WAR 02-08-2020-to-02-14-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(403) 01-18-2020-to-01-24-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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

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****...

xf.timebomb2000.com

(404) 01-25-2020-to-01-31-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

WAR - 01-25-2020-to-01-31-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(402) 01-11-2020-to-01-17-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** http://xf.timebomb2000.com/xf/index.php?threads/01-11-2020-to-01-17-2020___-the-winds-of-war.566510/#post-7544881 (403) 01-18-2020-to-01-24-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****...

xf.timebomb2000.com

(405) 02-01-2020-to-02-07-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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

(402) 01-11-2020-to-01-17-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** http://xf.timebomb2000.com/xf/index.php?threads/01-11-2020-to-01-17-2020___-the-winds-of-war.566510/#post-7544881 (403) 01-18-2020-to-01-24-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****...

xf.timebomb2000.com

--------------

jward
Posted Today at 2:44 PM

• #51
  Trump’s Bid to Go Big on Nuclear Arms Looks Like a Fizzle

---------------

Posted for fair use.....

U.S., Afghan forces come under fire in eastern Afghanistan: U.S. official

Colonel Sonny Leggett, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said a combined U.S. and Afghan force conducting an operation in Nangarhar province was engaged by direct fire. Mubariz Khadem, a senior security official in Nangarhar, said the clashes took placed between U.S. and Afghan forces and

www.yahoo.com

U.S., Afghan forces come under fire in eastern Afghanistan: U.S. official
By Abdul Qadir Sediqi and Ahmad Sultan
Reuters February 8, 2020, 10:56 AM PST


By Abdul Qadir Sediqi and Ahmad Sultan

KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. and Afghan forces came under attack in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, officials said in Kabul as they launched investigations into whether the attackers were Afghan service members or wearing Afghan uniforms, what is known as an "insider attack."
Colonel Sonny Leggett, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said a combined U.S. and Afghan force conducting an operation in Nangarhar province was engaged by direct fire.
Officials did not comment on the number of casualties.
"We are assessing the situation and will provide further updates as they become available," he said.
Mubariz Khadem, a senior security official in Nangarhar, said the clashes took placed between U.S. and Afghan forces and casualties were feared.
Insider attacks, often known as "green-on-blue" attacks , have been a regular feature of the conflict in Afghanistan, although their frequency has diminished in recent years.
A senior Afghan defense official said it was not clear whether the incident was a result of clashes between Afghan and foreign forces or whether hardline Islamist militants were responsible for the attack.
"We are not ruling any possibility out but we are not calling it an insider attack, Taliban attack, or 'green-on-blue' at this stage," said the official who requested anonymity.
Taliban sources were not immediately available to comment.
Sohrab Qaderi, a provincial council member in Nangarhar, said clashes happened between the Afghan army and foreign forces in Shirzad district on Saturday afternoon.
He said members of the Afghan forces had been operating in the area since last month, and foreign forces were also in the district to defend against Taliban attacks.
"It seems that clashes happened between Afghan and foreign forces during a raid or maybe there was a tactical mistake," said Qaderi.
Investigations of past rogue attacks had uncovered many reasons for so called "green-on-blue" shootings, including frustration with the 18-year war in Afghanistan against the Taliban and other hardline Islamist groups.
About 14,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Afghanistan as part of the U.S.-led NATO mission to train, assist and advise Afghan forces and to carry out counter-terrorism operations.
U.S. diplomats have been talking with the Taliban for months to agree a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces in exchange for security guarantees.
Despite talks between the United States and the Taliban to end the war, violence in the country has not ebbed.

(Writing by Rupam Jain; Editing by Matthew Lewis and David Gregorio)


BREAKING: SPECIAL FORCES TEAM AMBUSHED IN AFGHANISTAN, MULTIPLE CASUALTIES

• mzkitty
• Today at 3:14 PM

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Syrian advance sends hundreds of thousands fleeing in Idlib

BEIRUT (AP) — Turkey on Friday sent more troops and tanks to bolster its military presence in northwestern Syria, where President Bashar Assad's forces have been advancing in a devastating, Russian-backed offensive that has sparked a massive wave of people fleeing in wet and blustery winter weather.

apnews.com

Syrian advance sends hundreds of thousands fleeing in Idlib
By SARAH EL DEEB and SUZAN FRASER
yesterday

BEIRUT (AP) — Turkey on Friday sent more troops and tanks to bolster its military presence in northwestern Syria, where President Bashar Assad’s forces have been advancing in a devastating, Russian-backed offensive that has sparked a massive wave of people fleeing in wet and blustery winter weather.
Syria’s Idlib region near the border with Turkey is the last rebel-held bastion in the war-ravaged country. The push by Assad’s forces into towns and villages in the province over the past months has uprooted more than a half-million people who fled the advancing troops. Many of them already have been displaced several times in the 8-year-old Syrian war.

The campaign also has angered Turkey, which backs the rebels, and brought the two countries’ troops into a rare, direct confrontation: At least eight Turkish troops and civilians and 13 Syrian soldiers have been killed.
As Syrian and Russian warplanes indiscriminately pounded hospitals, clinics and schools in the enclave, civilians packed their belongings in cars, taxis and pickup trucks. They streamed toward the Turkish border with few options left that are outside Syrian government control.
Many end up in tents or sheltering in abandoned buildings during rainy and windy weather, with temperatures hovering around freezing but predicted to fall over the weekend.
“If they stay, they run the risk of falling victim to the indiscriminate violence taking place in urban areas. If they leave, they have nowhere to go, “ said Lorenzo Redalié, head of the Aleppo office of the International Committee of the Red Cross. ”The shelters can’t accommodate everyone, and it is more and more challenging for humanitarians to reach them and meet their needs.”
The Syrian offensive appears aimed for now at securing a strategic highway in rebel-controlled territory, as opposed to an all-out campaign to retake the entire province, including the city of Idlib, the densely populated provincial capital.
Earlier this week, Syrian government troops took control of the former rebel town of Saraqeb, which is strategic because it sits on the intersection of two major highways. One of them leads to the capital, Damascus, to the north, and another connects to the country’s western and eastern regions.
Turkey, which backs the Syrian opposition and has been monitoring a cease-fire in the rebel enclave, has protested the government assault, calling it a violation of the truce it negotiated with Russia. In recent weeks, Ankara sent in troops and equipment to reinforce monitoring points it set up to observe a previous cease-fire, which has since crumbled, and also deployed forces around towns that are threatened by the Syrian advance.

Associated Press video showed a long line of armored vehicles and trucks, some carrying tanks, filing into rebel-controlled rural areas of the province. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said the new troops were deployed west of the town of Saraqeb. It was fifth known deployment of new troops into Syria over the last week, according to the Observatory and other opposition news outlets.
’’It is shocking that civilians continue to bear the brunt of hostilities between all parties to the conflict,″ U.N. Human Rights spokeswoman Marta Hurtado said.
’’It appears foreign powers are battling for territorial and political gains, while blatantly disregarding their obligation to protect civilians,″ she told reporters in Geneva.
Idlib and nearby rural Aleppo are the last rebel-held areas in Syria. They are home to more than 3 million people, most of them already displaced by violence.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been on the move in recent weeks, fleeing toward areas closer to the Turkish border. Many of them are being housed in temporary shelters.
Of the 580,000 people who have been displaced since Dec. 1, UNICEF estimated that about 300,000 of them are children.
Also on Friday, Russia’s Defense Ministry accused Israel of nearly shooting down a Syrian passenger jet with 172 people aboard during a missile strike on the suburbs of Damascus a day earlier. A spokesman for the Israeli prime minister did not respond to a request for comment, and the AP was unable to verify the Russian allegation. Israel rarely acknowledges any strikes carried out in Syria.
Turkish officials say three Turkish observation posts are inside Syrian-controlled areas in Idlib. A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government rules, insisted the posts would not be evacuated.
Turkey’s Defense Ministry warned the army would respond “even more forcefully” to any attack on the observation posts, adding: “Our observation posts will continue carrying out duties.”
There was a brief respite Friday from the air campaign, residents and opposition activists said, with almost no bombardment reported. It was not clear whether that was due in part to a storm that battered the area with strong winds and heavy rain.
The violence has also raised tensions between Moscow and Ankara, which have been working together to secure cease-fires and political talks despite backing opposite sides of the conflict.
Full Coverage: Turkey
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said a Russian delegation is scheduled to arrive in Ankara on Saturday to discuss the situation in Idlib. A meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin could follow, Cavusoglu said.
“We will do whatever is necessary to stop the human drama, the disaster” in Idlib, Cavusoglu said.
___
Associated Press Writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Daria Litvinova in Moscow and Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Khamenei says Iran must become strong to end 'enemy threat'

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saturday that the Islamic republic must become strong enough to ward off the "enemy's threats" and prevent a war. Khamenei also said Iran had a strong air force despite decades of US pressure and sanctions on the country since the 1979 Islamic...

news.yahoo.com

Khamenei says Iran must become strong to end 'enemy threat'
AFP • February 8, 2020

Tehran (AFP) - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saturday that the Islamic republic must become strong enough to ward off the "enemy's threats" and prevent a war.
Khamenei also said Iran had a strong air force despite decades of US pressure and sanctions on the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
"We must become strong so that there will not be a war, become strong so that enemy's threats will end," he told a gathering of air force commanders and staff.
"We do not want to threaten anyone... this is to prevent threats, to maintain the country's security," he added in a speech aired on state television.

Tensions escalated between Tehran and Washington after a January 3 US drone strike killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad.
Iran retaliated days later by firing a wave of missiles at American troops stationed in Iraq.
Its defence forces had been braced for US retaliation when they shot down a Ukraine International Airlines flight a few minutes after take-off from Tehran on January 8.
"Our Air Force, which had no right to & couldn't even repair parts of aircrafts (before the revolution) now builds planes," Khamenei was quoted as saying on his English-language Twitter account.
"Sanctions are literally crimes, BUT they can be turned into opportunities," he added.
In 2018, the United States withdrew unilaterally from a landmark nuclear deal with Iran and began reimposing sanctions as part of its "maximum pressure" campaign on the country.
Top EU diplomat Josep Borrel visited Tehran last week on a mission aimed at lowering tensions over the Islamic republic's nuclear programme, which has been crumbling since the US withdrawal.
Iran has gradually stepped back from its own commitments under the deal, prompting the European parties to trigger a complaint mechanism under the deal to pressure Tehran to return to full implementation.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Syrian advance sends hundreds of thousands fleeing in Idlib

BEIRUT (AP) — Turkey on Friday sent more troops and tanks to bolster its military presence in northwestern Syria, where President Bashar Assad's forces have been advancing in a devastating, Russian-backed offensive that has sparked a massive wave of people fleeing in wet and blustery winter weather.

apnews.com

Syrian advance sends hundreds of thousands fleeing in Idlib
By SARAH EL DEEB and SUZAN FRASER
yesterday

BEIRUT (AP) — Turkey on Friday sent more troops and tanks to bolster its military presence in northwestern Syria, where President Bashar Assad’s forces have been advancing in a devastating, Russian-backed offensive that has sparked a massive wave of people fleeing in wet and blustery winter weather.
Syria’s Idlib region near the border with Turkey is the last rebel-held bastion in the war-ravaged country. The push by Assad’s forces into towns and villages in the province over the past months has uprooted more than a half-million people who fled the advancing troops. Many of them already have been displaced several times in the 8-year-old Syrian war.

The campaign also has angered Turkey, which backs the rebels, and brought the two countries’ troops into a rare, direct confrontation: At least eight Turkish troops and civilians and 13 Syrian soldiers have been killed.
As Syrian and Russian warplanes indiscriminately pounded hospitals, clinics and schools in the enclave, civilians packed their belongings in cars, taxis and pickup trucks. They streamed toward the Turkish border with few options left that are outside Syrian government control.
Many end up in tents or sheltering in abandoned buildings during rainy and windy weather, with temperatures hovering around freezing but predicted to fall over the weekend.
“If they stay, they run the risk of falling victim to the indiscriminate violence taking place in urban areas. If they leave, they have nowhere to go, “ said Lorenzo Redalié, head of the Aleppo office of the International Committee of the Red Cross. ”The shelters can’t accommodate everyone, and it is more and more challenging for humanitarians to reach them and meet their needs.”
The Syrian offensive appears aimed for now at securing a strategic highway in rebel-controlled territory, as opposed to an all-out campaign to retake the entire province, including the city of Idlib, the densely populated provincial capital.
Earlier this week, Syrian government troops took control of the former rebel town of Saraqeb, which is strategic because it sits on the intersection of two major highways. One of them leads to the capital, Damascus, to the north, and another connects to the country’s western and eastern regions.
Turkey, which backs the Syrian opposition and has been monitoring a cease-fire in the rebel enclave, has protested the government assault, calling it a violation of the truce it negotiated with Russia. In recent weeks, Ankara sent in troops and equipment to reinforce monitoring points it set up to observe a previous cease-fire, which has since crumbled, and also deployed forces around towns that are threatened by the Syrian advance.

Associated Press video showed a long line of armored vehicles and trucks, some carrying tanks, filing into rebel-controlled rural areas of the province. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said the new troops were deployed west of the town of Saraqeb. It was fifth known deployment of new troops into Syria over the last week, according to the Observatory and other opposition news outlets.
’’It is shocking that civilians continue to bear the brunt of hostilities between all parties to the conflict,″ U.N. Human Rights spokeswoman Marta Hurtado said.
’’It appears foreign powers are battling for territorial and political gains, while blatantly disregarding their obligation to protect civilians,″ she told reporters in Geneva.
Idlib and nearby rural Aleppo are the last rebel-held areas in Syria. They are home to more than 3 million people, most of them already displaced by violence.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been on the move in recent weeks, fleeing toward areas closer to the Turkish border. Many of them are being housed in temporary shelters.
Of the 580,000 people who have been displaced since Dec. 1, UNICEF estimated that about 300,000 of them are children.
Also on Friday, Russia’s Defense Ministry accused Israel of nearly shooting down a Syrian passenger jet with 172 people aboard during a missile strike on the suburbs of Damascus a day earlier. A spokesman for the Israeli prime minister did not respond to a request for comment, and the AP was unable to verify the Russian allegation. Israel rarely acknowledges any strikes carried out in Syria.
Turkish officials say three Turkish observation posts are inside Syrian-controlled areas in Idlib. A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government rules, insisted the posts would not be evacuated.
Turkey’s Defense Ministry warned the army would respond “even more forcefully” to any attack on the observation posts, adding: “Our observation posts will continue carrying out duties.”
There was a brief respite Friday from the air campaign, residents and opposition activists said, with almost no bombardment reported. It was not clear whether that was due in part to a storm that battered the area with strong winds and heavy rain.
The violence has also raised tensions between Moscow and Ankara, which have been working together to secure cease-fires and political talks despite backing opposite sides of the conflict.
Full Coverage: Turkey
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said a Russian delegation is scheduled to arrive in Ankara on Saturday to discuss the situation in Idlib. A meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin could follow, Cavusoglu said.
“We will do whatever is necessary to stop the human drama, the disaster” in Idlib, Cavusoglu said.
___
Associated Press Writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Daria Litvinova in Moscow and Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed.

Posted for fair use.....

Russia Enables New Syrian Regime Offensive in Idlib

By: Michael Land Key Takeaway: The pro-regime coalition is poised to make further gains in Greater Idlib province, adding on to already ...

iswresearch.blogspot.com

Friday, February 7, 2020
Russia Enables New Syrian Regime Offensive in Idlib

By: Michael Land

Key Takeaway: The pro-regime coalition is poised to make further gains in Greater Idlib Province, adding on to already substantial territorial advances. Russia will govern the speed at which these advances happen based on its political calculus, both in Syria and elsewhere. The conflict has the potential to escalate dramatically, posing a risk to the U.S. and its allies.



The situation in Syria’s northwest is dynamic and has the potential to escalate dramatically. This escalation threatens the interests of the U.S. and its allies as Russia and Turkey face off in a region dominated by al Qaeda-affiliated groups. A Russian-backed military campaign that began as a limited seizure of terrain for the Assad regime has since evolved into a major undertaking within the Syrian conflict. Russia has set the conditions for the retaking a large swath of terrain along a key highway running through the area, and will likely continue the ground offensive until it achieves that objective. Turkey is moving reinforcements into Idlib in reaction to Russia’s push. Russia may decide to support the pro-regime seizure of significantly more territory in the coming months. Russia will determine the pace of the advance, independent of Assad, based on the balance it has established between its potential diplomatic benefits with its potential military risks.

Vladimir Putin’s Russia has long engaged in a series of parallel strategic endeavors aimed at expanding its presence in and projecting its power into the Middle East and surrounding regions. Russia launched its intervention in Syria in 2015 to preserve a Russian-amenable regime that allows Russia to use Syria for military basing that supports these goals. Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime have undertaken a series of operations to seize terrain and rebuild the Syrian state under Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Russia has launched a complementary diplomatic campaign to solidify its political legitimacy in Syria among Syrians, Russians, and the international community, strengthen the Assad regime at home and abroad, and set favorable conditions for a long-term Russian presence in Syria’s political and information spheres. A key component of this diplomatic campaign is the Astana Process, a series of meetings organized by Russia, Iran, and Turkey to discuss the Syrian conflict that operates independently of the UN peace process. The Astana Process allows Russia to portray itself as a global power with the ability to negotiate settlements to local conflicts while marginalizing Western powers.

Idlib province, a rebel-held area of northwest Syria, represents the largest remaining obstacle in the pro-Assad coalition’s campaign to restore the Assad regime’s territorial control of Syria. Russia, Assad, and their allies are now in the tenth month of a grueling ground offensive to retake this terrain from a variety of anti-Assad forces. Russia has used the phases of this military operation to strengthen its diplomatic position, particularly with regard to Turkey. Russia has alternated between military and diplomatic phases in the campaign, slowing its progress, but facilitating Russian and pro-regime gains both territorially and diplomatically. The changes between these phases often coincide with major Astana meetings. The offensive has accelerated significantly since mid-December as Russia stepped up its support for the operation in the form of fighters, equipment, and air support. Independent of Assad, Russia has decided the pace of the pro-regime offensive to suit its political and diplomatic goals.

The anti-Assad forces that control much of Idlib Province and portions of neighboring Latakia and Aleppo provinces (a.k.a. “Greater Idlib”) constitute the last remaining area of Syria outside the control of the Assad regime, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), or Turkish occupation. The rebel forces in Greater Idlib threaten the security of Russia’s main base in Syria with weaponized drones and indirect fire. These forces also control a stretch of the key M5 Highway, which connects Syria’s two largest cities of Damascus and Aleppo. Al Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al Sham (HTS) dominates control over much of Greater Idlib, although the Turkish-backed National Liberation Front (NLF) and an array of smaller factions retain a presence in much of the region. Pro-regime forces began their offensive in May 2019 and have since seized several key cities, including Khan Sheikhoun on August 21, Ma’arat al Nu’man on January 28, and Saraqib on February 7.
Russia and Assad have undertaken a massive campaign to displace the local population and worsen the already dire humanitarian situation in the region. This campaign not only puts pressure on local factions who must divert resources to maintain security, but also Turkey, which has closed its border to additional refugees from Syria. Greater Idlib is home to approximately 3-4 million civilians and internally displaced persons (IDPs). The latest phase of the pro-Assad offensive has displaced approximately 700,000 people since November.[1] Both Syrian and Russian forces regularly strike civilian infrastructure, including urban centers and hospitals.[2]

The displacement of civilians toward the Turkey-Syria border is a component of a larger Russian campaign to contain Turkish actions in Syria. Despite an often-pragmatic relationship between Russia and Turkey in Syria, the two countries ultimately have extremely different desired end states and priorities in the country. Russia views Turkey primarily as a NATO actor in Syria, along with the United States. Russia is taking a two-pronged approach to undermine the possibility of a U.S.-Turkey NATO zone that could stretch from Deir ez Zour province in the east to Latakia in the west. One prong of this effort is to constrain Turkey’s actions in Idlib, while the other prong involves Russia working with Turkey to counter U.S. actions in eastern Syria. Russia has been frustrated by Turkey’s inability or unwillingness to control rebel factions in Greater Idlib per its agreements with Russia. Russia and Assad’s efforts to exacerbate the humanitarian and displacement situation on Turkey’s border is a means of warning Turkey of the consequences of their inaction without needing to strike Turkish forces directly.

Conclusion and Forecast

Russia has set conditions for a full retaking of the M5 Highway in the coming weeks. Russia may attempt to gain significantly more terrain in Greater Idlib, including Idlib City, once the highway is secure. However, the terrain of Greater Idlib beyond the M5 is tactically advantageous for the defending anti-Assad forces. These groups have prepared extensive fortifications and defenses, including tunnels, in several regions of Greater Idlib, especially in the western mountainous regions. As a result, even after the capture of the M5, Russia may revert to a diplomatic phase of the fight. If the Russian-led campaign gains sufficient initiative to move beyond the M5, the ensuing battle will likely require forces to engage in urban warfare in Idlib City, where the local powerbroker, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, has likely prepared for a siege. Russia would have to undertake a campaign to depopulate the city through airstrikes and artillery, risking an increased response from Turkey and the international community including the United States. Russia will likely be able to achieve certain objectives beyond the M5 Highway, but the progress will be slow and driven by Russia’s diplomatic concerns as well as its military might. The Syrian Civil War remains far from over.

[1] “International Crisis Looms as 700,000 Flee Syria’s Idlib: U.S. Envoy,” Reuters, January 30, 2020, International crisis looms as 700,000 flee Syria's Idlib: U.S. envoy.
[2] Evan Hill, Christiaan Triebert, Malachy Browne, Dmitriy Khavin, Drew Jordan, and Whitney Hurst, “Russia Bombed Four Syrian Hospitals. We Have Proof.” New York Times, October 13, 2019, Russia Bombed Four Syrian Hospitals. We Have Proof.; Christiaan Triebert, Evan Hill, Malachy Browne, Dmitriy Khavin, and Aaron Byrd, “We Proved Russian Pilots Bombed a Hospital. Then They Did It Again.” New York Times, November 14, 2019, We Proved Russian Pilots Bombed a Hospital. Then They Did It Again.; “Russian Air Strikes on Syria Market Kill 23: Monitor,” AFP, July 22, 2019, Russian air strikes on Syria market kill 23: monitor - France 24.
Posted by Institute for the Study of War at 9:48 PM
Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

US, Europe Split Over Terror Threat from Africa

While American officials increasingly talk of a threat to the homeland, allies caution, as of now, there's nothing to suggest imminent attacks in Europe or the US

www.voanews.com

Africa
US, Europe Split Over Terror Threat from Africa
By Jeff Seldin

February 07, 2020 03:42 PM


FILE - Al-Shabab fighters display weapons as they conduct military exercises in northern Mogadishu, Somalia, Oct. 21, 2010.
Terror groups in Africa are getting more ambitious, increasingly mustering the resources and expertise to make their presence felt across the region with an eye toward wreaking havoc even further afield.
Intelligence assessments from the United States, Western nations and other United Nations member states point to a variety of factors, ranging from a small but critical influx of foreign fighters from Iraq and Syria to the growing profitability of drugs and weapons trafficking.




FILE - U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend watches during a tour north of Baghdad, Iraq, Feb. 8, 2017.
But sharp differences are emerging about the scope and nature of the threat, with U.S. officials alone publicly raising concerns that some of the African-based terrorists may be able to reach into Europe and the U.S. itself.
"The violent extremist organizations that are on the continent, both in the east and in the west, some of those groups threaten the American homeland today," General Stephen Townsend, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, told U.S. lawmakers during a recent hearing.
"Some of them will potentially be a threat in future," he added, warning, "we cannot take pressure off."
Al-Shabab: 'Our biggest target today is the Americans'
U.S. concerns have been spurred most recently by last month's deadly attack on the Manda Bay Airfield in Kenya, carried out by the Somali-based, al-Qaida affiliated terror group al-Shabab.
The attackers, U.S. officials said, demonstrated a surprising capability, overrunning the airfield's defenses. In the end, three Americans were dead while six aircraft lay in ruins.
U.S. forces in Kenya "were not as prepared there, at Manda Bay, as we needed to be," Townsend admitted.
U.S. officials also point to al-Shabab's own statements, the group's reclusive leader Abu Ubaidah declaring this past November that, "Our biggest target today is the Americans."



Al-Shabab Chief Partially Seen on Video for First Time

US is offering $6 million reward for information leading to Abu Ubaidah's capture
Regional or global threat?
But top counterterrorism officials outside of the U.S., while concerned, are not yet convinced that rhetoric or the ability to overrun an air base indicate al-Shabab or other terror groups in Africa are ready to flex their muscles on the global stage.
"In view of its increasing strength and the growing level of complexity of its recent operations, it appears possible that al-Shabab could conduct attacks, including on Western targets, in Eastern Africa," a European Union security official told VOA, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the intelligence. "However, we currently have no specific indications that these groups would focus on mounting attacks in the West itself."
It is an assessment shared, for now, by top United Nations terrorism officials.
"At the moment, there's no evidence of a present threat outside the immediate region," according to Edmund Fitton-Brown, coordinator of the United Nations' Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, which tracks terror groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State.




FILE - An image distributed by al-Shabab after the attack on a military base in Kenya shows Somalia's al-Shabab militant group's flag, said to be at the Manda Bay Airfield in Manda, Lamu, Kenya, Jan. 5, 2020.
International counterterrorism officials contend groups like al-Shabab remain focused on their home territories. And while they appear increasingly willing to take on Western targets, like the U.S. forces in Kenya or French troops stationed in Mali, the primary goal is to destabilize or collapse the region's fragile governments.
They also say there is also no evidence to suggest al-Shabab or the IS-linked groups are seeking to recruit and direct Westerners to carry out attacks in their home countries.
Officials admit, however, all of this could change.
"We should never be complacent about the external threat posed by armed extremist groups," the EU security official said. "[Islamic State] may instruct its affiliates in other parts of the world to plan attacks in Europe."

As an example of the potential threat, some counterterror officials point to a case involving a suspected al-Qaida terrorist that spanned Africa and East Asia.

In July 2019, authorities arrested a Kenyan national, Cholo Abdi Abdullah, who was taking flying lessons in the Philippines and who was looking to get expedited certification as a pilot.
Philippine police said Abdullah had been a member of al-Qaida since 2012, though they refused to release additional details.
"The very fact that that was even happening suggests an intelligence at work in al-Shabab that is at least looking at those more ambitious international ambitions," said the U.N.'s Fitton-Brown. "It would be right to continue to monitor it."
Threat capabilities
Al-Shabab is also no stranger to looking at aviation as a potential target, having claimed responsibility for a bombing that brought down a Somali airliner in 2016.




FILE - A gaping hole is visible in the side of a plane operated by Daallo Airlines as it sits on the runway of the airport in Mogadishu, Somalia, Feb. 2, 2016.
"It is very likely that they would have continued to try to develop this external attack capability and could likely leverage expertise from elsewhere in the al-Qaida network to do so," said Emily Estelle, with the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project.
"There is clearly concern," added Colin Clarke, a senior fellow at the Soufan Center, a global security research group.
Al-Shabab "has improved its ability to build devastating bombs, as evidenced by some of the spectacular attacks the group has launched since late 2017," he said.
Rise of African-based terror groups
Making matters more complicated are the number of African terror groups that seem to be on the rise.
According to the U.S. and U.N. member states, al-Qaida affiliated Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, or JNIM, has emerged as a key threat in West Africa.
Boasting up to 2,000 fighters, mostly based out of Mali, JNIM has been building its financial reserves by taxing smugglers looking for safe passage through Mali. And, increasingly, the group has been displacing government agencies, providing critical services through its own "non-profit" organizations.
There are also growing concerns about the Islamic State affiliate in West Africa, known as IS in the Greater Sahara or ISGS.
Intelligence officials say the group maintains a stronghold in the tri-border area between Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. Its fighters, also, have not been afraid to take on U.S. forces, killing four Americans and five Nigeriens while attacking a patrol in Tongo Tongo, Niger, in October 2017.
Global response
Some countries are recognizing the rising threat and responding.
France, which has taken the lead among Western countries in combating terrorism in the Sahel, recently committed to sending another 600 troops to the region.
The goal, according to a statement by French Defense Minister Florence Parly, is to "step up pressure" on ISGS, which she described as "an elusive, asymmetrical enemy."
Other countries are also mobilizing more troops to fight the terror threats in the Sahel, France saying it has already gotten commitments from Chad and the Czech Republic, and that it expects more nations to increase their commitments as well.
But some analysts warn Africa's terror groups are unlikely to back down because while European countries talk of adding forces, talk in the U.S. has focused on further reducing the American military footprint – or as U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has described it, "right-sizing" the Pentagon's force posture.

"It is a re-balancing, it is a right-sizing, if you will" @EsperDoD says of reviewing US force posture in #Africa & elsewhere

"In some cases we will increase. In some cases we won't change. In some cases we will decrease"
— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) January 30, 2020

"They (terror groups) are aware of the U.S. discussion on whether to withdraw troops from Africa," said Emily Estelle, with the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project.
"We need to consider that al-Qaida and its affiliates are attempting to manipulate the U.S. policy response," she added. "This could be an attempt to push the U.S. toward withdrawing troops from West Africa entirely, which would allow al-Qaida's affiliate JNIM to keep solidifying its influence there. The al-Shabab attacks likely have a similar goal for East Africa."

Related Stories

Africa

Thousands Flee Brutal Attacks by Armed Groups in Northern Mozambique

At least 100,000 people have been displaced since armed groups began attacking Cabo Delgado in October 2017, and more are fleeing as violence escalates

By Lisa Schlein

Fri, 02/07/2020 - 12:32

Africa

Pentagon: US Forces Destroy 2 Terrorist Camps in Southern Somalia

AFRICOM says al-Shabab used the camps to launch terror attacks on civilians

By VOA News

Mon, 02/03/2020 - 21:26

Africa

UN: Millions of Malians In Need as Armed Groups Wreak Havoc

Around 4.3 million Malians need humanitarian aid this year, including more than one million who are suffering serious food shortages

By Lisa Schlein

Mon, 02/03/2020 - 19:54

Written By
Jeff Seldin

National Security Correspondent

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

The Road to a Nuclear Breakout: Comparing Iran and North Korea

There are enough disturbing parallels between Pyongyang and Tehran’s nuclear ambitions that the latter’s recent threat to leave the NPT needs to be decisively addressed.

thediplomat.com

Flashpoints | Security
The Road to a Nuclear Breakout: Comparing Iran and North Korea

There are enough disturbing parallels between Pyongyang and Tehran’s nuclear ambitions that the latter’s recent threat to leave the NPT needs to be decisively addressed.

By Nah Liang Tuang

February 08, 2020

Credit: W. Keith Luse, Senior Professional Staff Member, U.S. Senate

Even though North Korea and Iran differ like the proverbial chalk and cheese, there are enough fundamental similarities pertaining to their nuclear ambitions to derive worrying predictive value from Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons development. Correspondingly, Tehran’s recent threat to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) should not be taken lightly.

On January 20, Iran threatened to withdraw from the NPT if Britain, France, and Germany referred Tehran to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for violations of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UNSC along with Germany) and EU. In a nutshell, the JCPOA offered Iran access to global trade with the lifting of economically isolative sanctions, as long as Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear program.

Following U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018 due to President Donald Trump’s objections, and the subsequent re-imposition of U.S. unilateral sanctions, Tehran had resumed the enrichment of uranium beyond the limits agreed to in the JCPOA. Since uranium enriched beyond a certain threshold can be used in the critical cores of nuclear warheads, London, Paris, and Berlin have initiated procedures for referring Tehran’s behavior to the UNSC. This could lead to the re-imposition of UN-wide sanctions, which nearly strangled Iran’s economy before the JCPOA was signed.

Iran remaining an NPT signatory is significant because it contractually obligates Tehran to refrain from acquiring nuclear munitions in return for being allowed to pursue nuclear energy technology, with such technology being monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a UN organization.

Comparing the nuclear histories of North Korea and Iran, one arguably sees an analogous pattern that begins with declarations of nuclear nonproliferation, evolves into a hopeful phase where denuclearization deals are signed, and regrettably deteriorates into confrontation and nuclear escalation.

Examining North Korea today, it may be hard to believe that the Kim regime once committed itself to non-nuclear status. Yet the 1991 “Joint Declaration on the Denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” signed between Pyongyang and Seoul, saw each side pledge not to possess nuclear weapons or the means to process fissile material. This declaration is important because security and economic reasons both went against a North Korean signing. For instance, by 1991 the military technological gap favoring the South had widened considerably, and it would have been illogical for Pyongyang to rule out a nuclear equalizer. Also, losing Soviet patronage in the aftermath of the Cold War increased the value of a nuclear weapons program as a bargaining chip to win economic aid, but the joint declaration said nothing about South Korea granting economic concessions.

As for Iran, the theocratic leadership had a unique take on nuclear nonproliferation ideology. To them, nuclear weapons help to reinforce great power dominance and promote imperialistic influence over smaller states. Accordingly, since nuclear weapons are symbols of colonialism, Iran saw an obligation to oppose them just as it opposed the supposedly arrogant and oppressive Western states, so as to help international underdogs. It was even argued that as great powers held back weak states, global nuclear disarmament could limit the former’s power and enable the latter to progress. Hence, the pursuit of nuclear weapons would reek of hypocrisy.

When analyzing both nations, we can also see they started off with promising denuclearization or nuclear limiting agreements with external powers. For the Kim regime, it signed the 1994 Agreed Framework with the United States. Under that deal, North Korea would receive nuclear proliferation-resistant Light Water Reactors (LWRs), conventional fuel oil, and U.S. formal assurances against the threat and use of nuclear weapons in return for Pyongyang freezing its nuclear program, complying with all IAEA requirements, and completely dismantling all North Korean nuclear facilities upon completion of LWR construction.

However, in October 2002 the United States discovered that the North was circumventing the Agreed Framework via a clandestine highly enriched uranium (HEU) program. Despite Pyongyang’s denials, the Kim regime later declared that North Korea was justified in pursuing HEU capabilities and was withdrawing from the Agreed Framework. Subsequently, in December 2002 North Korea withdrew from the NPT, started producing plutonium for nuclear arms, and declared itself a nuclear weapons state.

Turning to Tehran, its “grand bargain” with the P5+1 and EU, the JCPOA, obligated Iran to never acquire nuclear weapons; curtail most of its uranium enrichment capacity and limit remaining enrichment quality to that suitable for only nuclear power generation; drastically limit its uranium stockpile; shelve uranium enrichment research; and modify its nuclear reactor to preclude the production of weapons-grade plutonium, while exporting all spent nuclear fuel (which can be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium).

In return, UN Security Council resolutions implementing sanctions relating to Iran’s nuclear program would be terminated, all EU economic and financial sanctions linked to the aforementioned nuclear program would be abolished, and all U.S. sanctions designed to penalize Iran over its nuclear activities would be revoked. Following Washington’s withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018, Tehran has since distanced itself from the agreement and recently threatened to remove itself from the NPT. If this comes to pass, it would eliminate any legal obligation on Iran to limit its nuclear program, making a future Iranian atomic bomb a distinct reality.

History tells us that in 2006, within four years of North Korea’s exit from the NPT, it detonated its first nuclear device, creating a source of instability in Northeast Asia that persists to today. While no one can predict when or even if Iran will leave the NPT, the probability of Iranian nuclear warheads making their international debut increases exponentially if Tehran takes that path. Consequently, as Iran’s nuclear negotiating partners, the P5+1 and EU need to reach a rapid consensus on a unified stance: Either commit to a dedicated negotiated compromise that restores Iranian adherence to nuclear nonproliferation, or steadfastly uphold a massive pressure campaign of watertight sanctions. In either case, the tools, mechanisms, and approaches are well known with clearly envisaged policy objectives.

The world cannot dither or resort to wishful thinking vis-à-vis Tehran’s possible nuclear ambitions. Quick and decisive action is needed. We already have one nuclear antagonist in Asia and must do our utmost to prevent the occurrence of another.

Nah Liang Tuang is a Research Fellow in the Military Studies Program of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm....

Posted for fair use.....

Where Are We? And Where Do We go from Here?

www.armscontrolwonk.com

Where Are We? And Where Do We go from Here?
by Michael Krepon | February 9, 2020 | 3 Comments
Lyric of the Week:
“There’ll be no healing from the art of double dealing. Armageddon’s back in town again” — Patterson Hood, Drive-By Truckers, The Unraveling album
Note to Readers: Here’s what I had to say to the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters on January 30th:
We’re not doing well, obviously. But we’ve been through tough times before and we can get through this rough patch, as well. And in some key respects of norm building, we’re actually doing better than ever — hard as this might seem.
Let’s assess the key pieces of what we might call the arms control enterprise.
The nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has wide membership, almost all in good standing. This reflects ground realities: States that have felt compelled to acquire nuclear weapons in recent decades have not improved their security. Almost all states understand this, but a few are on the fence. Historically, there are usually a few fence sitters contemplating the nuclear option.
The international impulse to strengthen the NPT is weak, and this is worrisome. States possessing nuclear weapons haven’t done much lately to fulfill their responsibilities under the Treaty, and many Non-Nuclear-Weapon States have shifted their focus to the ban treaty.
Nonetheless, the NPT cornerstone of the global nuclear order, including the IAEA and ancillary instruments, thankfully remain in working order. The NPT Review Conference is likely to be difficult, but I don’t foresee shaken allegiances. It’s not in the national security interests of NNWS to walk away. I recognize that some hold regrets for extending this Treaty indefinitely in 1995, but if it were up for grabs every five years, the NPT would probably be far weaker than is presently the case.
The Chemical Weapons Convention also remains in good working order. Solid norms have been established, as is evident by the existence of only one outlier at present. We’ve come a long way since World War I.
The most noticeable aspect of the Biological Weapons Convention — even without monitoring provisions — is the absence of battlefield use. This is a reflection of the absence of battlefield utility. The global community already has its hands full with viruses that aren’t created in laboratories.
With respect to nuclear testing, the CTBT hasn’t entered into force. This is deeply disappointing. But the norm against testing is stronger than ever. It has been over two decades since a major or a regional power has tested. Only one outlier still threatens or hints at testing. Since every test is a declaration of utility, the absence of testing for so long by so many is a remarkable achievement.
With respect to controls over fissile material used for making nuclear weapons, we have failed utterly.
The Open Skies Treaty has been an underutilized, under-appreciated success story that has few champions in the United States. It hangs by a thread — yet another reflection of the deterioration of geo-political thinking in my nation’s capital.
With respect to the reduction of nuclear weapon stockpiles and deployed forces, the record is mixed. The United States and Russia have reduced stockpiles and deployed forces considerably. Both are likely to continue to do so, even with new programs coming on-line. The primary reason is that these programs are ridiculously expensive. One reflection: The United States used to rely on 41 ballistic missile-carrying submarines. This number is slated to go down to twelve. It would be wise, however, for Washington and Moscow to make a virtue out of necessity by agreeing to lower numbers, formally or tacitly.
The nuclear weapon holdings of France, Great Britain and Israel appear to be static – although there is great opacity about Israel’s holdings.
The nuclear weapon holdings of the four Asian states possessing nuclear weapons are growing. The North Korean nuclear program is dangerous. The triangular competition among China, India and Pakistan is more dangerous. The alternatives for this triangular competition are to set fixed deterrence requirements and drop out of the competition once they are met; to continue to compete in relative terms; or to find a mechanism that applies to all three that establishes informal plateaus and provides sufficient assurance of deterrence. More on this later.
Nuclear and conventional arms reduction treaties have gone by the wayside. Only one remains – New START – and its future is clouded.
What does this add up to?
The picture is disheartening, but the sky isn’t falling – at least not yet. Some key norms are stronger than ever, but could be broken at any time. We worry about arms racing, but we overuse the term. There is a constituency for strategic modernization in the United States, but not for arms racing. Russia cannot afford an arms race and if it prompts one, it will lose.
Technological developments with respect to nuclear forces are less than meet the eye. The latest bright shiny object — hypervelocity/glide weapons — aren’t all that great and in some respects are less capable than old-fashioned ballistic missiles. They are niche weapons.
The basic technologies associated with nuclear weapons are six decades old.
These systems cost much and have had no demonstrable military utility since 1945. The methods of warfare of greatest consequence at present are hybrid in nature. Other methods of potential warfare that also demand our attention may not even be kinetic, let alone nuclear, in nature. I’m referring, of course, to space and cyber warfare.
So, where do we go from here?
The best antidotes to space and cyber warfare are not treaties or bans; they are codes of conduct. The one exception here may be a ban of limited scope on kinetic energy anti-satellite tests. But getting everyone on board without the usual efforts to expand the scope of a ban into unverifiable domains will be difficult.
In the past, we’ve relied heavily on numbers embedded in treaties for nuclear arms control and reductions. It’s important to keep or retrieve as many useful numbers as we can, and then to reduce them. Looking forward, I anticipate a shift in the form of greater reliance on norms than on numbers. Schelling and Halperin actually wrote about this in their seminal text, Strategy and Arms Control.
The three most important norms are no use of nuclear weapons in warfare, no nuclear testing, and no further proliferation. The no battlefield use norm is now almost 75 years old. Of all norms, this is the strongest and most important. I propose a difficult but achievable goal: to extend this norm to the 100th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Let’s shoot for a Century.
As previously noted, the no nuclear testing norm for major and regional powers is now more than two decades old. My suggested goal — again difficult but achievable — is to extend this ban for half a century, to the 100th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Our current nonproliferation challenges are obvious: they focus on Iran, and if we fail there, on Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. We have the means to succeed here, as well. If the leadership of Iran really wanted actual bombs, they would have had them by now.
If we focus on and protect these three crucial norms, we will progressively reduce nuclear dangers and weapons – whether or not there are new treaties codifying lower numbers. This isn’t, however, an either/or proposition; I’d much prefer to maintain on-site inspections embedded in treaties with reduced numbers as a way to strengthen norms.
These norms are already multilateral in nature. It’s easier – but far from easy – to multi-lateralize norms than it is to multi-lateralize numbers embedded in treaties. Success requires making multilateral norms stronger.
It’s worth contemplating how the “Build-down” concept – first advanced by Alton Frye during a previous rough passage during the Reagan administration – might be adapted and reconsidered. The Build-down concept allowed for modernization programs but called for greater reductions in older systems at the same time. Given economic realities, the United States and the Russian Federation might well explicitly endorse this concept.
It’s also worth thinking about whether the Build-down concept might be adapted for application to the nuclear competition among China, India and Pakistan.
It’s unlikely there will be drop-outs from this triangular competition. Pakistan would certainly qualify, given its economic straits, but it will continue to compete. If there are no drop-outs, then the only way to get off this treadmill is for all three to agree to slow down. Since the Build-down concept could be pursued even when states are unwilling to accept numerical limitations or a hierarchical order, it might be worth exploring here, as well.

Comments

Phil Tanny (History)

February 9, 2020 at 10:47 am

If you will allow a reply…
As it appears from here, experts often know too much about the subject to be able to make their way to a some very simple bottom lines. Sometimes less is more.
First, none of the above really matters so long as nuclear weapons exist, because in a time of crisis all rules, agreements, treaties and bans etc will immediately become irrelevant. Reducing numbers of weapons is obviously good, but until the numbers of nuclear weapons approaches zero, everything
is still on the line, and no victory or even real progress can be declared.
Second, we are never going to eliminate nuclear weapons until we find a way to get all the nuke states to disarm together, at the same time. No major power is going to disarm until it’s rivals do. This makes peaceful orderly disarmament very unlikely in the current status quo as the politics in _every_ weapons state would have to be agreeable, at the same time, or nothing much happens. Still trying to find any expert article which comments on this.
Third, if the above is true, then what we are likely waiting around for is the next nuclear detonation. It seems that only a dramatic event of that scale has the power to so radically transform the global group consensus (overwhelmingly dominated by apathy to the highest levels of every society) as to make real disarmament possible.
Our best hope may be a nuclear weapons accident in the United States, as that would transform the conversation without leading to yet another war.


Reply

robgoldston (History)

February 9, 2020 at 1:14 pm


I think Phil misses the option of steady, mutually agreed reductions in verified numbers, such as when Obama floated the balloon of the US and Russia going down to 1000 from 1550 in New START. As we go down in numbers, however, verification gets more and more challenging, so we need to address that challenge and be ready when the politics makes this possible.


Reply

Michael Krepon (History)

February 9, 2020 at 1:18 pm



Rob:
Thanks for this.Treaties have provided a legal basis for on-site inspections that have proven essential to draw down nuclear dangers and weapons. We’ve got to be smart enough to keep OSIs.
MK

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Egypt to host meeting of G5 Sahel military leaders this week: Army - Politics - Egypt

The meeting will bring together the chiefs of staff of the G5 Sahel countries and representatives of donor states

english.ahram.org.eg

Egypt to host meeting of G5 Sahel military leaders this week: Army

The meeting will bring together the chiefs of staff of the G5 Sahel countries and representatives of donor states

Ahmed Eleiba , Sunday 9 Feb 2020

Egypt's Army Spokesperson Colonel Tamer El-Refai (Photo: Ahram)

Egypt is hosting a meeting between the chiefs of staff of the G5 Sahel countries on Tuesday to discuss counterterrorism efforts in the region, the Egyptian military said in a statement.
The two-day gathering of Sahelian countries, which includes Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, will also have representatives of donor states.
The military leaders will discuss mechanisms for enhancing counterterrorism cooperation between the G5 Sahel countries through exchanging support and sharing security and defence experiences. They will also tackle development efforts in the region.
During the meeting, Egypt will propose organising anti-terrorism training for personnel from the five countries with the aim of "enhancing their abilities in confronting terrorism, achieving greater security and opening up development prospects" in these nations.
The meeting is part of Egypt's efforts to boost cooperation with countries in the region to eradicate terrorism and bolster security and stability.
The G5 Sahel was established by the five countries in Nouakchott, Mauritania in February 2014 with the aim of boosting economic development and security in the region and combating the growing threat of terrorism.

 

[jward]

Scoop: Trump's budget calls for major boost to nukes

Jonathan Swan


President Trump will request a major increase to the budget for America's nuclear weapons arsenal, according to people familiar with the budget request the administration will unveil on Monday.
By the numbers: Trump's 2021 budget calls for $28.9 billion for the Pentagon to modernize nuclear delivery systems and $19.8 billion to the National Nuclear Security Administration — a nearly 20% increase over his previous budget request — for "modernizing the nuclear weapons stockpile," according to people familiar with the budget request.

• "This includes a range of warhead life extension programs, investments in new scientific tools we need to maintain a safe, effective and reliable nuclear stockpile into the future," said a source familiar, "a major increase for maintenance and upgrade to a long-neglected and aging infrastructure, and funding to restore the nation's capability to develop new nuclear warheads."

Why it matters: Political leaders in America have kept delaying modernizing the three legs of the nuclear triad — land-launched nuclear missiles, nuclear submarines and strategic aircraft. These systems have now aged to the "end of their service lives," said Mackenzie Eaglen, defense budget expert at the American Enterprise Institute.

• "We keep putting bandaids over bandaids and now new systems are required," Eaglen added.

Between the lines: There's a lot of bipartisan agreement in defense policy. But Republicans and Democrats tend to diverge when it comes to nuclear forces and arms control agreements.

• Democrats tend to instinctively support international arms control agreements, with a goal to set a path to zero nuclear weapons, whereas Republicans tend to be reflexively skeptical of such agreements and supportive of modernizing the U.S. arsenal.
• Democrats and liberals often argue that improvements to the U.S. arsenal will make nuclear war more likely. Republicans and conservatives tend to argue that the way to prevent nuclear war is to have a stronger arsenal.

Behind the scenes: President Trump is firmly in the latter camp and has often told his aides that the U.S. needs to have the best nuclear weapons program in the world. He has even privately mused about his desire for the U.S. to grow its arsenal, though that does not appear to be the point of this budget request.

• "The president very much believes in nuclear modernization, as reflected by these generous budget increases," said a person familiar with this budget.

The big picture: China has turned the old nuclear calculation upside down. The Cold War-era arms control debate was framed around the U.S. versus the Soviet Union. That bilateral conception of arms control continues to the present day, with the New START Treaty struck between the U.S. and Russia under the Obama administration.

• Trump needs to decide, this year, whether to negotiate with Russia to extend the New START agreement, which expires in 2021.
• But complicating this picture is a new major power, China, whose officials have said they have no interest in participating in arms control agreements.
• Not only that, the Russians and the Chinese are modernizing their nuclear arsenals, while the U.S. is not, Eaglen said. Pakistan and India are growing their arsenals. "The trend lines are moving in opposite directions from the U.S.," she added.

The bottom line: America's nuclear infrastructure is aging, but the project of modernizing the warheads and the missiles is enormously expensive and will take many years. Congress has not shown a capacity to support the spending required so far.

posted for fair use

Trump's budget proposal calls for major boost to nuclear weapons

It calls for $28.9 billion for the Pentagon to modernize nuclear delivery systems.

www.axios.com

 

[jward]

How China Is Working to Quarantine the Truth About the Coronavirus

• Peter W. Singer Strategist, New America Read bio
• Peter Wood Analyst, BluePath Labs Read bio
• Alex Stone Analyst, BluePath Labs Read bio

February 9, 2020




The authoritarian playbook — censor, distract, lie — is on full display.


In its battle to contain the coronavirus, the Chinese government has undertaken a wide range of measures, from shutting down cities to using drones to monitor and compel public compliance with public health edicts. But the regime is also waging a second battle: a campaign to control the world’s discussions of the first.
The weapons in this information war are Beijing’s massive media and online control mechanisms. Its three prevailing tactics—all too common across authoritarian regimes and wider online warfare— are censorship, diversion, and lying. China’s efforts show how an online battle for public security sometimes works in opposition to public health, and it reveals the priorities of an authoritarian regime.

When discussion of the outbreak began to appear online in late December, the Wuhan government moved quickly to suppress the news. Wuhan Public Security went so far as to investigate and detain eight doctors who posted on social media about the virus. Accused of spreading “illegal and false” information, the eight were made to sign a Jan. 3 letter saying that they had “severely disrupted social order.” State media followed this up with reminders from the police that it would pursue anyone else who spread false rumors.

One of the eight — 34-year-old Dr. Li Wenliang — contracted the virus shortly thereafter, was hospitalized, and died on Feb. 7. The subsequent reaction shows the challenges of this control tactic. A selfie of Li lying sick in his hospital bed went viral, stirring widespread outrage in China. “To get an idea of the enormous scale of said outpouring of grief and anger, Dr. Li’s death apparently generated 800 million(!) comments on Weibo by midnight,” wrote David Paulk of the independent news outlet Sixth Tone.

Related: As Coronavirus Spreads, China’s Military Is Largely MIA
Related: China’s Credibility Problem
Related: The West Isn’t Ready for the Coming Wave of Chinese Misinformation: Report

After the Chinese regime formally acknowledged the outbreak on Jan. 9, government and media outlets shifted to a new, yet familiar tack: diversion and “what-aboutism.” A key thread here was downplaying the significance of the outbreak in China by making comparisons to what other nations have faced. One example of a story that appears to have been promoted to muddy the waters focused on deaths in the United States from common flu. The day before the city-wide lockdown went into effect in Wuhan, Chinese state media began reporting that the 2019-20 flu season had already killed 6,600 people in the United States. This story quickly went viral, also being picked up by other news outlets such as Beijing News, Tencent News, and various public Wechat accounts.

Soon, related hashtags like “MostDeadlyFluin40YearBreaksOutinUSA” [original: #美国暴发40年来最致命流感#] and similar “FluBreaksOutinUSA”[美国爆发乙型流感#] began trending on Weibo, with 220 million and 471 million views as of Jan. 27. As the story grew on Chinese social media, it began to reach global audiences. The ironic result was that, just as Coronavirus was surging in China, many Chinese nationals living in the United States began to be worriedly asked by their friends and relatives back in China about the “dire” flu situation gripping North America.
While the number reported is true, the narrative being pushed (“American common flu pandemic!”) is false. The United States is indeed seeing a high number of doctor visits for “influenza-like illness,” as it is called by the federal Centers for Disease Control, which puts this season’s death toll at 10,000 to 25,000. Yet the 2017-18 flu season saw an estimated 61,000 deaths. Moreover, the CDC estimate of influenza-related deaths in the U.S. includes people who die from flu-related complications (“deaths that occur in people for whom influenza infection was likely a contributor to the cause of death, but not necessarily the primary cause of death”). On the other hand, China generally does not report similar cases as influenza deaths, as reported by Caixin in 2019. The result is that while China’s Ministry of Health [卫生部] listed 144 deaths from flu in 2018, the apples-to-apples number is far higher. A 2019 study in The Lancet: Public Health, a peer-reviewed international journal, estimated that China sees an annual average of 88,100 flu-related deaths.

The timing of the posts in China and the way the information was presented illustrates the intent behind the push of the American flu story. If this were not propaganda meant to highlight supposed problems in other countries, Beijing might have noted that Chinese citizens are equally vulnerable to the flu, and emphasized the importance of preventative measures to ward off both the flu and the novel coronavirus.

As the coronavirus spread further, passing 40,000 cases and 900 deaths in China (as of Sunday), users on Chinese social media have begun to push back against these official lines of effort. Some users have urged an end to discussions of flu in the U.S., so to not divert attention from the domestic situation, while others noted that the flu season and the coronavirus outbreak should not be compared in the same breath. The government has responded by trying to steer the brewing anger at the United States: for example, state media has insisted that U.S. officials “created chaos and spread fear” by withdrawing diplomatic staff from the region and restricting travelers.

The final track typically used to shape online discussion and thereby alter real-world beliefs and actions is to push false narratives. To counter anger about the initial slow response to the outbreak, the regime has insisted that the opposite was true, that the government reacted quickly, that hospital facilities were more than adequate. This tactic of inverting the truth is sometimes called gaslighting.

For example, one senior government official — Lijian Zhao, Deputy Director General of the Information Department, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs — pushed out a claim that a new hospital building at the epicenter of the outbreak had been constructed in just 16 hours.)

Zhao’s claims were then spread wider by regime outlets like People’s Daily, the largest newspaper in China, and Global Times, reaching into news and social media in the West. As media outlets outside China like Buzzfeed soon noticed, the photo was actually of an apartment building on the other side of the country.
In sum, the episode is a good illustration of how pandemics of health and information can both be shaped and get out of control. They also point to a looming new front. In early February, the UN’s World Health Organization and Google announced that they had teamed up to counter disinformation on the coronavirus outbreak. It will be interesting to watch how they handle transmissions from one of the world’s most powerful countries and economies.

About the authors:
Peter W. Singer is Strategist at New America and author of the books Ghost Fleet, LikeWar, and the upcoming Burn-In. www.pwsinger.com
Peter Wood and Alex Stone are Analysts with BluePath Labs, a DC-based consulting company focused on research and analysis, disruptive technologies, and wargaming.

posted for fair use
How China Is Working to Quarantine the Truth About the Coronavirus

 

[danielboon]

EndGameWW3 Retweeted




Vincent Lee

@Rover829
·
7h

Reuters: TAIWAN DEFENCE MINISTRY SAYS TAIWAN AIR FORCE JETS WERE SCRAMBLED TO INTERCEPT AND WARN AWAY CHINESE AIRCRAFT

 

[danielboon]

Taiwan scrambles jets to warn Chinese aircraft over Taiwan Strait


1 MIN READ

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwanese fighter jets scrambled on Monday to intercept and warn away Chinese air force aircraft which briefly crossed a maritime border in the sensitive Taiwan Strait that separates the two, Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said.
It was the second time in two days that Taiwan’s air force has scrambled to intercept Chinese aircraft flying near the island that Beijing claims as its own.

Taiwan scrambles jets to warn Chinese aircraft over Taiwan Strait

Taiwanese fighter jets scrambled on Monday to intercept and warn away Chinese air force aircraft which briefly crossed a maritime border in the sensitive Taiwan Strait that separates the two, Taiwan's Defence Ministry said.

www.reuters.com

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

A New Nuclear Deal Won’t Secure the Middle East

Instead of trying to contain Iran, Washington should invest in forging a regional order that will reduce tensions and encourage stability.

www.foreignaffairs.com

A New Nuclear Deal Won’t Secure the Middle East
But Regional Cooperation Could, and Washington Should Support It
By Vali Nasr February 7, 2020

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani visits the Bushehr nuclear power plant, June 2015 Mohammad Berno / The New York Times / Redux
U.S. President Donald Trump has steered Middle East policy into a quandary. He has made clear since assuming office that his goal is to reduce the U.S. presence in the region, but his policies have not engendered the stability that would make such a withdrawal feasible. Rather, Washington has sought with singular focus to replace the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with one that would also curtail Tehran’s missile program and regional activities. And the pursuit of such an agreement as the nub of the United States’ Middle East policy has served only to destabilize the region and to put U.S. interests there at risk.
Trump has relied on a “maximum pressure” campaign that strangles Iran’s economy in order to bend its leaders’ will. But rather than capitulate, Iran has reduced its compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, shot down an American drone, brazenly assailed tankers and oil facilities in the Persian Gulf, and attacked U.S. interests in Iraq. The United States retaliated with a strike that killed General Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp, on January 3. A crisis ensued, making it clear that Trump had miscalculated if he imagined that maximum pressure would be easy and cost free. Iran, too, has the capability to deter attacks on its interests—and Trump’s policy risks a war that the United States does not need or want.

Containing Iran was once central to Washington’s approach to security in the Middle East. Today, that objective is neither prudent nor sustainable. It vies with other U.S. priorities, such as competing with China and Russia, and it has failed to yield lasting stability in the region. Nor can containment count on unwavering domestic support: public restlessness with open-ended commitments in the Middle East once prompted Trump to promise to end them. The United States should rethink its approach to the Middle East. Instead of trying to contain Iran, Washington should invest in forging a regional order that will reduce tensions and encourage stability.
A SHARED NEIGHBORHOOD
Even if the Trump administration were to succeed in striking a new nuclear deal with Iran, the region would likely be little more stable for it. Rather, Trump would come to see that a nuclear deal is an arms control agreement. As such, it can address one major international concern, but it cannot ultimately resolve the Middle East’s broader security issues or change Iran’s strategic calculus.
In today’s Middle East, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and all of their respective allies are entangled in zero-sum competitions. The scramble for primacy is growing more intense, fueling a dangerous arms race in everything from conventional weapons, missiles, and militias to cyber-armies and advanced technological weapons. A new nuclear deal alone will not end this competition, set the region on a different course, or alter Iran’s perception of its security. But by removing one urgent threat from the scene and opening a door to diplomacy with Iran, a deal could allow the United States to reduce its presence in the region. That prospect makes a viable regional order all the more necessary.
U.S. policy has long started from the assumption that to address the region’s dangerous spiral into insecurity the United States must address Iran’s destabilizing behavior. To wit, Iran is a revisionist power. It sees the current regional order as one that excludes it, and so it directs its energies at defying that exclusion. Its behavior will change only if it finds a place in that order, which would start with the recognition by external actors that Iran—like Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey—has legitimate interests in developments in the Arab world. Former U.S. President Barack Obama once told Arab critics of the 2015 nuclear deal that Iran and Saudi Arabia should “find an effective way to share the neighborhood and institute some sort of cold peace.” At the time, Arab leaders dismissed Obama’s counsel, but it now sounds prescient.
Iran’s chief rival, Saudi Arabia, stands opposed to including Iran in a regional order.
Building a new regional order will be difficult. Deep distrust divides Iran from its Arab neighbors. But the Middle East now faces pressures that should lead its players to take the prospect seriously: the United States’ long-term commitment to the region is in doubt, tensions between Iran and the United States have reached a standoff, and threats loom.
Iran’s chief rival, Saudi Arabia, stands opposed to including Iran in a regional order. Riyadh has long insisted that Iran has no legitimate interest—and hence no business—in the Arab Middle East. It holds the same view of Turkey. Tehran rejects this exclusion. And these days, fissures running through the Arab bloc that the Saudi worldview envisions belie the kingdom’s assumptions.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which Saudi Arabia leads as the regional bulwark against Iran, is now deeply divided in its view of the region’s security. Under Saudi tutelage, multiple Middle Eastern countries have blockaded Qatar since 2017, in part because of Doha’s perceived closeness with Tehran. As a result, Qatar sees Iran as a necessary counterweight to Saudi Arabia and Turkey as the counterweight to them both. Kuwait and Oman share Qatar’s worries about Saudi Arabia’s heavy-handed role in the region and now advocate engaging with Iran as a hedge against Saudi hegemony. Hence the United States will have trouble unifying the GCC against Iran, let alone expanding it into an “Arab NATO” by adding Egypt and Jordan, as Washington has said it intends to do. Rather than bolster an Arab bloc, the United States should embrace a definition of the Middle East that does not exclude Iran and Turkey.
READY BROKERS
Iran sees opportunity in Arab discord. Having exposed the limits of the United States’ commitment to the Middle East and demonstrated its own ability to destabilize the region, Tehran now offers a diplomatic initiative to reduce tensions through collective security measures. Iran has suggested that the United Nations take the lead, using the Security Council resolution that marked the end of Iran-Iraq War as a framework and working with regional governments to come up with a mutually agreeable plan.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been making such overtures for several months now. In September, he announced a plan that he called the Hormuz Peace Endeavor as a first step toward collective security for the Persian Gulf, and he sent official letters to the leaders of Persian Gulf countries, inviting them to support the initiative. He also offered nonaggression pacts to Persian Gulf monarchies and gave Yemen’s Houthis the green light to conduct peace talks with Saudi Arabia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sees a similar opportunity to shape the Middle East’s security architecture. Keen to expand Russia’s footprint in the Middle East and fill the diplomatic vacuum left by the United States, Putin has offered to broker regional talks culminating in a security agreement. Iran already participates in such Russian-led arrangements for the Caucasus and Central Asia. As the only outside power with warm relations with all the Persian Gulf states, Russia can serve as the diplomatic go-between for Iran and its Arab neighbors, thereby institutionalizing Russia’s role in the region—something Putin has long wanted to do.

Hassan Rouhani, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi, Russia, February 2019 Valeriy Melnikov Xinhua / eyevine / Redux

Regional actors have already taken tentative steps on their own toward building trust and resolving conflicts. Senior Emirati and Iranian security officials began talks last summer with the aim of reducing tensions. Kuwait is mediating between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and Oman is facilitating talks between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis. These steps are modest, but they still represent progress compared to a year ago, when there were no regional diplomatic efforts to resolve any of these conflicts.
A regional security arrangement for the Middle East is still a long way off. But in the short run, even before negotiations for such an agreement can begin in earnest, the region stands to gain a great deal from confidence-building measures and talks, whether formal or informal, bilateral or multilateral. As a basis for collective security, Middle Eastern states are unlikely to coalesce around a common threat, but they could agree on some principles. The principle to start with, as the emir of Kuwait has suggested, should be nonaggression and noninterference in one another’s internal affairs. Every regional government sees outside aggression and political interference as national security threats—even Iran, which has accused external actors of provoking the protests that recently rocked the country.
From agreement on shared principles, the region’s governments could build toward agreements on matters of shared interest, such as the management of environmental crises, economic cooperation, people-to-people ties, and maritime and energy security. Through bilateral and multilateral pacts, the region’s parties could lay out the means for resolving disputes, set the boundaries to which all states must adhere in the name of collective security, and establish institutions that would put these new mechanisms into practice.

A EUROPEAN PRECEDENT
Washington may be skeptical, with some reason, about the prospects for collective security in the Middle East. But it should not stand in the way of the ambition. Rather, as tensions rise and the United States’ commitment wavers, Washington should encourage the region to act like its counterparts elsewhere in the world and work to improve regional security on its own. And rather than seek to endorse any specific outcome, the United States should recognize the benefits of the process. Surely, the United States would welcome nonaggression pacts and promises of noninterference among Iran and its neighbors. If Iran were to follow through on such commitments, the United States’ security burden in the region would not disappear, but it would lessen.
That Iran and its neighbors can reach and honor such agreements is not unfathomable. In 1995, Iran and Saudi Arabia hammered out a bilateral security accord covering economic cooperation and regional security, among other issues. That agreement improved Persian Gulf security for ten years. In 2015, Iran signed the nuclear deal with six world powers. Many in the foreign policy establishment in Washington cautioned that Iran would not comply with its terms. But Iran did abide by the deal, and it was only in 2019, two years after the United States had withdrawn from the accord, that Iran started to back away from full compliance.
That Iran and its neighbors can reach and honor such agreements is not unfathomable

If the Persian Gulf countries do make progress toward their collective security, the United States should not see those improvements as an excuse to withdraw from the region. To the contrary: a more stable region will demand less of the United States, making its commitment more sustainable. The United States should continue to backstop the security of its allies, thereby sustaining the region’s balance of power and building its actors’ confidence in the pursuit of regional security arrangements.
For a successful example of just such a process, U.S. leaders need look no further than the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. That organization began with low-level contacts and confidence-building measures among European nations that spanned an ideological divide. Over time, these modest efforts evolved into bilateral and multilateral negotiations, then broad-based agreements on discrete issues, and then finally, a fully fledged European security institution. The Middle East can only benefit from trying a similar process.
Obama understood that if the United States wished to do less in the Middle East, it had to encourage regional actors to cooperate and invest in shared security. The wisdom of that vision is now undeniable. Policymakers would do well to recognize the need for such an effort and to support it. The alternative is greater chaos and endless war.

 

[L.A.B.]

Better send in The WHO blue plate special forces.

 

[L.A.B.]

Got to love The Light Blue Bi-Monthly Periodical Team. 1st on the ground for all things foreign in agenda.

 

[jward]

Philippines to terminate troop agreement with US
The two countries also have a Mutual defense Treaty and an Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which remain in place.


Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has told his foreign minister to give formal notice to the United States of his termination of a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between their militaries, his spokesman said on Tuesday.

Duterte, who has openly disapproved of the two countries' military alliance, made the decision after a close ally said his visa for the United States had been rescinded, in an issue related to the president's war on drugs.


"It's about time we rely on ourselves, we will strengthen our own defenses and not rely on any other country," Duterte's spokesman Salvador Panelo told a regular briefing, quoting the president.

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.

The two countries also have a Mutual defense Treaty and an Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which remain in place.

Philippines to terminate troop agreement with US

The two countries also have a Mutual defense Treaty and an Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which remain in place.

www.jpost.com

 

[danielboon]

Chinese military planes enter Taiwan airspace, foreign minister quips they are ‘useless’ against coronavirus
The move has also been criticised by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen.
Matthias Ang |

February 11, 10:24 pm

Events
MakBesar Powerhouse Market
14 February 2020 - 16 February 2020, 10:00AM-10:00PM
Suntec Convention Hall 401 & 402



Taiwan Foreign Minister, Joseph Wu, remarked in a tweet that China’s bombers were “useless” against the novel coronavirus, in response to manoeuvres by a fleet of Chinese military aircraft on Feb. 9 and 10.

外交部 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ROC (Taiwan)
✔@MOFA_Taiwan

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1226802437916262402

View: https://twitter.com/MOFA_Taiwan/status/1226802437916262402


For the 2nd day, #PLAAF combat aircraft flew close to #Taiwan. @iingwen urged Beijing to deal with the #Wuhan virus, not threaten the country militarily. Listen, H-6 bombers are useless against #Coronavirus. JW

2,131
4:37 AM - Feb 10, 2020
Twitter Ads info and privacy

820 people are talking about this




According to Taiwanese media Focus Taiwan and Reuters, Taiwan had to scramble its own air force jets for two days in a row in response to Chinese aircraft circling the island and intruding its airspace on two separate occasions.
Tsai Ing-wen calls for China to focus on controlling outbreak
Wu’s sentiments were echoed in a Facebook post by Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, who said that such actions during the outbreak of the coronavirus were both “meaningless” and “unnecessary”.
She also stated that the Chinese government should focus its efforts on controlling the outbreak instead to ease regional and international tensions.
Tsai, who hails from a pro-independence political party, was recently re-elected as President of Taiwan for a second term.


What did China do?
1st incident: Chinese aircraft circled half of the island
According to a statement by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence, on Feb. 9, a fleet of Chinese aircraft circled half of the island, consisting of an unspecified number of J-11 jet fights, H-6 bombers, and KJ-500 warning aircraft.
In response, Taiwan sent out multiple F-16s carrying missiles to follow the planes, along with other reconnaissance aircraft and air defence forces.
The Ministry of National Defence added that the long-distance flight of the Chinese planes “have impacted the safety and stability of the region and have threatened the peace among related parties in the region.”
The Chinese aircraft had supposedly flown into the Bashi channel south of Taiwan, then out into the Pacific Ocean, before returning to base via the Miyako Strait between Japan’s islands of Miyako and Okinawa.
Focus Taiwan further reported that the mission was confirmed by a spokesperson of China’s People Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command, Zhang Chunhui, who said that China has both the resolve and ability to quell attempts by Taiwan to separate from the mainland.
2nd incident: Bombers enter Taiwan’s airspace
As for the second incident, several H-6 bombers and other aircraft were reported to have entered Taiwan’s airspace briefly on Feb. 10 after crossing the “median line” of the Taiwan Strait, both the Ministry of National Defence and The Guardian further reported.
In a manner similar to the previous incident, the ministry highlighted that this fleet had also flown over the Bashi Channel south of Taiwan and into the Western Pacific Ocean at around 10am, before returning to their bases by the same route.
This fleet was also met by F-16s from Taiwan, which broadcasted warnings to the Chinese aircraft.
The ministry added that the Chinese aircraft then returned to the airspace of the Taiwan Strait’s “median line”.
Reuters further reported that this instance is also only the second time since 2016 in which Taiwan has stated that Chinese aircraft have crossed into its airspace.
On Feb. 11, Taiwan’s Premier Su Tseng-chang was further quoted by Al-Jazeera as stating that such actions had “harassed regional peace”.
He added:

“We still hope China could really alleviate people’s suffering due to the disease outbreak. China should use all the power it has to help its people.”

Chinese military planes enter Taiwan airspace, foreign minister quips they are 'useless' against coronavirus

The move has also been criticised by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen.

mothership.sg

 

[Zagdid]

Exclusive: Strange Russian Spacecraft Shadowing U.S. Spy Satellite, General Says

"We view this behavior as unusual and disturbing"

news.yahoo.com

fair use W.J. Hennigan Time•February 10, 2020

Exclusive: Strange Russian Spacecraft Shadowing U.S. Spy Satellite, General Says

A pair of Russian satellites are tailing a multibillion-dollar U.S. spy satellite hundreds of miles above the Earth’s surface, a top U.S. military commander tells TIME, underscoring a growing threat to America’s dominance in space-based espionage and a potentially costly new chapter in Washington’s decades-long competition with Moscow.
Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, commander of the newly minted U.S. Space Force, says the Russian spacecraft began maneuvering toward the American satellite shortly after being launched into orbit in November, at times creeping within 100 miles of it. “We view this behavior as unusual and disturbing,” Raymond says. “It has the potential to create a dangerous situation in space.” Raymond says the U.S. government has expressed concern to Moscow through diplomatic channels.
The confrontation marks the first time the U.S. military has publicly identified a direct threat to a specific American satellite by an adversary. The incident parallels Russia’s terrestrial encounters with the U.S. and its allies, including close calls between soldiers, fighter jets and warships around the world. Observers worry that space is now offering a new theater for unintentional escalation of hostilities between the long-time adversaries.
Pentagon, White House and Congressional backers, say the incident demonstrates the need for the Space Force, which President Donald Trump established in December when he signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law. It became the first new military service since the Air Force was created in 1947.
The Space Force, for which the White House is requesting $15 billion in this week’s budget proposal, represents a strategic shift from passively operating and observing satellites to actively defending them. Space warfare doctrine remains a work in progress, but Raymond has spoken about the need to mobilize Space Command against perceived threats because other nations, especially Russia and China, have become increasingly sophisticated at building arsenals of lasers, anti-satellite weapons and state-of-the-art spacecraft designed to render the U.S. deaf, mute and blind in space.
At the same time, the expansion of military operations in space harks back to another hallmark of the Cold War competition between Washington and Moscow: massive spending on perceived threats, regardless of the cost.
For those monitoring waste, fraud and abuse in the military industrial complex, the Russian maneuver and the Pentagon’s response also portends a new front in the effort to keep real and potential threats from becoming a budgetary sinkhole. The history of U.S.-Russia military competition is full of examples of perceived threats that require costly responses.
“The initial costs of setting up the Space Force are likely a small down payment on an undertaking that could cost tens of billions of dollars in the years to come,” says William D. Hartung, director of the arms and security project at the Center for International Policy. “The last thing we need is more bureaucracy at the Pentagon, but that’s exactly what the Space Force is likely to give us. Creating a separate branch of the armed forces for space also risks militarizing U.S. space policy and promoting ill-advised and dangerous projects that could involve deploying weapons in space.”
The Russian embassy did not respond to requests for comment about the allegedly threatening maneuvers by its satellites. The Kremlin has previously stated they are not weapons, but rather “inspector” spacecraft engaged in an “experiment.”
U.S. military analysts first noticed something peculiar after Russia launched its spacecraft into orbit November 26 from Plesetsk Cosmodrome aboard a Soyuz rocket. The Russian satellite had been in orbit less than two weeks when, bafflingly, it split in two. As the analysts looked closer, they suspected that a second smaller satellite was somehow “birthed” from the first one. “The way I picture it, in my mind, is like Russian nesting dolls,” Raymond says. “The second satellite came out of the first satellite.”

The maneuver was later confirmed on Dec. 6 when the TASS news agency cited Russia’s Defense Ministry saying the two had separated. “The purpose of the experiment is to continue work on assessing the technical condition of domestic satellites,” the statement said.

However, the satellites, identified as Cosmos 2542 and Cosmos 2543, appeared to be carrying out another mission. By mid-January, they were sidling near the American satellite, identified as USA 245, known to space experts as a KH-11.
The U.S. satellite, part of a reconnaissance constellation codenamed Keyhole/CRYSTAL, is operated by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the secretive intelligence agency headquartered in Chantilly Va. Although the NRO refuses to comment on the large school bus-sized satellites, the KH-11’s capabilities are often compared by experts in the field to the Hubble Space Telescope. Instead of staring into the vast expanse of space, however, the satellites’ sensors and cameras are focused into the heart of foreign adversaries’ top-secret military installations.

A KH-11 satellite, known as USA 224, is widely believed by analysts to have taken the image of Iran’s Imam Khomeini Space Center that President Donald Trump posted to Twitter in August. The photo was so detailed, you could make out the Farsi characters written along the edge of the launchpad. The KH-11 constellation, which consists of four satellites that maintain constant Earth observation, operate in a polar orbit above the rotating Earth, enabling them to cover its entire surface.
Russia’s curious space activities were first noted on Twitter last week by Michael Thompson, an amateur satellite tracker, who used publicly available data to speculate on what it was up to. “The relative orbit is actually pretty cleverly designed, where Cosmos 2542 can observe one side of the KH11 when both satellites first come into sunlight, and by the time they enter eclipse, it has migrated to the other side,” Thompson wrote in a series of tweets. “This is all circumstantial evidence, but there are a hell of a lot of circumstances that make it look like a known Russian inspection satellite is currently inspecting a known US spy satellite.”

Raymond says he’s concerned because Russia is demonstrating capabilities the U.S. first saw three years ago, when Moscow tested the “Russian nesting doll” technology. “In 2017, they launched a satellite, it launched another satellite,” he says. “The satellites exhibited characteristics of a weapon system when one of those satellites launched a high-speed projectile into space.”

While Raymond’s allegation couldn’t be verified, the U.S. did raise the issue in 2018, warning about Russia’s “very troubling” behavior at the U.N.’s Conference on Disarmament that year without providing specifics.

Moscow’s intent with the current mission remains unknown, but the Russian spacecraft should be capable of capturing high-resolution imagery of the American satellite as it conducts its mission, spying deep into adversaries’ territory. It’s akin to handing over a state-of-the art spy satellite to Russian scientists for forensic analysis.

Brian Weeden, a former Air Force officer and expert in space security at the Secure World Foundation, says the Russian satellites’ positioning could allow it to determine things like where the KH-11 is “pointing—and thus what ground targets its taking picture of—as well as the general operating schedule and usage.”

Further, if the Russian satellites are outfitted with electronic emissions probes, they could listen for radio frequency signals to try figure out how the KH-11 communicates and even attempt to intercept those communications, which are likely encrypted, says Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “There are a lot of things it could be doing,” Harrison says. “They could simply be practicing on-orbit maneuvers or signaling to the United States that they have this capability.”

The Keyhole program is 44 years old and the satellites are widely known to have similar capabilities as the Hubble Telescope. The U.S., China and other nations have already shown the ability to launch spacecraft into close orbit with their own satellites. The Kremlin could be showing the U.S.—in a very obvious way—that it has joined the club.
From Raymond’s standpoint, however, maneuvering close to a foreign satellite for an “inspection” is virtually indistinguishable from staging an attack to damage, disrupt or destroy it. “It’s clear that Russia is developing on-orbit capabilities that seek to exploit our reliance on space-based systems that fuel our American way of life,” he says. Raymond wouldn’t comment specifically on Russia’s intentions with the shadowing satellites.

Over the past decade, space weaponry has gone from the stuff of science fiction to reality. A flurry of advancements from the U.S., Russia and China has altered the image of outer space as a peaceful sanctuary and instead stoked fears that an arms race has extended into the heavens.

But even if the Russian satellites are doing the most intrusive things the Pentagon and outside observers imagine, none of them would violate treaties or international law. Absent binding agreements, the incident portends a growing a cat-and-mouse game in space. “We prefer space to remain free of conflict,” Raymond says. “We think that responsible space-faring nations need to have conversations about developing these norms going forward.”

It is a historical truth that where humans have ventured, violence has followed. But conflict in space isn’t in any nation’s interest. There are more than 1,000 American satellites circling the planet, enabling everything from commerce, banking, transportation and communications. Russia, China and other developed nations have also grown increasingly dependent on satellites for commercial as well as military purposes, which raise the risks for miscalculation.
The U.S. government’s space-based operations are among the most highly technical and classified secrets in its possession. Raymond’s willingness to go on the record about the ongoing event provides a glimpse into what military officials see as an increasingly congested and contested environment.

Robert Cardillo, the former director of the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, says space is a “messy environment,” which without established rules, could turn into the Wild West. An attack on a satellite constellation, such as GPS, which is owned and operated by the U.S. Air Force, could have far-reaching consequences like halting ATM banking transactions or causing a blackout in navigation applications on users’ smartphones, which occurs billions of times a day around the globe.

The developments hark back to military concept that helped keep the world safe from nuclear apocalypse during the Cold War. Mutual assured destruction (MAD)—the military doctrine that posited a nuclear strike from one nation would result in a full-scale counterattack from the other—helped prevent the U.S. and the Soviet Union from using the massive arsenals they each amassed during decades of armed standoff.

But MAD eventually became backstopped by a series of treaties and open lines of communication designed to avoid accidental escalation of conflict. The U.S., Russia and other nations have yet to establish a similar diplomatic structure for space, and experts warn of the dangers of weaponizing the cosmos without them. “Deterrence is something we just haven’t dealt with,” in space Cardillo says. “If you make it, you can break it.”

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

U.S. Sealift Fleet—Rusty Tin Cans

The rust-bucket Cold War-era ships that comprise the nation's sealift fleet pose a threat to deployed military personnel and to U.S. national security.

www.usni.org

U.S. Sealift Fleet—Rusty Tin Cans

By K. Denise Rucker Krepp
February 2020
Proceedings
Vol. 146/2/1,404

Recently, I organized a letter from former Maritime Administration (MarAd) political appointees to House and Senate appropriators asking them to recapitalize the nation’s sealift fleet—the ships designated to support the rapid worldwide deployment of soldiers and Marines. The rust-bucket Cold War-era ships that comprise the fleet have degraded significantly, posing a threat to deployed military personnel and to U.S. national security.
The Maritime Administration manages the Ready Reserve Fleet (RRF), 50 percent of the government-owned surge sealift capability. It comprises 46 vessels: 35 roll-on/roll off (RO/RO) vessels, including 8 fast sealift support (FSS) vessels; 2 heavy-lift or barge-carrying ships; 6 auxiliary craneships; 1 tanker; and 2 aviation repair vessels. They are berthed in a variety of locations to minimize sailing times to strategic locations: Tacoma, Suisun Bay, Alameda, Oakland, Long Beach, San Diego, Beaumont, Marrero, New Orleans, Charleston, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Newport News, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. The vessels are supposed to be able to be made fully operational within their assigned 5 or 10 day readiness status.
The RRF includes the SS Cape May, launched in February 1972, the year President Nixon visited China and All In the Family entertained millions of TV watchers. The SS Altair is slightly younger, built in 1973—the year George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees and the war in Vietnam was winding down.
Last fall, the U.S. Transportation Command ordered a turbo-activation of the Maritime Administration and Military Sealift Command sealift fleet. The purpose was “to objectively evaluate the ability of Organic Surge Fleet vessels, at a fleet-wide level, to transition from Reduced Operating Status (ROS) to Full Operating Status (FOS) within 120 hours; and . . . to assess the vessels’ performance, DoD policies, MSC and MarAd processes, and surge sealift infrastructure factors that contribute to Organic Surge Fleet output under wartime conditions.” Of the 61 vessels that participated in the September 2019 exercise, only 39 were ready for tasking, and 32 got underway. Troubling findings from the activation were released in December 2019, including that the “Organic Surge Fleet is challenged to be immediately available for a large-scale inter-theater force deployment without delays/impacts to force closure due to degraded readiness.”
Three weeks later, soldiers assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, executed a short notice deployment to the Middle East. They were wheels up within 18 hours of receiving orders. They brought what they could carry on the plane, with heavier supplies and military equipment to follow.

However, the Army cannot make the assumption that military equipment (tanks, trucks, and jeeps) will automatically follow anywhere on the globe. Per the December 2019 report, the ready-for-tasking rate of the 50 Roll-On/Roll-Off (RO/RO) vessels assigned to the Organic Surge Fleet (35 MarAd, 15 MSC) during the September 2019 exercise was 63.9 percent. That means 36 percent of Army equipment would have been stuck in limbo in a real crisis.
According to DefenseNews, the Army sent a letter to the House Armed Services Committee in November 2018 stating, “Without proactive recapitalization of the Organic Surge Sealift Fleet, the Army will face unacceptable risk in force projection capability beginning in 2024.” The situation had not changed in 2019 when TransCom initiated the turbo activation.
TransCom and MarAd have repeatedly warned of the impending problem. Then-TransCom commander General Darren McDew told the Senate Armed Services Committee in April 2018 that “our organic sealift capabilities will degrade rapidly over the coming years.” The MarAd Administrator Mark Buzby shared concerns about the program at a March 2019 House Armed Services Committee hearing. Concerns stretch back at least as far as 2009 when I served as the MarAd Chief Counsel.
Funding never appeared because there was always something more important. I am a former Coast Guard officer, Navy wife, and Army brat who grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina. My father and my friend’s parents constantly deployed—Grenada, Haiti, Panama, the first and second Persian Gulf wars. As kids we were told that our parents would be safe, that they had the best military equipment in the world. The same statement cannot be made today. A 63.9 percent transport rate is a failing grade, one that places soldiers and Marines at risk.
The Department of Defense tried to solve the problem by submitting a budget request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to build new sealift ships, but OMB claimed the DoD’s plan is too expensive. No, it is not. OMB is placing American lives in danger and foreclosing on job opportunities. The DoD plan was to build the new ships in the United States. What does OMB want DoD to do? Build the ships overseas?
Today, I am a locally elected official who supports business growth in my district. I do so because the additional salaries generate spending and taxes. Why does OMB not want to do that in Mississippi, Maine, California, Pennsylvania, Alabama, or Washington? What is the downside to employing Americans to build ships that will transport U.S. military goods and supplies?
There is no downside. OMB is simply punting the issue, but they will not be the people without tanks and munitions during the next theater-wide conflict. They will be safe at home while soldiers and Marines struggle to understand why their gear is stuck on rusty ships stuck in U.S. ports.
Congress needs to act. Our service members cannot be told to rely on severely degraded 48-year-old ships to transport vital military supplies in a timely manner during times of intense conflict.

K. Denise Rucker Krepp

K. Denise Rucker Krepp is a former Maritime Administration Chief Counsel, former Coast Guard officer, Navy wife, Army brat, and locally elected representative.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

US Approves Possible Sale of an Integrated Air Defense Weapon System for India

Approval of the sale comes ahead of an expected trip by U.S. President Donald J. Trump to India.

thediplomat.com

US Approves Possible Sale of an Integrated Air Defense Weapon System for India

Approval of the sale comes ahead of an expected trip by U.S. President Donald J. Trump to India.

By Ankit Panda

February 11, 2020

Credit: David Monniaux via Wikimedia Commons

The U.S. Department of State has approved a possible sale to India of military equipment comprising an integrated air defense weapon system (IADWS), the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced in a statement Monday. The cost of the sale, if finalized, would be approximately $1.867 billion. The DSCA announcement comes shortly before an anticipated trip to India by U.S. President Donald J. Trump later this month. Trump is expected to visit India for a two-day trip between February 23 and 26, according to Indian reports.
The IADWS package that has been approved includes a range of sensors, weapons systems, and support equipment. Included in the potential sale are AN/MPQ-64Fl Sentinel radar systems, AMRAAM AIM-120C-7/C-8 missiles and associated guidance and control equipment, and Stinger FIM-92L missiles. The sale also includes M4A1 rifles, M855 5.56mm cartridges, and a range of other associated equipment.
“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to strengthen the U.S.-Indian strategic relationship and to improve the security of a major defensive partner, which continues to be an important force for political stability, peace, and economic progress in the Indo-Pacific and South Asia region,” the DSCA release noted.
“India intends to use these defense articles and services to modernize its armed forces, and to expand its existing air defense architecture to counter threats posed by air attack,” the U.S. statement continued. “This will contribute to India’s military goal to update its capability while further enhancing greater interoperability between India, the U.S., and other allies. India will have no difficulty absorbing these systems into its armed forces.”
Defense ties between the United States and India have been growing in recent years. In June 2017, during their first meeting, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the “strengthening of India’s defense capabilities, with the help of USA, is something that we truly appreciate.”

Over the last decade, the United States has emerged as a major defense supplier to India. India, meanwhile, is the world’s largest importer of defense equipment, accounting for some 12 percent of global defense imports, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s 2018 yearbook.
India has been gradually modernizing and expanding its air defense networks, but a concern for New Delhi remains its inability to integrate several major systems. For instance, if the sale of this U.S.-approved IADWS package were to be approved, Indian forces would have to operate them in isolation from Russia-procured systems like the S-400 surface-to-air missile system, which India is slated to begin receiving later this year. The S-400 and the U.S. IADWS each cover different parts of the aerial threat environment, with the Russian system covering higher-altitude threats at longer ranges.
India has also been developing a range of indigenous air defense systems, including the Akash Mk1/Mk1S, both of which are in production (Akash Mk1 is operational). The Quick Reaction Surface-to-Air Missile (QRSAM), another indigenously developed low-altitude interceptor, is in trials. India also operates the Israeli surface-to-air Python and Debry (SPYDer) system, which covers short- and medium-range threats at low altitudes.
Separate from the IADWS sale, Reuters reported on Monday that India may give final approval to a $2.6 billion sale for military helicopters from Lockheed Martin, a major U.S. defense firm. The sale would include 24 MH-60R Seahawk helicopters for use by the Indian Navy.
Authors

Staff Author
Ankit Panda

Ankit Panda is a senior editor at The Diplomat and director of research for Diplomat Risk Intelligence. Follow him on Twitter.

View Profile

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

Will the United States Develop a New Type of Nuclear Warhead?

What exactly is the “W93 warhead program”?

thediplomat.com

Will the United States Develop a New Type of Nuclear Warhead?

What exactly is the “W93 warhead program”?

By Ankit Panda

February 11, 2020

Credit: U.S. Navy photo/Released

Is the Trump administration interested in authorizing the development of a new nuclear warhead? The U.S. Department of Energy’s fiscal year 2021 budget request, revealed on Monday, outlines, among other things, a new warhead program known as the W93.

As part of the budget request highlights published by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which is the U.S. Department of Energy agency charged with maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal, the “W93 warhead program” is identified alongside four other older programs as part of the weapons activities’ budget request. The total budget request for this category of NNSA activities for fiscal year 2021 is $15.6 billion, a 25.2 percent increase over the fiscal year 2020 amount.

The funds will “sustain and modernize the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile with five weapons programs, including the B61-12 Life Extension Program, W80-4 Life Extension Program, W88 Alteration 370, W87-1 Modification Program, and the W93 warhead program,” the NNSA noted.

The NNSA’s budget release describe the W93 warhead program for the first time in its budget release in a single sentence: “The W93 warhead program was recently endorsed by the Nuclear Weapons Council and the Deputy Secretary of Defense to support the U.S. Strategic Command-required replacement for the Navy’s Trident II D5 submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM).”

Analysts like the Federation of American Scientists’ Hans Kristensen (disclosure: I am affiliated with FAS) have pointed out that the W93 name, which is now public, is likely a new moniker for what was previously known as the Interoperable Warhead-2 and the “Next Navy Warhead” in the NNSA’s July 2019 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan (SSMP).

In the SSMP, the “Next Navy Warhead” was slated to enter the “studies and engineering” phase of development in fiscal year 2024. If the W93 is the same warhead that was envisioned previously, it will deploy on the U.S. Navy’s next-generation ballistic missile submarines, the Columbia-class, for the entirety of that platform’s lifetime.

What’s unclear for now is what kind of warhead the W93 will actually end up being. The United States has not designed any warheads from scratch since the W88, which is the highest-yield option on board the U.S. Navy’s currently operational Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The development of the W88 was completed in 1989.

One concern with the W93 designation is that the designation itself suggests something grander than a modification, or “mod,” like the recently fielded W76-2, which is a primary-only, lower-yield derivative of the W76-1 warhead. Calling the new warhead the W93 may imply an all-new design.

As a corollary of developing a new design, calls to resume nuclear testing might resurface in the United States. The fiscal year 2021 budget is silent on this matter and the Trump administration has not officially suggested that any new warheads might need to be tested, but this would be a major concern.

The United States ceased nuclear testing and entered a self-imposed moratorium on September 23, 1992. The only country to have tested any nuclear weapons in the 21st century is North Korea, which has been heavily criticized by the United States and other countries for doing so.

The Trump administration published a Nuclear Posture Review in 2018 that called for two new nuclear capabilities. The first of these, the W76-2, has been developed and fielded by the U.S. Navy. The second was a sea-launched cruise missile, which has yet to enter production.

Staff Author
Ankit Panda

Ankit Panda is a senior editor at The Diplomat and director of research for Diplomat Risk Intelligence. Follow him on Twitter.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Official: Sudan to hand over al-Bashir for genocide trial

CAIRO (AP) — Sudan's transitional authorities have agreed to hand over ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court to face trial on charges of war crimes and genocide, a top Sudanese official said Tuesday, in a deal with rebels to surrender all those wanted in connection with

apnews.com

Official: Sudan to hand over al-Bashir for genocide trial
By SAMY MAGDY
yesterday

CAIRO (AP) — Sudan’s transitional authorities have agreed to hand over ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court to face trial on charges of war crimes and genocide, a top Sudanese official said Tuesday, in a deal with rebels to surrender all those wanted in connection with the Darfur conflict.
For a decade after his indictment, al-Bashir confounded the court based in The Hague, Netherlands. He not only was out of reach during his 30 years in power in Khartoum, but he also traveled abroad frequently to visit friendly leaders without fear of arrest. He even attended the 2018 World Cup in Russia, where he kicked a soccer ball playfully during an airport welcome ceremony and watched matches from luxury seating.

The military overthrew al-Bashir in April 2019 amid massive public protests of his rule, and he has been jailed in Khartoum since then. Military leaders initially ruled out surrendering him to The Hague, saying he would be tried at home.
But the joint military-civilian Sovereign Council that has ruled Sudan since last summer has agreed with rebel groups in Darfur to hand over those wanted by the ICC to face justice in The Hague, according to Mohammed Hassan al-Taishi, a member of the council and a government negotiator.
He didn’t mention al-Bashir by name, but said, “We agreed that everyone who had arrest warrants issued against them will appear before the ICC. I’m saying it very clearly.”
He did not say when they would be handed over.
“We can only achieve justice if we heal the wounds with justice itself,” he said. “We cannot escape from confronting that.”
He spoke at a news conference in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, where the government and multiple rebel groups are holding talks to end the country’s various civil wars, including Darfur.
In the Darfur conflict, rebels from the territory’s ethnic central and sub-Saharan African community launched an insurgency in 2003, complaining of oppression by the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.
The government responded with a scorched-earth assault of aerial bombings and unleashed militias known as the Janjaweed, who are accused of mass killings and rapes. Up to 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were driven from their homes.
Al-Bashir, 76, faces three counts of genocide, five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes for his alleged role in leading the deadly crackdown. The indictments were issued in 2009 and 2010, marking the first time the global court had charged a suspect with genocide.

The ICC has indicted two other senior figures in his regime: Abdel-Rahim Muhammad Hussein, interior and defense minister during much of the conflict, and Ahmed Haroun, a senior security chief at the time and later the leader of al-Bashir’s ruling party. Both have been under arrest in Khartoum since al-Bashir’s fall. Also indicted were Janjaweed leader Ali Kushayb and a senior Darfur rebel leader, Abdullah Banda, whose whereabouts are not known.
Al-Taishi also said that the transitional authorities and the rebels agreed on establishing a special court for Darfur crimes that would include crimes investigated by the ICC.
ICC spokesman Fadi Al Abdallah said the court had no comment until it received confirmation from Sudanese authorities. However, he said the country would not have to ratify the court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, before sending al-Bashir to The Hague.
“There is an obligation for Sudan to cooperate” with the court’s arrest warrants, he said. “The ratification of the Rome Statute itself is not a requirement for the surrender of suspects.”
Another member of the Sovereign Council said the government delegation to the Juba talks has a “green light” from military leaders in the council, including its head, Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, to announce that Sudan will hand over al-Bashir.
“We want to reassure the armed groups that we are serious and want to achieve peace as soon as possible,” he said.
The Sovereign Council member also said any extradition “might take months,” because he is wanted for other crimes in Sudan related to the “revolution” and the Islamist-backed military coup in 1989. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
The decision could face a backlash from within Sudan’s military, from which al-Bashir emerged, and also from Islamists in the country.
Al-Bashir’s lawyer, Mohammed al-Hassan, warned that handing him over would have “dire political and security repercussions” for Sudan. He said he hoped Burhan “keeps his obligation that al-Bashir or any Sudanese won’t be handed over to the International Criminal Court.”
“This matter will not happen easily,” he told the AP by phone.
Handing over al-Bashir is a sensitive issue in Sudan as the country tries to steer toward democratic and economic reforms. The deputy head of the Sovereign Council, Gen. Mohammed Hamadan Dagalo, commands a paramilitary unit that was involved in crushing the Darfur insurgency. The transitional government is under pressure to end its wars with rebel groups as it seeks to rehabilitate the battered economy, attract much-needed foreign aid and deliver the democracy it promises.
“The fledgling post-Bashir Sudan government is demonstrating a serious commitment to human rights principles in its first months in office.” said John Prendergast, expert and co-founder of the Sentry watchdog group. “Finally seeing a small measure of justice done for the mass atrocity crimes in Darfur will hopefully breathe new life into global efforts in support of human rights and genocide prevention.”
Rebel negotiator Ibrahim Mousa called it a “big breakthrough.” Another rebel leader, al-Murzi Abuel-Kassem of the Justice and Equality movement, hailed it as “an important day for the Sudanese people, particularly the displaced and refugees in the camps.”
If al-Bashir is handed over, it would be only the second time a country has surrendered a foreign leader to the ICC. Ivory Coast transferred former President Laurent Gbagbo in 2011 to The Hague, where he was acquitted last year of crimes against humanity charges linked to alleged involvement in post-election violence.
Al-Bashir would be the highest profile figure yet to appear before the ICC, which was founded in 2002 but has been unable to gain acceptance among major powers, including the United States, Russia and China.
“Although the ICC has generated important legal precedents, it has had few important cases brought to verdict,” said Jens David Ohlin, vice dean of Cornell Law School. “Al-Bashir is the ICC’s ‘white whale.’”
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, tweeted that handing al-Bashir over to the ICC is “potentially a huge and long-awaited step for justice for the people of Darfur.”
Amnesty International’s acting secretary general, Julie Verhaar, hailed Sudan’s decision and urged authorities to “translate these words into action and immediately transfer al-Bashir and other individuals under ICC arrest warrant to The Hague.”
“They should further show that the era of impunity for al-Bashir’s government is over by bringing to justice all other alleged perpetrators of horrific crimes of the previous regime,” she said.
__
Associated Press writer Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed.

 

[Housecarl]

Well here's a "Dot".....

Posted for fair use.....

As China expands navy, US begins stockpiling ship-killing missiles

By 2025, Pentagon planners hope to have about five missiles for every Chinese warship.

www.defensenews.com

Naval
As China expands navy, US begins stockpiling ship-killing missiles

By: David B. Larter  
23 hours ago

WASHINGTON – The stunning growth of the Chinese fleet over the past decade has prompted the U.S. Navy to plan a full-on buying spree of ship-killing missiles over the next five years, according to projections in the sea service’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget documents.

In his opening remarks before rolling out the Navy’s new spending request, the service’s budget director pointed directly at China’s expanding naval force as aiding U.S. budget priorities.

“China has grown their battle fleet to about 335 surface ships, and that’s occurred over the last 10 years as they’ve shifted from a build-up of their homeland defense forces and moved to the sea in an expansionist role around the globe,” Rear Adm. Randy Crites said.

“As we look to the future of even greater global trade and greater unpredictability, American naval power has never been more important.”



China now strong enough for a surprise move in the Indo-Pacific
The cost of an American counter-move may become too high, according to the Sydney-based United States Studies Centre.

By: Mike Yeo

The Navy’s proposed 2021 budget calls for buying 850 missiles between the years 2020 and 2021 with the sole function of seeking and destroying enemy ships at range.

The anti-ship missile buying binge comes as experts project the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s fleet will balloon to as many as 420 vessels by 2035. By comparison, the 2016 budget request contained just 88 sole-purpose anti-ship missiles to be procured across a five-year plan.

And while shipbuilding might have faltered in 2021, the Navy’s budget for weapons procurement of all kinds increased by $800 million over 2020′s $4.1 billion request.

The proposed 2021 weapons procurement budget rose $1.7 billion over the 2016 request just five years ago.

The funds could be used to buy Lockheed Martin’s F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet-launched Long-Range Anti-Surface Missile, developed jointly with the Defense Research Projects Agency.

It incorporates target recognition, some level of autonomous routing and extended range for killing enemy ships at a significant standoff. The unclassified range is more than 200 nautical miles.

The Navy’s 2017 budget submission bought 10 LRASMs, and projected buying 25 per year until 2020, for a total purchase of 85 missiles. Today, the inventory (including 2020’s request for 17 LRASMs) stands at about 99 missiles.

By requesting to boost its stealthy missile inventory by 48 weapons, the Navy’s inventory will increase 50 percent, with plans to order 48 annually for the next four years, according to the service’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget documents.

All told, the Navy wants to acquire 210 of the missiles between 2020 and 2025.

An image of the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile. (Courtesy of Lockheed Martin)

And that’s not the only missile the Navy is eyeing for 2021.

The Navy wants to continue upgrading Raytheon’s Tomahawk missile into a “Maritime Strike Tomahawk,” which incorporates a seeker and some level of target discrimination so it can shift midair to hit a moving target.

The Tomahawk has an unclassified range of 900 nautical miles.

A Navy brief says the Maritime Strike Tomahawk’s new seeker kit “enables the capability to hit moving maritime targets through mid-course guidance via third party or seeker mode, to a terminal seeker area of uncertainty.”

The missile is slated to be declared operational in 2023.

The Navy plans to buy 44 of the Maritime Strike seeker kits in 2021, then ramping up significantly from there.

The sea service wants to buy 451 of the upgrade kits between 2021 and 2025.

‘Turning point’

The service is wants to start buying significant numbers of the Naval Strike Missile, which is the Kongsberg/Raytheon ship-launched over-the-horizon ship-killer.

Designed to give lightly armed warships some significant teeth when operating in the Pacific, the missile deployed on the littoral combat ship Gabrielle Giffords last year, along with Northrop Grumman’s MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned helicopter drone which will be used for over-the-horizon targeting.

The Navy plans to purchase 15 NSMs, down three from last year’s buy, but has programmed to receive 189 between Fiscal Years 2020 and 2025.



It’s official: The US Navy has a new ship killer missile
This is a major victory for the European defense industry, which is seeing increasing interest from the U.S. Navy as it races to fill capabilities gaps in the face of competition with Russia and China.

By: David Larter

In addition to 850 LRASM, Maritime Strike Tomahawks and Naval Strike Missiles, the Navy wants to procure over the same span 775 of Raytheon’s SM-6 missile.

It’s primarily an anti-air missile but has a surface mode.

That brings the total buy of missiles with ship-killing potential to 1,625 between 2020 and 2025.

Eric Sayers — a former Senate Armed Services Committee staffer and former aide to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s Adm. Harry Harris — is now and Adjunct Senior Fellow at Center for a New American Security.

He told Defense News the Navy’s proposed spending plan represents a turning point in an anti-ship mission that’s been neglected for too long.

“This budget is a great signal of the Navy’s intent to finally get serious about the quality and quantity of the anti-ship missile inventory,” Sayers said. “Then-Pacific Commander Adm. (Robert “Bob”) Willard asked for this capability over a decade ago and for years we were buying them just a few at a time.

“The request for LRASM, Naval Strike Missile, and Maritime Strike Tomahawk is a real turning point in anti-ship budget seriousness.”

To Sayers, the Navy should move to put LRASMs inside the vertical launch tubes of its surface combatants.

“Now that we are moving to buy LRASM in numbers, it would be great to see the Navy move to integrate it onto its large surface combatants,” he said. “It is also encouraging that allies like Australia and Japan are moving simultaneously to procure these high-end weapons.”

On Friday, the State Department announced that Australia had been cleared to buy up to 200 LRASMs, a purchase with a nearly $1 billion price tag.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

The US Air Force has unconventional plans to win a war in the Asia-Pacific

In a time where Russia and China are investing in missile capabilities that threaten American air bases, how can the U.S. ensure it will be able to get its warplanes off the ground?

www.defensenews.com

Singapore Airshow
The US Air Force has unconventional plans to win a war in the Asia-Pacific

By: Valerie Insinna  
1 day ago

Two U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress bombers fly over the Pacific Ocean during training in August 2018. The mission was flown in support of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s Continuous Bomber Presence operations. (Airman 1st Class Gerald R. Willis/U.S. Air Force)


WASHINGTON — As the U.S. Air Force prepares for the possibility of a future conflict with a near-peer adversary, it has run into a massive logistical problem: In a time where Russia and China are investing in layers of air- and ground-launched missiles that threaten American air bases, how can the Air Force ensure it will be able to get its planes off the ground?

The answer — which the Air Force calls Agile Combat Employment — calls for the service to be able to launch, recover and maintain planes away from its main air bases and instead at unorthodox locations like partner nations’ military airfields or civilian airports.

Specifically, the large, geographically dispersed terrain of the Asia-Pacific region generates unique challenges, said Maj. Gen. Brian Killough, deputy commander of Pacific Air Forces. “We’ve got to respond to that requirement to move everything by either air or ship across the theater” he said in a Jan. 29 interview. “We don’t have the very efficient rail lines and highway systems that Europe does to move those things around, so we’ve got to get lighter and leaner.”

One issue is the weight and quantity of support equipment needed to maintain aircraft and prepare them for takeoff, he added. Each aircraft type has its own specialized support gear, such as unique test stands or munitions-loading equipment. As a solution, the Air Force wants to field common support equipment that can be more easily deployed.

“We are putting stress on the system to develop new support equipment,” said Killough, adding that Air Materiel Command is looking into options. “The support equipment we use right now is basically the same as in the 1960s. It’s heavy. … We’ve got to make it lighter and more efficient, more effective.”

In the meantime, one technology that could help airmen work with heavy gear is a wearable exoskeleton designed to allow the user carry up to 250 pounds without assistance, said Col. Daniel Lockert, chief of Pacific Air Forces’ logistics plans division.



Denied hot meals and indoor toilets, US airmen prepare for the fog of war
The U.S. Air Force is embracing the suck as it considers how it might fight in a war against near-peer adversaries.

By: Valerie Insinna

The Air Force is also considering placing regionally based cluster pre-position kits across the Asia-Pacific region, which would reduce the need for airlifting some equipment needed for training or operations, Lockert said. Similar to the deployable air base kits used in Europe, the RBCP kits would include equipment supportive of expeditionary operations, such as rapid runway repair material, power generators and communications gear.

The RBCP kits would be easier to transport than the deployable kits, allowing for multiple small deployments of two to four jets across different operating locations. They would also be put together in a more modular fashion, allowing the user to ditch equipment for mission sets that might not be needed, such as a force-protection element.

“We could have a central hub location, and then from there we can disperse [the equipment] out,” Lockert said. “That central location would have a majority of these pre-position clustered items, and then when we branch out to another location, we can peel parts of that pre-positioning kit out and move it forward.”

The Air Force has not yet fielded RBCP kits, but the service plans to put together some kits using equipment from its war reserve materiel stocks “until we can get the resourcing and the assets on hand,” Lockert said. It also plans to pre-position some equipment in Australia during the upcoming Pitch Black exercise this year.

A U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress bomber takes off from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, for exercise Pitch Black on Aug. 6, 2018. (Airman 1st Class Christopher Quail/U.S. Air Force)

“We’re going to set up a process by which we can go back into that country and take care of the care and feeding of the equipment we leave behind,” Lockert said. “So that equipment will be always in place at that location for the following exercises, and that equipment can be used by that host nation for any of their exercises.”

Big bases, big targets

Over the past decade, Russia and China have each invested in a network of technologies — such as integrated air defense systems, ballistic and cruise missiles, advanced aircraft, and hypersonic weapons — that allow for power projection beyond their respective borders.

“I do believe if we ever went to conflict, we would be at risk for sitting static in certain locations,” Pacific Air Forces Commander Gen. Charles Brown said in September, Stars and Stripes reported.

“We have to be able to disperse. We can’t all be sitting on big bases and being big targets,” he said. “The ability to move around — and have the flexibility to pick up and move fairly quickly — I think is important.”

Brown isn’t alone in his concerns.

Should China and the United States go to war, it is “highly likely” that U.S. air bases will be subject to kinetic and non-kinetic attacks, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments said in a 2019 report, which advised the U.S. Air Force improve the defenses of air bases and seek additional investments.

In a separate assessment that year, the research firm MITRE urged the Air Force to develop and deploy large magazines of long-range standoff weapons to bases within range of adversarial threats.

“It’s hard to take down an air base and keep it down, and suppress operations at an air base for a long period of time. But the fact of the matter is, the best place to kill an enemy’s air force is on the ground,” said Mark Gunzinger, the director of government programs and war gaming for the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “Especially if that air force is postured in bases that are few in number and lack passive defenses — such as shelters and decoys — and active defenses such as kinetic and non-kinetic interceptors, electronic warfare, and directed-energy weapons that can help counter these air and missile threats. That is exactly where we are in the Pacific.”

Over the past couple of years, the Air Force has integrated elements of its Agile Combat Employment concept in most training exercises across the Asia-Pacific region, Killough said.

“We are a good way down the road. By no means have we got into a complete capability yet, but we are definitely in the process of being able to employ these technique, tactics and procedures in our theater,” he said.

For example, during the WestPac Rumrunner exercise held in January, Air Force maintainers from Kadena Air Base were deployed to nearby Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, allowing the Air Force to refuel and resupply jets in two locations on the Japanese island of Okinawa.

An F-15C Eagle taxis for takeoff during Exercise WestPac Rumrunner at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, Japan, on Jan. 10, 2020. (Staff Sgt. Benjamin Raughton/U.S. Air Force)

An April 2019 exercise called Resilient Typhoon required aircraft gathered at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam to rapidly disperse to other airfields located on the islands of Guam, Tinian, Saipan, the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau, allowing for more distributed footprint.

During the Polar Force 20-1 exercise, held in October at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, airmen were cross-trained to carry out tasks beyond the purview of their normal day jobs, such as supplementing base security, refueling aircraft and setting up camp. A simulated attack on an airfield culminated with an explosion of 400 quarter-blocks of C4 plastic explosive. Engineers will have to carry out rapid airfield repairs in the next iteration of the exercise this spring.

On the materiel side, there may also be some relief coming in the fiscal 2021 budget. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein has said the service plans to invest $3 billion on logistics needs across the globe. However, it is unclear whether requirements such as RBCP kits will be included in the funding request.

Gunzinger noted that while the Air Force is taking the right steps by refining its training, investments in pre-positioned items like fuel bladders, runway repair materials and other equipment are also imperative.

“This is not going to be a short-term process,” he said. “We divested almost all of our capability to do distributed operations after the end of the Cold War. It’s going to take 10 years or longer to really recapture that capability.”





About
this
Author

About Valerie Insinna
Valerie Insinna is Defense News' air warfare reporter. She previously worked the Navy/congressional beats for Defense Daily, which followed almost three years as a staff writer for National Defense Magazine. Prior to that, she worked as an editorial assistant for the Tokyo Shimbun’s Washington bureau.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

EDITORIAL: Deployment of ‘usable nuclear weapons’ could spark arms race | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis

www.asahi.com

EDITORIAL: Deployment of ‘usable nuclear weapons’ could spark arms race


February 12, 2020 at 12:09 JST

U.S. President Donald Trump with Mark Esper, second from left, his defense secretary, at the Pentagon in July 2019 (The Asahi Shimbun)

The world’s superpowers are trying to make the use of nuclear weapons easier, a grave folly that will increase the risk of an accidental nuclear war and endanger the entire world.
The United States has deployed a missile equipped with a newly developed small nuclear warhead aboard a submarine. It explained that the deployment is designed to deter Russia and other nations from using their small nuclear weapons.
U.S. defense experts have long pointed out the difficulty of using conventional nuclear weapons because of their excessive destructive power. They have argued in favor of smaller weapons to ensure successful retaliation against limited nuclear strikes that could occur in regional conflicts.
However, the very idea of “usable nuclear weapons” is nothing but a delusion. Such weapons will not only fail to bring strategic stability but could escalate the nuclear arms race.
In the first place, no nuclear attack should ever be condoned, irrespective of scale.
The new warhead deployed by the United States is said to have about one-third the destructive power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. But its “smallness” is no justification for causing another nuclear havoc.
The nation that uses one cannot escape grave responsibility, not only under international humanitarian law.
It is also a mistake to believe in being able to control the scale of any armed conflict, for that matter. The situation can readily devolve from miscalculations and erroneous assumptions--all the more so if any weapon of mass destruction is deployed. There is no winner in a nuclear war.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which has served since the Cold War era as the “pillar” of global nuclear control, came into effect half a century ago.
In April and May, NPT signatory nations will meet for a quinquennial review conference to reaffirm their commitment to nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.
Article 6 of the NPT requires all nuclear powers to advance nuclear disarmament in good faith. But this obligation appears to have been all but forgotten by the United States and Russia--the nuclear superpowers that together own the bulk of the global nuclear arsenal--as well as by China and other nations.
The superpowers' regressive move is not limited only to the deployment of smaller nuclear weapons.
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the United States and the former Soviet Union, which banned land-based, intermediate-range missiles and led to the end of the Cold War, expired last summer.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is expected to last until 2021, but the United States has not committed to its extension.
With the superpowers acting irresponsibly, North Korea has shown no indication of abandoning its nuclear program, and South Asia and the Middle East also face nuclear problems.
The international community must do something to change this global nuclear crisis.
Non-nuclear nations took the lead in bringing about the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, but Japan remains outside the treaty and has done little despite its claim as “the bridge” between nuclear and non-nuclear nations.
In this 75th anniversary year of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, Japan must show its genuine resolve to seek a world without nuclear weapons.
Tokyo must urge Washington to understand the necessity of rebuilding the nuclear non-proliferation framework and extending the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty beyond next year.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 11

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Here's why the Marine Corps is getting Tomahawk cruise missiles

The Navy is stocking up on Tomahawks, and the Marine Corps is too for some reason

taskandpurpose.com

Here's why the Marine Corps is getting Tomahawk cruise missiles
James Clark
February 12, 2020 at 02:10 PM

The Navy and Marine Corps intend to purchase an additional 203 Tactical Tomahawk Cruise Missiles for roughly $402 million in 2021, according to the Navy's budget request for that fiscal year, with 155 of the long-range munitions going to the Navy and 48 going to the Marine Corps.

The Navy's decision to get more Tomahawks isn't all that shocking — after all, the missiles made national news as recently as 2017 after President Donald Trump approved launching dozens at targets in Syria.
However, the fact that the Corps wants to get their hands on the cruise missile is surprising.
"The Marine Corps is procuring the Tomahawk missile as part of an overall strategy to build a more lethal Fleet Marine Force," said Capt Christopher Harrison, a Marine Corps spokesman, who also confirmed to Task & Purpose that the Marine Corps' intent to procure Tomahawks is "a new development."

"This capability is in support of the Marine Corps Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) and the National Defense Strategy (NDS) approach to build a more lethal Joint Force," Harrison said. "Further details on the capability and or employment are classified."
Beyond the obligatory invocation of "lethality" — twice in as many sentences — the official response doesn't quite get to why this matters, what it means, or why it's happening now.
Fortunately, it's not rocket science. Since the late 1980s the United States had adhered to the the rules of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a set of guidelines signed by President Ronald Reagan and Russia's Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 that limited the types of weapon systems the nations involved could use.

One of those rules involved barring the use of long-range ground-launched missiles, like Tomahawks, which under the INF could not be fielded from land. When the U.S. withdrew from the INF treaty in August, that restriction went out the door. With the Marine Corps getting their hands on Tomahawks of their own, that means there are more places from which they can be launched.
"There's not a lot of detail included here, but taking ashore strike assets like the Tomahawk and making them mobile would seem to fit squarely with the vision of Commandant [David] Berger's new planning guidance, which is to say distributed fires coming from both land and sea that complicate an adversary's surveillance and targeting job," explained Tom Karako, the director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Missile Defense Project.
"That the U.S. Marines are getting Tomahawk speaks volumes about the no-kidding seriousness with which service operational concepts are approaching great power competition," Karako told Task & Purpose.
The move is in line with the Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David Berger's long term plans for the service, especially his plans for dealing with other militaries who have massive arsenals of their own.
"I am absolutely embracing Distributed Maritime Operations as a naval concept," Berger said in October. "We must distribute the force for two reasons: one is because, in a peer-to-peer fight, what you do not want to do is drive down into the heart of their collection of weapon systems in a narrow funnel; you want to distribute your force so that you pose an adversary a dilemma from multiple axes in multiple domains. The byproduct of dispersing, of distributing, is you also become more survivable, more difficult to detect."

The basic idea: If you can fire off these bad boys from multiple locations — at land and sea — then they're that much harder to stop, and if your enemy has to worry about threats from every corner, they might miss one.
To date, some 2,300 Tomahawks have been used in combat operations, according to Raytheon, the weapon's manufacturer.


Related story:
The Marine Corps plans on cutting thousands of personnel and culling its fleets of MRAPs and AAVs

 

[jward]

Three Honduran policemen killed in shootout to free jailed MS-13 gang leader

Gustavo Palencia
2 Min Read

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - About 20 gunmen dressed in military fatigues and police uniforms on Thursday killed three policemen and wounded two others during an attack to free one of the most senior leaders of the powerful MS-13 gang, police said.

Alexander Mendoza, a notorious MS-13 figure also known as “El Porky,” escaped during the attack in the city of El Progreso, 175 kilometers (108 miles) north of the capital, Tegucigalpa. He was on way to a trial hearing.
The notorious MS-13 crime group was founded by Salvadorans in Los Angeles in the 1980s and spread to El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala as the United States deported waves of migrants.
The most important MS-13 leader on the northern city of San Pedro Sula, Mendoza had been captured in 2015 and sentenced to 20 years in jail on charges of illicit association and money laundering.

“We are going to recapture this man and arrest those who helped him escape,” said Deputy Minister of Security Luis Suazo.

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández offered a reward of 2 million lempiras ($80,000) for information that leads to Mendoza’s recapture.
Local television showed images of about 20 uniformed men and with their faces covered shooting and then climbing into several vehicles to escape with Mendoza.
MS-13, along with its rival Mara 18, are among the most powerful gangs operating in Central America, with most of their activities dedicated to extortion, assassinations and drug trafficking.
Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Sandra Maler
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

posted for fair use

Three Honduran policemen killed in shootout to free jailed MS-13 gang leader

About 20 gunmen dressed in military fatigues and police uniforms on Thursday killed three policemen and wounded two others during an attack to free one of the most senior leaders of the powerful MS-13 gang, police said.

www.reuters.com

 

[jward]

Your Army
Are heavy ground combat units better than light forces and airstrikes?

Todd South

7 hours ago




In recent years, the Army has stationed more troops in Europe to balance against Russia and also increased temporary Pacific rotations, while the Marine Corps is throwing much of its weight into highly mobile, distributed units to counter China.


But which approach is more likely to keep either adversary in check?


A recently released RAND Corporation report has found that a combination of heavy ground forces and air defense in theater but not necessarily on the front lines, has had the best effect on deterring conflict.


Its authors looked at the main arguments around deploying forces – keeping most U.S. forces in the United States to deploy only as a last resort versus keeping large numbers permanently stationed in critical regions such as Europe and Asia.

If Russia started World War III, here’s how it would go down
The U.S. and NATO forces on Europe's eastern border are vastly outnumbered by the Russian military and could be quickly overwhelmed if Moscow mounted an aggressive assault into the Baltic region.
Todd South

There is a third option, having light forces in the region but being agile enough to add surge numbers during crises.


Keeping forces in the United States does offer flexibility, requiring partners to provide for their own defense without needlessly provoking adversaries. But that often translated into greater instability on the international scene, and, in the end, a higher likelihood that U.S. forces would later have to fight, according to the report.


“It is not so much a country’s overall military potential that deters as much as its ability to concentrate forces rapidly to counter a specific act of aggression,” according to the report

Moreover, having no forces in the area can also signal to aggressors that if they move swiftly, before the United States can mobilize and deploy, then the outcome will be accepted.

“The more mobile forces are, the less evidence there is that they deter,” according to the report.

Though there was not direct link, authors wrote that this phenomenon is likely due to the outward signal of commitment by the United States when deploying large-scale ground forces.

Analysis found more than 100 incidents of annexations, an aggressor country grabbing land from another territory, were achieved that way. That was 10 times the number of “land grabs” than were achieved through extended campaigns.

“Analysis shows that, when the United States has surged forces forward in an international crisis, there has been a large decline in the incidence of major clashes or war,” according to the report.

But pushing the bulk of U.S. forces to the edge of allies’ front lines is not without problems.

“Adversaries who fear encirclement by a hostile United States may also provoke low-level disputes in an effort to demonstrate their own willingness to fight, arguably a description of contemporary Russian behavior,” according to the report.

Geography does matter, however, as does the response of the adversary that the United States and its allies are trying to deter.

For example, report authors noted that deterring China would rely more on air and naval forces for offshore control and active denial. But with Russia and North Korea, we would likely see more success with ground force deterrence.

Of 10 cases analyzed in which the United States deployed ground combat forces, only one saw significant clashes after a surge into the region, according to the report. Two-thirds of incidents when no U.S. forces deployed, however, escalated into major clashes or war.

But sending in the tanks and artillery doesn’t resolve everything.

U.S. surges into crisis situations essentially “maintain the status quo” and reduced the risk of war.

“But they do not readily translate into bargaining leverage or improved long-term positions for partner states,” according to the report.



About Todd South
Todd South is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War. He has written about crime, courts, government and military issues for multiple publications since 2004. In 2014, he was named a Pulitzer finalist for local reporting on a project he co-wrote about witness problems in gang criminal cases. Todd covers ground combat for Military Times.

posted for fair use

Are heavy ground combat units better than light forces and airstrikes?

Geography and adversaries differ, but some units carry more weight

www.armytimes.com

 

[jward]

US Senators Point to ‘Hypersonic Gap’ With Russia, China
Eunjung Cho
February 13, 2020 07:42 PM


U.S. senators are concerned Russia and China may outpace Washington in developing hypersonic weapons.
In a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday with top defense officials, lawmakers expressed concern about the weapons that fly at five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut called the hypersonic weapons “a game-changer.” Independent Senator Angus King of Maine called them “a nightmare weapon for aircraft carriers.”
“It sounds to me as if hypersonic weapons and other future weapons have been more advanced by other countries such as China, even Russia coming back into the scene in a real aggressive way … are we going to deter them from moving forward?” asked Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.




FILE - Then-Vice Adm. Charles Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, speaks during a change-of-command ceremony at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, Nov. 18, 2019,

Maintaining strategic deterrence
Testifying before the committee, Admiral Charles Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, admitted to the ongoing competition. But he sought to reassure the senators that the U.S. has the necessary deterrence capabilities.
“I am confident that this nation has the ability to produce the capabilities we have to have,” he said. “And for deterrence, again, the basic equation hasn’t changed. Can I deny you your aim, or can I impose a cost on you that is greater than what you see? I can do that if necessary.”
Richard added that the U.S. maintains conventional superiority over Russia and China while maintaining strategic deterrence.
Experts say, however, that hypersonic weapon systems could change the existing balance of conventional military power between the U.S. and its major competitors.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of the Congress, both China and Russia have conducted numerous successful tests of hypersonic glide vehicles and both are expected to field an operational capability as early as 2020.
There are two types of hypersonic weapons: cruise missiles and glide vehicles. Both are difficult to track and intercept because they can maneuver in midflight.

Boosting budget for hypersonic weapons
This is why continued investment is critical in the hypersonic weapons tracking layer in space, according to General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, commander of the Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, who testified at the same hearing.




FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin, fifth left, and other top officials oversee the test launch of the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle from the Defense Ministry's control room in Moscow, Dec. 26, 2018.
“We need to continue to invest in that space sensing layer, because as we go from a ballistic missile to a hypersonic glide vehicle, it really changes the problem of maintaining custody of that weapons system throughout its entire flight,” said O’Shaughnessy.
In the 2021 budget released Monday, the Trump administration proposed $3.2 billion for hypersonic weapons, a 23% increase from last year.
“FY2020 represents a pivotal year for hypersonic weapon development and fielding as the department begins aggressively flight-testing capabilities across multiple domains,” Richard said in written testimony. The Trump administration has yet to specify when it will field American hypersonic weapons.

New START Treaty
Senators also asked top military leaders about what to expect after the New START Treaty expires in February 2021.
While noting that extending the treaty is ultimately a political decision, Richard pointed to some of the shortcomings of the agreement.
“It does not address a very large class of weapons that the Russians have a significant advantage in, it doesn’t constrain novel systems, and it is a bilateral treaty,” he said.
He expressed a higher level of distrust in China’s intentions in nuclear weapon development.
Richard said he could “drive a truck through China’s no-first-use policy,” adding, “They’re very opaque about what their intentions are. They’re very different from the Russians.”
The Trump administration is seeking to forge a trilateral arms agreement with Russia and China, although China has so far refused to take part.

US Senators Point to ‘Hypersonic Gap’ With Russia, China

They raise concerns about Russia's and China’s push to develop hypersonic weapons; top military commanders highlight US deterrence capabilities

www.voanews.com

 

[jward]

Does the Space Force need a Guard component? The National Guard says yes.
By: Valerie Insinna   11 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — National Guard leaders want the Pentagon to create a Space National Guard — and if it doesn’t, Guard officials may work independently with Congress to make it happen, top generals said Wednesday.
The Defense Department is set to submit a report to Congress this March laying out plans for how the Space Force will incorporate Reserve and National Guard forces. Currently, the Office of the Secretary of Defense is studying a range of options, including unique models that would divide the Space Force into full- and part-time positions, or having no reserve component at all, Maj. Gen. David Baldwin, the adjutant general from California, said during a media roundtable with reporters.
However, the Pentagon’s draft legislative proposal — due to be sent to Capitol Hill on Feb. 20 to clarify the Space Force’s organizational structure and include additional authorizations needed by the new service — does not contain language that would establish a Space National Guard, a source with knowledge of the discussions told Defense News.

May the Space Force be with you. Here’s what we know about the US military’s newest service
Trump signed the establishment of a Space Force into law on Dec. 20.
By: Valerie Insinna
Brig. Gen. Patrick Cobb, the National Guard Bureau’s deputy director of space operations, said the bureau hopes to find a solution through internal discussions with OSD and the Air Force. However, several adjutant generals have said they are prepared to work through Congress if deliberations in the Pentagon fail.
“We are strongly advocating for a Space National Guard, and that’s being received very well by the members on the Hill,” Baldwin said. “Whether we allow OSD to go through their process to come to the conclusion on their own that we need a Space National Guard, or we leverage Congress and we have Congress put it in the [defense policy bill] and make it happen remains to be seen

“We’re hopeful that it’s the former and that we don’t have to go to the latter, but we’re looking to do that.”
Unlike the federally controlled active-duty services, the National Guard is also controlled by its respective state government, with adjutant generals appointed by a governor. Because of this unique relationship, as well as the economic benefits associated with a Guard presence, Congress tends to be extremely protective of policy and funding that impacts the National Guard.

While Baldwin acknowledged that the OSD is doing its “due diligence” by evaluating all options, other National Guard leaders said they worry that the department may be overlooking the most efficient and simple solution.
“Personally, I don’t see how we have a Space Force without a Space Guard. Because the organize, train and equip is going to come from that Space Force side,” said Maj. Gen. Michael Loh, the adjutant general of the Colorado National Guard. “Otherwise you’re delinking the parent service with those forces that are supporting it.”
“We’re a proven model,” said Maj. Gen. James Eifert, adjutant general for Florida. “We’re not big fans of another yearlong study to examine the same things that we’ve already spent some time studying.”

The National Guard has about 1,500 space personnel: 1,100 in the Air National Guard and 400 in the Army National Guard. Those space forces and missions are concentrated in eight states — Colorado, California, Alaska, Hawaii, Florida, New York, Ohio and Arkansas — as well as the territory of Guam.
Some critics of creating a Guard component are worried that it would expose the Space Force to a sharp budgetary increase, as additional states would potentially look to establish additional branches of the Space National Guard in the hopes of boosting the local economy.
But officials said that would not be allowed to happen.
“We’re not looking to stand up 54 Space National Guards to cover every state and territory. We really only see there being some additional overhead in the particular space states that participate in the mission, so the concern that this would be creating this huge bureaucratic overhead is really not what we envision as how it would be operated,” Eifert said.
Cobb added that there will be no growth at the Guard bureau or within the Joint Force Headquarters as a result of the creation of the Space National Guard, and that any manpower gaps can be filled by transferring existing billets.

There will be no cost to this [at the headquarters level], and even at the states, we’ll look to flip certain billets at Joint Force Headquarters over to space national guardsmen,” he said.
Officials pointed to several benefits of creating a Space National Guard. For one, it would eliminate confusion over who is in charge of space forces currently in the National Guard. Under the current construct, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond would not be able to command space operators in the Army and air national guards without the permission of the Army and Air Force.
“You would have, for example, in a certain unit someone who is a completely separate service. The administrative control, the operational control, I think that would cause some confusion. It has to match active duty,” said Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, the adjutant general of Alaska.
It would also ensure a continuation of culture between the Space Force and its reserve forces, he said.
In January, Vice Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten spoke favorably about the role the National Guard could have with the Space Force.

The National Guard is a perfect partner for the space mission — much more perfect than many other missions that we have the Guard do,” he said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“It’s perfect because it’s, in many cases, a stateside mission, a homeland mission. It’s done in one place,” Hyten said. "You can build very, very good expertise in that one area and have a Guard unit that is focused on a singular mission.”

Does the Space Force need a Guard component? The National Guard says yes.

Some National Guard adjutant generals are already advocating for a Space National Guard to their local congressional delegations.

www.defensenews.com

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

Saudi Arabia’s ‘slow steaming’ changes to Islam may just work

Changing the Muslim mindset towards non-believers is not a one-and-done effort after hundreds of years of indoctrination.

thehill.com

Saudi Arabia's 'slow steaming' changes to Islam may just work
By James G. Zumwalt, opinion contributor — 02/12/20 12:00 PM EST 268
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

“Slow steaming” is a concept by which container ships operate at lower speeds to minimize wear and tear on engines, save fuel, reduce emissions and otherwise improve efficiency. This concept proves that, sometimes, slower can be better than faster. For those who are observing events in the Muslim world, with an eye toward recognizing positives rather than negatives, the concept of slow steaming is being used by Saudi Arabia as it seeks to administer a course change for Islam to gradually bring stability to the Middle East region.
Let us examine a few of these initiatives and what they seek to do.
In May 2019, Riyadh published the “Charter of Makkah” (meaning “Mecca”) — a document that still escapes recognition as being groundbreaking. Not since Martin Luther’s nailing of the “95 Theses” on the door of a Catholic church in Germany in 1517 has a religion received such a wake-up call for change.

As a result of the Muslim World League (MWL) Conference in one of Islam’s two holiest cities, attended by more than 1,200 Muslim leaders representing 139 countries and 27 Islamic sects, the charter sought to implement changes of an all-encompassing nature. The charter also sought to proclaim Islamism as not being representative of Islam and to introduce, for the first time, acceptance of the universal equality of human rights for all. This comes after 1,400 years of Islamist indoctrination that Muslims are superior to all other human beings.
In yet another first, the charter recognizes acceptance of diverse religious beliefs and that diversity never justifies conflict. This document truly seeks to put Muslims and non-Muslims on an equal footing.
Despite the widespread participation of Muslims from around the world, what the charter says and what Muslims end up doing remains to be seen — just as our own Constitution witnessed a struggle to enforce the standard that all men truly are created equal. The charter’s new doctrine will have to fight a battle for acceptance by 1.6 billion Muslims, but it marks a starting point for this evolution.
We are seeing that the charter is not a “one-and-done” effort to change the Muslim mindset towards non-believers and, particularly, towards Jews. Since the days of Prophet Muhammad, Muslims have harbored a hatred towards Jews that asserts itself in both the Quran and hadiths. But Muslim leaders apparently again recognize that slow steaming is necessary to change the Muslim mindset to accept Jews as equals. The 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp at Auschwitz gave them the opportunity to “walk a mile” in the shoes of Jews.
On Jan. 23, Muslim and Jewish leaders honored victims of the Holocaust in a historic joint visit to the site. Approximately 60 senior Muslim civil and religious leader from across the globe toured the camp. The Saudi head of the MWL called the visit “a sacred duty and a profound honor.” Astonishingly, the group’s secretary general knelt and bowed to the ground as he led prayers for the million-plus victims killed there.
ADVERTISEMENT
This was another groundbreaking effort by Muslim leaders to level the human rights playing field. Ever since World War II’s end, and despite all the evidence of record, many Muslims have chosen either to deny the Holocaust ever happened or to mock it. Iran periodically holds a cartoon competition to ridicule the genocide the Nazis committed.
The Auschwitz visit by these Muslim leaders is important for two reasons that underscore the difficulty of implementing change within Islam:

• Unlike Catholicism, with a globally recognized head in Rome who implements doctrinal changes quickly, Islam lacks a pope. No Muslim leader singularly wields the power of the pope to impact Islam. In fact, Islam basically allows any religious leader or scholar to issue a religious declaration, which then can be accepted, or not, by followers. But the fact that 60 global Muslim leaders participated in this first step is encouraging to demonstrate a collective Muslim mindset exists towards equality.
  
  
• The fact that Saudi Arabia is involved — recognized as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, Islam’s holiest sites — lends immense credibility to the effort.

In addition to the Charter of Makkah and the Auschwitz visit, Riyadh is taking another significant step to snuff out extremists’ flame of hatred. Saudi Arabia will terminate its policy of funding mosques abroad where such hatred is being fomented. Existing foreign mosques will be turned over to local authorities to be administered by local Muslims and their elected clerical head. This obviously is a follow-through on Riyadh’s 2018 decision to ban Islamist teachings from its schools and begin opening up to all religions.
With Saudi Arabia and moderate Arab nations realizing that the only thing they have to fear is Islamism, and that their hope for regional stability aligns more with non-Muslim interests such as those of Israel, the above steps hopefully will be expanded to ensure that the seed of tolerance for all is nurtured.
Slow steaming will take a little longer for changes in Islam to be accepted by its followers, but after 1,400 years of indoctrination, it is clearly the way to go.
James G. Zumwalt is a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who served in the Vietnam War, the U.S. invasion of Panama and the first Gulf War. He heads a security consulting firm named after his father, Adm. Zumwalt & Consultants, Inc.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Jets Fly Show Of Force During Gunfight Between US And Syrian Troops At Checkpoint (Updated)

Russian troops were also present at the time, underscoring just how complex things are for American forces in the country.

www.thedrive.com

Jets Fly Show Of Force During Gunfight Between US And Syrian Troops At Checkpoint (Updated)
Russian troops were also present at the time, underscoring just how complex things are for American forces in the country.
By Joseph Trevithick
February 12, 2020

• The War Zone

via @jenanmoussa

Many of the exact details about the incident are still unclear, but U.S. Air Force F-15 combat jets executed a show of force during a standoff between U.S. troops and a mob aligned with Syria's dictator Bashar Al Assad at a checkpoint, which had spiraled into a brief gunbattle. That skirmish left one Syrian dead and an American with very minor injuries. A Russian military patrol that was in the area was also on the scene during the shooting, which follows weeks of similar standoffs between U.S. and Russian personnel in northeastern Syria.

American Bradley Armored Vehicles Were Pulled Out of Syria After Less Than Two MonthsBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
U.S. Special Ops Soldier Talks To Reporter In Syrian Oil Fields As Mission Remains In FluxBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Army National Guard Bradley Fighting Vehicles Are Now In Syria Guarding Oil And Gas FieldsBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
U.S. Airpower Makes Show Of Force To Protect Troops In Syria As Security Situation UnravelsBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Turkey's Deepening Intervention In The Libyan Civil War Point's To Erdogan's Grand AmbitionsBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
The U.S.-led coalition ostensibly fighting ISIS in both Syria and Iraq confirmed that the incident had occurred at a checkpoint near the town of Qamishli, which is situated right on the Syrian-Turkish border in Syria's northeastern corner. Syrian state media said that the altercation had taken place specifically on a stretch of road in the village of Khirbet Ammu, to the east of Qamishli. The U.S. forces were traveling in a convoy in a mix of M-ATV and MRAP mine-resistant wheeled armored vehicles at the time.

DOD
An official US military map showing various areas of interest in northeastern Syria, including Qamishli, as well as approximate zones of control.

"After Coalition troops issued a series of warnings and de-escalation attempts, the patrol came under small arms fire from unknown individuals. In self-defense, Coalition troops returned fire," U.S. Army Colonel Miles Caggins III, the top spokesperson for the U.S.-led coalition, also known as Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said in a statement. "The situation was de-escalated and is under investigation. The Coalition patrol returned to base."
Caggins later issued a second statement saying that "one U.S. Soldier had a minor superficial scratch while operating their equipment" during the incident and that "the Soldier is back at work."

Update: At the Qamishli incident, one U.S. Soldier had a minor superficial scratch while operating their equipment. The Soldier is back at work. | Di bûyera xala kontrolê de, leşkerekî Amerîkî di dema bikaranîna amûrê bi awayekî gelekî sivik birîn bû. Niha vegeriya ser karê xwe.
— OIR Spokesman Col. Myles B. Caggins III (@OIRSpox) February 12, 2020​

Pictures show that U.S. Air Force F-15s, possibly F-15E Strike Eagles, which have been very active in the region, conducted a show of force during the incident, flying over the area and firing off flares. Syrian authorities claimed there had been an actual airstrike, but there is no evidence of this. Combat jets and helicopters firing flares overhead is a common show of force tactic, which U.S. forces have employed in both Syria and Iraq in the past.

One of the US Air Force F-15s, correct me if I'm wrong, conducted a low flying show of force and dropped flares. pic.twitter.com/8TGuFhcYSU
— Aldin (@aldin_ww) February 12, 2020​

Update:
No US forces were injured
— Intel Air & Sea (@air_intel) February 12, 2020​

Syrian state media also claims that U.S. forces opened fire on civilians and that they killed one of them. The videos and pictures that have since emerged on social media do show what appear to be civilians milling around the checkpoint, as well as in heated discussions with American troops. In one case, an individual is seen holding a torn U.S. flag, reportedly pulled off of one of the American vehicles.
However, there is no evidence that American forces deliberately fired at civilians. At least one video clip shows members of the pro-Assad force manning the checkpoint firing at the U.S. convoy while not wearing readily discernable military uniforms.

Today Americans forces stopped at one of the checkpoints in the regime area and the supporters of the regime started to attack them and clashes happened and one guy killed. pic.twitter.com/z0Uwv7zHei
— Kamiran Sadoun (@KamiranSadoun) February 12, 2020​

Today after some clashes between Syrian backed Militias and US army a #Syrian person tells US army soldiers “what are you doing in our country? Why you are here?” #Syria #US pic.twitter.com/Q7UMzJMKFi
— Sangar Khaleel (@SangarKhaleel) February 12, 2020​

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

There are indications that some of the U.S. M-ATVs and MRAPs had suffered some damage in the incident. Pictures reportedly from the aftermath of the incident show one M-ATV being towed away and superficial damage to another vehicle. Some videos show apparent civilians or militia members pelting the vehicles with rocks and possibly throwing at least one Molotov cocktail at them.

Photos of the US vehicles leaving the area, some with definite damage #Syria pic.twitter.com/TNQb8xHSUY
— Intel Air & Sea (@air_intel) February 12, 2020​

One more video from #Hasakah area #Syria pic.twitter.com/rkYHSlb0wY
— Drexluddin Spiveyzai (@RisboLensky) February 12, 2020​

Near Qamishli #Hasakah #Syria via @Eyad_Alhosain Pelted with rocks pic.twitter.com/iMv6bOfytH
— Drexluddin Spiveyzai (@RisboLensky) February 12, 2020​

Though it is not entirely clear when they arrived, Russian forces, who are ostensibly aligned with Assad's regime and patrol areas of northeastern Syria under a separate agreement with the Turkish government, were also present during the incident. The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an independent monitoring group, said its sources indicated that the Russians attempted to de-escalate the situation, according to the Associated Press. Video available on social media clearly shows that Russia's troops had arrived before the shooting started and were there during the skirmish. At the time of writing, there were no reports of Russian casualties.

The clash that occurred between the #American forces and the #Syrian army today in the village of Khirbet Amo in #Qamishliالاشتباك بين القوات الاميركيىة والجيش السوري في القامشلي pic.twitter.com/3uQdEv4iRT
— MOHAMMED HASSAN (@MHJournalist) February 12, 2020​

This incident follows weeks of increasingly routine standoffs between U.S. and Russian forces in northeastern Syria, typically with the Americans seeking to block the passage of Russia's patrols into certain areas under the control of the U.S.-backed predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic (SDF) forces. A fistfight reportedly broke out between American and Russian troops in January, but this specific incident remains unconfirmed.
Russia has been conducting these activities in northeastern Syria since October 2019, when officials and Moscow and Ankara cut a deal creating a buffer zone along the Syrian-Turkish border. This followed a unilateral Turkish military intervention into northern Syria, primarily aimed at ejecting the SDF from the region.

Another photo of the Russian military patrol being stopped by a US military checkpoint on the road to Tel Tamr. A pair of Russian helicopters also reportedly arrived, and were met by US aircraft. 170/ANHA | HAWARNEWS | English pic.twitter.com/sEeEQzpcsK
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) January 25, 2020​

A Russian army helicopter flies over a patrol of US soldiers in the town of Tal Tamr in the northeastern Syrian Hasakeh province on the border with Turkey on January 26, 2020.
Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP pic.twitter.com/K4Chryzdp4
— Delil souleiman (@Delilsouleman) January 26, 2020​

There was also a report on Feb. 9, 2020, that U.S. forces had begun building a new, semi-permanent outpost in the city of Hasakah, a major hub and capital of the province of the same name, roughly 45 miles southwest of Qamishli. That comes amid major questions about the U.S. military's force posture in Syria, as a whole, and the future of the American military's presence there.
The skirmish near Qamishli also comes as Turkish forces and their local partners increasingly find themselves in open conflict with pro-Assad forces in western Syria. The regime in Damascus has launched a new offensive to retake the province of Idlib, the last remaining major rebel stronghold, which has also precipitated a new humanitarian disaster. Turkey has complained about Russia's unwillingness or inability to prevent this Syrian military operation, which authorities in Ankara say violates its deal with Moscow. At least 13 Turkish troops have died in Syrian artillery strikes in February alone, according to the Associated Press.
“The United States once again condemns the continued, unjustifiable, and ruthless assaults on the people of Idlib," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement on Feb. 4, following an attack by pro-Assad forces on a Turkish outpost in Syria. "We stand by our NATO ally Turkey in the aftermath of the attack, which resulted in the death of multiple Turkish personnel serving at an observation post used for coordination and de-escalation, and fully support Turkey’s justified self-defense actions in response."
However, on Feb. 11, National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien indicated that the U.S. government would not seek to intervene in the brewing conflict. “What are we supposed to do to stop them? We’re supposed to be a global policeman and hold up a sign and say stop this Turkey, stop this Russia?” he said on CBS's Face the Nation.

This comes as Pompeo says the US will “stand by” Turkey & sends Jeffrey to Ankara to “coordinate a response” to Syria & Russia in Idlib. Face The Nation on Twitter
— Liz Sly (@LizSly) February 12, 2020​

On Turkish report that US and #Turkey agreed that NATO and US should take more concrete steps in #Idlib #Syria - “No such agreement was made” said @PentagonPresSec Alyssa Farah.
— Carla Babb (@CarlaBabbVOA) February 12, 2020​

All told, the situation on the ground in Syria looks as complex and multi-faceted as ever. The skirmish near Qamishli and the number of different actors involved only underscore the inherent risks of these ostensibly minor altercations in the country spiraling out of control and turning into larger and more serious conflicts.
We will update this story as more information becomes available.
UPDATE: 3:45pm EST
Russia has claimed that a 14-year-old boy died in the incident and that another was wounded.
"One local resident was wounded. Another resident – a 14-year-old boy – was killed," Russian Major General Yury Borenkov, the head of the Russian government's Center for Syrian Reconciliation, said in a daily briefing. "Only thanks to the efforts of the Russian servicemen, who arrived at the site of the incident, it was possible to prevent a further escalation of the conflict with the locals and to ensure the exit of the U.S. military convoy in the direction of a U.S. base in near the village of Khimo in Haseke province."
Local Syrian media has named the individual who reportedly died as Faisal Khalid Al Bari, but does not appear to have given his age.

Faisal Khalid Al Bari was #killed by US forces today I just spoke to his cousin and neighbor in the village Ameer Al Arab, said tomorrow at 10am there will be a big funeral many people “pro Assad” from different villages and towns are invited to burry Faisal. #Syria pic.twitter.com/MGqOcjjlzT
— Sangar Khaleel (@SangarKhaleel) February 12, 2020​

U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has also challenged the Russian assertion that its forces were instrumental in defusing the situation. "Today’s incident did not involve the Russians," he told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, where he is attending a meeting of senior defense officials from around the Alliance.

Defense Secretary Esper on attack on U.S. forces in Syria: "Today’s incident did not involve the Russians," @rabrowne75 reports from NATO headquarters in Brussels
— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) February 12, 2020​

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

The Opportunity Exists To Move Faster On Nuclear Modernization

A significant portion of America’s nuclear deterrent force currently relies on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that were fielded over forty years ago. This mission, which represents the bedrock of U.S. security, demands modern technology. The time for a replacement is now.

www.forbes.com

371 viewsFeb 14, 2020, 08:00am
The Opportunity Exists To Move Faster On Nuclear Modernization

Dave Deptula Contributor



Aerospace & Defense
I write on defense, strategy, the profession of arms, and aerospace.

Maintenance team attends to Minuteman III

U.S. Air Force photo/Airman John Parie
A significant portion of America’s nuclear deterrent force currently relies on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that were fielded over forty years ago. This mission, which represents the bedrock of U.S. security, demands modern technology. The time for a replacement is now.

Since the dawn of the nuclear age, nuclear deterrence has been an enduring tenet of U.S. defense strategy. It is fundamental to checking threats from Russia and China who possess sufficient numbers of nuclear weapons to pose an existential threat to the U.S. The U.S. nuclear triad—comprised of air, sea, and ground launched nuclear weapons, each with unique characteristics and advantages that collectively compensate for the disadvantages of the others—remains the cornerstone of effective U.S. nuclear deterrence. Yet, over the past three decades, every leg of the U.S. triad has been allowed to age, if not atrophy.

The LGM-30 Minuteman III, is the ICBM land leg of the U.S. nuclear triad and is complemented by the Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), and nuclear weapons carried by long-range bombers. The first Minuteman was developed in the late 1950s and the current Minuteman III entered service with the Air Force in the 1970’s. Originally intended for a service life of just a decade, the Air Force invested in a series of service life extension programs (SLEPs) through the 1990s and early 2000s in order to maintain the Minuteman III force through 2030. The deferment of a new ICBM system meant that any replacement would likely be fielded at the near end of the Minuteman’s existing service life.

Russia and China, meanwhile, developed and deployed a wide variety of new ICBMs—to include rail and road mobile variants. Russia’s newest ICBM, the RS-28 Sarmat, was publicly unveiled by Russian President Putin in 2018. China has developed several long-range ICBMs, most notably the DF-31 and the DF-41 capable of carrying 10 independently targetable nuclear warheads. China has also recently tested an SLBM—signaling their intent to deploy a full-fledged triad themselves.

While the number of nuclear weapons Russia and the U.S. possesses is determined in part by arms control agreements, there are only bilateral treaties between the U.S. and Russia. China was not a party to any of the Cold War era arms control agreements and is not a party to any similar treaty today.

In 2014, the Air Force determined that a new ICBM system would be required to maintain effective U.S. nuclear deterrence and assurance beyond 2030. This was largely due to concerns about flexibility of the missile system as new threats emerged over time and ever escalating maintenance costs on the aging Minuteman III system. The Air Force then ran a series of competitions among industry leaders to design and produce this new system. In the end, after three years of competition, only one contractor submitted a bid. This fact affords the Air Force an opportunity to accelerate the new ICBM program now called the ground based strategic deterrent (GBSD). The Air Force’s original acquisition schedule anticipated the need to review multiple 1000+ page proposals. Now that this is unnecessary given the single bid, the Air Force is in a position to accelerate the GBSD acquisition process because it can avoid the multitude of time-consuming elements of the “source selection process” required when there is more than one bidder. This acceleration would provide some “slack” in the program schedule and meet U.S. Strategic Command’s imperative to “go fast.”

It is not uncommon for the Defense Department to receive only one bid on major programs: the global positioning satellite (GPS) III, Presidential helicopter, armored multi-purpose vehicle, and the optionally manned fighting vehicle are just some of the solicitations that received a single bid. There are regulations for the government to follow in these situations that yield transparency and insight into the bidder’s pricing.

One of the challenges of this program is the strict schedule. Through age and attrition, the size of the Minuteman III missile force will dwindle dramatically after 2030. That means the program must meet its critical milestones on time—like first flight and full functional test. Time is of the essence to design, develop, and test all the sub-systems that need to be integrated for first flight. Every month that the engineers spend focused on this program is an investment in risk reduction and schedule certainty.

While no one could have predicted the dynamics in the aerospace industry landscape when this program was first authorized, a series of unusual circumstances have gifted the Air Force the opportunity to accelerate the GBSD program. Deploying our new ICBM leg of the triad ahead of schedule and with considerable savings would be a big win for all Americans.

Follow me on Twitter.
Dave Deptula






I currently am the Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and also a Senior Military Scholar at the Air Force Academy. I was the principal attack planner f...

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

North Korea May Be Planning to Test New Nuclear-Capable Missiles: General

General Terrence O'Shaughnessy said North Korea's recent engine tests could be an early warning of coming missile launches.

www.newsweek.com

North Korea May Be Planning to Test New Nuclear-capable Missiles That 'Threaten Our Homeland,' U.S. General Warns
By David Brennan On 2/14/20 at 7:46 AM EST

The chief of the U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command has warned that North Korea may be planning fresh nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile launches, citing recent engine tests in the secretive dictatorship.

General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, who also serves as the commander of the U.S. Northern Command, submitted a statement for a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday warning that 2020 might see Kim Jong Un resume the ICBM tests that have been frozen since December 2017.

At the end of last year, Kim promised to unveil a "new strategic weapon" in the "near future."

O'Shaughnessy said Thursday that although the dictator "did not specify what this new weapon would be, recent engine testing suggests North Korea may be prepared to flight-test an even more capable ICBM design," Yonhap news agency reported.

The commander added that such a weapon "could enhance Kim's ability to threaten our homeland during a crisis or conflict."

O'Shaughnessy stressed the importance of American ballistic missile defense in light of any new North Korean ICBM launches. U.S. defenses are "reliable and lethal," he said, and suggested that new short-range capabilities could also eventually be added.

Related Stories

• Iran, North Korea Are Building New, Better Submarines to Face Foes At Sea
• North Korea Internet Use Spikes As Regime Turns to Hacking, Cryptocurrency
• North Korea is Holding a Crypto Conference, and it's a Bad Idea to Attend

Kim is yet to resume ICBM or nuclear weapon tests despite the failure of U.S.-North Korean negotiations over sanctions relief and denuclearization.

Last year, Kim promised to send a "Christmas gift" to President Donald Trump, which was widely interpreted as a threat to restart major weapons tests.

Kim did not follow through on the vow, but the North is believed to be continuing rocket and nuclear research despite its detente with the U.S.

Kim also ordered regular short-range missile tests over the course of 2019. Trump dismissed the launches as routine, though U.S. allies and senior administration officials warned such actions were a threat to regional peace.

For all Trump's optimism, the U.S. has been unable to make any significant headway on North Korean denuclearization. Departed Trump administration officials including former national security adviser John Bolton and former Chief of Staff John Kelly have publicly said they do not believe Kim will ever willingly surrender his nuclear arsenal.

A United Nations report seen by Reuters earlier this week said that Pyongyang is continuing to violate international sanctions while expanding its nuclear and missile capabilities. The UN said the North has illegally imported refined petroleum and some $370 million of coal with the help of Chinese ships.

This file photo shows people walking past a television showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea on December 30, 2019. JUNG YEON-JE/AFP via Getty Images/Getty