WAR 02-01-2020-to-02-07-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

With regards to this prompt that Missileers get every six hours, it, like so many things about the Minuteman III ICBMs and their launch control systems, it seems like a holdover from the Cold War. President Bush's 1991 decision to end the standing nuclear alert also led to the decommissioning of the AN/DRC-8 Emergency Rocket Communications System (ERCS). First introduced in 1963, this system consisted of a UHF signal repeater, capable of broadcasting an "Emergency Action Message" – something you can read about in more detail in this past War Zone piece – with a launch code, on top of a rocket. The Blue Scout test and space launch rocket was employed until 1968, when modified Minuteman IIIs took over this role.

During a nuclear attack, the Air Force could fire rockets with the AN/DRC-8, if necessary, which would then fly very low in space across the missile fields broadcasting the launch code. If the operators in the missile alert facilities down below were dead or otherwise incapacitated, one would imagine that the backup system in place would have then received the code and carried out the launch sequence automatically.



Kelly Michals via Flickr
A UHF signal repeater payload from the Emergency Rocket Communications System, now on display at the National Museum of the US Air Force.

Again, as is the case today with the E-6Bs, there still would have had to have been an active decision to employ the ERCS, to begin with. Starting in 1967, EC-135 Looking Glass airborne command post aircraft, the predecessors to the E-6B Mercuries, also entered service to supplement the ERCS.

The very idea of an actual automatic "Dead Hand" trigger that could launch a massive nuclear retaliatory strike in the absence of a functioning human-operated command and control system, has been a controversial topic of discussion for decades because of the obvious concerns about possible accidents and malfunctions.

Starting in the 1960s, the Soviet Union reportedly began work on possible Dead Hand triggers, which eventually resulted in the development and fielding of a system called Perimeter. There are relatively few publicly known details about Perimeter to this day, but from what is known, it is very similar to the American ERCS, right down to including a rocket carrying a system to communicate a launch command to the country's strategic missile forces down below.

There is a debate about just how automated Perimeter is or isn't. For years, experts and scholars described it as an entirely automatic arrangement, akin to the famous fictional "Doomsday Machine" in Stanely Kubrick's iconic 1964 Cold War black comedy Dr. Strangelove.

"In a crisis, military officials would send a coded message to the bunkers, switching on the dead hand," a 1993 New York Times story said. "If nearby ground-level sensors detected a nuclear attack on Moscow, and if a break was detected in communications links with top military commanders, the system would send low-frequency signals over underground antennas to special rockets."

However, David Hoffman, a longtime journalist, offered details suggesting it was much less automatic in his 2009 book Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy and in subsequent interviews. Stories had already begun to emerge by that point that indicated that Perimeter was actually more "semi-automatic" in its functionality, just like its American counterpart.

"They [the Soviets] thought that they could help those leaders by creating an alternative system so that the leader could just press a button that would say: I delegate this to somebody else. I don't know if there are missiles coming or not. Somebody else decide," he told NPR's Terry Gross in 2009. "If that were the case, he [the Soviet leader] would flip on a system that would send a signal to a deep underground bunker in the shape of a globe where three duty officers sat. If there were real missiles and the Kremlin were hit and the Soviet leadership was wiped out, which is what they feared, those three guys in that deep underground bunker would have to decide whether to launch very small command rockets that would take off, fly across the huge vast territory of the Soviet Union and launch all their remaining missiles.

Robert Wallis/Corbis via Getty Images
A control room at nuclear missile base outside of Moscow in 1992.
Still, even though the United States, and Russia, based on the most recent reporting, do not have automatic nuclear "Dead Hands" in place, the concept continues to a topic of interest. Deterrence theory relies explicitly on a country maintaining a credible "second strike" capability to respond to hostile nuclear strikes, no matter how devastating they might be. Right now, in the U.S. military, the Navy's fleet of Ohio class ballistic missile submarines armed with Trident D5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles form the core of this retaliatory capability.

However, some fear that various new strategic weapon developments, such as Russia's recent fielding of a small number of nuclear-armed Avangard hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, risk invalidating existing command and control protocols and their backups and fail-safes.

In August 2019, War on the Rocks published a piece in which Dr. Adam Lowther, Director of Research and Education at the Louisiana Tech Research Institute, and Curtis McGiffin, Associate Dean, School of Strategic Force Studies, at the Air Force Institute of Technology, both of whom are also retired U.S. military officers, advocated for an actual American Dead Hand system. This proposal immediately proved to be controversial and prompted criticism from other scholars and experts.

It is worth noting that the U.S. military, while it is not publicly pursuing a Dead Hand of some kind, has been working hard in recent years to upgrade and improve the capabilities of its nuclear command and control architecture and the reliability of new and existing systems, in the face of a variety of threats, including cyberattacks. Last year, the Air Force notably released an entirely revised edition of the unclassified Air Force Instruction 13-550, Air Force Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications (NC3). The new manual focused heavily on the need for increased "resilience," that is to say systems that can reliably resist attacks, especially against cyber threats, as well as electromagnetic pulses.

The U.S. military is also seeking improvements to the Airborne Launch Control System and a replacement for the E-6Bs. The future Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC) aircraft are also expected to serve as a replacement for the Air Force's E-4B Nightwatch airborne command posts and its C-32A Air Force Two VIP transports. The E-4B had briefly carried the ALCS, as well, but no longer have this capability.

USAF
This diagram gives a sense of just how complex the existing nuclear command and control neworks are and how the Airborne Launch Control System onboard the E-6B Mercuries fits into that architecture.

The United States is also in the midst of a major modernization of its nuclear capabilities, across the board, and the associated infrastructure that goes along with that deterrent, which estimates have said could cost at least $1.2 trillion over the next 30 years. The upcoming budget proposal from President Donald Trump's Administration for the 2021 Fiscal Year, which is slated to be released publicly next week, will seek to add billions more in funding for nuclear weapons-related projects. The War Zone has questioned in the past whether this is at all sustainable, or even logical, over such a long period.

Whatever happens to the U.S. government's plans to modernize the country's nuclear deterrent capabilities, there's no indication that it is looking to implement a Dead Hand trigger for its ICBMs, or any other weapon systems. There's no evidence is has one in place now, either.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

 

[Housecarl]

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Why Iraq Remains Ripe for a U.S.-Iran Confrontation

Highlights Iraq is the most likely site for a U.S.-Iran confrontation in the coming months because of Iran's deep ties to several violent and capable Iraqi militias in close proximity to U.S. for

www.realcleardefense.com

Why Iraq Remains Ripe for a U.S.-Iran Confrontation

By Omar Lamrani & Emily Hawthorne
February 06, 2020

(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Highlights

• Iraq is the most likely site for a U.S.-Iran confrontation in the coming months because of Iran's deep ties to several violent and capable Iraqi militias in close proximity to U.S. forces.
• While the perception of a common U.S. threat will foster short-term cooperation between Iran-allied militias, Washington's assassination of a prominent Iraqi militia leader will ultimately increase competition between the country's rival armed forces.
• This will make it all the harder for Baghdad to control militia-led violence, in addition to political violence being stoked by escalating anti-government protesters.

In Iraq, a mix of violent militias and volatile politics could provide the spark that sends Iran and the United States spiraling into an armed conflict — and with it, any remaining shreds of stability in Baghdad. In June, the United States declared that the killing of any U.S. military personnel and other American citizens in Iraq would warrant retaliation. Washington then proved its willingness to enforce that red line in a series of raids and strikes following a rocket attack that killed an American contractor in December.
In the aftermath of the Jan. 3 assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, it can be argued that a potential trigger for a full conflict between the two countries was narrowly avoided when an Iranian counterstrike with ballistic missiles didn't kill any U.S. troops in Iraq. But there is no guarantee that a follow-up round of clashes arising from another deadly attack wouldn't push the two countries back to the brink. And indeed — rife with militias, weapons and unrest — Iraq offers the perfect site for such a scenario to unfold in the months ahead.

Setting the Scene
The fact that both Iran and the United States are prepared to use violent action against each other following the recent surge in tensions is further inflamed by the nature of the Iraqi theater itself. Iraq remains highly unstable and awash with weaponry, with the Iraqi government unable to exercise its will on the vast array of disparate militias operating in the country. Of the dozens of militias in Iraq that don't fall under direct state control, there are three broad factions: those closely allied with Iran, those closely allied with Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr and those under the leadership of the more mainline Shiite clerical authorities in the holy Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala. All of these militias are all largely comprised of Shiite Iraqi fighters. Many also assisted and worked alongside Iraqi federal forces and, in some cases, even U.S.-led coalition forces to fight the Islamic State. And while none fall directly under the state's command and control, most Iraqi militias also fall under an umbrella organization, the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), which has become a formal component of the Iraqi state's security forces.
While the Iran-allied militias logically fall the closest under Tehran's command and control, they remain independent actors. This distance provides Iran some plausible deniability about its culpability when an armed group attacks a U.S. or civilian target in Iraq. But the United States is increasingly willing to directly blame Iran even when a proxy group is the culprit of an attack, which could prompt retaliatory attacks from militias and spark a cycle of escalation. Already, U.S. forces in Iraq are increasingly targeting heavyweight Iranian proxies such as Kataeb Hezbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq. Shortly after the assassination of Soleimani, Iran hosted a series of meetings with Iraqi militia leaders. And as this U.S.-Iran pressure intensifies, there will be more efforts between Tehran and its Iraqi proxies to coordinate retaliation against the United States.
But of the plethora of armed groups in Iraq, many are also already hostile to U.S. troops in the country without necessarily being loyal to Iran. This means that some Iraqi militia forces — regardless of whether they're closely allied with Tehran — have both the motivation and the means for further mortar, rocket or improvised explosive device attacks on nearby U.S. forces. So while it's often assumed that most of the militia attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq are somehow tied back to Iran (including the latest attack on the U.S. Embassy on Jan. 26), a strike that results in U.S. casualties could thus also conceivably originate from different armed factions on the ground, only to be misconstrued by Washington as an Iranian-led or -directed operation.
Enduring Iraqi Instability
The intensifying competition between various militia groups, as well as Baghdad's long-standing inability to exert command and control over any of them, further deepens the likelihood of greater overall instability in Iraq. In the same airstrike that killed Soleimani on Jan. 3, the United States also killed the prominent Iran-allied militia leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. A powerful consolidator, al-Muhandis was increasingly the center of gravity within the PMU umbrella organization. His absence will thus eventually open up space for even greater competition among Iraqi militias, further weakening what little control Baghdad had over the country's militias as they jockey for more power. This will increase the risk for violence, inhibiting cooperation between external actors such as the United States and Iraq's central government and federal security forces on counterterrorism operations.
In Iraq, a mix of violent militias and volatile politics could provide the spark that sends Iran and the United States spiraling into an armed conflict in the months ahead.
Compounding this chaos for Baghdad is also an emboldened anti-government, nationalist protest movement that has been demanding government reforms since October. There already have been violent crackdowns by federal security forces on protesters, who managed to prompt the resignation of former Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi in November. And the unrest is likely to intensify as different political factions in Iraq attempt to manipulate the movement, including the one led by al-Sadr.
Al-Sadr's recent decision to switch from supporting the protests to opposing the movement reflects his desire to maintain his political power, which over the years has grown in tandem with the central government's weakening authority. The move also appears to show some coordination between al-Sadr, Iran-allied militias and the federal government who otherwise have fundamentally opposing visions for Iraq's political future. Rather than a larger political alignment, however, al-Sadr's decision to reverse his position is more reflective of a shared desire among Iraq's political elites to avoid disrupting a status quo that has allowed them to flourish in Baghdad. But the appearance of a more coordinated front against the anti-government movement is likely only to inflame protesters' frustration with the powers that be in Iraq — raising the risk for even more unrest and, in turn, more destabilizing crackdowns in the near term.
Amid the recent surge of tensions between Washington and Tehran, there remains a fair chance that the red line of U.S. casualties will be crossed in the coming months. And with even less control over both its armed militia groups and angry citizens, there's little the Iraqi government will be able to do to keep a bloody proxy war from breaking out on its turf. Iraq — as an activated front between Iran and the United States — will, therefore, remain one of the likeliest flashpoints for another confrontation for the foreseeable future.
Omar Lamrani focuses on air power, naval strategy, technology, logistics and military doctrine for a number of regions, including the Middle East and Asia. He studied international relations at Clark University and holds a master's degree from the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, where his thesis centered on Chinese military doctrine and the balance of power in the Western Pacific.

Mr. Lamrani previously worked as an intern with the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, where he was assigned to the Afghanistan desk. He was raised in Morocco and is a native speaker of Arabic and French. He has lived and worked in Europe, the United States and Thailand.
Emily Hawthorne is a Middle East and North Africa analyst at Stratfor. She monitors political, business and security developments across the region, with a special focus on North Africa and Gulf Cooperation Council member states. Prior to working at Stratfor, Ms. Hawthorne worked as the regional director for a U.S. media company in Dubai.
Ms. Hawthorne holds a bachelor's and a master's degree from the University of Texas at Austin, where she completed research theses on Islamic law and the global halal food trade. She speaks fluent Arabic and has lived and worked in Morocco, Egypt, France and the United Arab Emirates.
This article appeared originally at Stratfor Worldview.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....
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Macron says France’s nuclear weapons vital for Europe’s security

French president warns of ‘disintegration’ of international legal order and institutions

www.irishtimes.com

Macron says France’s nuclear weapons vital for Europe’s security
French president warns of ‘disintegration’ of international legal order and institutions

57 minutes ago


Lara Marlowe Lara Marlowe, at the École de Guerre in Paris


France’s nuclear weapons strengthen the security of Europe, president Emmanuel Macron told officers in training at the École de Guerre on Friday.


Following Brexit, France is the only nuclear power in the European Union.


It is traditional for every French president to deliver a speech explaining the rationale for the 60-year-old force de frappe.


Mr Macron spoke of the “accelerating disintegration” of international legal order and institutions and seemed to refer to US president Donald Trump.


“The very idea of multilateral order founded on law, where recourse to force is regulated . . . is profoundly questioned today,” he said. “The only law is the law of force.”


Alluding to the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani by US forces, Mr Macron said “the escalation in Iraq in January shows how situations can, at any moment, create an open crisis between states who seem to have forgotten the reason of ‘no more war’ in favour of a hypothetical ‘why not war?’”

We expect the great partners of Europe to work to preserve and strengthen international law, not to weaken it

The promotion of multilateralism, development of strategic partnerships, a self-reliant Europe and national sovereignty “give its overall coherence and profound meaning to our defence strategy”, Mr Macron said. In a further allusion to Mr Trump, he added: “We expect the great partners of Europe to work to preserve and strengthen international law, not to weaken it.”

Rapprochement
Mr Macron said Europeans must “define their security interests together”. His rapprochement with Russia was intended “to improve conditions of collective security and stability in Europe”. He called upon Europeans “to propose together an international agenda for arms control”, but excluded the possibility of French unilateral nuclear disarmament.

Disarmament “cannot be an objective for its own sake”, Mr Macron said. “It must first of all improve the conditions of international security.” He noted repeatedly that the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons recognised France as one of five established nuclear powers.

Citing provisions of the treaty, Mr Macron called for a conference to draw up a treaty banning the production of fissile material for weapons, and a universal ban on nuclear testing.


Mr Macron delivered his address as the arms control regime is crumbling. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the US and Russia expired last year. The US-Russian New START agreement on long-range forces will expire next year. North Korea carried out 23 nuclear tests last year. Following Mr Trump’s renunciation of the Iran nuclear accord, the Islamic Republic has restarted its uranium enrichment programme.


In November, Mr Macron raised hackles by referring to “the brain death of Nato”. He wanted “to clear up a misunderstanding”, he said on Friday.


“The question for Europeans is not whether they should defend themselves with or without Washington . . . France is convinced that in the long term, European security means a strong alliance with the US . . . but our security, inevitably, must also be based on greater autonomous capacity for action by Europeans.”

Diminished
The real question for Europeans was why they so diminished their defence spending, Mr Macron said. “Our incapacity to think through our sovereign interests together, and to act together convincingly, threatens our credibility as Europeans.”


French nuclear weapons “play a deterrent role in Europe”, Mr Macron said. “They strengthen the security of Europe through their very existence, and in this way have an authentically European dimension.”


Like his predecessors, Mr Macron stopped short of promising to use French nuclear weapons on behalf of a European ally. French doctrine is deliberately ambiguous, to leave potential aggressors in doubt. “The vital interests of France now have a European dimension,” Mr Macron said.


Like Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008, Mr Macron invited those Europeans who so wish to engage in a “strategic dialogue” with France “on the role of French nuclear deterrence in our collective security”.

Our nuclear deterrent force remains, as a last resort, the keystone of our security

Mr Macron noted that under the 2010 Lancaster House treaties, France and the UK engage in “unprecedented co-operation on nuclear subjects . . . Brexit will change nothing.”


Since the gilets jaunes crisis last year, Mr Macron has renounced all semblance of budgetary rigour. He promised the amphitheatre filled with men and women in uniform “an unprecedented budgetary effort for defence, major and lasting”.

‘Strictly defensive’
France has already committed to spending €37 billion to modernise its nuclear forces between 2019 and 2025. France has nearly 300 nuclear warheads, Mr Macron said.


French nuclear weapons are “strictly defensive”, but Mr Macron rejected a no first use commitment on the grounds that “a nuclear warning” might be necessary in the event that a state aggressor underestimated France’s determination to protect her vital interests.


Mr Macron summarised French nuclear doctrine thus: “Our nuclear deterrent force remains, as a last resort, the keystone of our security and the guarantor of our vital interests. Today, as yesterday, it guarantees our independence, our freedom of judgment, decision and action. It prevents the adversary from gambling on successful escalation, intimidation or blackmail.”

 

[Housecarl]

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Counterinsurgency in the Sahel is at Risk of Unraveling

In recent weeks, international attention has focused on the consequences of heightened U.S.-Iranian tensions in the Middle East, and more recently, on an attempted jihadist attack on the streets of South London on February 2. Away from the gaze of most international media, the latest in a string...

jamestown.org

Counterinsurgency in the Sahel is at Risk of Unraveling
Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 18 Issue: 3
By: J. H. Elswood

February 7, 2020 06:33 PM Age: 12 mins

French soldier in Mali as part of Operation Barkhane (source: thenational.ae)

In recent weeks, international attention has focused on the consequences of heightened U.S.-Iranian tensions in the Middle East, and more recently, on an attempted jihadist attack on the streets of South London on February 2. Away from the gaze of most international media, the latest in a string of increasingly deadly insurgent attacks unfolded in relative obscurity in the Sahel region of North Africa, which is now one of the largest hotbeds of terrorism. The government of Mali announced on January 23 that seven soldiers had been killed by “unidentified armed men” in an overnight raid at Diougnani, a military base close to the southern border with Burkina Faso (Malijet, January 27). Soon afterwards, al-Zallaqa, a media outlet run by the militant jihadist group Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), published a statement claiming responsibility for the raid. Images accompanying the message showed several vehicles that the attackers had captured during the operation. The assault came shortly after French President Emmanuel Macron announced he would deploy an additional 600 troops to the multinational counter-insurgency effort in the region, and JNIM cited this so-called “occupation” as its primary motive (Euronews, January 14).
A Storm Years in the Making
The ongoing conflict across the Sahel has its roots in a Tuareg separatist rebellion that erupted in northern Mali against President Amadou Toumani Touré in 2012, and eventually spilled into neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso. The group, now known as JNIM, only formed five years later, when Tuareg warlord Iyad Ag Ghali merged his forces with several jihadist groups to bolster his tribal insurgency (see Militant Leadership Monitor, February 29, 2017). Among them was al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the regional affiliate of what was then the global jihadist movement’s preeminent network under Ayman al-Zawahiri. The merger was as much an opportunistic symbiosis as it was an ideological one, providing Ghali’s forces with greater credibility and operational support in exchange for their own support for al-Qaeda’s regional proliferation.
The need for cooperation became particularly acute after the emergence of rival Islamic State (IS), and later its Greater Sahara affiliate (ISGS) in 2015—a threat that swelled due to the return of foreign fighters to the Sahel region after IS’ territorial defeat in Syria and the death of its first leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. This inter-jihadist competition, which reflects al-Qaeda and IS’ irregular rivalry as far away as Afghanistan, will have partly driven JNIM’s latest attack, as in the last three months alone IS affiliates have conducted major operations against government forces in Indelimane, Mali and Inates, Niger.
Meanwhile, the location of the latest attack in Diougnani near Mopti, southern Mali, reflects another fundamental aspect of the insurgency. Much of the violence is perpetrated along tribal or ethnic lines, for instance between the Muslim-dominant Fulani people, and other groups such as the Dogon, who largely practice traditional pre-Islamic faiths and who populate areas close to the Burkinabe border where Diougnani is located. Tribal conflict is something jihadist groups have long been able to exploit for their own recruitment and operations, and Fulani-Dogon tensions are a case in point. JNIM’s attack on Diougnani, in an area with significant Dogon populations, is likely to have also been an attempt to undermine Dogon security, and in turn, appeal to potential Fulani recruits.
The International Response: “An Inconvenient Reality”
France, which historically colonized much of the Sahel region, began its counter-insurgency efforts in 2013. Paris has deployed 4,500 troops to the Sahel for what has evolved into Operation Barkhane, an international campaign incorporating forces from the G5 countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad and Mauritania, as well as European partners Estonia and the Netherlands. Nevertheless, militant groups like JNIM have persistently been able to exploit the security vacuum in areas that are proving extremely difficult to police, and their attacks—for instance around the sparse tri-border Liptako-Gourma area east of Mopti—have spurred major internal and cross-border displacement (Malijet, January 25). In Mali alone, people in need of humanitarian assistance number nearly four million, and among them, the number of internally displaced persons has nearly doubled to almost 200,000 over the last nine months (UN Security Council, December 30, 2019).
President Macron’s commitment of 600 additional troops was an acknowledgment that Operation Burkhane, even when coupled with nearly 13,000 UN peacekeepers, has so far proven insufficient. But his intensification of the counter-insurgency effort already faces a major obstacle even before the first reinforcements have arrived. The obstacle comes, in fact, from Washington.
For its part, the United States has around 1,000 troops stationed in the Sahel and at least one drone operating base in Niger, making up around one-sixth of its AFRICOM contingent across the continent. Its forces have contributed to operations against JNIM and ISGS in recent years, making headlines when 10 U.S. troops were killed near Tongo Tongo, Niger in October 2017. However, pending a decision in the White House to conduct a large-scale strategic pivot toward the Indo-Pacific region, these contributions may imminently be scaled-down. Although AFRICOM commander General Stephen Townsend recently told Congress that North Africa is “key terrain for competition with China and Russia… [posing] an inconvenient reality in Africa,” Defence Secretary Mark Esper has conversely expressed the Trump administration’s desire to eventually switch focus to the Indo-Pacific theater instead (AFRICOM, January 30).
Implications
The potential for a protracted U.S. withdrawal from the Sahel, despite Washington’s geostrategic ambition of countering Chinese and Russian influence on the continent, threatens to erode Macron’s additional commitment to Operation Barkhane before it has operationally begun. The strategic redeployment of up to 1,000 U.S. personnel could credibly outweigh the likely benefits of any steady increase in French support for the G5 nations over the coming years. Moreover, it could credibly force regional governments to consider arming local self-protection groups, such as koglweogo in Burkina Faso, as a stop-gap measure for their insufficient local forces and lack of international support. This is something that security forces have done unofficially for several years, but the Burkinabe parliament enacted into law on January 23. It will generate limited and ephemeral support, but at the longer-term cost of seriously exacerbating social cleavages (see Terrorism Monitor vol. 17 issue 23).
Subsequently, and in spite of Paris’s efforts, the broiling insurgency in the Sahel is unlikely to change course for the time being, spiking during typical periods of jihadist activity such as Ramadan in April and May this year and in response to French efforts to bolster security in the region. In the longer term, opportunistic attacks on churches and government assets could plausibly begin to be seen further afield if JNIM and its affiliates continue to operate at this tempo and with the same freedom of movement. While the much more stable coastal states of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire have demonstrated higher levels of military and police readiness in recent months, they will nevertheless share concerns over their own electoral events later in the year. While JNIM’s capabilities still remain largely unsophisticated, limiting the possibility of such attacks materializing in the near future, the governments in Accra and Abidjan will take little solace in the international community’s differing responses to the evolving threat.

TM-Feb.-7-2020-Issue.pdf

 

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French soldiers kill more than 30 Islamist militants in Mali: army

French soldiers killed more than 30 Islamist militants in Mali in three separate operations on Thursday and Friday targeting al Qaeda and Islamic State-linked groups, France’s armed forces said. France, the former colonial power in a number of West African countries, has about 4,500 soldiers in...

www.yahoo.com

French soldiers kill more than 30 Islamist militants in Mali: army

Reuters•February 7, 2020

PARIS (Reuters) - French soldiers killed more than 30 Islamist militants in Mali in three separate operations on Thursday and Friday targeting al Qaeda and Islamic State-linked groups, France’s armed forces said.

France, the former colonial power in a number of West African countries, has about 4,500 soldiers in the region in its counter-terrorism taskforce Operation Barkhane. The United Nations has a 13,000-strong peacekeeping operation in Mali.

In the Gourma region, soldiers of the French Barkhane force killed about 20 militants and destroyed several vehicles, while in the Liptako region, a stronghold of Islamic State, 10 more were killed, the army said.

The operations involved a drone, warplanes and two helicopters, it said.

In December, French forces killed 33 Islamist militants in Mali using attack helicopters, ground troops and a drone near the border with Mauritania where a group linked to al Qaeda operates.

On Sunday, France said it planned to deploy 600 more soldiers in the fight against militants in the Sahel, an arid region of West Africa south of the Sahara desert. The reinforcements would mostly be sent to the area between Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

The United Nations, France and the United States have poured billions of dollars into stabilizing the Sahel, but with little success.

(Reporting by Tangi Salaun; Writing by Matthieu Protard; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Hugh Lawson)

 

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Mexican villagers formed a militia to defend themselves from a gang. The government was fine with it — until they started arming children.

Mexican villagers formed a militia to defend themselves from a gang. The government was fine with it — until they started arming children.

Kevin Sieff
6 hrs ago

AYAHUALTEMPA, Mexico — Before he picked up a rifle and joined a squad of armed children, Alex wanted to become a schoolteacher. He’d teach anything — “whatever the principal asks” — because spending his days in a classroom sounded pretty good.

He was 13, a B student with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bicycle who got nervous around the girls in his middle school.

Then, in November, as violence surged in the mountains of Guerrero state, the men of Ayahualtempa decided it was time for their sons to take up arms.

Alex was handed a hunting rifle and told to show up for daily training on the village basketball court. He and his young comrades, some as young as 6, marched and crawled with loaded guns almost as tall as they were. Their uniforms said “Community Police” in yellow letters.

When the photographers started coming, the boys were told to cover their faces with handkerchiefs. Arming children to defend the town against a violent gang wasn’t a media stunt, Alex’s commanders insisted. But if the images drew the government’s attention to a place Mexico’s security forces had forgotten, it would be a triumph of its own.

But were the boys training to defend their village, or were they being paraded in front of visiting photographers to send a message to the government, a plea for more resources? Sometimes even Alex wasn’t sure. What he knew was that the gun was heavy and loaded, and the training felt real enough to him.

Alex’s father, Santos Martínez, looked at his son’s face, trying to gauge whether Alex was mature enough to join the force.

“There was no fear in his eyes,” Martínez said. “That’s how I knew he was ready.”

Alex repeated the words of his commander.

“I’m preparing to defend my village,” he said.

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a man holding a pair of men walking down a street: Alex, 13, right, and other children take part in a community police force gun training session in Ayahualtempa, Mexico. Alex had to stop attending middle school because of drug cartel Los Ardillos. He then joined the community police force with his father. (Luis Antonio Rojas for The Washington Post)
Full screen

1/10 SLIDES © Luis Antonio Rojas/For The Washington Post
Alex, 13, right, and other children take part in a community police force gun training session in Ayahualtempa, Mexico. Alex had to stop attending middle school because of drug cartel Los Ardillos. He then joined the community police force with his father. (Luis Antonio Rojas for The Washington Post)

Mexico suffered 35,588 homicides in 2019, a record. It was another data point in a trend borne out across Ayahualtempa and thousands of towns like it: Every year, no matter who is in power, this country becomes more violent.

But violence takes dramatically different forms across Mexico, a nation splintered by turf wars. In the northwestern capital of Culiacán, the Sinaloa cartel battles the country’s security forces with military-grade weapons. In Ayahualtempa, a village of 600 indigenous people, the community police carry aging hunting rifles in their own war against a powerful drug cartel called Los Ardillos, which controls the neighboring town.

For years, Ayahualtempa had maintained its own defense force, dozens of armed men who patrolled the village and manned checkpoints and held overwatch positions on the roofs of unfinished homes. Autodefensas, or self-defense forces, are legal in Guerrero state and recognized by the federal government.

But over the past year, the local autodefensa, known as the CRAC-PF, has been overwhelmed. Twenty-six people have been killed since the start of 2019 in the force’s territory, which includes Ayahualtempa and 15 other towns. Last month, 10 musicians from those towns traveling to a concert were shot and burned beyond recognition. One of them was 15 years old.

Alex’s middle school was in what was considered to be enemy territory. He stopped attending.

Bernardino Sánchez Luna, the 48-year-old founder of CRAC-PF, said its leaders spoke among themselves and decided to allow the boys into the force. In recent months, the group of armed children grew more formal. Now there are 17 boys in matching T-shirts. Those under 12 get handmade toy guns. Those over 12 get working rifles.

“If the government can’t protect them, they need to be trained to defend themselves,” Sánchez Luna said.

Alex had seen the pictures of himself, rifle in hand, published in newspapers across Mexico. It was a strange kind of fame. He had never left the state of Guerrero, and now his face was on newsstands in the capital. His commander insisted it was part of the strategy.

He noticed that CRAC-PF’s leaders began welcoming local journalists, who took photos of the boys during their training sessions. He heard Sánchez Luna talk about how the media could be used as a tool to convey the village’s problems — its demands for the state and federal governments. The village had been ignored for decades, but it would be hard to ignore a force of armed children.

By the time a Washington Post correspondent arrived in Ayahualtempa this week, Alex’s suspicion had sharpened.

“These journalists like you come, but I don’t know where they’re from,” he said. “How can I trust them?”

He was sitting on the curb outside his family’s small convenience store, where he staffs the register now that he’s no longer in school. He kept his uniform and rifle behind a stack of plastic Pepsi bottles. Training starts at 5 p.m.

Sánchez Luna insisted the boys weren’t being used as a tool to attract the attention of the media or the government. But he did admit that when journalists were in town, he held training sessions earlier, because photographers and videographers had complained that the nighttime drills were too dark to record. He also called the media “an important weapon for us.”

After a flurry of stories in Mexican news outlets, CRAC-PF printed out a list of 29 demands for Mexico’s president, ranging from increased security to the installation of an ATM. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had taken an interest in Ayahualtempa after seeing images of the armed children in the media.

“Giving children weapons and taking videos is an act of cruelty,” he said last week.

But despite López Obrador’s comments and a condemnation from UNICEF, the children remain armed, and the government has not tried to intervene. The Guerrero state governor agreed to send a routine police patrol through the area. But that meant little to the people of Ayahualtempa, including Alex, who now watched, rifle in hand, as the heavily armed officers drove by.

“We can’t trust them, either,” he said.

On Wednesday morning, Alex and his father left their house for the village’s main checkpoint, a chain barrier that marked the division between Ayahualtempa and Hueycantenango, which they considered enemy territory.

They walked shoulder to shoulder, each holding a rifle.

“Man the bunker,” Martínez said.

Alex moved behind a barrier of tires and concrete, his right hand near the gun’s trigger. He wore a pair of broken sandals, his feet sometimes slipping out as he walked.

It was a moment that blurred the mission of the armed children. The force’s leaders said Alex and the other boys were merely “in training,” but here he was providing close protection for his father. Or was this, too, an elaborate attempt to attract news coverage that might draw the government’s attention to a place it had mostly abandoned? It was hard to tell.

“I don’t know how they can get the government’s attention aside by doing these sorts of things — or by dying, and even that will only get the authorities’ attention for a few days,” said Chris Kyle, an anthropologist at the University of Alabama who focuses on Guerrero.

In Mexico, stories emerge of self-defense groups recruiting children every few years. Accounts of drug cartels enlisting kids are even more common. But rarely has any group been this open about its effort. Another Guerrero autodefensa leader, Gonzalo Molina González, likened the children to Mexico’s Niños Héroes, the teenage folk heroes who died trying to repel the American invasion of Mexico City in 1847.

At the checkpoint, Martínez refused to lower the chain for a truck driver. “They could work for Los Ardillos,” he muttered under his breath.

Alex stood behind the bunker, watching as his former teachers walked to his old primary school. He didn’t wave. His middle school, Escuela Secundaria Tecnologica Cuauhtémoc 121, was only 200 yards away, but on the other side of the chain. A few months ago, he’d watched as a CRAC-PF member carrying firewood was shot and killed a few feet from the school.

Not long after, the family decided it was too dangerous for him to continue going to class. They worried that anyone from Ayahualtempa could be targeted.

Alex’s older sister, Erica, refused to stop going to school. She ran away to an aunt’s house.

Their mother is torn.

“I want my children to attend school, but not if that means their lives are at risk,” Justina said. “Every day I worry about my daughter.”

Alex’s teacher visited the family’s home this week to beg his parents to send Alex back to the classroom.

Martínez said he refused.

“I told the teacher, ‘Until the government provides some security, I’m not sending my son to school,’” he said.

Alex returned home from the bunker and set his rifle down on the floor. There was another training session that evening. More journalists had arrived. Alex repeated that he was training to defend his village, to prepare for a possible incursion. He could feel himself getting stronger and more capable.

That’s what he was told, and that’s what he believed.

Photo editing by Chloe Coleman, design by Cece Pascual, video editing by Alexa Juliana Ard and copy editing by Stu Werner.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Send In The Marines: Mexico Has A Plan To Win Its Long Drug War

Not the American Marines.

nationalinterest.org

February 7, 2020 Topic: Security Region: Americas Blog Brand: The Buzz Tags: MarinesCartelsMilitaryWarDrugs
Send In The Marines: Mexico Has A Plan To Win Its Long Drug War

Not the American Marines.
by Caleb Larson

Key point: The Navy enjoys a high degree of trust from the Mexican people.

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 last year.
Image: Reuters.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm............

Posted for fair use.....

CIA mystery: Did Iran kill 'Ayatollah Mike?'

A USAF Bombardier E11A intelligence gathering jet was cruising over Afghanistan on a secret mission, transporting two crewmen and allegedly, a mysterious

www.asiatimes.com

CIA, Afghanistan
February 6, 2020

CIA mystery: Did Iran kill ‘Ayatollah Mike?’
Nobody is talking after Michael D’Andrea, the CIA’s top Iran Mission Center chief, is allegedly killed in plane crash
ByDave Makichuk

A USAF Bombardier E11A intelligence gathering jet was cruising over Afghanistan on a secret mission, transporting two crewmen and allegedly, a mysterious chain-smoking CIA operative, Michael D’Andrea — also known as Dark Prince and Ayatollah Mike — when something bad happened over a remote, mountainous region.
Media reports on Iranian State television showed a crumpled, burning wreck — clearly there were no survivors. It also claimed that D’Andrea, chief of the CIA’s special Iran task force, which goes by the name Iran Mission Center, was one of the casualties.
According to a special report by Philip Giraldi in the American Herald Tribune, forty-eight hours after the crash the Pentagon released a statement confirming that the two crewmen were Lt. Col. Paul K. Voss, 46, of Yigo, Guam; and Capt. Ryan S. Phaneuf, 30, of Hudson, New Hampshire. The CIA and the White House, refused further comment.
The Iranian account was picked up throughout the Middle East, to include photos taken of the downed plane and of burned corpses, the report said. Russian media also featured the story and it was eventually even reported, though with some editorial skepticism, by the Independent and Daily Mail in the UK.
Many who were following the story were inclined to believe the account circulated by Iran and other media outlets because the US has a horrible track record of lying about nearly everything, the report said.
Iran would have had plenty of motive to create confusion about the United States and what it was doing in Afghanistan, particularly if the implication is that Afghanistan was being used as a launching pad to destabilize or even attack Iran, the report said.
Was it shot down deliberately, payback for the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the once dashing commander of the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard?

Was it shot down by militants, or did it crash due to a technical issue? The CIA and White House aren’t talking. Credit: Xinhua.
Going by the wreckage photos, the aircraft looks to be level, relative to the ground … not the kind of wreckage of a plane shot out of the sky. In fact, it looks like the pilot(s) tried to make a last ditch attempt to make an emergency landing in rough terrain.
Some Iran-linked websites have claimed responsibility. Reportedly, the CIA officer’s body was taken by the militants, along with a stash of top secret CIA documents. On that basis, alone, this is a major intelligence coup for Iran.
The White House and CIA have neither confirmed nor denied that it was, or if D’Andrea is alive or dead. Cue the media speculation.
The former chief of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center, he was appointed to his current position by then Agency Director Mike Pompeo in 2017. The New York Times reported that his appearance would mean a much harder line in opposing Iran by the Trump administration, the report said.
Within the Agency, D’Andrea was reportedly referred to as the Dark Prince or Ayatollah Mike, nicknames he acquired while heading the search for Osama bin Laden and also while directed drone strikes against al-Qaeda targets, the report said.
A chain-smoking convert to Islam, he is not your conventional Agency officer, many of whom are more comfortable working from an embassy desk rather than a helicopter. A workaholic who keeps a roll away bed in his office, D’Andrea is, as a result of his abrasive style, reportedly extremely difficult to work with.
Whether he is alive or dead, the tale of his so-called death serves as a warning from Iran. Even an obstinate White House can’t help but think that killing men like Soleimani might not be such a great idea — if we continue to do it to “them,” “they” will turn around and “do it to us.”

 

[jward]

Posted for fair use.....

Iran to launch observation satellite in 'coming days'

METATEXT

www.spacedaily.com

SPACE.WIRE
Iran to launch observation satellite in 'coming days'

Tehran, Feb 1 (AFP) Feb 01, 2020

Iran is preparing to launch a new scientific observation satellite in the "coming days", the head of the country's national space agency told AFP on Saturday.
Manufacture of the Zafar (Victory in Farsi) satellite "began three years ago with the participation of 80 Iranian scientists," said Morteza Berari, without giving a date for the launch.
The 113-kilogram satellite will be launched by a Simorgh rocket 530 kilometres (329 miles) above the Earth, where it will make 15 orbits daily, said Berari.
The satellite was designed to remain operational for "more than 18 months", he added.
Its "primary mission" will be collecting imagery, said Berari, who said Iran needed such data to study earthquakes, prevent natural disasters and develop its agriculture.
"It will be a new step for our country," said Berari, noting that Iran had previously managed to place a satellite into orbit 250 km (155 miles) above the Earth.
While the Islamic republic's satellite programme has concerned some Western countries, Berari said Iran advocates for the "peaceful use of outer space".
"All our activities in the domain of outer space are transparent," he said.
The Iranian Space Agency hopes to construct five more satellites before March 2021, Berari added.
In January 2019, Tehran announced that its Payam (Message in Farsi) satellite had failed to reach orbit, after authorities said they launched it to collect data on environmental change in Iran.
The launch of its carrier rocket was preceded by warnings from Washington, which described it as a "provocation" and a violation of a 2015 UN Security Council resolution which endorsed an international accord on curbing Tehran's nuclear programme.
Resolution 2231 called on Iran to refrain from any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
Iran maintains it has no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons, and says its aerospace activities are peaceful and do not violate the security council resolution.

Aurora Intel
@AuroraIntel

#Iran’s planned launch of the Zafar satellite has been delayed according to reports and a new launch time will be announced soon

 

[jward]

Hummm............

Posted for fair use.....

CIA mystery: Did Iran kill 'Ayatollah Mike?'

A USAF Bombardier E11A intelligence gathering jet was cruising over Afghanistan on a secret mission, transporting two crewmen and allegedly, a mysterious

www.asiatimes.com

CIA, Afghanistan
February 6, 2020

CIA mystery: Did Iran kill ‘Ayatollah Mike?’
Nobody is talking after Michael D’Andrea, the CIA’s top Iran Mission Center chief, is allegedly killed in plane crash
ByDave Makichuk

A USAF Bombardier E11A intelligence gathering jet was cruising over Afghanistan on a secret mission, transporting two crewmen and allegedly, a mysterious chain-smoking CIA operative, Michael D’Andrea — also known as Dark Prince and Ayatollah Mike — when something bad happened over a remote, mountainous region.
Media reports on Iranian State television showed a crumpled, burning wreck — clearly there were no survivors. It also claimed that D’Andrea, chief of the CIA’s special Iran task force, which goes by the name Iran Mission Center, was one of the casualties.
According to a special report by Philip Giraldi in the American Herald Tribune, forty-eight hours after the crash the Pentagon released a statement confirming that the two crewmen were Lt. Col. Paul K. Voss, 46, of Yigo, Guam; and Capt. Ryan S. Phaneuf, 30, of Hudson, New Hampshire. The CIA and the White House, refused further comment.
The Iranian account was picked up throughout the Middle East, to include photos taken of the downed plane and of burned corpses, the report said. Russian media also featured the story and it was eventually even reported, though with some editorial skepticism, by the Independent and Daily Mail in the UK.
Many who were following the story were inclined to believe the account circulated by Iran and other media outlets because the US has a horrible track record of lying about nearly everything, the report said.
Iran would have had plenty of motive to create confusion about the United States and what it was doing in Afghanistan, particularly if the implication is that Afghanistan was being used as a launching pad to destabilize or even attack Iran, the report said.
Was it shot down deliberately, payback for the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the once dashing commander of the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard?

Was it shot down by militants, or did it crash due to a technical issue? The CIA and White House aren’t talking. Credit: Xinhua.
Going by the wreckage photos, the aircraft looks to be level, relative to the ground … not the kind of wreckage of a plane shot out of the sky. In fact, it looks like the pilot(s) tried to make a last ditch attempt to make an emergency landing in rough terrain.
Some Iran-linked websites have claimed responsibility. Reportedly, the CIA officer’s body was taken by the militants, along with a stash of top secret CIA documents. On that basis, alone, this is a major intelligence coup for Iran.
The White House and CIA have neither confirmed nor denied that it was, or if D’Andrea is alive or dead. Cue the media speculation.
The former chief of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center, he was appointed to his current position by then Agency Director Mike Pompeo in 2017. The New York Times reported that his appearance would mean a much harder line in opposing Iran by the Trump administration, the report said.
Within the Agency, D’Andrea was reportedly referred to as the Dark Prince or Ayatollah Mike, nicknames he acquired while heading the search for Osama bin Laden and also while directed drone strikes against al-Qaeda targets, the report said.
A chain-smoking convert to Islam, he is not your conventional Agency officer, many of whom are more comfortable working from an embassy desk rather than a helicopter. A workaholic who keeps a roll away bed in his office, D’Andrea is, as a result of his abrasive style, reportedly extremely difficult to work with.
Whether he is alive or dead, the tale of his so-called death serves as a warning from Iran. Even an obstinate White House can’t help but think that killing men like Soleimani might not be such a great idea — if we continue to do it to “them,” “they” will turn around and “do it to us.”

still have no idea what happened, but apparently that is by design, & I'm in good company. Link for future digital autopsy...

DISASTER - Passanger plane carrying 83 people crashes in Afghanistan

BNO News (@BNONews) Tweeted: BREAKING: Passenger plane carrying 83 people crashes in eastern Afghanistan - local media View: https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1221732992516796418?s=20

xf.timebomb2000.com

 

[jward]

Trump’s Bid to Go Big on Nuclear Arms Looks Like a Fizzle


Russia has no interest in negotiating from scratch. China has no interest in negotiating at all.

Nuclear arms control is in trouble. The 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces, or INF, Treaty is dead, and the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, has entered its last year, with the Trump administration thus far unready to accept Moscow’s offer to extend it.
President Trump instead wants to go big. Last April, he reportedly tasked officials with developing a proposal to address all nuclear weapons, not just deployed strategic arms, and to bring China into the equation. Nine months later, nothing, not even the hint of an outline of a proposal, has emerged. That is no surprise.

Negotiate All Nukes? Nyet
The demise of the INF Treaty left New START as the only treaty constraining U.S. and Russian nuclear arms. New START limits the actual number of warheads on deployed strategic ballistic missiles with an accounting mechanism attributing one deployed warhead to each deployed bomber.
Related: New New START a Nonstarter: Russian Ambassador
Related: Top Nuke General: Russia Is Exploiting Gaps In Key Arms-Control Treaty
Related: Poll: Americans Want To Stay In Nuclear Arms Control Agreements
That leaves a lot of nuclear warheads unconstrained: weapons for deployed bombers (beyond one per deployed aircraft), reserve strategic warheads, and all non-strategic nuclear warheads (sometimes referred to as sub-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons). The United States had 1,376 deployed strategic warheads as of September 1, 2019, but the total arsenal size was believed to number 3,800 nuclear weapons.

Washington has long expressed interest in limits on non-strategic nuclear weapons. Following signature of New START, President Obama called for a follow-on negotiation to include all U.S. and Russian nuclear arms—strategic and non-strategic, deployed and non-deployed. The Russians, however, have long said nyet: they are not prepared to discuss non-strategic nuclear weapons unless the United States discusses issues of concern to them, including missile defense and long-range, precision-guided conventional strike.

Russian concerns about the capabilities of current U.S. missile defenses are hugely overstated, but Moscow fears what those missile defenses might prove capable of doing in the future. The Trump administration, however, has a clear position on limiting missile defense limits as expressed in its missile defense review: no constraints.
As for conventional strike systems, Russian strategists—rightly or wrongly—have expressed concern for more than a decade about a U.S. strategic attack with precision-guided conventional weapons. The U.S. military deploys thousands of conventionally-armed sea-launched and air-launched cruise missiles, comprising a critical element of U.S. power projection. The Pentagon has shown no interest in limiting these.

If the Trump administration will not discuss constraints on missile defenses or long-range, precision-guided conventional strike systems, it should not expect success in persuading the Russians to put non-strategic nuclear arms on the table. That is even more the case if China, whose growing conventional power worries Moscow, chooses not to join the negotiating game.

Bring in China? Bu shi
China will not join the negotiating game. Chinese officials have repeatedly said that they would not participate in nuclear arms negotiations until there is a significant narrowing of the gap between their nuclear arsenal (about 300 nuclear weapons) and those of the United States and Russia (3,800 to 4,500).
One challenge with such a trilateral negotiation would be what limit to negotiate. The United States and Russia would hardly agree to come down to 300 total nuclear weapons. Nor would they agree to a limit letting China build up to 3,800 to 4,500. And Washington and Moscow almost certainly would not accept an equal limit with China somewhere in between.
Russian officials have already illustrated this dilemma. They began calling for a multilateral negotiation on nuclear arms in 2011 (a negotiation that would involve more than China). Over the past nine years, however, they have never put forward any concept for what a limitation regime would look like. That is because the only regime acceptable to the two nuclear superpowers would impose unequal limits on China. Beijing will not go for that.
Moreover, missile defense sits at the top of China’s list of concerns. With a much smaller nuclear force than Russia, Beijing worries even more that U.S. missile defenses, following a U.S. first strike (perhaps largely carried out with conventional weapons) would blunt a ragged Chinese retaliatory attack. The Trump administration will not entertain limits on missile defenses.

Heading for a Fizzle? Da
Last April’s presidential request to develop a proposal to go big on nuclear arms reductions has all the hallmarks of a Trump initiative: impetuous, seeking to grab headlines, and not well thought-out. More than nine months later, Washington has offered no proposal for a negotiation covering all nuclear arms and involving China—or even the bare outline of a proposed limitation regime.
That speaks volumes. And it should come as no surprise that officials responsible for arms control at the State and Defense Departments have not come up with a position to answer the president’s dramatic tasking. John Bolton, national security advisor when Mr. Trump leveled his tasking, may well have wanted this. He has shown himself to be no fan of arms control.
In Mr. Trump’s desire to grab the spotlight and go big, he set unachievable goals. Prepare for a fizzle.

• Steven Pifer is a William Perry Research Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and a retired career Foreign Service officer. Full bio

posted for fair use

Trump’s Bid to Go Big on Nuclear Arms Looks Like a Fizzle

Russia has no interest in negotiating from scratch. China has no interest in negotiating at all.

www.defenseone.com