but they don’t take orders from me.”
Shiite-led PMUs, on the other hand, get government's salaries but do not take orders from the government, he said.
He said they listen only to their original armed group’s commander, such as Muhandis for Kataib Hezbollah or Qais Khazali for Asaib Ahl al-Haq. Khazali recently was designated a terrorist by the United States.
Karbouli said that although it was “the Shiites that included the possibility of creating autonomous regions in the constitution, now that it goes against their interests they oppose it.”
But he said this may still be an option to help rebuild the country starting from its constituent regions if other parts of the constitution continue to be ignored.

Found in: Institution building, Iran-US tensions




Shelly Kittleson is a journalist specializing in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Her work has been published in several international, US and Italian media outlets.

Read more: Iraq’s sidelined Sunnis weigh options amid US-Iran conflict

 

[Housecarl]

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Gangs of Baghdad - Modern War Institute

I passed a checkpoint manned by a group of young men armed with assault rifles. But they weren’t like the Iraqi soldiers at other checkpoints. They didn’t really wear uniforms, […]

mwi.usma.edu

Gangs of Baghdad

John Spencer | January 21, 2020

I passed a checkpoint manned by a group of young men armed with assault rifles. But they weren’t like the Iraqi soldiers at other checkpoints. They didn’t really wear uniforms, their bearing was distinctly un-military, and they looked mean. These guys are shady, I thought. One of them—the leader—sat at plastic table in front of a small coffee shop working to open pistachio nuts, slowly and methodically, almost like a grazing cow, yet still exuding extreme power. On the table lay a brand-new black Glock 9-millimeter pistol and a pile of saliva-soaked shells. He was dressed in a purple Adidas jumpsuit, which he probably chose because it was the standard apparel militia members and criminals in Baghdad, but also perhaps because it covered his large belly comfortably. Between the sinister-looking checkpoint guards and their leader, I couldn’t have imagined a scene more reminiscent of a gangster movie if I had tried. But this wasn’t a movie, and he wasn’t Tony Soprano. His name was Ahmed, and he and others like him were in many ways the hope of the US military in Iraq.

It was 2008 and I was an Army infantry company commander charged with creating lasting security, governance, and stability in three neighborhoods of Baghdad containing more than seventy-five thousand residents. Ahmed was one of my five local strongmen that had the power to bring together and, more importantly, command small bands of men to stand checkpoint duties at every entrance in and out of the separate neighborhoods. In total there were thirteen checkpoints, each manned with roughly ten local men called “Sons of Iraq” by Iraqi and US officials. The ten men were split into three shifts for twenty-four-hour coverage. We armed them with AK-47 assault rifles, ammunition, and radios.

These checkpoint guards were supposed to stop and search any vehicles coming into each of the different neighborhoods. We weren’t foolish. We knew they only searched cars while we were visiting the checkpoints. But the guards still served an important purpose: they maintained a degree of justice and order at the neighborhood level. They also kept outsiders out, something they could do easily and far better than US forces or even formal Iraqi security forces, with their far more intimate knowledge of who belonged and who did not.

I went to visit these men almost every day. At the time, the leaders seemed like five mob bosses. Even reflecting on it many times in the years since, I can think of no better way to describe them. When I first met each of the mob bosses, I had definite reservations. They exuded power and demonstrated a clear apathy toward legitimate law and order. And yet, they provided a certain guarantee of this law and order, and most importantly, of security—even if they did so only out of self-interest. During my visits with them I witnessed the true local power structure. I listened to reports of bad men operating in other neighborhoods, but I also received real information on insurgents that could be submitted to my higher headquarters for action. These five men were also part of a broader network of shady individuals across Baghdad that gave us information when it benefited them.

I didn’t fear them, but let’s just say if I came across any of them in any other context, I would know to keep my distance. We knew they were bad. But the mission was to provide lasting security and stability, and these men could do that.

Every month, I would go meet the leaders and hand over the money for the guards’ monthly salaries, in US currency: three crisp hundred-dollar bills per guard. The leaders would, of course, take their cut of the salaries and distribute the money as they saw fit. At one point, my higher headquarters attempted to bypass that working system by having me and my soldiers run pay days and hand $300 to each checkpoint guard directly. We received reports that the guards left us and went straight to the bosses to submit their required cuts.

I also frequently visited the police stations—ostensibly the legitimate guarantors of order in the three neighborhoods my company was responsible for. But police in Iraq aren’t like American police. They don’t patrol neighborhoods. They expected locals to come to them to report a problem. They also knew that what went on in each neighborhood was managed by the local strongman. If they had a low-level problem, I even saw them go to these bosses for resolution.

At the height of the American “surge” in Iraq, the US military employed more than a hundred thousand Sons of Iraq. Their origin story is usually told by pointing to Anbar province, where Sunni tribal leaders became disenchanted with al-Qaeda’s heavy-handed treatment of their people and formed bands of loyal family members as an armed resistance against the group. This, combined with an increase in American forces, is credited with the lowering of sectarian violence to acceptable levels in the province. Initially dubbed “Concerned Local Citizens,” they were later given the more heroic-sounding Sons of Iraq label, and the model was replicated elsewhere in the country, ultimately leading to claims that these groups were pivotal to achieving success in Iraq.

This, however, was not the story of my Sons of Iraq. In the urban neighborhoods of Baghdad, traditional, tribal bases of power didn’t exert the same influence they did in Anbar. It was brute strength that earned power and gangs that exercised authority. I often asked the men on the checkpoints if they knew who their tribal leaders were. Without exception, they did not. But they feared the strongmen and respected the new lines of control that separated the different neighborhoods.

Not only were they not motivated by an emergent Iraqi national identity or a desire to shed the yoke of transnational terrorist groups. These hired guns were also not good guys. Many had attacked US soldiers for profit. One of the five leaders had served time for emplacing improvised explosive devices on roads to target American and Iraq security forces. I had more than one conversation with my soldiers who knew some of these men might have had blood on their hands. But now they worked for us, I had to explain. And we needed them.

Baghdad looked a lot more like Gangs of New York than Saving Private Ryan.

The world is now more urban than rural—and that trend is continuing rapidly. The United Nations estimates that 180,000 people move to a city every day. This, combined with continued global population growth, is projected to add 2.5 billion people to the world’s urban population by 2050, mostly to the developing world. Unfortunately, some cities unable to handle rapid growth in the developing world—such as Lagos, Nigeria, for example—have more than 70 percent of their populations living in slums. Globally, over one billion of the world’s seven billion humans live in slums. Many of these areas have effectively become self-governed criminal safe havens, like the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.

While the world has become more urban, so has political violence, which is also now more prevalent in urban than rural areas. Guerrillas, revolutionaries, and terrorists increasingly choose to hide in urban terrain, where population density provides sanctuary from government observation and technology, access to millions for easy recruitment and use as human shields, and freedom to foment political dissent (often violently) against governments that struggle to provide even rudimentary services.

And yet, the US military knows little about alternative power structures in cities and undertakes little planning for how they can be leveraged, despite our recent history in Iraq of—let’s call it what it is—working with gangs. I have written extensively and critically about the US military’s lack of attention to urban environments. There isn’t a single US military command, think tank, school, or training site solely dedicated to understanding large cities. That’s a problem, but it isn’t just the traditional “military” challenges cities pose or their physical complexity that we need to more closely examine and prepare for. It is also how power is wielded, often informally, on their streets and among their people. That’s why Gen. Stephen Townsend said in 2018 that the US Army needs a way to understand power all the way down to the neighborhood level.

The US military has a history of trying to impose its power on cities—in Saigon, Panama City, Mogadishu, Kabul, and Baghdad, for instance—typically with mediocre results. This approach would almost certainly fail in any of the world’s more than thirty megacities, those with over ten million residents. The power structures of the world’s major cities are as diverse as the cities themselves.

Our military needs to be able to understand and work with both legitimate and illegitimate sources of power in urban areas. Just understanding host-nation political and military capabilities will not suffice. That might mean working with some unsavory characters, which is uncomfortable. But we needed those unsavory characters in Baghdad, and we will almost certainly need others elsewhere in the future to achieve objectives against insurgents, terrorists, transnational drug cartels, or any other belligerents threatening local security, regional stability, or US national-security interests.

It’s natural to have moral qualms about these types of partners. There are even legal considerations at play: the “Leahy law” prohibits the United States from providing funding to any unit of a security force that has committed a “gross violation of human rights.” But of course, this principally applies to formal military units. And in any case, there’s a whole host of distasteful criminal activities that fall short of the threshold specified by the law. The US Army and Marine Corps’ most current urban-operations doctrine recognizes that working with illegitimate power sources of questionable character is sometimes required. Still, it only includes one line pertaining to that possibility, which states that “in unique circumstances, commanders identify and interact with the leadership of criminal organizations.” The unique may very well become the routine on the future urban battlefield.

The five bosses and their crews manning checkpoints in the neighborhoods I was responsible for in Baghdad got results and increased security, so I had to accept that they were my partners. Soldiers in the future will need to do the same in order to accomplish US objectives. The world is moving to cities, and so is warfare. We need to adapt to that reality and prepare to leverage power, even in its illegitimate and criminal forms, in these complex operating environments.



John W. Spencer is chair of urban warfare studies with the Modern War Institute at West Point and co-director of its Urban Warfare Project. He previously served as a fellow with the chief of staff of the Army’s Strategic Studies Group. He served twenty-four years as an infantry soldier, which included two combat tours in Iraq.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Lockheed Job Listing Offers New Details About Long-Range Ground-Launched Hypersonic Weapon

The Operational Fires system is intended to be a tactical weapon for the Army and could help in clearing paths for follow-on air and missile strikes.

www.thedrive.com

Lockheed Job Listing Offers New Details About Long-Range Ground-Launched Hypersonic Weapon
The Operational Fires system is intended to be a tactical weapon for the Army and could help in clearing paths for follow-on air and missile strikes.
By Joseph Trevithick
January 20, 2020

A Lockheed Martin job posting has offered new details about the design and development schedule of a tactical, ground-launched hypersonic weapon that the U.S. Army and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are working on together. The company won the contract to proceed to the third phase of this program, known as Operational Fires, or OpFires, two weeks ago.
Steve Trimble, Aviation Week's defense editor and good friend of The War Zone spotted the job opening for a "Staff SRM [solid rocket motor] Propulsion Engineer" at Lockheed Martin's facility in Grand Prairie, Texas, on Jan. 20, 2020, and shared it on Twitter. The posting itself is dated Dec. 17, 2019. This was in advance of the Maryland-headquartered defense giant officially getting the Phase 3 OpFires contract, worth just under $32 million, on Jan. 10. Phase 1 had wrapped up in 2019 and Phase 2, which involves further development and testing of various components of the system, is ongoing now. Phase 3 will involve Lockheed Martin integrating the various pieces into a complete weapon system and conducting an end-to-end test, presently scheduled to take place in 2022.




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"The [OpFires] Program will be entering Phase 3, Weapon System Integration and Demonstration Phase, a three-phase effort for integrated system design, development, and flight test," the job listing says. "The propulsion engineer will need to have the ability to work with different suppliers, including the ability to evaluate the designs and technologies of motors in the 32-inch diameter size, and make recommendations for down-select on both rocket motor stages to both internal and external (DARPA) customers."

The intended "payload" in the OpFires system will be an unpowered hypersonic boost-glide vehicle. The rocket booster will propel it to an optimal altitude and speed, after which it will glide in a relatively level trajectory inside the atmosphere to its target at extremely high speeds.

DARPA
An artist's conception of the OpFires system in action.
The job posting further explains that Phase 3 will include two separate competitions to pick solid-fuel rocket motors for both the first and the second stage of the Lockheed Martin's OpFires weapon design. It says that the first stage will have a traditional rocket motor, while the second stage will feature one with throttleable thrust.
"The second stage motor development has been ongoing for DARPA as part of their Phase 2 activity, and the continued development of the second stage will transfer to Lockheed Martin oversight during Phase 3a – with a down-select of the current 3 designs," Lockheed Martin's job notice says. In October 2019, DARPA released video footage that showed subscale rocket motor tests that Aerojet Rocketdyne, a team consisting of Exquadrum and Dynetics, and the Sierra Nevada Corporation had conducted as part of Phase 1.







Outwardly, OpFires is similar, in broad strokes, to the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), another road-mobile system that the Army is developing separately in cooperation with the U.S. Air Force and Navy, which you can read about in more detail in this past War Zone story. However, the LRHW will use the Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB), a conical, unpowered hypersonic boost-glide vehicle, as its warhead. The Air Force's air-launched AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) and the Navy's submarine-launched Intermediate-Range Conventional Prompt Strike (IR-CPS) weapon will also use this joint-service boost-glide vehicle.
OpFires will use its two-stage rocket to launch DARPA's Tactical Boost Glide (TBG) hypersonic boost-glide vehicle, instead. TBG is a more complex half-cone design, which aims to be faster, more maneuverable, and have greater accuracy than the C-HGB.

DARPA
An artist's conception of DARPA's previousl Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2). The Tactical Boost Glide vehicle is reportedly similar to this design.

US Army
A rendering of a conical hypersonic boost-glide vehicle the US Army had developed under the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon program. The Common Hypersonic Glide Body is reportedly a similar design.
Ostensibly, the general mission of OpFires is similar to that of LRHW, as well. The goal of the road-mobile OpFires is to provide valuable long-range strike capability, especially against time-sensitive targets. The range and speed that a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle offers, as well as its ability to maneuver in the atmosphere to dodge defenses and otherwise hit targets from unpredictable vectors, present obvious benefits to commanders on the ground. DARPA has said in the past, that the TBG vehicle could have a maximum speed of up to Mach 20, giving it the ability to hit opponents thousands of miles away in a matter of minutes.
OpFires promises to be more capable and flexible than LRHW, because of the half-cone hypersonic boost-glide vehicle and, perhaps more importantly, the throttleable rocket motor. This is significant because the ability to throttle back the second-stage rocket motor means that this weapon system could have a shorter minimum range, meaning it could engage threats closer to the launch site, as well as a broader overall engagement envelope. Being able to hit widely different ranges with extreme speed and accuracy with the same weapon system would be very useful in a variety of operational scenarios, especially in any future distributed operations, where friendly forces may be situated across an especially broad area.

OpFires is a novel concept. Ground-launched like LRHW, but with a throttled upper-stage booster, so greater flexibility for shorter-range targets. Aerojet, Exquadrum and Sierra Nevada are competing to supply upper-stage atop 32-inch diameter lower stage. Front-end comes from TBG.
— Steve Trimble (@TheDEWLine) January 15, 2020​

One of the most readily apparent uses for OpFires would be as a ground-based tool to suppress or destroy hostile air and missiles defenses, mission sets also referred to as SEAD/DEAD, clearing the way for follow-on strikes by friendly aircraft and air-, sea-, or ground-launched missiles. Though any asset can perform this mission, aircraft and cruise missiles are the tools the U.S. most commonly employs for SEAD/DEAD operations. Using aircraft is inherently risky, even for modern stealth combat aircraft with standoff weapons, and existing cruise missiles are also slower and more vulnerable to hostile defenses than future systems, such as OpFires.
The Army is already exploring how it might be able to use existing and future stand-off ground-based strike capabilities to assist in this mission using targeting information from aerial platforms, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which you can read about in much greater detail in this past War Zone piece. OpFires concept art, seen earlier in this story, shows the use of space-based sensors for standoff targeting, as well.
Phase 2 of OpFires is set to wrap up later this year, after which Lockheed Martin will begin Phase 3 and start actively testing various components and subsystems, including the chosen first and second-stage rocket motors. Those tests are set to continue into 2021 and lead to a Critical Design Review, after which, DARPA and the Army hope that the final design will be ready for actual flight testing in 2022. This is also when the Army intends to test the LRHW for the first time, though the service is planning to rush that system into service, at least to a limited degree, by 2023. When OpFires might actually become operational is unclear.
All of this comes amid a massive surge, in general, in the development of hypersonic weapons across the U.S. military, as well as among potential opponents, such as Russia and China. Still, OpFires is an especially interesting program that promises unique capabilities and flexibility over other hypersonic weapons that the United States has in the works.
Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

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The Drone Beats of War: The U.S. Vulnerability to Targeted Killings - War on the Rocks

The fiery explosions from the recent U.S. drone attack that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani have sent shock waves reverberating across the Middle

warontherocks.com

The Drone Beats of War: The U.S. Vulnerability to Targeted Killings

David Barno and Nora Bensahel
January 21, 2020

Special Series - Strategic Outpost

Editor’s Note: Due to an internal error, we published the near-final version of this article rather than the final version. While the differences between the two drafts are minor, we apologize for the error and have fixed our mistake. The final version of this article is now published below.

The fiery explosions from the recent U.S. drone attack that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani have sent shock waves reverberating across the Middle East. Those same shocks should now be rippling through the American national security establishment too. The strike against the man widely considered the second-most powerful leader of a long-standing U.S. adversary was unprecedented, and its ultimate effects remain unknown. But regardless of what happens next, one thing is certain: The United States has now made it even more likely that American military and civilian leaders will be targeted by future U.S. foes. As a result, the United States will have to dramatically improve the ways in which it protects those leaders and rethink how it commands its forces on the battlefield.
Over the last 20 years, the United States has been able to target and kill specific individuals almost anywhere around the world, by matching an increasingly advanced array of precision weapons with a strikingly effective intelligence system. It has employed this capability frequently, especially across the greater Middle East, as it has sought to eliminate senior leaders of the Taliban insurgency or highly placed terrorists directing jihadist cells. And it has been able to pursue this decapitation strategy with impunity, because it has held a monopoly on this bespoke use of force. Not even the most powerful states could attempt the types of complex targeted strikes that the U.S. military and CIA conducted so routinely.

But U.S. adversaries were watching closely. As advanced technologies inexorably became cheaper and more widely available, the U.S. monopoly on these capabilities started to erode. By 2016, for example, eight countries other than the United States had conducted armed drone attacks, including Iran, Pakistan, and Nigeria. By 2019, Russia and two other countries joined this exclusive club. And at least one non-state actor has already used an armed drone for a targeted killing. According to one estimate, 27 other countries currently possess armed drones while dozens of states and non-state actors have unarmed drones. These capabilities can now be used against specific individuals even in the absence of large intelligence networks, thanks to the constant streams of personal information flowing from personal phones, fitness trackers, and other devices.
The Soleimani strike has given potential U.S. adversaries every reason to accelerate their efforts to develop similar capabilities. Moreover, these same adversaries can now justify their own future targeted killings by invoking this U.S. precedent. Sooner or later — and probably sooner — senior U.S. civilian and military leaders will become vulnerable to the same types of decapitation strikes that the United States has inflicted on others. Enemies will almost certainly attempt to target and kill U.S. officials during any future major war, and such attacks will likely become a part of future irregular conflicts as well. Though such strikes would dangerously escalate any conflict, committed adversaries of the United States may still find that the advantages outweigh the costs, especially if they can plausibly deny responsibility or if the strength of their resolve makes them willing to accept any resulting consequences.
In the face of this growing threat, what does the United States need to do in order to protect its key military and civilian leaders from a potential decapitation strike? Here are some potential first steps.

1. Improve personal protection for senior leaders. The president and the vice president are well protected against a myriad of threats by the Secret Service, but levels of protection quickly diminish for those who work beneath them. A number of senior officials, including cabinet officials and the chiefs of the military services, have their own security details, but those focus primarily on providing traditional physical security. They typically offer little if any protection against newly emerging threats such as a targeted missile attack or swarming suicide drones. Most senior military and civilian leaders have no security at all, and they and their family members (like most other Americans) are constantly emitting electronic signals that give away their location. Improving their protection will require rethinking nearly every aspect of their daily lives, especially their extensive vulnerabilities when traveling. For example, the obtrusive motorcades and conspicuous convoys of black SUVs currently favored by many senior U.S. officials may need to be replaced with lower visibility alternatives, to include employing decoys that travel along multiple routes in high risk situations.

1. Harden key meeting locations, headquarters, and transition points. U.S. adversaries will be particularly interested in targeting locations where numbers of senior military and civilian leaders gather. Many such locations today in the United States and overseas are not sufficiently hardened against attack. The locations of most offices and meeting spaces are either publicly available or easily found, and few are protected from any sort of aerial attack. (At a minimum, senior officials should stop having their photos taken in front of their offices where the room number is clearly visible.) And even hardened command centers usually have key vulnerabilities at entrances and exits, and at exposed transition points between different modes of transportation (such as airfield aprons). Ironically, current U.S. military security measures can unintentionally make leaders more vulnerable in other ways. Shortly after the Soleimani strike, for example, many U.S. military bases imposed stricter security measures at their entry points, including extensive identification checks and reducing the number of open gates. These reflexive measures caused long traffic backups that spilled onto local roads and highways — which made everyone entering the bases far more vulnerable as they sat in these traffic jams. Any senior leader stuck in those lines would have become a remarkably easy target with no clear avenues of escape.

1. Exercise wartime succession in the U.S. military chain of command. Combatant commanders and other senior military officers often use high-level wargames to validate key war plans and operational concepts. Yet most exercises and simulations deliberately avoid removing senior commanders from the battlefield, which reinforces the flawed notion that they will always be in charge. This problem also extends to the tactical level, where commanders of brigades, divisions, and corps are rarely assessed as casualties. Exercises at all levels need to regularly include scenarios where one or more senior commanders are killed or incapacitated, to test succession plans and to ensure that subordinates gain valuable leadership experience.

1. Further decentralize battlefield command and control. The military chain of command necessarily relies upon centralized control, with commanders directing the actions of their subordinates. The U.S. military does decentralize some authority through concepts like mission command, which empower subordinates to make independent decisions about the best ways to achieve the commander’s overall intent. Yet as we’ve written extensively elsewhere, the military’s growing culture of compliance and risk aversion already undermines this critical principle, and modern command and control systems make it far too easy for senior commanders to intervene in routine tactical operations. In an environment where senior commanders can be individually targeted and killed, truly decentralized authority becomes absolutely vital — and even efforts to reinvigorate mission command may no longer be sufficient. One recent article, for example, called for an entirely new, bottom-up approach to command and control that would build resilience and speed by reducing the reliance on a small number of increasingly vulnerable senior leaders.

The U.S. government needs to acknowledge that its senior leaders are becoming more vulnerable to targeted attacks, and that the Soleimani attack will only accelerate the determination of U.S. adversaries to be able to conduct similar attacks themselves. Yet threats like this are too easily discounted or ignored until it is too late. The U.S. government must recognize the grave dangers of this threat before it occurs. It needs to protect its senior officials more effectively, and ensure that the military chain of command will continue to function effectively after one or more commanders are killed by a targeted strike.

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Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, U.S. Army (ret.) and Dr. Nora Bensahel are visiting professors of strategic studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and senior fellows at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies. They are also contributing editors at War on the Rocks, where their column appears monthly. Sign up for Barno and Bensahel’s Strategic Outpost newsletter to track their articles as well as their public events.

 

[Housecarl]

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Houthis kill over 100 Yemeni soldiers in missile, drone attack on base | FDD's Long War Journal

The strike is one of the deadliest attacks in the conflict since 2014.

www.longwarjournal.org

Houthis kill over 100 Yemeni soldiers in missile, drone attack on base

By Caleb Weiss | January 20, 2020 | weiss.caleb2@gmail.com | @Weissenberg7

On Saturday, a deadly coordinated attack struck a Yemeni military training base in the central province of Marib. At least 116 people have been killed in the strike, which reportedly utilized both ballistic missiles and armed drones.
According to local officials, several missiles and drones were fired into the base as Yemeni troops were heading to the base’s mosque for evening prayers.
While it is currently unknown how many armed drones were used in the attack, Al Jazeera has reported that three ballistic missiles struck inside the base.
The Iranian-backed Houthi movement is largely seen as being responsible for the attack, though it has not issued a formal statement of responsibility as of the time of publishing.
The initial death toll was reported at 60 Yemeni soldiers, however, this has gradually increased since Saturday.
Yesterday, officials reported that 83 troops were killed and another 148 wounded. Today, Yemeni authorities told the Associated Press that the number is currently at 116 and expected to rise.
This makes Saturday’s strike one of the deadliest attacks in the conflict inside Yemen since 2014.
Both Saudi Arabia and UAE have condemned the barrage, charging the Houthi movement with deliberately targeting the mosque. The strike came after several recent Saudi-led coalition assaults on Houthi forces east of Sana’a.
Coordinated strikes utilizing both ballistic missiles and drones has become a common tactic of the Houthi insurgency. Last August, at least 30 members of the Security Belt forces, a militia with strong ties to the United Arab Emirates, were killed in a similar attack on their base in Aden.
The rate of ballistic missiles and drones being utilized against the Saudi-backed coalition has slowed drastically since ceasefires were announced by both sides of the conflict last fall.
While these attacks still occur, they happen at a much slower rate than last summer and the Houthis have stopped claiming most missile or drone strikes altogether.
According to a database compiled by FDD’s Long War Journal, the Houthis have utilized at least 299 ballistic missiles since June 2015 and have conducted at least 119 drone strikes since April 2018.
[FDD’s Long War Journal has tracked and mapped over 400 Houthi ballistic and cruise missile launches, drone strikes, and naval attacks since June 2015. For more information, see the three-part series: Houthi missiles, drones, naval attacks.]

Caleb Weiss is a contributor to FDD's Long War Journal.

 

[Housecarl]

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Taliban admits ‘peace’ negotiations with U.S. are merely means to withdraw ‘foreign forces’ | FDD's Long War Journal

The Taliban could not be more clear about its unwillingness to share power with the Afghan government. "They shall continue to remain an insignificant party when it comes to major issues," the group said in an official statement.

www.longwarjournal.org

Taliban admits ‘peace’ negotiations with U.S. are merely means to withdrawal ‘foreign forces’
By Bill Roggio | January 21, 2020 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio

Screen shot of the Taliban’s website promoting the article, Powerless shall always remain shareless…!
The Taliban admitted this week that current negotiations with the “arrogant” U.S. – often billed as “peace talks” that will purportedly end the fighting in Afghanistan – are merely being conducted to facilitate “the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan.”

The Taliban made the statements in its latest commentary, titled Powerless shall always remain shareless…!, which was published in English on Jan. 20 on its official website, Voice of Jihad.

In addition, the terrorist group called the Afghan government “impotent,” “powerless,” “incapable,” “a tool of the invaders,” and a host of other insults in the statement. The Taliban was clear, as it has consistently been clear, that it would not deal with the Afghan government, which has been “sidelined [by the U.S.] in every major decision regarding Afghanistan.”

The statement opened with the Taliban referring to itself as “the Islamic Emirate,” the name of its government. The Taliban has repeatedly stated that the only acceptable outcome to the war is the reimposition of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and a return to its brutal form of “islamic governance.”

“After nearly two decades of armed struggle and resistance by the Islamic Emirate against foreign occupation, the invaders have come to the conclusion that this war unwinnable …” the Taliban said. “It is due to this realization that arrogant America has pursued negotiations with the Emirate and is holding talks about the withdrawal of their forces …”

The Afghan government is an “an impotent and incapable governing system” that “has consistently been sidelined in every major decision regarding Afghanistan,” including ongoing negotiations.

“[Y]et again the stooge administration remains marginalized and has not even yet even been informed about the latest developments by the lead American negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad,” it continued.

Khalilzad, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, has desperately been attempting to cut a deal with the Taliban and has excluded the Afghan government numerous times in an attempt to make it happen. While billed as a “peace” deal, an agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban would not bring peace to the country.

The Taliban has refused to negotiate directly with the Afghan government, which it holds in contempt, but has agreed to consider vague “intra-Afghan talks.” As part of that accord, the U.S. was willing to accept the Taliban’s supposed counterterrorism assurances, despite the fact that the Taliban has harbored al Qaeda to this day and refuses to denounce the group by name. In fact, the Taliban has glorified al Qaeda’s attack on Sept. 11, 2001 in its propaganda as recently as July 2019..

Over the past decade, the Taliban has consistently stated that it will not share power with a “puppet” Afghan government that it considers “impotent” and “un-Islamic.” A statement released as far back as Jan. 2016 highlighted that position.

“The Islamic Emirate has not readily embraced this death and destruction for the sake of some silly ministerial posts or a share of the power,” the group said in an official statement.
“The people of Afghanistan readily sacrifice their sons to achieve this objective [the ejection of U.S. forces and the restoration of the Islamic Emirate]. And the Emirate – as the true representative of our people – will not end its peaceful and armed endeavors until we have achieved this hope of Afghanistan.”

The Taliban drove this point home by quoting what it calls “a famous Afghan proverb,” in the headline to its statement:

“[The] Powerless shall always remain shareless.”

Full text of the Taliban statement, Powerless shall always remain shareless…!
After nearly two decades of armed struggle and resistance by the Islamic Emirate against foreign occupation, the invaders have come to the conclusion that this war unwinnable and that Afghanistan is not a place that can be used as a permanent outpost. It is due to this realization that arrogant America has pursued negotiations with the Emirate and is holding talks about the withdrawal of their forces with them as a decisive force shaping the future of Afghanistan.

From the very onset of the invasion, America sought to create an impotent and incapable governing system with the aim of attaining their objectives in Afghanistan in tandem with deceiving its people; a fact that has explicitly been made clear by the former head of this administration (Hamid Karzai) in multiple media interviews. This supposed administration has consistently been sidelined in every major decision regarding Afghanistan and has been used as a mere tool by the invaders for their own interests over the course of this protracted period.

At this very moment, negotiations between Talib envoys and America about the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan has entered a crucial stage and hopes are high that both sides shall reach an agreement about the withdrawal of America forces from Afghanistan. And yet again the stooge administration remains marginalized and has not even yet even been informed about the latest developments by the lead American negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad as evidenced by the remarks of Ghulam Siddique Siddiqui, the spokesperson for the incumbent head of the Kabul administration Ashraf Ghani.

A famous Afghan proverb says “Powerless shall always remain shareless” and this saying distinctly describes the Kabul-based administration. They have continually remained loyal to the interests of the invaders and toed the official line of their masters over the past two decades and therefore, they shall continue to remain an insignificant party when it comes to major issues.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

 

[jward]

Iran tells Europe not to follow U.S. by undermining nuclear pact
Parisa Hafezi and Babak Dehghanpisheh

• 
  

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's president told European powers on Wednesday not to copy the United States by undermining Tehran's strained nuclear pact with world powers, and said Tehran would not seek nuclear weapons whether or not the deal survived.
Britain, France and Germany launched a dispute mechanism in the 2015 nuclear deal this month, accusing Iran of violating the deal that has become increasingly frayed since Washington pulled out in 2018 and then reimposed sanctions on Tehran.
The dispute mechanism could ultimately lead to the case being referred to the U.N. Security Council to restore U.N. sanctions. Iranian officials have threatened a range of steps if this should happen, including quitting the 2015 deal or even withdrawing from the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), basis for global nuclear arms control since the Cold War.

Iran has gradually rolled back its commitments under the 2015 deal, arguing that it has a right to do so because European countries failed to protect it from U.S. sanctions.


This month, the escalating crisis briefly flared into a military exchange between Iran and the United States.


Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on his website President.Ir on Wednesday that the United States had made a mistake by quitting the 2015 pact.


"Do you want to make the same mistake? ... I am emphasizing that if the Europeans make a mistake and violate the deal, they will be responsible for the consequences of their actions."


U.S. President Donald Trump says his "maximum pressure" campaign aims to drive Iran toward a broader deal that will further curb Tehran's nuclear work, end its missile program and halt proxy wars in the Middle East.


RELATED COVERAGE

COMMITTED TO THE DEAL'


Iran has always insisted its nuclear program was only for peaceful purposes, pointing to monitoring of its work by the U.N. watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

With or without the nuclear deal or the IAEA's safeguards, whether our relation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog is good or bad, Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons," Rouhani said.


Rouhani's chief of staff, Mahmoud Vaezi, had earlier said one of Tehran's possible responses to the crisis would be to withdraw from the 2015 deal. Rouhani said of the pact: "We do not want to destroy it and we are still committed to the deal."


After months of rising tension, the crisis flared into open conflict this month. Trump ordered the killing in Baghdad of Iran's most prominent military commander on Jan. 3, prompting Tehran to launch missiles at U.S. targets in Iraq on Jan. 8.

In the tense aftermath, Iran's military shot down an airliner by mistake, igniting protests at home and adding to pressure on Tehran from abroad.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Europe had yielded to pressure from Washington by launching the dispute mechanism in the nuclear pact, the JCPOA. He has cited a threat of U.S. tariffs if European capitals did not take action.
"When E3 sold out remnants of #JCPOA to avoid Trump tariffs last week, I warned that it would only whet his appetite," he tweeted. "EU would do better to exert its sovereignty."
European diplomats say they would have triggered the dispute mechanism regardless of any U.S. tariff threats.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Babak Dehghanpisheh; Editing by Edmund Blair and Peter Graff)
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Iran tells Europe not to follow U.S. by undermining nuclear pact

Iran's president told European powers on Wednesday not to copy the United States by undermining Tehran's strained nuclear pact with world powers, and said Tehran would not seek nuclear weapons whether or not the deal survived.

mobile.reuters.com

 

[jward]

32 killed in attack in disputed South Sudan border region: official
January 22, 2020, 12:43 PM CST


Juba (AFP) - At least 32 people were killed Wednesday when suspected nomadic Misseriya herders from Sudan attacked a village in the disputed oil-rich region of Abyei along the border of South Sudan, a local official said.

Abyei has been contested since South Sudan gained independence in 2011, while there have long been tensions between the South Sudanese Ngok Dinka community and the Misseriya herders who traverse the area looking for grazing.

Kuol Alor Kuol, the chief administrator of the Abyei area, told AFP that heavily armed Misseriya and allied militia attacked the village of Kolom early on Wednesday.



"Thirty-two people were killed among them children and women, and secondly about 24 people are wounded ... and about 15 people including children were abducted and 20 houses burned," Kuol said.

He said the wounded had been evacuated to a hospital in the town of Agok which is run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

In 2011, the UN Security Council deployed a peacekeeping force to the area after deadly clashes displaced some 100,000 people.

The United Nations Interim Security Force in Abyei (UNISFA) is made up entirely of Ethiopian troops, with some 4,500 soldiers on the ground.

UNISFA could not be immediately reached for comment on the attack.

The UN Security Council in 2018 warned that the situation in Abyei and along the Sudan-South Sudan border "continues to constitute a serious threat to international peace," and called on the two countries to show concrete progress on border demarcation and monitoring.

Posted for fair use

32 killed in attack in disputed South Sudan border region: official

At least 32 people were killed Wednesday when suspected nomadic Misseriya herders from Sudan attacked a village in the disputed oil-rich region of Abyei along the border of South Sudan, a local official said. Abyei has been contested since South Sudan gained independence in 2011, while there...

news.yahoo.com

 

[jward]

General Atomics demos Gray Eagle’s role in multidomain ops
By: Jen Judson   1 day ago
10123

The U.S. Army demonstrated the ability to pass around control of a Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft system, like the one pictured here, using a networked system in August 2019. General Atomics continues to demonstrate the drone's utility in multidomain operations through internal investment. (Courtesy of the U.S. Army)


WASHINGTON — Gray Eagle-maker General Atomics announced it has wrapped up a first round of demonstrations, completed in November, that showed the unmanned aircraft’s capability to support systems considered critical for future warfare. Such systems include long-range precision fires, or LRPF, technology under development by the U.S. Army as it looks to modernize its weapons and equipment to fight in highly contested and strongly defended environments.
Using internal funding, the company equipped the UAS with the Lynx Block 30A Long Range Synthetic Aperture Radar/Ground Moving Target Indicator — or SAR/GMTI for short — to spot military targets up to a range of 75 kilometers, according to a Jan. 21 General Atomics statement.

The imagery produced by the sensor provided “precise coordinates” with every image, and was cued to other aviation assets or enabled “direct engagement” with long-range precision fires platforms, the statement added.
The sensor, according to the company, can be used as a GMTI to detect moving, dismounted targets, and it is functional in maritime environments as well as over land, making it a true multidomain capability useful in key theaters like Europe and the Indo-Pacific region.

A capability that can track and locate threats as well as easily communicate data to LRPF systems for action is a critical part of how the Army envisions operating in the future. Being able to counter threats from a greater distance is also part of that strategy.

Lockheed deems first test shot of precision strike missile a success, amid Raytheon delay
Lockheed Martin reports its first flight of its precision strike missile hit all test objectives. Meanwhile, its direct competitor's PrSM test has been delayed.
By: Jen Judson
“Gray Eagle [Extended Range] is a critical tool, along with the Army’s manned platforms, for operations in an MDO environment,” General Atomics Aeronautical Systems President David Alexander said in the statement.
MDO, or Multi-Domain Operations, is the Army’s key war-fighting concept that focuses on countering peer adversaries like Russia and China. It’s currently being shaped into official doctrine and is guiding the service’s major modernization strategy. The concept acknowledges the Army will not fight alone and must be effective across every domain of warfare: land, air, sea, cyberspace and space.

General Atomics’ plans to continue its demonstrations, according to the statement. In 2020, the company will use its command-and-control software hosted on a laptop to control a wide variety of sensors, communications packages and air-launched effects — or ALE — onboard the Gray Eagle.
“Serving as an ALE mothership, the GE-ER will carry multiple ALEs with a variety of capabilities,” the statement read. “The launching and controlling of ALEs from the GE-ER could potentially increase the survivability and effectiveness of current and future manned aviation systems with intelligence, targeting, communications, jammers, decoys and kinetic effects."

The Army has experimented with ALE at higher altitudes — launching a system from a UH-60 Black Hawk — for more than a year, and it also tested the capability at low altitude. The service will continue to experiment with different payloads from there.
The Gray Eagle also played a big part in the Army-led demonstration at China Lake, California, in August, witnessed by Defense News, where an operator controlled a Gray Eagle from the back of an MH-47 Chinook cargo helicopter using a tablet. The operator tasked the drone to fire a small, precision-glide munition at an enemy target located on the ground. After a higher-level threat was detected at the last second, the munition was rapidly redirected toward a different threat target.
The demonstration was made possible through the Army’s architecture, automation, autonomy and interfaces capability, or A3I, built by the Army’s Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team under Army Futures Command. A3I is to be refined through the next year.

The demonstration showed the ability to nimbly pass control between operators of unmanned systems and munitions through a networked architecture of systems while receiving and filtering real-time, pertinent information to aid in operational decision-making. And the system eliminates the need for ground control stations and replaces it with flexible control through laptops and tablets that can be anywhere on the battlefield.

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General Atomics demos Gray Eagle’s role in multidomain ops

General Atomics is demonstrating the Gray Eagle drone's utility in multidomain operations.

www.defensenews.com

 

[jward]

Pentagon Wants to Build One Satellite Per Week​

Over the next two years, the Space Development Agency is looking to put dozens of satellites into orbit.

One satellite per week. That’s what the Pentagon wants industry to provide under its plans to orbit seven new constellations — each with a different function — by the end of 2020.
The satellites would be smaller (“a few hundred kilograms”), cheaper (about $10 million each), and shorter-lived (about five years) than today’s typical military satellites, which can weigh tons and consume billions of dollars but which are expected to operate for decades.
“We are talking [about] technology that is available to fly within 18 to 24 months,” Derek Tournear, director of the Space Development Agency, said during a Tuesday briefing at the Pentagon.
O
Dubbed the National Defense Space Architecture, the program is the first big initiative of Tournear’s brand-new agency. It aims to orbit “several dozen satellites” through 2022, and then keep going, launching dozens of additional satellites every two years, he said.
The initial NDSA satellites would improve the military’s ability to detect and strike objects like surface-to-air missile launchers. Others would detect and track hypersonic missiles, and pass the data to earthbound missile interceptors.
“In [fiscal 2026], we’ll have full global coverage,” he said.
The Space Development Agency Tuesday announced seven of the new constellations it plans to build. These include:

• Transport: reliable communications between U.S. forces around the world.
• Battle Management: to provide command and control.
• Tracking: to find and track enemy missiles, including hypersonic ones.
• Custody: to keep tabs on enemy ground launchers and other mobile targets.
• Navigation: to augment or replace GPS.
• Deterrence: to deter hostile action in “deep space” — i.e., from geosynchronous Earth orbit to the moon.
• Support: to connect ground-based satellite systems, including launchers.

The Pentagon said it would begin soliciting bids for the first of the new satellites in the “late spring.” and award contracts in the summer.
Tournear said he’s looking for “companies that are going to give us a good solution that we can believe their cost and schedule metrics. I’m open to any and all proposers.”

The creation of the Space Development Agency, which is currently part of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, has been controversial. Air Force leaders have questioned its necessity. The U.S. Space Force, which is part of the Air Force, is expected to assume oversight of the Space Development Agency in late 2022.

• Marcus Weisgerber is the global business editor for Defense One, where he writes about the intersection of business and national security. He has been covering defense and national security issues for more than a decade, previously as Pentagon correspondent for Defense News and chief editor of ... FULL BIO

Pentagon Wants to Build One Satellite Per Week

Over the next two years, the Space Development Agency is looking to put dozens of satellites into orbit.

www.defenseone.com

 

[Housecarl]

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How to Waste a Peace Dividend - Modern War Institute

Stephen M. Walt, The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of US Primacy (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2018) The fall of the Berlin Wall […]

mwi.usma.edu

How to Waste a Peace Dividend

Joe Buccino | January 23, 2020


Stephen M. Walt, The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of US Primacy (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2018)




The fall of the Berlin Wall was to have ushered in a rethinking of America’s role in world affairs. Having vanquished her greatest adversary without firing a shot, the United States could finally heed George Washington’s farewell advice and disengage from unnecessary overseas ventures. America’s isolationist yearning dates back to its founding and, as the world’s lone great power, American leaders finally had an opportunity to reverse the post–World War II trend toward global military expansion.

Instead, the number of American interventions and global commitments between 1992 and 2017 totaled four times as many as those from 1948 to 1991. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, successive American administrations sought to push democratic ideals, expand international treaties, and maintain enough forces and bases oversees to bolster a liberal, rule-based order.

The results of such grand ambition? Less than thirty years after the end of the Cold War, the United States no longer sits atop a unipolar world. The American military now maintains a presence in more than 140 countries. Despite $6 trillion spent on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, neither country is on a path to great success. Since 1992, America’s national-security leadership has switched hands multiple times, but the primary urge toward the global spread of liberalism has remained consistent.

Throughout this period, Stephen Walt, a renowned foreign-policy expert who teaches international relations at Harvard University, has served as a critical voice against the foreign-policy establishment. Walt has been a critic of conventional international-relations thinking since the release of his 1987 book The Origins of Alliances. That book challenges balance-of-power theory and makes the essential case for international-relations realism, arguing that states should aggregate power and develop short-term cooperation agreements against rising threats. Since then, he has published controversial books and articles arguing against what he views as America’s impulsive and wrongheaded support of Israel and proclivity for wasteful ventures in the Middle East.

Walt’s newest book, The Hell of Good Intentions, may be his best, most important work to date. In it, he recounts the aforementioned post–Cold War foreign-policy missteps of the United States. He holds the nation’s foreign policy establishment—which he defines as senior military leaders, defense officials, senior members of the CIA and Department of State, think tanks, and national security media—to account for perpetuating a series of failures.

The book is a courageous effort in which Walt names names, identifying the reporters, analysts, and administration officials who maintain a prominent perch in mainstream foreign policy despite histories of blunders. Not mentioned in Good Intentions is that the author has a better track record than the foreign policy “experts” he criticizes. In 2002 and early 2003, he argued against invading Iraq and remaining in Afghanistan, a position for which Walt was ridiculed at the time. Meanwhile, some of the advocates for those wars, such as Bill Kristol, Jane Harman, and Richard Haass, all of whom publicly predicted a short conflict in Iraq with a low-cost postwar reconstruction, now have more prominent roles as foreign-policy analysts on cable news.

Walt also argues that the US military no longer holds itself to account to the degree the country should demand. Here, Walt glosses over the complexities involved in assigning blame to military leadership for failing to reach policy objectives that may be infeasible. It is certainly true that our military leaders have little to show for the remarkable blood and treasure spent in the Middle East over the past eighteen years. Still, a more nuanced discussion of assignment of blame than the author provides is warranted.

In the penultimate chapter, titled “How Not to Fix US Foreign Policy,” Walt turns his criticism to the current administration. The author alleges that despite an unconventional public display and a series of promises to drain swamps, refocus on internal problems, and disentangle American forces and money from foreign wars, the Trump foreign-policy team has conformed to recent tradition. Here, he has a point: there have been no significant troop reductions in Iraq or Afghanistan. In fact, the administration has authorized a series of new deployments to Saudi Arabia. Despite the “America First” rhetoric, the current National Defense Strategy, released in January 2018, calls for the United States military to maintain global commitments and favorable balances of power everywhere.

In its final chapter, The Hell of Good Intentions offers a set of clear-eyed policy prescriptions the United States can take to recover from its post–Cold War missteps and allow for a more prosperous peace. Walt is not an isolationist. His is a neorealist constructionist view of international relations, and he advocates a policy in which military force is used only in response to direct threats to American interests. Short-duration, limited-focus troop deployments should replace nation-building and long-term commitments of US forces. This is a Nixonian view of American force, in which a great power uses favored regional forces to halt the ascendance of potentially hostile states. Once a rising threat is subdued, American troops return to the homeland, leaving regime change and long-term occupation to others.

While Walt has a clear agenda in the book, he is also fair. The foreign-policy establishment has had successes since the close of the Cold War (the Nunn-Lugar Program, establishment of the World Trade Organization, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, for example) and the author points those out.

Anyone with an interest in the development and implementation of foreign policy should read The Hell of Good Intentions. In this reviewer’s opinion, Stephen Walt has written one of the most important books on foreign policy under the current administration.



Lt. Col. Joe Buccino is an Army public affairs officer and a resident student at the US Army War College. He previously served as spokesman for the secretary of defense, communications director for the deputy secretary of defense, and communications director for the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

 

[Housecarl]

So in the end we kill a lot more proxies along with Iranian leadership when "it suits us"?....

Posted for fair use.....

The U.S. Can Deter Iran but Not Its Proxies

Rash action by Tehran-connected groups could provoke an escalatory cycle.

foreignpolicy.com

Argument
The U.S. Can Deter Iran but Not Its Proxies
Rash action by Tehran-connected groups could provoke an escalatory cycle.

By Ethan Bueno de Mesquita | January 23, 2020, 4:24 PM

Protesters hold posters showing Iranian commander Qassem Suleimani during a protest outside the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul on Jan. 5. Chris McGrath/Getty Image


The assassination of Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani met with widespread concern that U.S. foreign-policy decisions are devoid of any overarching strategic vision. As former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry wrote in a critique of President Donald Trump’s handling of the Middle East, “Clearly he doesn’t do strategies, period.”
Yet the administration has articulated at least some strategy. In addition to justifying the assassination on the grounds of preventing an imminent attack, the president and his allies argue that it will deter what they describe as increasing Iranian aggressiveness. “[T]he Suleimani strike,” according to Sen. Tom Cotton, “has already restored deterrence.” In support of this deterrent strategy, Trump threatened, via his preferred medium of Twitter, massive further attacks should Iran choose to escalate the conflict. While his initial suggestion that the United States would target cultural sites has been walked back, the underlying threat of escalation in support of deterrence stands.
The problem with this bellicose posture is not that it is inherently unstrategic. The problem is that it is a strategy designed for a very different kind of conflict than the one the United States faces with Iran. To adapt former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s phrase, you go to war against the adversary you have, not the adversary you want. Iran is not the Soviet Union. It has pursued a decades-long policy of cultivating alliances with armed proxy groups—and that means there’s a real risk this attempted deterrence will backfire, forcing an escalation sought by neither side.
In its most straightforward form, the logic of deterrence is simple: If an adversary believes the costs of an attack are high enough, it will prefer not to engage in that attack in the first place. Thus, the administration’s argument goes, if the United States threatens a massive response to Iranian aggression, they are likely to stand down.
But this logic rests on a couple of key assumptions. Most importantly, in this instance, those who are threatened with punishment must in fact have the power to prevent the precipitating attacks. For such threats to work, then, the Iranian regime itself must be in a position to decide whether or not attacks occur.
Iran has close ties to armed groups throughout the Middle East, from Yemen to Lebanon to Syria to Iraq. Many of these relationships were built in part by Suleimani himself. While these groups take weapons, training, support, and some degree of direction from Iran, they are also independent actors. Their preferences are not always aligned with Iran’s, and they have shown themselves willing to contradict Iranian directives when doing so is to their strategic advantage. For instance, Iran-aligned Houthi rebels have engaged in escalatory violence over the objections of their Iranian backers. This partial independence makes it difficult to attribute responsibility for attacks undertaken by such proxies.
Suppose one of the several armed Shiite groups with ties to Iran that are operative in Iraq engages in a significant attack in the coming days or weeks. It will be unclear whether that attack was taken at Iran’s direction or not. Will the United States extend its belligerent deterrent stand to such acts? Will it strike back at Iran for actions by Iraqis or Syrians?
The answer may well be yes. After all, it was not actions by the Iranian military but by Iranian proxies in Iraq that put in motion the chain of events leading to the killing of Suleimani. Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-linked Shiite militia, was responsible for the rocket attacks on Iraqi bases in December 2019 that killed an American contractor and injured several soldiers. That event spurred a U.S. airstrike on Kataib Hezbollah’s headquarters in Iraq, which subsequently led to the protests outside the U.S. Embassy that preceded the killing of Suleimani.
In an important sense, then, the United States has already shown that it can be provoked by Iranian proxies. In so doing, America has put itself in a profoundly dangerous strategic position. In an attempt to deter Iran with maximalist threats, the United States has given independent armed militias the power to escalate conflict between two sovereign nations.
The Iranians appear acutely aware of the risk. Their initial response to the assassination was notably proportional and public. They wanted no misunderstanding. Moreover, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations recently argued that Iran was responsible for these public actions but that it ought not be held responsible for “any sort of actions to be taken by others,” a clear reference to the risk of provocation by Iran-linked militias.
The problem is that, having publicly responded with face-saving missile strikes that did limited damage, Iran may genuinely prefer de-escalation. But its proxies, especially those operating in Iraq, may not. Perhaps they view greater conflict between Iran and the United States as an opportunity to end the ongoing U.S. presence in Iraq. Or perhaps they see strategic advantages to operating within the chaos of increased civil conflict.
Read More


The Iraqi Military Won’t Survive a Tug of War Between the United States and Iran
Sectarian tensions have already hobbled the force. The competition between Washington and Tehran could break it.
In this case, they may well have incentives to engage in attacks—for instance, on Americans in Iraq—that exploit the United States’ more aggressive deterrent posture to manipulate it into greater conflict with Iran. And Iran may not be in a position to prevent those actions, in which case Trump’s deterrent stance will have backfired. Indeed, one might even worry that groups not linked to Iran, like the Islamic State, that wish to spread discord and chaos might view this as an opportune moment to engage in false-flag operations that make it look as though Iranian proxies are engaged in escalatory violence.
Of course, proponents of a maximalist strategy will argue that the alternative, backing off the deterrent threat, invites further bad behavior by Iran itself. And there is some truth to this. That is what is so frustrating about the contemporary conflict space, which is inevitably characterized by hard-to-attribute attacks associated with proxy groups, cyberwarfare, and terrorism. To a significant degree, deterrence, which has been a hallmark of U.S. strategy for generations, simply ceases to be an effective way to conceptualize keeping the peace.
But frustrating as this state of affairs is, it won’t do to simply pretend matters are otherwise. You fight the adversary you have. Salvation will not come simply in the articulation of a strategy. It requires a new vision, one better adapted to the contemporary challenge. Traditional deterrence provides too much opportunity for ill-intentioned and impossible-to-deter actors to manipulate the situation, creating escalatory spirals that neither the United States nor Iran truly desires.




Ethan Bueno de Mesquita is the Sydney Stein professor and deputy dean at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. He is an applied game theorist who has published widely on issues of terrorism, rebellion, and security strategy. He is also the author of Political Economy for Public Policy.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Philippines' Duterte threatens to end military deal with the United States

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned the United States on Thursday he would repeal an agreement on deployment of troops and equipment for exercises if Washington did not reinstate the visa of a political ally.

www.reuters.com

World News
January 23, 2020 / 8:34 AM / a day ago
Philippines' Duterte threatens to end military deal with the United States


3 Min Read

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned the United States on Thursday he would repeal an agreement on deployment of troops and equipment for exercises if Washington did not reinstate the visa of a political ally.

FILE PHOTO: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures during his fourth State of the Nation Address at the Philippine Congress in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines July 22, 2019. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez/File Photo

Visibly upset, Duterte vented his anger over the U.S. decision to deny entry to Ronaldo dela Rosa, a former police chief who is now a senator.

Dela Rosa said the U.S. embassy in the Philippines did not explain why his visa had been canceled but that he believed it was most likely because of allegations of extrajudicial killings during his more than two-year term as police chief.

Dela Rosa was the chief enforcer of Duterte’s anti-narcotics crackdown, which has resulted in deaths of more than 5,000 people, mostly small-time drug dealers. Police say victims were shot by officers in self-defense.

“If you do not do the correction, one, I will terminate the bases, the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). I will finish that son of a bitch,” Duterte said in a wide-ranging speech before former Communist rebels. “I am giving the government and the American government one month from now.”

The Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), signed in 1998, accorded legal status to thousands of U.S. troops who were rotated in the country for military exercises and humanitarian assistance operations.

Delfin Lorezana, Duterte’s defense minister, declined to comment when asked if he agreed with the president’s plan.

Duterte makes no secret of his disdain for the United States and what he considers its hypocrisy and interference, though he acknowledges that most Filipinos and his military have high regard for their country’s former colonial ruler.

The United States is the Philippines’ biggest defense ally and millions of Filipinos have relatives who are U.S. citizens.

Last month, Duterte banned U.S. senators Richard Durbin and Patrick Leahy from visiting the Philippines after they introduced a provision in the U.S. Congress.

The provision calls the ban on U.S. entry to anyone involved in locking up Philippine senator Leila de Lima, a former justice minister and Duterte’s top critic who was jailed in 2017 on drug charges after leading an investigation into thousands of deaths during the anti-narcotics campaign.

She has won numerous awards from human rights groups, which consider her a prisoner of conscience.

The U.S. Embassy in Manila could not immediately be reached for comment outside office hours.

Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales and Karen Lema, Editing by Timothy Heritage

 

[Housecarl]

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US gunships transferred to Kenya weeks after attacks on US personnel

U.S. and Kenyan military officials touted the delivery of the MD-530F Cayuse Warrior helicopters as a step that will enhance a force faced with a persistent terrorist threat coming out of neighboring Somalia.

www.stripes.com

US gunships transferred to Kenya weeks after attacks on US personnel




By JOHN VANDIVER | STARS AND STRIPES Published: January 24, 2020





STUTTGART, Germany — Six American-made attack helicopters were handed over to the Kenyan military, and the country’s top general says the delivery couldn’t have been more timely.

U.S. and Kenyan military officials touted the delivery of the MD-530F Cayuse Warrior helicopters as a step that will enhance a force faced with a persistent terrorist threat coming out of neighboring Somalia.

The helicopters are an “effective force multiplier on the battlefield,” said Gen. Samson Mwathethe, Kenya Defense Force chief, at a ceremony Thursday. “The successful delivery of these assets could not have come at a better time for us.”

The deal, several years in the works, comes after an attack earlier this month on Kenyan and U.S. forces by Somalia-based al-Shabab fighters, who launched mortars and stormed a military compound used by American troops in Kenya. Three Americans were killed in the attacks, which has prompted a U.S. Africa Command-directed investigation into what went wrong.

On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that American special operations troops at the scene of the attack were surprised by the assault and took an hour to respond, as some Kenyan forces responsible for defending the base hid in the grass.

AFRICOM on Thursday countered that the military response was speedy.

The “initial assessment indicates that a timely and effective response to the attack reduced the number of casualties and eliminated the potential for further damage,” AFRICOM said in a statement.

The clash with militants in coastal Kenya has raised questions about the role of the U.S. military in the region at a time when the Pentagon is considering shifting some forces away from Africa for other missions.

A growing number of lawmakers, however, have raised concerns about pulling back from the continent as Russia and China gain influence and terrorist groups still pose a regional threat.

“Any drawdown of our troops would be shortsighted, could cripple AFRICOM’s ability to execute its mission and, as a result, would harm national security,” Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said last week.

In Kenya, the U.S. has about 300 military personnel focused on training local forces and coordinating missions in Somalia.

At a ceremony at Kenya’s Embakasi Barracks in Nairobi, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Michael D. Turello said the delivery of attack helicopters is an example of “how the U.S. remains fully committed to providing relevant and timely training and equipment to bolster the KDF capabilities.”

“A partnership with the Kenyan Defense Force is one of our most important partnerships in Africa and keystone in East Africa,” said Turello, who leads the Djibouti-based Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.

Kenya purchased the gunships through the Foreign Military Sales program and six more helicopters are expected in the near future.

vandiver.john@stripes.com
Twitter: @john_vandiver

 

[Housecarl]

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US military releases new details of Kenyan base attack that left 3 dead

The U.S. military on Thursday released new details of the Jan. 5 attack on a Kenyan airbase used by U.S. troops following a New York Times report that described the scene as chaotic.U.S. …

thehill.com

US military releases new details of Kenyan base attack that left 3 dead

By Ellen Mitchell - 01/23/20 05:31 PM EST

The U.S. military on Thursday released new details of the Jan. 5 attack on a Kenyan airbase used by U.S. troops following a New York Times report that described the scene as chaotic.

U.S. Africa Command (Africom) in a statement pushed back on the Times report, which noted that American forces were surprised by an al-Shabaab attack on the Kenyan Defense Force Military Base in Manda Bay, Kenya, taking roughly an hour to respond and even longer to evacuate a wounded Pentagon personnel.

U.S. Army Spc. Henry Mayfield and two U.S. contractors, Bruce Triplett and Dustin Harrison, were killed, and six contractor-operated civilian aircraft were damaged in the incident.

“The tragic loss of these brave Americans and the damage and destruction to aircraft demonstrates the enemy achieved a degree of success in its attack,” according to the statement from Africom.

“However, despite public reports, an initial assessment indicates that a timely and effective response to the attack reduced the number of casualties and eliminated the potential for further damage.”

The attack on the base, situated on the coast and near the Somali border, was largely overshadowed at the time as it came two days after the U.S. drone strike ordered by President Trump that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

But the incident marks the most U.S. military-related deaths in Africa since the October 2017 ambush in Niger where four soldiers were killed.

It also puts the spotlight on Defense Secretary Mark Esper's plan to draw down U.S. forces in Africa in an effort to shift the Pentagon’s focus to better counter Russian and Chinese aggression. No decisions have yet been made on a possible force reduction on the continent, Esper said on Wednesday.

Africom notes that in the early morning hours of Jan. 5, al-Shabaab hit the Kenyan installation and Camp Simba — where U.S. Marines are based — with mortar fire while simultaneously assaulting the airfield.

Shortly after, U.S. forces at Camp Simba “quickly responded and actively counterattacked the enemy at the airfield.”

The command said that U.S. and Kenyan Defense forces repelled the attack, killing five al-Shabaab terrorists.

“While numbers are still being verified, it is estimated that several dozen al-Shabaab fighters were repelled. Because of the size of the Kenyan base, clearance and security operations continued for several more hours to ensure the entire base was secure.”

The Pentagon immediately after the Kenya incident sent about 100 troops from the 101st Airborne Division to establish base security.

The Times reported that Army Green Berets from Germany were also sent to Djibouti in the case that al-Shabaab, an East Africa-based al Qaeda affiliate, attempted to take over the base.

There are less than 350 Defense Department personnel in Kenya, with the primary role of training Kenyan forces, intelligence sharing and personnel recovery.
Africom continues to investigate the attack.