WAR 02-22-2020-to-02-28-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

Housecarl

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(405) 02-01-2020-to-02-07-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
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(406) 02-08-2020-to-02-14-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
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(407) 02-15-2020-to-02-21-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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Posted for fair use.....

US Navy and allies showcase strength, teamwork and anti-submarine tactics during Dynamic Manta

By SCOTT WYLAND | STARS AND STRIPES Published: February 26, 2019

SIGONELLA, Italy – Naval forces from 10 countries have come together in the Mediterranean Sea for the exercise Dynamic Manta to strengthen teamwork and tactics in anti-submarine warfare amid an increase in Russian undersea activity.

An array of scenarios during the 10-day NATO drill are designed to test and train crews on how to combat submarines from the air, sea surface and underwater. The technical and tactical skills must be sharpened regularly to keep up with Russia and China, naval leaders have said.

Last fall, Adm. James Foggo, head of the Navy’s Europe and Africa command, warned that Russia had been building up its sub fleet and had deployed several Kilo-class diesel submarines to the Mediterranean and Black seas.

Participating in this year’s exercise alongside the U.S. are Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey and Britain.

wyland.scott@stripes.com
Twitter: @wylandstripes
 

Housecarl

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Posted for fair use.....

US leads training exercises in Africa amid focus on Sahel
By CARLEY PETESCH
today

THIES, Senegal (AP) — Crouching in the sparse brush, maneuvering into formations through a divide, and then shooting at a target, about 10 soldiers from Burkina Faso are among a select group of African soldiers being trained to battle West Africa’s fast-growing extremist threat.

They are carrying out drills as part of the U.S. military-led annual counterterrorism exercise in West Africa, which this year takes place in the shadow of possible U.S. troop cuts in Africa although extremist attacks in the region have reached a worrying new level.

A Pentagon decision on the size of the U.S. force in Africa is pending as part of a global review with the aim of better countering Russia and China.

More than 1,500 service members from the armies of 34 African and partner training nations have assembled for the Flintlock exercises in Senegal and Mauritania, the two countries in West Africa’s sprawling Sahel region that so far have not been hit by violence from extremists linked to al-Qaida or the Islamic State group.

The U.S. Africa Command, which organizes the two weeks of training, defers questions about the possible troop cuts to the Pentagon. It has said European nations should step up to help France’s 5,000-strong force leading the counterterror fight in the Sahel, the region just below the Sahara Desert. French leaders have appealed to Washington to keep U.S. troops in place.

Senegalese Foreign Minister Amadou Ba during a visit this week by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made it clear the region is under threat.

“We hope they will continue to support in security areas. We hope they will continue to support us in training and intelligence,” he said of U.S. forces.

Extremists know no boundaries, Col. Magatte Ndiaye, a spokesman for Senegal’s armed forces, told The Associated Press. “We must have a synergy of international action to face this threat,” he said.

“We have trust in the Americans,” he added. “They are aware of the situation and I’m sure they’ll take a decision that makes good sense.”

Security in the Sahel region continues to deteriorate and requires international participation, said the commander of Special Operations Command Africa, U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Dagvin Anderson. “It’s not just a U.S. or Western effort. It takes partnerships across the international community, and it takes close partnership within the region in order to be effective,” he said.

Extremists don’t respect borders, so intelligence sharing is vital, he said. That involves building trust and relationships across borders: “Ultimately, that’s what leads to stability, and that stability is what we need.”

But a five-nation regional counterterrorism force, the G5 Sahel, has suffered from insufficient funding.

In Burkina Faso, which has seen a growing number of attacks as extremists move over the border from Mali and Niger, the military has been accused by human rights groups of abuses in counterterror efforts that risk alienating young people and sending them to join the extremists.

Burkina Faso’s military needs more training to fight against growing extremism, said Lt. David Ouedraogo, who leads the group of Burkinabe soldiers training as special forces. His forces will be deployed to hold the line against the extremists’ expansion southward toward the capital.

“We must always adapt and continue training,” he said as his team ran drills led by the Dutch. “The threat has changed ... the attacks on positions, the attacks on military camps and on civilians. This is all a threat that has grown against our country.”

Once-peaceful Burkina Faso has seen a rising number of attacks since Islamic extremists became active in the country in 2015. Hundreds have been killed and more than a half-million people displaced in the past year alone.

“There’s less freedom to move ... and it all affects the morale” of residents, he said. “It’s important ... to find stability.”

Capt. Sam Okenarhe of Nigeria’s Brigade Strike Force faces a more entrenched threat from Boko Haram, whose insurgency has lasted more than a decade, and an offshoot called the Islamic State West Africa Province.

“We all know that terrorism is not something that our country faces alone, so definitely it’s very important that our Western partners have an intervention in it,” he said as his force received training from the U.K.’s Royal Marines.

There are signs, though, that U.S. military interest in the Sahel could be waning. Late last year the U.S. switched to a strategy of merely trying to contain extremist groups in the region instead of weakening them, according to a new report by the Pentagon inspector general.

However, the U.S. ambassador to Mauritania, Michael J. Dodman, countered the idea that the U.S. is pulling out.

“We have absolutely not abandoned the fight against terrorism in West Africa or in the Sahel, or frankly, anywhere in the world,” he said last week in a phone press conference.

“We continue to modify what we’re doing” said Dodman. “We try to stay on top of the situation and try to build up the capacities of the countries in the region, who are the ones who are really going to be the key to defeating the threat that comes from extremists.”
 

Housecarl

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Posted for fair use.....

UN: 100,000 civilians casualties in Afghanistan in 10 years
By KATHY GANNON and RAHIM FAIEZ
today

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A United Nations report says Afghanistan passed a grim milestone with more than 100,000 civilians killed or hurt in the last 10 years since the international body began documenting casualties in a war that has raged for 18 years.

The report released Saturday by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan comes as a seven-day “reduction of violence” agreement between the U.S. and Taliban takes effect, paving the way for a Feb. 29 signing of a peace deal Washington hopes will end its longest war, bring home U.S. troops and start warring Afghans negotiating the future of their country.

“Almost no civilian in Afghanistan has escaped being personally affected in some way by the ongoing violence,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan. “It is absolutely imperative for all parties to seize the moment to stop the fighting, as peace is long overdue; civilian lives must be protected and efforts for peace are underway.”

Last year there was a slight decrease in the numbers of civilians hurt or killed, which the report says was a result of reduced casualties inflicted by the Islamic State affiliate. The group was drastically degraded by U.S. and Afghan security forces as well as the Taliban, who have also bitterly battled the Islamic State.

According to the U.N. report, 3,493 civilians were killed last year and 6,989 were injured. While fewer civilians were hurt or killed by Islamic State fighters, more civilians became casualties at the hands of the Taliban and Afghan security forces and their American allies.

The report said there was a 21% increase in civilian casualties by the Taliban and an 18% rise in casualties blamed on Afghan security forces and their U.S. allies who dropped more bombs last year than in any year since 2013.

“All parties to the conflict must comply with the key principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution to prevent civilian casualties,” said Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. “Belligerents must take the necessary measures to prevent women, men, boys and girls from being killed by bombs, shells, rockets and improvised mines; to do otherwise is unacceptable.”

The seven-day “reduction in violence” began at midnight Friday. If it holds it will be followed by the signing of a long sought peace deal between the United States and the Taliban in the Middle Eastern state of Qatar where the Taliban maintain a political office.

U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who has spent the past 18 months negotiating the deal with the Taliban after his appointment in September 2018 by the White House, will sign the deal on the behalf of Washington. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants American troops brought home from Afghanistan. He says they have become a police enforcement force, which is not what they are there to do.

The peace deal will also include Taliban guarantees that Afghanistan will not be used as a staging arena for attacks against the U.S. or its allies.

The most difficult phase is expected to be the intra-Afghan negotiations as Kabul still struggles to come up with a unified position opposite the Taliban. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was declared the winner of a presidential race held five months earlier, followed by his political rivals refuting the results and calling the polling fraught with fraud.

The negotiations among Afghans, which will also hammer out an eventual permanent cease-fire, are to begin around March 10. Both Germany and Norway have offered to host the negotiations but until now a venue has not been chosen.
___

Gannon reported from Islamabad, Pakistan.
 

Housecarl

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Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

The Observer
Trident

Pentagon reveals deal with Britain to replace Trident
MPs dismayed after US defence officials leak news of nuclear weapons deal before parliament is told

Jamie Doward
Sat 22 Feb 2020 13.05 EST Last modified on Sat 22 Feb 2020 16.20 EST

Britain has committed itself to buying a new generation of nuclear warheads to replace Trident, which will be based on US technology. The decision was revealed by Pentagon officials who disclosed it before an official announcement has been made by the government.

The revelation has dismayed MPs and experts who question why they have learned of the move – which will cost the UK billions of pounds – only after the decision has apparently been made. It has also raised questions about the UK’s commitment to staunching nuclear proliferation and the country’s reliance on the US for a central plank of its defence strategy.

Earlier this month, Pentagon officials confirmed that its proposed W93 sea-launched warhead, the nuclear tip of the next generation of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, would share technology with the UK’s next nuclear weapon, implying that a decision had been taken between the two countries to work on the programme.

In public, the UK has not confirmed whether it intends to commission a new nuclear warhead. The Ministry of Defence’s annual update to parliament, published just before Christmas, says only: “Work also continues to develop the evidence to support a government decision when replacing the warhead.”

But last week Admiral Charles Richard, commander of the US strategic command, told the Senate defence committee that there was a requirement for a new warhead, which would be called the W93 or Mk7. Richard said: “This effort will also support a parallel replacement warhead programme in the United Kingdom, whose nuclear deterrent plays an absolutely vital role in Nato’s overall defence posture.”

Ed Davey, acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: “It is totally unacceptable that the government seems to have given the green light to the development of new nuclear weapon technologies with zero consultation and zero scrutiny. Britain under Johnson increasingly looks like putty in Trump’s hands. That Britain’s major defence decisions are being debated in the United States, but not in the UK, is a scandal. Under Johnson, it seems that where Trump leads, we must follow.”

Alan Shaffer, Pentagon deputy under-secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, also made reference to the new UK programme in a briefing session at the annual nuclear deterrence summit, in Alexandria, Virginia. “I think it’s wonderful that the UK is working on a new warhead at the same time, and I think we will have discussions and be able to share technologies,” Shaffer said.

David Cullen, director of pressure group the Nuclear Information Service, said: “The UK’s reliance on US knowledge and assistance for their nuclear weapons programme means they will find it almost impossible to diverge from any development path the US decides to take. “We are legally bound to take steps towards disarmament under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, but this would take us in the opposite direction.”

It is understood that the US had agreed with the UK not to make any announcement while parliament was in recess. However, US defence officials were apparently oblivious to the agreement and confirmed the programme’s existence – to the embarrassment of the UK government.

Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, said the development of the new warhead posed significant geopolitical problems. “Britain and the US have come a long away from being leaders in reducing the role of nuclear weapons and contemplating the possible road toward potential disarmament to re-embracing nuclear weapons for the long haul. They are obviously not alone in this, with Russia, China and France doing their own work. So, overall, this is a serious challenge for the international non-proliferation regime,” he said.

Tom Plant, director of proliferation and nuclear policy at the independent security thinktank, Rusi, said the lack of debate about the new weapon was a concern. “There’s been a presumption from those in opposition and analysts like myself that it should come to parliament in some way, like the 2016 vote on Trident. I suspect that the MoD’s position is that they don’t want it to. What the programme doesn’t need from their perspective is lots of scrutiny. But if there’s going to be a decision it should absolutely come to parliament.”

The MoD said: “As previously stated in the 2015 defence review, we can confirm that we are working towards replacing the warhead. We have a strong defence relationship with the US and will continue to remain compatible with the US Trident missile. An announcement about the UK’s replacement warhead programme will be made in due course.”
 

Housecarl

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Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

Libya Asks U.S. to Set Up Military Base Against Russia

Samer Khalil Al-Atrush, BloombergFebruary 22, 2020

(Bloomberg) -- Libya’s security chief called on the U.S. to set up a base in the North African country to counter Russia’s expanding influence in Africa.
Fathi Bashagha, the interior minister for the Tripoli-based administration, said his government proposed hosting a base after Secretary of Defense Mark Esper laid out plans to scale back the U.S. military presence on the continent and re-focus deployments globally on confronting Russia and China. Bashagha’s government has been engaged in a months-long battle with forces trying to seize the capital led by eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar, who’s backed by Russian mercenaries.
“The redeployment is not clear to us,” Bashagha said, speaking in a phone interview with Bloomberg on Friday. “But we hope that the redeployment includes Libya so it doesn’t leave space that Russia can exploit.”
The oil-rich nation across the Mediterranean from Europe has been one of the main stages for Russia’s push for influence over the past year. More than a thousand mercenaries deployed by a confidant of President Vladimir Putin have backed Haftar’s offensive to capture the capital from the internationally recognized government.
Bashagha warned that Russia’s backing of Haftar was part of a broader push for influence.
“The Russians aren’t in Libya just for Haftar,” he said. “They have a big strategy in Libya and Africa.”
Gate to Africa
Esper’s plan to pull troops from Africa provoked criticism in Congress, with 11 lawmakers led by House Armed Services Committee Vice Chairman Anthony Brown, a Democrat, noting in a letter last month that Russia and China were investing in the continent to strengthen their influence. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a top ally of President Donald Trump, was among a bipartisan group of lawmakers who confronted Esper on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich and said they wouldn’t back the plan, NBC reported on Tuesday.
In late January, Esper said the U.S. wouldn’t withdraw all of its troops from Africa, but acknowledged a review is under way to account for a new strategy that makes countering Russia and China the priority. The U.S. has about 6,000 troops in Africa, including those guarding diplomatic facilities, according to a defense official.
“Libya is important in the Mediterranean: it has oil wealth and a 1,900-kilometer coast and ports which allow Russia to view it as the gate to Africa,” Bashagha said. “If the U.S. asks for a base, as the Libyan government we wouldn’t mind -- for fighting terrorism, organized crime and keeping foreign countries that intervene at a distance. An American base would lead to stability.”
Benghazi Attack
The U.S. hasn’t had forces in Libya since last April, when it withdrew them as Haftar’s forces marched toward the capital. The country has been in turmoil since a 2011 U.S.-led and NATO-backed uprising ousted long-time autocrat Moammer al-Qaddafi. The following year, a jihadist-led mob attacked the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, killing the American ambassador, Christopher Stevens. In a 2016 interview with Fox News, then-President Barack Obama said that failing to plan for the aftermath of Qaddafi’s ouster was the worst mistake of his presidency.
“We hope that the U.S. can move on from this regretful incident,” Bashagha said of the attack on the embassy. “All Libyans regret it. It wasn’t the Libyan people but a small group of criminals that did it.”
Since April, control of the country has been divided between Haftar’s forces, who are also backed by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, and the UN-recognized government, which gets military support from Turkey. The war prompted the U.S. to withdraw a counter terrorism contingent from Tripoli that had been assisting in the fight against Islamic State militants in Africa.
Bashagha warned that arms pouring into the country despite a United Nations arms embargo could find their way to neighboring Egypt, where weapons smuggled out of Libya have reached Islamic State militants in Sinai and the neighboring Palestinian Gaza Strip.
(Corrects spelling in ambassador’s name in fourth paragraph from end.)
To contact the reporter on this story: Samer Khalil Al-Atrush in Cairo at skhalilalatr@bloomberg.net
 

Housecarl

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From yesterday and though about the corona virus, IMHO pertinent here....HC

Posted for fair use.....

With information from China scarce, U.S. spies enlisted to track coronavirus

Jenna McLaughlin, Yahoo News February 21, 2020

WASHINGTON — As Chinese officials face allegations of locking down information about the spread of the coronavirus, U.S. intelligence agencies have been helping in governmentwide efforts to gather information about the disease’s global spread.

Already, some of the best information about the coronavirus and the Chinese government’s response to it is coming from military channels, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

“China’s behavior causes the intelligence community to get involved,” said one of those sources, a former intelligence official. “Because no data means spying.”

The former official indicated that the most important issue being tracked is the Chinese leadership plans for what is known as “continuity of operations,” meaning the ability for the government to maintain its basic functions during an unprecedented crisis, such as nuclear war or natural disaster.

In China, this might involve senior leaders leaving the country or seeking safety in shelters, “like U.S. doomsday bunkers,” said the source. The intel community, said the source, is seeing some signs Chinese officials are making those kinds of contingency plans, indicating the potential level of concern within Beijing.

The intelligence community’s involvement comes amid international frustrations with China’s reticence to accept international assistance. The World Health Organization, including American experts, was finally allowed to visit China on Monday to do field research on the disease but has been delayed and will not, as of now, be visiting the alleged location of the origin of the outbreak due to what Chinese officials described as a lack of time and resources to host international experts.

At least officially, however, the WHO has been complimentary of China's efforts. In a statement, the WHO told Yahoo News that “since the beginning of the outbreak, China [has] shared data in a transparent manner.”

However, the organization, which receives funding from China, has come under fire for what many have called a delayed response to the outbreak and a failure to pressure Chinese leadership into further openness.

In the United States, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA’s Global Issues Mission Center and the Defense Intelligence Agency’s National Center for Medical Intelligence have all been supporting the White House Task Force on the coronavirus, according to three intelligence sources familiar with the matter. The task force is led by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The National Center for Medical Intelligence is based in Fort Detrick, Md., and tracks disease outbreaks and potential danger to the U.S. military, as well as preparedness of foreign leaders to respond to pandemics or other related attacks. A military spokesman told Yahoo News the agency “is closely monitoring the coronavirus outbreak and the worldwide response to it.”

In this instance of the coronavirus, the intelligence community has to figure out a way to quickly gather information about a rapidly progressing potential pandemic without risking human sources’ lives, losing track of other threats or getting in the way of the CDC and WHO, which take primary responsibility for response and outreach.

As of Thursday, the WHO reported over 75,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus disease globally, as well as 2,129 deaths, the majority in China, notifying travelers that the global risk assessment for the disease is “high.” Symptoms can range from a common cold to more severe respiratory symptoms, and is transmitted from person to person.

A global pandemic has long been a concern to U.S. national security officials, and planning for such outbreaks has been a crucial part of government planning in previous administrations.

“Pandemic disease poses one of the greatest threats to global stability and security,” wrote Lisa Monaco, who served as President Barack Obama’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, in an op-ed on the LawFare, a national security blog. She also noted that the Trump White House no longer has a “dedicated unit to oversee preparedness for pandemics,” as there was under Obama during the West African Ebola crisis.

The U.S. and China have seen tensions rise over recent years as the U.S. cracks down on Chinese espionage and intellectual property theft amid an ongoing trade war, making it harder for U.S. officials to get complete information about the public health crisis.

While there are always channels available to communicate with China, it’s not always clear Chinese officials will make use of them or pick up the phone, said one national security official. The Communist Party and the broader bureaucracy are concerned about reporting bad news to President Xi Jinping, and also the disease’s potential impact on the global economy.

The situation with China “certainly makes it harder, I think more necessary and harder,” to get solid intelligence, said Greg Treverton, a professor at the University of Southern California and a former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, in an interview with Yahoo News.

Treverton, who has written extensively about transnational threats, recalled the government’s internal response to both the SARS epidemic in 2003, another instance of the coronavirus in China, as well as the gargantuan effort around responding to the West African Ebola epidemic between 2014 and 2016. He told Yahoo News that the intelligence community invested heavily in anticipatory tracking to follow Ebola’s path in Africa before cases surfaced in the U.S. and the issue became more domestic.

“These are existential, serious issues,” continued Treverton. “Health is an enormous national security issue, particularly when the intelligence target” — i.e., China — “is not as helpful as it should be.”
 

Housecarl

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Posted for fair use.....https://www.salon.com/2020/02/23/virtual-nuclear-weapons-design-and-the-blur-of-reality_partner/Virtual nuclear weapons design and the blur of realityNuclear weapons design is divided by dramatic generational markers


Sherry Turkle
February 23, 2020 9:29PM (UTC)


This article originally appeared on the MIT Press Reader.
virtual-nuclear-weapons-design-and-the-blur-of-reality_partner

Thirty years ago, designers and scientists talked about simulations as though they faced a choice about using them. These days there is no pretense of choice. Theories are tested in simulation; the design of research laboratories takes shape around simulation and visualization technologies. This is true of all fields, but the case of nuclear weapons design is dramatic because here scientists are actually prohibited from testing weapons in the physical realm.

In 1992, the United States instituted a ban on nuclear testing. In the years before the ban, frequent physical tests, first above ground and then underground at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, provided weapons designers with a place to do basic research. Through tests they developed their scientific intuitions even as they reassured themselves that their weapons worked. More than this, the tests compelled a respect for the awesome power of nuclear detonations. Many testified to the transformative power of such witnessing.

In the years after the 1992 ban, newcomers to the field of nuclear weapons design would see explosions only on computer screens and in virtual reality chambers. At Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories, some of the most powerful computer systems in the world are used to simulate nuclear explosions. Until recently, these simulations took place in two dimensions; now, simulations are moving into three dimensions. In a virtual reality chamber at Los Alamos known as a CAVE (an acronym for Cave Automatic Virtual Environment), one stands "inside" a nuclear explosion wearing 3D goggles, in order to observe it, one is tempted to say, "peacefully." The CAVE simulation is there to "demo" an explosion; those who work there become accustomed to experiencing in the virtual what could never be survived in the real.

When nuclear testing moved underground, it became easier for weapons designers to distance themselves from the potential consequences of their art. Hidden, the bomb became more abstract. But even underground testing left craters and seismic convulsions. It scarred the landscape. Now, with explosions taking place on hard drives and in virtual reality chambers, how much harder will it be for weapons scientists to confront the destructive power of their work and its ethical implications? One weapons designer at Livermore laments that he has only once experienced "physical verification" after a nuclear test, he told me at a workshop on simulation and visualization in 2003. He had "paced off the crater" produced by the blast. It changed him forever. His younger colleagues will not have that.

This senior scientist is concerned about the moral effects of moving nuclear weapons research to virtual space, but he and his colleagues are also troubled about the effects of virtuality on their science itself. They argue that "physical intuition is a skill you want to keep," as one told me, and worry that the enthusiastic reactions of young designers to new, flashy virtual reality demonstrations are naïve. One says: "The young designers look at anything new and they say, 'This is so much better than what we had before. We can throw out everything we did before!'" Senior scientists at the national laboratories describe young designers immersed in simulation as "drunk drivers." Within simulation, the happily inebriated show less judgment but think they are doing fine. Dr. Adam Luft, a senior weapons designer at Los Alamos, shows sympathy for the young designers: The new rules compel them to fly blindly. They cannot test their weapons because they must work in the virtual and they are given computer systems whose underlying programs are hard to access. Luft himself feels confident only if he is able to access underlying code. He is frustrated by the increasingly opaque simulations of his work environment. When something goes wrong in a simulation, he wants to "dig in" and test aspects of the system against others. Only a transparent system "lets [me] wander around the guts of [a] simulation." He is wary of making any change to a weapon without personally writing its code. Luft worries that when scientists no longer understand the inner workings of their tools, they have lost the basis for trust in their scientific findings, a concern that mirrors those of MIT designers and scientists of thirty years before.

Across professions, successful simulation gives the sense that digital objects are ready-to-hand. Some users find these interfaces satisfying. Others, like Luft, focused on transparency, are not so happy. They look askance at younger designers who are not concerned about whether they wrote or have even seen underlying code. One of Luft's colleagues at Los Alamos describes his "fear" of young designers: "[They are] good at using these codes, but they know the guts a lot less than they should. The older generation… all did write a code from scratch. The younger generation didn't write their code. They grabbed it from somebody else and they made some modifications, but they didn't understand every piece of the code." He speaks with respect of "legacy codes," the old programs on which the new programs are built. "You can't throw away things too early," he says. "There is something you can get from [the legacy codes] that will help you understand the new codes."

* * *

At Livermore, in 2005, a legendary senior weapons designer — Seymour Sack — was preparing to retire. At an MIT workshop, his colleagues discussed this retirement and referred to it as "a blow." They were anxious about more than the loss of one man's ability to make individual scientific contributions. He had irreplaceable knowledge about the programming that supported current practice, one weapons designer told anthropologist Hugh Gusterson, who published a paper on the topic of scientific involution across generations of nuclear science. His colleagues fretted: "He has such a great memory that he hasn't written down lots of important stuff. How will people know it?"

The response to this scientist's imminent retirement was a movement to videotape him and all the other scientists who were about to leave service. This was no ordinary oral history. It was infused with anxiety. Those who know only the top layer of programs feel powerful because they can do amazing things. But they are dependent on those who can go deeper. So those who feel most powerful also feel most vulnerable.

Nuclear weapons design is divided by dramatic generational markers: Some designers grew up with routine underground testing, some glimpsed it, some have only experienced virtual explosions. Some designers were trained to program their own simulations, some simply "grab code" from other people and are unfazed by the opaque. Yet when Luft sums up attitudes toward simulation in his field, he makes it clear that the wide range of opinion does not reduce to simple generational criteria. The cultures of weapons laboratories are also in play. For example, at Livermore, older weapons scientists who were very hostile to simulation became far more positive when the laboratory adopted a new metaphor for weapons design. Livermore began to liken weapons design to bridge building. According to this way of thinking, engineers do not need to "test" a bridge before building it: One is confident in its design algorithms and how they can be represented in the virtual.

At Livermore, the change of metaphor made simulation seem a reasonable venue for weapons testing. And at Los Alamos, there are younger scientists who find themselves eloquent critics of immersive virtual reality displays. One says: "I was so attuned to making plots on my computer screen. I was surprised at how little new I learned from [the RAVE]." (The RAVE is the nickname for Los Alamos's virtual CAVE technology.) This designer complains about not being able to work analytically in the RAVE; others say that it gives them a feeling of disorientation that they cannot shake. In the RAVE, scientists work in a closed world with rigorous internal consistency, where it is not always easy to determine what is most relevant to the real. For some younger scientists, even those who grew up in the world of immersive video games, the RAVE seems too much its own reality.

Across fields, scientists, engineers, and designers have described the gains that simulation has offered — from buildings that would never have been dared to drugs that would never have been developed. And they also describe the anxiety of reality blur, that "breaking point" where the observer loses a sense of moorings, bereft of real-world referents and precedents. And the very complexity of simulations can make it nearly impossible to test their veracity: "You just can't check every differential equation," says Luft. He pauses, and says again, "You just can't, there are just too many." In nuclear weapons design you can make sure that you have solved equations correctly and that your system has internal consistency. In other words, you can "verify." But he adds, "validation is the hard part. That is, are you solving the right equations?" In the end, says Luft, "Proof is not an option."

NOTE: All participants in the several studies that led to "Simulation and Its Discontents," from which this article is excerpted, are granted anonymity, usually by simply identifying them as professor or student, or as a practicing scientist, engineer, or designer. When particular individuals take ongoing roles in my narrative, I provide them with pseudonyms for clarity.
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This article is adapted from Sherry Turkle's book "Simulation and Its Discontents."

* * *

Sherry Turkle is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author and editor of several books, including "Reclaiming Conversation," "Alone Together," "The Inner History of Devices," "Evocative Objects," and "Simulation and Its Discontents," from which this article is excerpted.
 

Housecarl

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Posted for fair use.....

DOD Fights a Fake Nuclear War in Europe

Feb. 23, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Russia fires a nuclear weapon at a U.S. installation overseas. The U.S. retaliates in kind. How does it all play out?

U.S. Strategic Command simulated that scenario for Defense Secretary Mark Esper during a visit this week to Offutt Air Force Base, Neb. The exercise is part of the Pentagon’s routine slate of wargames and other events that it uses to consider its steps if nuclear war erupts, and comes as the U.S. is pursuing so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons to counter similar assets in Russia’s stockpile.

The idea of a tactical nuke is that, because they could do less damage than a larger weapon, a military might see them as a useful tool for regular battlefield operations.

The exercise featured a pretend Defense Secretary and a President facing a situation where Russia dropped a low-yield nuclear weapon on “a site on NATO territory” in wartime, a senior defense official told reporters Feb. 21. The United States hit back in a “limited response” using another nuclear weapon.

“You go through the conversation that you would have with the Secretary of Defense and then with the President, ultimately, to decide how to respond,” the official said. “They played out that game, and [Esper] got a good understanding for how that went.”

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) sat in on the gathering to learn more about the process as well, the official said.

Esper also visited nuclear missile and bomber crews at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., as part of the deterrence- and modernization-focused trip.

The Pentagon and other players in the defense world often ponder the question of how nuclear conflict might unfold if Russia attacked Europe. A recent Slate article noted that, in a different scenario, Obama-era National Security Council members looked at how the U.S. might react if Russia invaded a Baltic state and fired a low-yield nuke at NATO troops or at a base in Germany.

“The principals decided we had to respond with nuclear weapons, to maintain credibility among our allies and adversaries,” according to Slate. “They decided to fire a few nuclear weapons at the former Soviet republic of Belarus, even though, in the game, it had no involvement in the Russian attacks—and then they ended the game, without playing the next few steps.”

The defense official told reporters that STRATCOM and the Joint Staff also practice going through the motions of what to do during a nuclear crisis, like holding a conference to decide whether a missile launch poses a threat to the U.S.
“If there is a required response, a nuclear response, again, they exercise that, and they get different people to play—exercise secretary, exercise president, so they’re familiar with the mechanical process of making these decisions and providing the orders back out to the fleet,” the official said.

A Pentagon spokesman said it is routine for military officials to exercise all possible scenarios.

The U.S. is pursuing the W76-2 warhead for its submarine-launched ballistic missile as its own tactical nuclear weapon in response to Russian development. The defense official called the W76-2 the “least expensive, quickest way that we could put something in the field to show Russia that we have the capability in addition to the resolve to address any threat that they could pose to us.”

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood confirmed Feb. 4 the Navy has deployed the new warhead on a submarine, though the Defense Department says it is stopping short of bringing additional nuclear weapons to the European continent.

“We have no intention to field a new low-yield system in Europe,” the defense official added. “Our response to the Russian violation [of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty] is a conventional response. We’ll respond with conventional cruise missiles and conventional ballistic missiles of the range that’s captured by the INF Treaty, but we have no intention to make it nuclear-capable, nor have we actually spoken to the allies about basing it on their territory at this time.”

DOD is developing other nuclear weapons to counter foreign stockpiles as well, including ground- and sea-launched cruise missiles. The INF Treaty banned deployment of ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles, nuclear or conventional, built to strike targets between 500 and 5,500 kilometers away. The U.S. left the treaty last August in protest that Russia was flouting the pact.

Esper told reporters Feb. 19 he believes the Russians should count both strategic and non-strategic nuclear weapons under a renegotiated version of the New START Treaty, which dictates stockpile sizes and expires next year.
 

Housecarl

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Rethinking the Triad: Does a Nuclear 'Diad' Make More Sense?
The traditional nuclear “triad” of bombers, land-based missiles, and submarines could stand to lose a leg.
By Kyle Mizokami

Feb 23, 2020

  • The U.S. Secretary of Defense has committed to maintaining the current nuclear triad.
  • Each leg of the triad will need replacing over the next thirty years, at a cost of approximately $300 billion.
  • Do we still need a triad, and could we save some money while deterring nuclear war?
This week U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper spoke out in support of maintaining the nuclear “triad,” the combination of nuclear-capable bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and nuclear missile submarines that form the Pentagon’s strategic nuclear war-fighting capability. All three legs of the triad—the B-2 bombers, Minuteman III missiles, and Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines—are scheduled to be replaced over the next 20 years. The process will be expensive and time consuming, leading to the obvious question: could America get by on a “diad” or maybe even less?
The United States maintains approximately 1,600 strategic nuclear weapons deployed around the world. This includes 400 warheads on 400 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) sitting in hardened silos across the West, roughly 900 on a force of 12 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, and another 600 at U.S. bomber bases to equip B-52H Stratofortress and B-2 Spirit bombers. The U.S. keeps another 150 tactical nuclear weapons at air bases in Europe and has a stockpile of another 2,050 in reserve.


USS Alaska (SSBN 732)(Gold) Returns to Homeport



The Ohi0-class submarine USS Alaska enters Kings Bay, Georgia, 2019.
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Ashley Berumen


The U.S. has maintained the nuclear “triad” since the early 1960s. The reasoning is that each leg of the triad is particularly good at something the other two are not. The three together are mutually supporting, providing an all-around useful nuclear force. Bombers are secure, can be recalled from missions, can instantly assess the damage done by their nuclear strikes, and can be retargeted mid-flight. ICBMs were accurate, reliable, can hit their targets in half an hour or less, and can carry large payloads. Submarines can remain at sea for months at a time, undetectable and holding enemy targets at risk.

The end of the Cold War placed America’s nuclear arsenal on the back burner, and new strategic nuclear delivery systems haven’t been developed for more than three decades. The Pentagon is warning however that the B-2 Spirit, Minuteman III, and Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines are approaching the end of their service lives and must be replaced. The new B-21 Raider bomber program will cost $97 billion, the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent missile, designed to replace the Minuteman III, will cost $85 billion, and the new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines will cost $115 billion. The cost to replace existing systems and maintain the current weapons stockpile will cost $1.2 trillion over 30 years.



TOPSHOT-US-MILITARY-MISSILE-TEST



A Minuteman III ICBM launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base, 2017.
RINGO CHIUGetty Images



Let’s start with the B-21 Raider. The B-21 will replace the B-2 Spirit and B-1B Lancer bombers. While the second most expensive replacement program, it makes sense to keep the leg of the triad most capable of being recalled in a crisis. The B-21 will also be dual-capable, meaning it will fly both nuclear and conventional missions. The B-21 will carry a lot of conventional weapons a long distance, making it invaluable in a future, non-nuclear conflict. So let’s think about keeping the B-21.
Then there's the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, the replacement for the Minuteman III. The rationale for the ICBM makes less sense in the 21st century as submarine-launched missiles have become much more accurate. While ICBM advocates claim the hundreds of hardened silos spread out across America act as a warhead-sink, soaking up enemy nuclear weapons in a nuclear war, it seems quite likely that, if the silos were to go away, our adversaries would simply retire the weapons meant to go after them. It also seems like a bad idea to induce the enemy to drop hundreds of megatons of nuclear warheads on American soil, where the radioactive fallout will travel east and contaminate the country’s breadbasket. Let’s consider dropping GBSD.


image



Artist’s conception of the B-21 Raider.
U.S. Air Force.

The system safest from our cuts is probably the most expensive, the Columbia-class submarines. Nuclear missile submarines, once at sea are invulnerable to attack, and the current Ohio-class submarines have never been tracked by an enemy sub. As long as a single submarine remains at sea, armed with 24 Trident II D-5 missiles, no foreign power would dare launch on the U.S. So, let’s keep the Columbia-class.
Our first option is to dissolve the ICBM force, and that will save the $85 billion that would have gone to Ground Based Strategic Deterrent. That would leave us with a diad of bombers and submarines. We could plow that $85 billion into buying more of either, use it to rejuvenate the U.S. Air Force’s aircraft fleet (the average age is 29 years), or simply use it to help pay off the deficit.
Another option is to get rid of both GBSD and the B-21 Raider bomber, saving $182 billion. This is the point where our nuclear cuts begin to create risk, because losing the B-21 leaves the U.S. with only Trident II D-5 missiles, and unlike a bomber, once launched you can’t recall them. It’s worth remembering that the United Kingdom and France, having cut their nuclear arsenals, both decided to keep their submarine-launched nuclear deterrent.


image



Artist’s rendering of a Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine.
U.S. Navy illustration

At some point, the U.S. needs to determine if there’s an acceptable balance between the size of the nuclear arsenal and the money saved.
 

jward

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UN: 100,000 civilians casualties in Afghanistan in 10 years
By KATHY GANNON and RAHIM FAIEZ
today

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A United Nations report says Afghanistan passed a grim milestone with more than 100,000 civilians killed or hurt in the last 10 years since the international body began documenting casualties in a war that has raged for 18 years.

The report released Saturday by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan comes as a seven-day “reduction of violence” agreement between the U.S. and Taliban takes effect, paving the way for a Feb. 29 signing of a peace deal Washington hopes will end its longest war, bring home U.S. troops and start warring Afghans negotiating the future of their country.

“Almost no civilian in Afghanistan has escaped being personally affected in some way by the ongoing violence,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan. “It is absolutely imperative for all parties to seize the moment to stop the fighting, as peace is long overdue; civilian lives must be protected and efforts for peace are underway.”

Last year there was a slight decrease in the numbers of civilians hurt or killed, which the report says was a result of reduced casualties inflicted by the Islamic State affiliate. The group was drastically degraded by U.S. and Afghan security forces as well as the Taliban, who have also bitterly battled the Islamic State.

According to the U.N. report, 3,493 civilians were killed last year and 6,989 were injured. While fewer civilians were hurt or killed by Islamic State fighters, more civilians became casualties at the hands of the Taliban and Afghan security forces and their American allies.

The report said there was a 21% increase in civilian casualties by the Taliban and an 18% rise in casualties blamed on Afghan security forces and their U.S. allies who dropped more bombs last year than in any year since 2013.

“All parties to the conflict must comply with the key principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution to prevent civilian casualties,” said Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. “Belligerents must take the necessary measures to prevent women, men, boys and girls from being killed by bombs, shells, rockets and improvised mines; to do otherwise is unacceptable.”

The seven-day “reduction in violence” began at midnight Friday. If it holds it will be followed by the signing of a long sought peace deal between the United States and the Taliban in the Middle Eastern state of Qatar where the Taliban maintain a political office.

U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who has spent the past 18 months negotiating the deal with the Taliban after his appointment in September 2018 by the White House, will sign the deal on the behalf of Washington. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants American troops brought home from Afghanistan. He says they have become a police enforcement force, which is not what they are there to do.

The peace deal will also include Taliban guarantees that Afghanistan will not be used as a staging arena for attacks against the U.S. or its allies.

The most difficult phase is expected to be the intra-Afghan negotiations as Kabul still struggles to come up with a unified position opposite the Taliban. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was declared the winner of a presidential race held five months earlier, followed by his political rivals refuting the results and calling the polling fraught with fraud.

The negotiations among Afghans, which will also hammer out an eventual permanent cease-fire, are to begin around March 10. Both Germany and Norway have offered to host the negotiations but until now a venue has not been chosen.
___

Gannon reported from Islamabad, Pakistan.
Trump: If Partial Truce Holds, ‘I Would Put My Name’ on Taliban Peace Deal
By Ayaz Gul

February 23, 2020 04:18 PM




President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he leaves the White House,Feb. 23, 2020, in Washington, en route to India.

President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he leaves the White House,Feb. 23, 2020, in Washington, en route to India.


ISLAMABAD - U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday a seven-day partial truce with the Afghan Taliban has “been holding up” and it could eventually lead to his signing of a peace deal with the insurgent group scheduled for this week.
Trump’s remarks came a day after the “reduction in violence” truce took effect across Afghanistan on Saturday, with all parties to the 18-year-old Afghan agreeing not launch offensive operations for a week.
“I want to see how this period of a week works out,” Trump told reporters before his departure on a trip to India. He said the cooling off period has “been holding up” but Trump stressed that progress over the remaining days was key to taking next steps in the Afghan peace process.
The “reduction in violence” is meant to pave the way for U.S. and Taliban officials to sign a comprehensive agreement in Qatar later this week that would set the stage for a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops to bring an end to America’s longest war.
“If it works out over the next less-than-a-week, I would put my name on it, yes. Time to come home,” Trump said when asked whether he would sign the U.S.-Taliban agreement Saturday. “And they (Taliban) want to stop. I think the Taliban wants to make a deal, too. They’re tired of fighting,” the U.S. president said.

The two adversaries have negotiated a draft agreement in contentious off-and-on negotiations spread over a period of 18 months, hosted by Doha, Qatar. The gulf state is where the Taliban also maintains its political office.

Meanwhile, a senior Qatar foreign ministry envoy reportedly visited the Afghan capital, Kabul, Sunday where he met with President Ashraf Ghani and other political figures to discuss the upcoming signing ceremony, among other issues. Mutlaq Bin Majed Al-Qahtani later shared details of his meetings with the Afghan TOLO TV channel.
“Quite important countries and organizations, permanent and non-permanent members in the security council, neighboring countries and all the stakeholders — all those countries who are going to support the peace process of Afghanistan —will attend the signing ceremony,” the channel quoted Al-Qahtani as saying. “Hopefully, we can conclude this and sign it in Doha on the 29 this month,” the envoy added.
The Taliban-Afghan peace talks are expected to begin within two weeks of the signing of the agreement, if they lead to a further reduction of violence, the United States will initiate a significant troop reduction over a period of several months.
The U.S.-Taliban agreement provides a timetable for the withdrawal of American and coalition forces from Afghanistan, Taliban counterterrorism guarantees, and a process for political reconciliation between Afghan parties to the conflict through an intra-Afghan dialogue process.
If Washington is satisfied with the progress in intra-Afghan talks, it will continue to reduce its forces according to a roadmap outlined in the agreement with the Taliban. A complete withdrawal of U.S. troops, however, will be linked to progress in the reconciliation talks and the Taliban’s anti-terrorist assurances.

Ayaz Gul


Written By
Ayaz Gul


posted for fair use
 

Housecarl

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Three Mali soldiers killed in jihadist attack

Monday, 24 February 2020 | AFP | Bamako

At least three Mali soldiers were killed and five wounded Sunday in a suspected jihadist attack on an army camp in the far north of the country, the Malian military said.


The outpost in Bambara Maoude, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of the city of Timbuktu "was the object at about 0500 GMT of a terrorist attack," the military said on Twitter.


"During this attack, we regret to report a provisional toll of three dead, five wounded, together with material damage," it said.


"The wounded were airlifted to Sevare... The outpost remains under the control of the armed forces."


"Three of our men fell Sunday during a jihadist attack in Bambara Maoude," a military official told AFP from Timbuktu earlier.


A local official confirmed the toll of three soldiers dead and said two more were missing. According to another local official, "the terrorists left, taking vehicles and military equipment with them... Together with the bodies of two of their comrades."


The attack is the latest in a long series of deadly incidents in Mali's north, where French forces said Friday they had killed about 50 jihadists so far this month.
 

Housecarl

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West Africa: Sahel, G 5 Summit at Nouakchott - Going to the Real and the Urgent

Centre for Strategies and Security for the Sahel Sahara (Nouakchott)
23 February 2020

analysis By Liman Nadawa
The G 5 Sahel and France Summit should be held in Nouakchott, Mauritania, on February 24. It should go to the actual issues and deal with the most urgent, in order to give hope to the Sahel populations. And probably also to their allies.
Go to actual and urgent issues

These expressions are understood to mean: stopping the killings, taking charge of IDPs and refugees, vigorously securing future liberated areas, then resettlement followed by stabilization of families in their places of origin. Development projects could be redirected to one of these imperatives. A number of them should be postponed and implemented once serenity is back to the Sahel.
This pragmatism is to be agreed on between the G 5 Sahel countries and France, then with the Alliance for the Sahel, which is supposed to mobilize development funds.
The Alliance is holding its constituent general assembly, also, in the Mauritanian capital, on February 25. The two meetings should be used to create a common vision for securing and developing the Sahel region.

For the G 5 Sahel member countries and France, on the one hand, and the Alliance for the Sahel on the other, this is an exceptional opportunity to converge their reflections and their actions towards reducing the terrorist threat in the Sahel. There are many advantages to doing so.


On January 13, 2020, at the Clarification Summit in Pau, France and its G 5 Sahel partners adopted a new anti-terrorist strategy, called « Coalition for the Sahel », built on four pillars. France, through Operation Barkhane, and the G 5 countries are fighting the Islamic State of the Grand Sahara (EIGS), a priority target, in the so-called three-border area (Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger) under joint command, recently installed in Niamey, Niger. Barkhane, now a rapid reaction force, operates in that triangle.

The Coalition will be reinforced by the grouping of European Special Forces, Task Force Takuba (which means « saber », in Tamasheq language). The Nordic countries, Finland, Norway and Sweden, will supply the bulk of the men and equipment, in particular drones and combat helicopters. Takuba will support the fighting on the ground against the terrorists. The Czech Republic will also try to deploy around 60 soldiers.


The G 5 Sahel military capacity building will be ensured, inter alia, by the German-French initiative of the Partnership for Stability and Security in the Sahel (P3S). The Kidal region in northern Mali, suspected of harboring terrorist groups, is being reinvested with a coalition of Malian military and civil administration. Another post-Pau measure: by the end of this February, France will dispatch 600 additional men to the Sahel with one hundred vehicles, i.e. heavy and light armored vehicles, as a reinforcement to Force Barkhane, which will therefore count 5,100 soldiers. A Chadian contingent is expected in the same three borders area.

At a meeting on 24 and 25 January 2020, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, the Defense and Security Committee, which brings together the Chiefs of Defense Staff of the G 5 Sahel and France, has modified the concept of operations of the Joint Force. That was in accordance with the decisions taken at the extraordinary conference of G 5 Sahel heads of state, in Niamey, Niger, on December 15, 2019, and at Pau summit.


>> For the Sahel, the first emergency is governance


Thus, a military unit can now pursue a terrorist group and cross one border up to 100 kilometers inside another G 5 Sahel member country. Therefore, it is also possible for a battalion to leave its zone of operation, crossing an international border, in support to another unit combatting within another member state country. Other important texts of the Joint Force G 5 Sahel, giving it freedom of action on the ground, have also been reviewed, in order to increase its flexibility. Finally, the arrival of American and French armed drones at the end of 2019 is also an important asset.


Mauritania, a great asset


The presidency of the G 5 Sahel goes this February 2020, to Mauritania. A country that has been able to protect itself from terrorist attacks for the past ten years. The new president, General Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, was chief of staff and Minister of National Defense for those years. Today, that position is none other than General Hanena Ould Sidi, commander of the Joint Force of the G 5 Sahel, from July 2018 to July 2019. Suffice to say that the two officials are aware of the security issues.






Mauritania is also at the origin of the « true-speaking » within the G 5 Sahel. Indeed, following the attack on the Joint Force Headquarters (HQ) in Sévaré, central Mali, on June 29, 2019, by terrorists claiming to be members of the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM ), it had, in particular, pointed out the weaknesses of the Burkinabe and Malian armies. It then proposed changes within the command that were, quickly endorsed. General Hanena Ould Sidi reinstalled the Joint Force HQ in Bamako, estimating the Sévaré area too exposed.


As the Nouakchott Summit approached, the United States also chose Mauritania to host the largest US military exercise in Africa, Flintlock, from February 18 to March 1, 2020.


The other possible asset for the G 5 Sahel is the active return of Algeria to the security issue of that space. This revival completes the new strategy for the fight against terrorist groups. In search of legitimacy, in the face of Hirak, the political protest movement which has lasted for one year, the new president, Abdelmajid Tebboune, has reclaimed the Malian file, with « the blessing » of France. Jean-Yves Le Drian, France Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, visited Algiers on January 20, 2020, and held talks with the authorities on the situation in Libya and the Sahel.


The G 5 Sahel, France and their partners have thus acquired the means to gain the upper hand over armed groups in the near future. This ambition is reasonable and, some hope, promising.

Reorienting the Investment Priority Program



That phase, essentially military, being over, the agenda would then address the management of internally displaced persons and refugees. That is where the execution of projects from the Priority Investment Program (PIP), developed by the G 5 Sahel, in 2014, and made up of 40 regional projects, could accelerate, at a total cost of 2.4 Billions of Euros. In order to benefit the Sahel border areas, the program aims at building infrastructures in terms of opening up (roads, bridges, regular air links, extension and improvement of telephone coverage), access to resources, through agro-hydraulic and electrification, and governance projects, with the inclusion of women and support for justice.


The PIP also includes an emergency stabilization component to be immediately implemented in the areas most affected by terrorism and therefore vulnerable. That could be reformulated as an Emergency Resettlement and Stabilization Program, and taken as a leading priority activity, for the benefit of IDPs and refugees.


The relationship between the worsening security situation in the G 5 Sahel countries and the Libyan chaos should indeed be kept in mind.


Institutional inflation and governance


In Nouakchott, questions about the institutional overlap, in apprehending the problems of the G 5 Sahel, could arise. The Sahel Alliance is made up of Germany, France and the European Union, of which they are also the leaders. The Sahel Stability and Security Partnership (P3S) is also an initiative of these two countries. The P3S encourages the involvement of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). However, while four of the countries belong to that organization, Chad is a member of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC). A preceding agreement between the two sub-regional organizations may be necessary.

In addition, a "technical agreement" binds the United Nations (UN), the European Union and the G 5 Sahel States, for the supply, through the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Mission for stabilization in Mali (MINUSMA), of special operational and logistical support for the G 5 Sahel Joint Force. This inflation of institutions is variously appreciated by Sahel heads of state.


In addition, in agreement with the Alliance for the Sahel, the PIP Governance component should go beyond the two recommended components, namely the inclusion of women and support for justice. Time has come to realize that even military operations cannot succeed without virtuous States 'governance in general and of Defense and Security Forces (DSF) in particular. Support and financial assistance must be tied to strict requirements and measures in their management. While civilians and soldiers are dying almost daily, is it bearable to learn -from media and social networks of cases of embezzlement of resources intended to the DSF equipment and support?


According to the States, in the G 5 Sahel space, between 18 and 32% of resources are devoted to the security effort. Thus, in short, the first emergency is governance…

Liman NADAWA consultant, Centre4s
Read the original article on Centre 4s.
 

Housecarl

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West Africa: The Sahel Sahara at Nouakchott


00550228:17d9e3d5a07fb67ef493f922ac2b77c3:arc614x376:w735:us1.jpg

Photo: ISS

The G5 Sahel countries.



20 February 2020


Centre for Strategies and Security for the Sahel Sahara (Nouakchott)

analysis By Ahmedou Ould Abdallah
Nouakchott — On February 24 and 25, the G5 Sahel Summit and the Alliance for the Sahel will be held in Nouakchott, Mauritania. In that context, a reminder and observations may be needed. A number of misunderstandings – as well as false information – muddle the Sahel Sahara crisis. That contributes to worsening the crisis and to delaying its resolution. To help understand it, clarification is needed.
A crisis hiding other crises
The disastrous developments of the Sahel crisis makes us forget its terrible reality: the interlinking of multiple conflicts. First there is the Malian political crisis, the oldest of all as it dates back at least to 1964. It has known many settlements, often more formal than real (including Tamanrasset Accords, 1991; National Pact, April 1992; Algiers 07/04/2006; Algiers Agreements 06/15/2015). All, without exception, were followed by new crises.
At that time limited to northern Mali, the crises have since contaminated its central region where violence against, and between civilians, have weakened the State.
Then there is, embedded on and linked to this Malian crisis, that of the Sahel Sahara. That is the entire Sahel strip, in particular the G 5 Sahel countries. In reality, the region stretches from the Atlantic coasts to the shores of the Red Sea while encompassing the southern parts of the Maghreb and the northern parts of the Savannah.

00551194:57d790474e61fe39bdf3f4b40efdf340:arc614x376:w735:us1.jpg

Photo: France Diplomatie

G5 Sahel - a political initiative


The third crisis that of criminal activities, is present through multiple trafficking in drugs, cigarettes, migration, gold mining, etc. Regularly in the news, owned by multiple national and international actors, that criminal activity is fueled through the first two crises that, in return, it exacerbates.
Possible responses
The resolution of these conflicts requires a response that takes into account the multiplicity of national crises in the Sahel regional crisis.


Talking of a single Sahel Sahara crisis does overall distort the diagnosis, weakens the effectiveness of remedies and perpetuates insecurity. Today, the real challenge is how – through national and international political and military action – to achieve a lasting political success in one of the countries concerned.
The economic aspect is of indisputable importance to peace consolidation: reconstruction with job creation, infrastructure building and generation budgetary revenues. How to rebuild countries – during a conflict remains – the question. A Marshal Plan before 8 May 1945!

00551195:4a537115485cf074d750148ad2c8dade:arc614x376:w735:us1.jpg

Photo: France Diplomatie

The Sahel Alliance: a donor coordination group


One reminder for the region. Long lasting, more or less raging conflicts exist elsewhere in the world: Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc. Painful, no doubt! The international community ends up ''accepting'' them! In other words, « the legitimacy » of a cause and political demands are not sufficient enough to resolving a crisis.
The Sahel Sahara ruling elites should update themselves on the international, diplomatic, economic and military reality of our countries and on their relations with the rest of the world.
It will therefore be necessary to form vast coalitions, first of all at the national level, for the transparent management of single states. They could then, among themselves and with their international partners, establish credible alliances for collective action against terrorism. With real chances of success and a better use of external support.
Ahmedou Ould Abdallah is president of the Centre for Strategies and Security for the Sahel Sahara (Centre4s)


Read the original article on Centre 4s.
 

jward

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US, South Korea looking to scale back training exercise due to coronavirus


By CAITLIN M. KENNEY | STARS AND STRIPES Published: February 24, 2020





WASHINGTON — U.S. and South Korean forces are looking to curtail upcoming training exercises out of growing fears about the spread of the coronavirus, the defense leaders for both countries said Monday.
“[Army] Gen. [Robert] Abrams and General Park [Han-ki] are looking at scaling back the command post training due to concerns about the coronavirus,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said at the Pentagon during a news conference with his South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo.
Abrams is the U.S. Forces Korea commander and Park is chairman of the South Korean joint chiefs of staff.


On Sunday, 13 Republic of Korea soldiers were diagnosed with coronavirus, Jeong said.

“We do regard this situation as a serious one,” he said.

Travel for South Korean service members has been limited, affecting normal military training and vacation leave, Jeong said.

The semi-annual joint command post exercises between the United States and South Korea, with the next happening in spring, has already been limited during the past year as part of an attempt by President Donald Trump’s administration to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. North Korea leader Kim Jong Un has said the joint exercises could negatively affect the negotiations.

“Normal planning has been underway for quite some time. But at the same time, everyone is aware that the [coronavirus] situation in the Republic of Korea grows serious by the day,” Jeong said about the combined exercise through a translator, adding he believed Abrams and Park will make the right decision about the combined training through their close coordination.

While the decision is being made by the military leadership, “We’ll remain fully ready to deal with any threats that we might face together,” Esper said.

If there is any change to the training, Jeong said they will consider ways to make certain the combined U.S.-South Korean defense posture stays robust.

Kenney.Caitlin@stripes.com
@caitlinmkenney


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jward

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DOD Fights a Fake Nuclear War in Europe

Feb. 23, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Russia fires a nuclear weapon at a U.S. installation overseas. The U.S. retaliates in kind. How does it all play out?

U.S. Strategic Command simulated that scenario for Defense Secretary Mark Esper during a visit this week to Offutt Air Force Base, Neb. The exercise is part of the Pentagon’s routine slate of wargames and other events that it uses to consider its steps if nuclear war erupts, and comes as the U.S. is pursuing so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons to counter similar assets in Russia’s stockpile.

The idea of a tactical nuke is that, because they could do less damage than a larger weapon, a military might see them as a useful tool for regular battlefield operations.

The exercise featured a pretend Defense Secretary and a President facing a situation where Russia dropped a low-yield nuclear weapon on “a site on NATO territory” in wartime, a senior defense official told reporters Feb. 21. The United States hit back in a “limited response” using another nuclear weapon.

“You go through the conversation that you would have with the Secretary of Defense and then with the President, ultimately, to decide how to respond,” the official said. “They played out that game, and [Esper] got a good understanding for how that went.”

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) sat in on the gathering to learn more about the process as well, the official said.

Esper also visited nuclear missile and bomber crews at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., as part of the deterrence- and modernization-focused trip.

The Pentagon and other players in the defense world often ponder the question of how nuclear conflict might unfold if Russia attacked Europe. A recent Slate article noted that, in a different scenario, Obama-era National Security Council members looked at how the U.S. might react if Russia invaded a Baltic state and fired a low-yield nuke at NATO troops or at a base in Germany.

“The principals decided we had to respond with nuclear weapons, to maintain credibility among our allies and adversaries,” according to Slate. “They decided to fire a few nuclear weapons at the former Soviet republic of Belarus, even though, in the game, it had no involvement in the Russian attacks—and then they ended the game, without playing the next few steps.”

The defense official told reporters that STRATCOM and the Joint Staff also practice going through the motions of what to do during a nuclear crisis, like holding a conference to decide whether a missile launch poses a threat to the U.S.
“If there is a required response, a nuclear response, again, they exercise that, and they get different people to play—exercise secretary, exercise president, so they’re familiar with the mechanical process of making these decisions and providing the orders back out to the fleet,” the official said.

A Pentagon spokesman said it is routine for military officials to exercise all possible scenarios.

The U.S. is pursuing the W76-2 warhead for its submarine-launched ballistic missile as its own tactical nuclear weapon in response to Russian development. The defense official called the W76-2 the “least expensive, quickest way that we could put something in the field to show Russia that we have the capability in addition to the resolve to address any threat that they could pose to us.”

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood confirmed Feb. 4 the Navy has deployed the new warhead on a submarine, though the Defense Department says it is stopping short of bringing additional nuclear weapons to the European continent.

“We have no intention to field a new low-yield system in Europe,” the defense official added. “Our response to the Russian violation [of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty] is a conventional response. We’ll respond with conventional cruise missiles and conventional ballistic missiles of the range that’s captured by the INF Treaty, but we have no intention to make it nuclear-capable, nor have we actually spoken to the allies about basing it on their territory at this time.”

DOD is developing other nuclear weapons to counter foreign stockpiles as well, including ground- and sea-launched cruise missiles. The INF Treaty banned deployment of ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles, nuclear or conventional, built to strike targets between 500 and 5,500 kilometers away. The U.S. left the treaty last August in protest that Russia was flouting the pact.

Esper told reporters Feb. 19 he believes the Russians should count both strategic and non-strategic nuclear weapons under a renegotiated version of the New START Treaty, which dictates stockpile sizes and expires next year.

US staged 'limited' nuclear battle against Russia in war game

The Pentagon has briefed about the simulated exchange in a move that could signal readiness to fight and win nuclear conflict


The US conducted a military exercise last week which simulated a “limited” nuclear exchange with Russia, a senior Pentagon official has confirmed.

The war game is notable because of the defence department’s highly unusual decision to brief journalists about the details and because it embodied the controversial notion that it might be possible to fight, and win, a battle with nuclear weapons, without the exchange leading to an all-out world-ending conflict.

1076.jpg


Deployment of new US nuclear warhead on submarine a dangerous step, critics say

The exercise comes just weeks after the US deployed a new low-yield submarine-launched warhead commissioned by Donald Trump, as a counter to Russian tactical weapons and intended to deter their use.

According to a transcript of a background briefing by senior Pentagon officials, the defence secretary, Mark Esper, took part in what was described as a “mini-exercise” at US Strategic Command in Nebraska. Esper played himself in the simulated crisis, in which Russia launched an attack on a US target in Europe.

“The scenario included a European contingency where you are conducting a war with Russia, and Russia decides to use a low-yield limited nuclear weapon against a site on Nato territory,” a senior official said. “And then you go through the conversation that you would have with the secretary of defense and then with the president, ultimately, to decide how to respond.”

The official said that “in the course of [the] exercise, we simulated responding with a nuclear weapon”, but described it as a “limited response”.

The limited response could suggest the use of a small number of nuclear weapons, or an existing low-yield weapon, or the new W76-2 low-yield submarine-launched missile which was deployed in the Atlantic for the first time at the end of last year. The deployment only became public at the end of January.

At the same time as describing last week’s war game, Pentagon officials defended the fielding of the W76-2.

“It’s a very reasonable response to what we saw was a Russian nuclear doctrine and nuclear capability that suggested to us that they might use nuclear weapons in a limited way,” a senior official said.

The briefing was first reported by National Defense, a trade magazine of the National Defense Industrial Association.

Hans Kristensen, the director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists, pointed out that it was extremely rare for the Pentagon to give such detailed briefings about nuclear exercises and suggested it could have been a marketing exercise for the new weapons being added to the US arsenal.

“Remember, it’s only a few weeks ago that we had the official confirmation that this new low-yield warhead had been deployed,” Kristensen said. “And we’re now moving into a new budget phase where they have to go to Congress and try to justify the next new nuclear weapon that has a low-yield capability which is a sea-launched cruise missile. So all of this has been played up to serve that process.”

Advocates of the new US weapons say they represent a deterrent against Moscow believing it can use a tactical nuclear weapon without a US response, as Washington would have to choose between not responding, or dramatically escalating through the use of a much more powerful strategic nuclear warhead.

Arms control advocates are concerned that the leadership in both the US and Russia are developing a mindset in which their vast nuclear arsenals are not just the ultimate deterrent but weapons that could be used to win “limited” conflicts.

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Re-examining the Australia–US alliance (part 2): the Menzies and MacArthur models

25 Feb 2020 | Andrew Carr

In part 1 of this series, I argued that though on the surface ANZUS seems in good health, there are at least four diverging strategic interests: American primacy in Asia, the institutional status quo, Taiwan, and ADF troops beyond Asia. The political compact needs revising to ensure the expectations of both parties can be met. In this post, I explore two different ways to achieve that.

The Menzies model
The current model of ANZUS, developed when Robert Menzies was prime minister, is based on a functional allocation of tasks. If those tasks are no longer appropriate, a partnership based on new, clearly defined roles may still make sense. This is partly how NATO reformed after the end of the Cold War. It fit the defence planners’ emphasis on the uncertainty and diversity of threats that would spread across borders.

A model for ANZUS based on specific roles would be a relatively easy transition. It would align with Australia’s expeditionary military culture. It would also reflect the fundamental asymmetry of our alliance. New tasks could be chosen, and, in exchange, tasks unwanted by one party (such as joining a Taiwan contingency) could be laid to rest.

The list of things Australia might do that are of benefit to the US is long. Those that make the most sense would rely on skills and ideas rather than material capacity. Australia’s roles could include providing global expertise in election security and building military capability. They could extend to areas in which states are under threat from the new authoritarians, and be valuably deployed to willing countries across the globe.

If we are to renew the Menzies model, it would make sense to attempt to codify the new expectations and build out the institutional structure of ANZUS, which is surprisingly weak. This would give Australia the certainty and access to US war planning it has craved for decades, while offering Washington much clearer criteria for assessing its ally’s contribution.

This model would therefore be easy and quite viable for us to move into. Yet, the example of NATO should give us pause. Functional roles have proven a weak bond to ensure sufficient spending and a sense of duty and responsibility. Indeed, NATO seems to be moving back towards a more geographic approach, and Australia is increasingly focused on its immediate region.

Ultimately, a functional model may seem appealing, but the risk would be that we continue the ad hoc pattern, where the presence and quantity of cooperation are presumed to count for far more than the purpose of our cooperation.

The MacArthur model
Another approach would be to revisit a model we’ve already practised before. This would involve the US returning to its 1942 position of using the Australian continent as a base for projecting power into Asia. Australia would focus on defending and supporting US military efforts. For shorthand, let’s call this the Douglas MacArthur model.

While I can’t speculate too far, my sense is that serious thought is being given to this approach by planners in both the US and Australia. In 2015 the US assistant defence secretary told Congress that B-1 bombers and other surveillance aircraft would be based in Australia. In 2016 the US commander of Pacific air forces revealed that discussions for temporary basing of the B-1 were still underway. In 2019 and 2020 US Defense Secretary Mark Esper has speculated about allies hosting intermediate-range missiles in Asia. And, of course, Prime Minister Scott Morrison just announced a $1.6 billion investment in RAAF Base Tindal.

Australia’s territory is the most strategically significant contribution it can make to the US in its great-power competition with China (especially in the eyes of the Donald Trump administration). Long-range bombers and missiles make the most sense given the geography of Australia, although there are other services such as battle repair, maintenance, logistics and communication support which could be of value to a United States looking to establish a military presence in Asia outside the scope of China’s missile range.

The MacArthur model may not work for a variety of reasons. Australians dislike the idea of hosting foreign bases—hence the rush by three separate conservative prime ministers (first Tony Abbott, then Malcolm Turnbull, then Morrison) to deny that was the goal. Public caution about foreign forces may shift as strategic circumstances worsen, but leadership will be needed to change public attitudes. The conversation will need to begin soon.

Second, Australia is a long way from the likely sites of any conflict in Northeast Asia. A lot would have to go wrong for the US to give up its position in Japan, South Korea and Guam to decide Australia was the best foundation for its presence in Asia.

Finally, it’s a military model at heart. Moving directly to a war-planning foundation may be right if we are certain war is coming, but it limits our efforts here and now, across political, economic and social fields to try to prevent such a war.

So, while it makes sense for the planners to keep on planning, the MacArthur model seems unlikely, and hopefully will be unnecessary.

In the final part of this series, I’ll discuss another model that may help us if we don’t want to go all the way with D.J.T., based on the approach of one of Menzies’ and MacArthur’s contemporaries, Ben Chifley.

Author
Andrew Carr is a senior lecturer at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University. Image: LBJ Library/Twitter.
 

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A U.S.-Taliban Deal: What Price for Peace?

By Farkhondeh Akbari
February 25, 2020


Nazifullah Salarzai (UNAMA)
Bitter experience shows that a “rotten compromise” will carry within it the seeds of future war.
Albert Einstein warned humanity to beware of rotten compromises. Philosopher Avishai Margalit sought to explain this warning in an entire book. With the U.S. and the Taliban poised to sign a peace agreement, now more than ever is the time to be wary of a “rotten compromise” on Afghanistan.

Rotten compromises, in the words of Margalit, are agreements that establish or maintain an inhuman regime, a regime associated with cruelty and humiliation, a regime that does not treat humans as humans. But a rotten compromise involves two sides – an active perpetrator committing the brutality, and the passive participant who supports and signs an agreement that maintains an inhuman regime.
As much as the U.S. is worn out from the 18 years of its “longest war”, Afghanistan is equally exhausted – if not more so – after almost 42 years of nearly continuous conflict. It may be a political necessity for the U.S. to pull out its troops. It is equally necessary to find a viable formula for peace that avoids a rotten compromise over Afghanistan.

It is not only the Taliban’s
history of cruelty and
inhumanity that can be
characterised as rotten,
but also the role of the
United States, signing
an agreement that
supports and maintains
the Taliban’s position.


After nearly 18 months of U.S.-Taliban negotiations, conducted in the absence of the Afghan government, an agreement is about to be delivered – most likely on 29 February. After ten rounds of talks, of U.S. special representative Zalmay Khalilzad’s four essential components – counterterrorism assurances, troop withdrawal, intra-Afghan dialogue, and a comprehensive ceasefire – only fragments have remained, and the formula that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” has been shredded.
The Taliban have promised to cut ties with international terrorism, yet the details of how this complex process might be monitored and who will be the guarantors remain unknown. A schedule for troop withdrawal only supports the Taliban’s “you have the watches, but we have the time” strategy. And the goal of a comprehensive ceasefire has been reduced to a vague seven-day “reduction in violence”.
Furthermore, the Taliban have failed to share substance and details of their position concerning issues associated with human rights, which were violated brutally during their regime, and currently carry little weight in the territories under their control. There is little evidence to suggest change in the behaviour and characteristics of the Taliban movement.
It is not only the Taliban’s history of cruelty and inhumanity that can be characterised as rotten, but also the role of the United States, signing an agreement that supports and maintains the Taliban’s position. The argument that the U.S.-Taliban agreement is only the first phase of the formula, and that the Afghans will have a chance to negotiate the future of their country themselves, is problematic. It underestimates the impact that compromises the U.S. has made towards the Taliban – in the first phase – will have on intra-Afghan talks.
Amid peace talks, the Taliban last year launched their spring offensive called “al Fath” – to conquer and secure victory. The objectives were declared to “eradicate occupation, cleansing our Muslim homeland from invasion and corruption, establishing an Islamic system along with defending and serving our believing fellow countrymen”. This propagandistic yet confident tone leaves little space for pluralism or adjustment to the realities of today’s Afghanistan.
Peace requires compromise. A political settlement may require a lot of compromise to overcome differences and build common ground to avoid more wars. Peace compromises are often at the cost of justice. However, it is the compromise on humanity and the extension of humiliation that raises a red flag, and needs to be ruled out, even for the sake of peace.
Former U.S. diplomat Laurel Miller wrote in a recent article in the New York Times that “a good enough deal is the one you can actually get”. One can always get an agreement by giving the other party all it demands, but at what cost? Immanuel Kant stated in the first article of his celebrated essay On Perpetual Peace that “no treaty of peace shall be held valid in which there is tacitly reserved matter for future war.” This ominous warning should not be forgotten.
Farkhondeh Akbari is a Ph.D. candidate at the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, The Australian National University. Her research focus is on actors in diplomacy – peace settlement negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan and Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
This article appeared originally at Lowy Institute's the interpreter.
 

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Dispatch
In West Africa, U.S. Military Struggles for Scarce Resources as Terrorism Threat Grows
Tensions with Iran almost scuttled a major international training exercise in the Sahel.
By Lara Seligman | February 24, 2020, 6:00 AM
A Soldier assigned to the United Kingdom specialized infantry trains Nigerian forces on refined weapon-reloading techniques during Flintlock 20 near Thies, Senegal, Feb. 17, 2020. (U.S. photo by Sgt. Steven Lewis)

A Soldier assigned to the United Kingdom specialized infantry trains Nigerian forces on refined weapon-reloading techniques during Flintlock 20 near Thies, Senegal, Feb. 17, 2020. (U.S. photo by Sgt. Steven Lewis)


NOUAKCHOTT, MAURITANIAEvery February, hundreds of special operations forces from around the world gather in West Africa for Flintlock, a unique U.S.-led exercise that provides critical training for regional militaries struggling to counter growing terrorist activity in the Sahel.
This year, the threat is more urgent than ever. Despite the presence of 4,500 French troops and a 13,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force, violent extremist attacks in the region have skyrocketed in the last 18 months. The Sahel saw the most rapid increase of such events of any African region in 2019, with roughly 2,600 fatalities from 800 attacks—a number which has nearly doubled every year since 2015. Burkina Faso bore the brunt of the new violence, primarily from groups linked to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, as the locus of terrorist activity shifted from Mali across the border.
But even as terrorist activity explodes in the Sahel, the United States is considering withdrawing some or all of its roughly 5,000 troops across the continentincluding approximately 1,000 in West Africain order to move resources toward preparing for a potential future conflict with China or Russia, a concept the Pentagon calls “great power competition.”
While the U.S. military no longer accompanies West African forces on combat missions—a practice that was largely halted after a fatal ambush in Niger killed four U.S. service members in October 2017—the United States plays a key role in facilitating French and other Western military operations here, providing air refueling, transportation, and drone surveillance. The so-called G5 Sahel Joint Force, a framework of about 5,000 troops from five countries in the region—Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger—was created in 2017 with French and international backing to address the growing terrorism threat. But French officials say the U.S. military’s support to their operations here is irreplaceable.
At the same time, tensions with Iran have put unforeseen strain on U.S. military resources in the Sahel. Due to the increased demand in the Middle East, only one U.S. Air Force C-130 airlift plane could be spared for Flintlock this year, U.S officials said—and it broke down on the second day of the two-week exercise, leaving reporters as well as U.S. and foreign officers stranded for four days in Senegal.
In fact, if the Moroccans had not offered additional C-130s to support the exercise, Flintlock might not have happened at all, U.S. officials said.
Critics, including influential lawmakers such as Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, have spoken out against the potential drawdown, warning that such a move would further degrade the security situation in this region of West Africa, where deep religious and ethnic divisions, climate change, poverty, and vast ungoverned spaces provide an ideal breeding ground for extremism. Prompted in part by talk of a potential U.S. withdrawal, French President Emmanuel Macron convened a G5 Sahel summit in January to discuss the fight against armed groups and reiterate French commitment to the mission.
As violent activity increases, U.S. and foreign officials in the region are concerned that the Sahel may become the next major front in the global war on terrorism. As the Islamic State struggles for relevance in the Middle East, particularly after the killing of its leader, Abu Bakr alBaghdadi, in a U.S. raid last year, the group has increasingly leaned on its African affiliates for new recruits, said Brig. Gen. Dagvin Anderson, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command Africa, during an interview here ahead of the exercise.
Due to longstanding ethnic and tribal ties, leaders from al Qaeda and the Islamic State cooperate here in ways they do not anywhere else in the world, enabling more sophisticated attacks.
“When you put all that together, these random acts of terrorism, you start seeing a more complex and nuanced campaign,” said Anderson. “I’m concerned about what al-Qaeda will be able to develop into and that’s something that is troubling.”
Outsize impact
For Flintlock, which has occurred each year since 2005, the United States is largely responsible for transporting foreign soldiers in and out of the host country, including arranging visas and other logistics requirements. U.S. special-operations forces also serve in advisory roles, overseeing training and liaising between the different units.
“No single country can fight violent extremism alone,” said U.S. Army Capt. Nate, from the 3rd Special Forces Group, who oversees the U.S. team at the Thiès, Senegal, outpost for Flintlock. The United States, with its large defense budget and experience in counterterrorism operations, is “uniquely suited” to facilitate a large-scale exercise such as Flintlock, he noted. Like others interviewed for this story, Capt. Nate requested reporters publish only his rank and first name.
The U.S. military does not need a large footprint to have an outsize impact in the Sahel, officials here said—but it needs to be here in some form. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has indicated the United States will not completely withdraw from Africa, but he is still reviewing U.S. military presence on the continent as part of an ongoing review of troop deployments worldwide.
“One of the low-cost things the United States can provide is that convening power,” said Anderson. “We can provide and exercise a framework for other countries to come into, without having to be the sole provider of security.”
Many of the Western special-operations forces on the ground for Flintlock have longstanding relationships with their counterparts in the Sahel, including participating in bilateral training exercises. But the Americans bring expertise and resources to the fight, foreign officers here said. Capt. Tom, a British Army officer, and Capt. Samuel, from the Nigerian Special Forces, agreed that while a U.S. military drawdown in Africa would not scuttle the U.K.-Nigeria military relationship, which stretches back to 2008, such a move would “degrade the standard of training.”
One important outcome of the annual exercise, officials hope, is that regional militaries learn how to combine forces to better combat terrorist activity. Throughout the exercise, which took place at four hubs in Mauritania and Senegal, more advanced forces were paired with West African units—for example, the Dutch and the Senegalese—for basic combat training, ranging from simple firearm handling to more complex close-quarters battles.
Flintlock this year will culminate in a fictitious scenario in which all the participants must work together to analyze intelligence from a variety of sources, ultimately leading to a major urban counterterrorism mission, explained U.S. Army Capt. Brett, from the 3rd Special Forces Group, who oversees the U.S. team at Nouakchott for the exercise.
Flintlock allows all the partners to identify and manage challenges that crop up related to logistics, communications, or capabilities, a skill that will be critical as the different nations in the region counter the growing threat from violent extremists, Capt. Brett said.
“They are going to have to work through these exact same friction points” in reallife operations, he said.
The Mali playbook
This year, the security situation in Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world, is particularly grim. Lt. Daouba Ilboudo, who commands a Burkinabé unit of 34 soldiers, said through a translator at the Thiès outpost that his men face attacks as often as once a week.
The militants have developed a sophisticated campaign in Burkina Faso, drawn from the well-documented Mali plays, over the last eight months. In July 2019, they began a more forceful push into the country from Mali, targeting infrastructure and economic centers, such as crops and bridges, and isolating local populations. Next, they targeted military bases, forcing security forces to flee, and executed local leaders, including the mayor of Djibo, who was killed while traveling along the highway to the capital, Ouagadougou. In November, the militants began moving south, attacking major urban areas.
Once the militants established control over the local populations, they gained access to local resources, such as gold mines, and criminal networks, allowing them to expand their influence over key economic corridors. The strategy also enabled them to tax local civilians, much as the Islamic State did in Iraq and Syria when it took over vast swaths of those countries in 2014.
“If you start giving them a regular source of funding, you start getting the ingredients for something that could get much worse,” said Anderson. “It is incumbent upon the international community to keep them off balance.”
In Mali, extremists continue to mount devastating attacks. There, al Qaeda deliberately stays below the radar, marrying into local tribes and becoming part of the community in order to penetrate the population and avoid the attention of the West. Northern Mali, in particular, has been a hotbed for violent extremist activity since the area fell to a mixture of jihadist groups and Tuareg rebels in 2012. The Malian army has been unable to regain control of the area, even with French intervention.
“For the moment, every time we have an attack, our team always wins,” said one Malian special forces officer, who was in Nouakchott for training with the Czech special forces during Flintlock, speaking through a translator. “But we don’t know the enemy during the day.”
In neighboring Mauritania, the host of Flintlock this year, the military has been able to keep violent extremists at bay. After a precursor to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb conducted a major attack in northern Mauritania in 2005, killing 17 soldiers and catching the government off guard, the military redoubled its counterterrorism efforts, said Maj. Sidi Mohamed Hedeid, spokesperson for the Mauritanian Army.
Since the first attack, Mauritania has significantly built up its security forces, training to understand the militants’ tactics and buying more advanced aircraft and other equipment. The military also works hard to maintain control over even the most remote parts of the country, conducting frequent ground and air patrols and tightening the borders.
Meanwhile, the Mauritanian government is also trying to counter violent extremism at its roots, creating deradicalization programs and building trust with local populations by providing basic services. The country last year elected a new president, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, the former chief of staff of Mauritania’s military and son of a respected Islamic spiritual leader, who officials here hope can root out corruption and implement key social and political reforms.
U.S. and Mauritanian officials here said they hope the Islamic nation, which is set next week to take over G5 Sahel leadership, can serve as a security model for the other nations in the Sahel working to counter the growing threat.
“In the other four countries of the G5 Sahel, there are attacks almost daily,” said Hedeid, noting that there have been no successful attacks in Mauritania since 2011. “It is proof that our strategy is the best.”
Great power competition
Providing counterterrorism assistance to nations in the Sahel has other benefits for the United States as it tries to counter Russian and Chinese influence. U.S. officials here noted that both countries are investing in the region, militarily and economically.
Both Moscow and Beijing have offered military equipment and training to the besieged state forces in the Sahel, particularly since the United States began signaling it may pull support. Russia in particular often misrepresents its own counterterrorism expertise, said Anderson.
“They are more than happy to tell the partners in Africa that they were the ones that tipped the tables in Syria, that they were involved in killing al-Baghdadi,” Anderson said. “They bring a corrosive effect.”
French officials also suspect Moscow is conducting a disinformation campaign, spreading conspiracy theories on social media that the French government is in league with terrorists.
China is also investing economically in the region. In Senegal, Beijing has been paying local farmers a premium to buy the bulk of their harvest, potentially leading to food shortages. Meanwhile in Mauritania, China is building ports and other infrastructure, as well as investing in local fisheries, an effort U.S. officials suspect has led to overfishing.
Providing counterterrorism assistance is just another way the United States can counter Chinese and Russian influence in the Sahel, said Anderson.
“What are the security concerns of these nations? For most of them, it is violent extremism,” said Anderson. “Being able to engage with counterterrorism efforts with counterterrorism training, equipment, education … allows us to be that preferred partner.”
“In Africa, [counterterrorism] is great power competition.”
Read More

U.N. forces in Mali.
U.S. to Ramp Up Counterterrorism Efforts in Sahel Region
Despite years of U.S. and international efforts to fight terrorism in the area, extremist groups are gaining ground.

Lara Seligman is a staff writer at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @laraseligman


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Flashpoints
Jamming, precision artillery and long range drone strikes on Libyan battlefield offer lessons learned for US military

Shawn Snow

1 day ago


2FBDMTJQBVFMVADI7CWVY5SXPQ.jpg
The Bayraktar TB2 drone is pictured on Dec. 16, 2019, at Gecitkale Airport in Famagusta in the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). The Turkish military drone was delivered to northern Cyprus amid growing tensions over Turkey's deal with Libya that extended its claims to the gas-rich eastern Mediterranean. (Birol Bebek/AFP via Getty Images)

Battles with characteristics of near-peer combat are raging in Africa — especially in Libya, where high-tech precision strike weapons are flooding the battlefield. And at a time when the U.S. is considering drawing down troops, the conflict in Libya is providing Pentagon planners with an opportunity to better prepare for any future conflict with China or Russia.

A 2020 UN report warns about the proliferation of high-tech weapons in Libya, from precision air and artillery to long-range drones, and the meddling of foreign actors seeking influence in the region.

U.S. Special Operations Command said in February that Africa is an area where American commandos can compete and flourish at a time where military commanders and Congress are questioning SOCOM’s viability in a near-peer war, as the elite force has predominately been trained and equipped to counter terrorist groups operating in more permissive environments.

Vice ADM. Tim Szymanski, the deputy SOCOM commander, told audience members attending the Global SOF foundation in February that SOCOM’s commandos are uniquely placed in areas where China and Russia are actively competing, including countries across Africa. SOCOM boasts 6,000 folks in 70 counties, providing “placement and access," Szymanski said.

U.S. service members supporting Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) arrive with supplies, personnel and equipment at Maputo International Airport, Mozambique, March 26, 2019, for the U.S. Department of Defense’s relief effort in the Republic of Mozambique and surrounding areas following Cyclone Idai. (Staff Sgt. Corban Lundborg/Air Force)

Esper says US military not withdrawing from AFRICOM
“But I had the opportunity to tell, again, to mention again that the U.S. support is critical to our operations and that its reduction would severely limit our effectiveness against terrorists.”
Shawn SnowandDiana Stancy Correll

This allows U.S. special operators to compete with “state malign activity” and in “places where China and Russia want to be.” For now, much of America’s military involvement in Libya is aimed at killing ISIS fighters and keeping the group from making a comeback.



The plunder of former Libyan dictator Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s armories during the 2011 uprising flooded the battlefield with with an array of dated Russian and Soviet heavy weapons, machine guns, artillery and outmoded armored vehicles. The conflict remained for years a low-tech counterinsurgency war until now.

The battlefield now features air defense systems, long-range drones, electronic war and the jamming of GPS systems that stretches 50 miles in from the Libyan coast — a hallmark of near-peer conflicts like Ukraine’s war with Russia and its separatist forces on the eastern front.

“The use of air power and precision technology, including precision-guided artillery, has become a dominant feature of an otherwise low-intensity conflict,” the UN report reads. “Multiple incidents of precision air strikes conducted by unknown aircraft have occurred, in apparent violation of the United Nations arms embargo."

The rapidly-morphing war in Libya may provide U.S. forces and American commandos an experimental battlefield to gauge how U.S. troops can compete with rising near-peers in a region often dominated by low-tech conflict and violent extremist groups.

The Pentagon is considering axing resources and manpower for counterinsurgency conflicts to address great power competition concerns — which is drawing rebuke from lawmakers and national security experts who are worried that an ensuing power vacuum will breathe new life into the plethora of terrorist and militant groups across the U.S. Africa Command area of responsibility.



Military officials with AFRICOM argue that the continent is rife with near-peer competition, with China and Russia competing for influence and sowing malign activity across the region.

But the Libyan battlefield remains an example of where near-peer rivals are competing for influence, where high-tech weapons are being tested among proxy forces, and where hired guns with private military companies are fielding tech once reserved for nations, like radar systems and air defense missile batteries.

Chinese tech has found its way on the Libyan battlefield, while Russian mercenaries with the Wagner Group are alleged to be supporting Khalifa Hifter’s Libyan National Army. AFRICOM believes a U.S. drone brought down over Tripoli on Nov. 21, 2019, may have been targeted by a Russian mercenary group.

U.S. Army Gen. Stephen Townsend meets with Tunisian security forces recently in Tunisia. Townsend discussed the importance of their mission, their bravery, and the critical nature of their work countering transnational threats. (Col. Chris Karns/Air Force)

How AFRICOM plans to counter Russian, Chinese influence in Africa
Russia is the top arms exporter to African countries, followed by China, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reports.
Diana Stancy Correll

A recent Defense Department inspector general report warns that Wagner Group mercenaries recently increased their footprint in Libya by 600 to 1,200 personnel.

“Russia also want to position, particularly in northern Africa, particularly in Libya. They want a position on NATO’s southern flank there. They also, I think, want to thwart, you know, what we’re trying to do and present themselves as a great power alternative to the United States,” Army Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, the AFRICOM commander, told lawmakers in January.



The UN warns outside foreign actors are fueling both sides of the conflict, pitting the Tripoli-based, UN-backed Government of National Accord in a drone and tech war against Hifter’s forces.

For now, the UN cautions, the Libyan National Army has the upper hand in the drone war. It’s equipped with an alleged UAE-supplied Chinese drone known as the Wing Long II that boasts a 2,000 km range through a satellite link and is reportedly armed with Chinese manufactured Blue Arrow 7 precision strike air-to-surface missiles.
A model of a Wing Long II weaponized drone hangs above the stand for the China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corp. at a military drone conference in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Feb. 25, 2018. (Jon Gambrell/AP)
A model of a Wing Long II weaponized drone hangs above the stand for the China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corp. at a military drone conference in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Feb. 25, 2018. (Jon Gambrell/AP)
The UN says Hifter’s forces have a “significant tactical advantage” over Tripoli’s Turkish-manufactured Bayraktar TB2 drone that boasts a limited range of 200 km and a much smaller 55 kg payload, armed with two Turkish Roketsan Smart Micro Guided Munitions.

Hifter’s Chinese-built satellite-linked drone can cover all of Libya, allowing his forces to punish GNA airfields and runways.

“This provides HAF [Hifter Armed Forces] with a full offensive capability and allows it to achieve local air superiority,” a December 2019 UN report reads.



“Since May 2019, the ‘drone war’ has escalated, and for both parties to the conflict UCAVs [unmanned combat aerial vehicles] are now the main means to conduct air strikes and drop precision guided munitions,” the 2019 UN report explains.

Combative forces in Libya are also rapidly evolving the type of armored and tactical vehicles operating in the country. The 2019 UN report said it tracked five new types of tactical vehicles and noted a “transition” of converted technicals to the “preferred” use of “wheeled armored vehicles.”

For several years following Gadhafi’s fall, militants and insurgents could be seen rolling down Libyan streets in old modified Toyota pick-up trucks with mounted heavy weapon systems — a low-tech tactical vehicle commonly called the technical. The cheap technical has been a dominant military vehicle across counterinsurgency conflicts around the Middle East.
In this March 7, 2016 file photo, a man loyal to the Libyan armed forces prepares himself for clashes with Islamic State group militants west of Benghazi, Libya. (Mohammed el-Shaiky/AP Photo)
In this March 7, 2016 file photo, a man loyal to the Libyan armed forces prepares himself for clashes with Islamic State group militants west of Benghazi, Libya. (Mohammed el-Shaiky/AP Photo)
New vehicles consisted of Turkish-manufactured Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Kirpi, the American BAE-built Caiman MRAP, and the Jordanian-produced al-Mared 8X8 infantry armored fighting vehicles, among other vehicles, the UN report detailed.

The UN says Libya remains a low-intensity conflict, but high-tech weapons, air defense systems, modern armored vehicles and precision strike capabilities once reserved for sophisticated nations are rapidly proliferating on the battlefield.

Libya is a proxy conflict with characteristics akin to the high-tech war raging in Ukraine where electronic warfare, jamming and sophisticated drones and precision tech are the norms of the conflict.



About Shawn Snow
Shawn Snow is the senior reporter for Marine Corps Times and a Marine Corps veteran.
 

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Flashpoints
AFRICOM airstrike takes out al-Shabab leader behind Manda Bay attack, which killed three Americans

Diana Stancy Correll
5 hours ago


GZUNM4HEWFDC7CXV5FA74QWMMY.jpg
U.S. Army Soldiers, assigned to the East Africa Response Force (EARF), 101st Airborne Division, exit a C-130J Super Hercules, assigned to the 75th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, at Manda Bay Airfield, Kenya, on January 5, 2020. The EARF deployed to the Manda Bay Airfield, Kenya, Jan. 5, to augment security to secure the airfield after an attack by al-Shabaab terrorists. The EARF is a rapid deployment force with the ability to protect U.S. citizens and diplomatic facilities, non-combatant evacuation operations, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief operations, and other missions as directed. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Sean Carnes)

The senior al-Shabab leader who plotted the attack against U.S. and Kenyan forces in Manda Bay, Kenya is dead — following a series of airstrikes in Somalia over the weekend, U.S. Africa Command announced Tuesday.

“Since January 5, U.S. Africa Command and our partners have pursued those responsible for the attack on U.S. and Kenyan forces at Manda Bay,” AFRICOM commander Army Gen. Stephen Townsend said in a statement Tuesday. “This strike demonstrates that we will continue to relentlessly pursue those responsible for Manda Bay and those wishing to do harm to Americans and our African partners.”

The command said the senior leader of the violent extremist organization and his wife, also a member of al-Shabab, were both killed in precision airstrikes on Feb. 22. The command did not provide names of those killed.

Al-Shabab militants attacked Manda Bay Airfield on Jan. 5, resulting in the deaths of Army Spc. Henry Mayfield Jr., 23, and two U.S. Department of Defense contractors, Dustin Harrison, 47, and Bruce Triplett, 64.

In response, the command initiated a senior-leader-led investigation evaluating the circumstances leading up to the attack.



Although the report has not been released, multiple sources from the Marine Raider community told Marine Corps Times that approximately a dozen Marines from the 3rd Raider Battalion who were based in Camp Simba spearheaded the counterattack against the militants.

But due to the fact that Camp Simba is roughly a mile from the airfield at Manda Bay, the New York Times reported on Jan. 22 that the Marines’ response time was delayed.

AFRICOM challenged the Times’ description of the attack, noting that the Marine Raiders’ response was “timely and effective.”

Special operations forces kick off international exercise in the Sahel, the ‘tinderbox of terrorist activity’
The U.S. and 30 other countries will have an opportunity to hone their intelligence-sharing skills at Flintlock, an annual military exercise that gets underway Feb. 17.
Diana Stancy Correll

Even so, Townsend said that the attack shed light on areas for improvement, and said roughly 120 infantrymen were working to secure the area and ramp up the installation’s measures of defense.

“I think it’s self-obvious we were not as prepared there at Manda Bay as we needed to be,” Townsend told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 30. “Al-Shabab managed to penetrate onto that airfield … . They were able to get access to that airfield, kill three Americans, and destroy six aircraft there. So we weren’t as prepared, and we’re digging into that to find out why that’s the case.”

During the hearing, Townsend said that having another attack similar to the one at Manda Bay was his number one fear as the commander of AFRICOM.

There are approximately 5,000 to 7,000 al-Shabab militants in Somalia. AFRICOM officials told reporters in January they believed that the al-Shabab militants originated in Somalia before receiving assistance from facilitators within Kenya and crossing into the neighboring country.

The U.S. has approximately 6,000 Department of Defense personnel in Africa. Within Somalia, the U.S. has an average of 650 to 800 U.S. forces at any given time, according to the command.

“U.S. Africa Command will continue to support our African and European partners in the fight against al-Shabaab,” Townsend said in a statement Tuesday. “It is important to impact their ability to threaten peace and security in East Africa and prevent their threats against the U.S. from being a reality.”


About Diana Stancy Correll
 

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Posted for fair use.....

It’s Time to Talk About Taiwan

Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, left, walks past a Taiwan national flag during an offshore anti-terrorism drill outside the Taipei harbor in New Taipei City, Taiwan, Saturday, May 4, 2019.



February 24, 2020
AP / Chiang Ying-ying


Washington’s longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity is increasingly likely to inflame the kind of crisis it was meant to deter.

In an interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday night, Democratic front-runner Bernie Sanders suggested that he might take military action to defend Taiwan if China attacks it. The implication is that a Sanders Administration would fundamentally transform America’s security policy toward Taiwan—a move that would surely cause hand-wringing in foreign policy circles from Washington to Beijing.

At least in this instance, Sanders is right to shake things up. Washington’s longstanding policy of “strategic ambiguity” is increasingly likely to inflame the very kind of crisis that it was intended to deter. It’s time for Washington to re-evaluate, redefine and clarify its commitment to Taiwan.

Since the 1979 passage of the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States has had a legal obligation to sell Taiwan the arms it needs for self-defense. Yet the United States remained deliberately vague as to whether it might come to Taiwan’s aid in a cross-Strait conflict. The logic behind this one-foot-in, one-foot-out policy is that as long as the United States kept both sides guessing about the conditions under which it might intervene, it could deter both Taiwan from declaring independence and China from invading.

Strategic ambiguity gave the United States flexibility, which made sense while the trajectory of China-Taiwan relations remained deeply uncertain. For generations, Taiwan’s ruling party—the KMT—aspired to unify Taiwan with China (albeit under KMT rule). Even after Taiwan’s transition to democracy, the KMT continued to favor pro-unification policies. As a result China, which long lacked the military power to take Taiwan by force, had reason to remain patient.

Related: The US Wants to Sell Taiwan the Wrong Weapons
Related: Trump’s Foreign-Policy Crisis Arrives
Related: But What About China?


Recently though, uncertainty has given way to clarity on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. In China, clarity comes in the form of Xi Jinping.

Annexing Taiwan has been among China’s top priorities since Mao. But Xi Jinping, China’s strongest leader in generations, has gone a step further by pinning his own legitimacy to the issue. Xi has also overseen a major modernization of China’s military, swinging the military balance on the Taiwan question clearly in China’s favor. Nor is he proving particularly patient, as he repeatedly warns audiences at home and abroad that the Taiwan problem “should not be passed down generation after generation.”

In Taiwan, clarity comes from a growing sense of national identity. Public opinion polling suggests that more than half of the island’s population now identifies as exclusively Taiwanese. Identity tends to solidify with time, making it hard to believe that Taiwan will voluntarily submit to Chinese rule anytime soon.

This trend helps explain why Taiwanese voters handed independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen and her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) a landslide victory last month. In doing so they sent China an unambiguous signal. Taiwan will no longer accept Beijing’s long preferred “one country, two systems” solution to the 71-year old standoff over the island’s status.

It makes sense that Taiwanese voters don’t trust Chinese promises and assurances. They are all too aware that Xi has reinforced the Communist Party’s role at the center of Chinese economic and political life, pulled back from market-based reforms, and ruthlessly crushed any perceived challenges to China’s territorial integrity. They have also watched the CCP round up millions of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and put them in reeducation camps, stonewall pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and respond to the coronavirus outbreak with draconian quarantines and Orwellian propaganda. The recent election results, in which Tsai received more votes than any president in Taiwanese history, were a resounding rebuke of Beijing’s agenda.

Meanwhile, even as views in China and Taiwan harden, circumstances in the United States are causing both sides to wonder if strategic ambiguity is starting to mask empty bluster. Voters across the U.S. political spectrum are dissatisfied with America’s role in the world. Politicians as dissimilar as Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have keyed in on Americans’ desire to fix problems at home before focusing on challenges abroad. And nearly two decades of high-tempo military operations has yielded a relative decline in American military dominance along with a sense of fatigue and strategic distraction.

Collectively, these trend lines suggest that strategic ambiguity’s costs and risks now outweigh its benefits. Perhaps ambiguity still deters Taipei from pursuing independence. But Chinese military power alone is already sufficient to impose restraint on Taiwan. It is also true that strategic ambiguity affords the United States options in a crisis. Yet the logic of deterrence tells us that keeping one foot out the door does not deter your adversaries—it emboldens them.

It could get worse. U.S. ambiguity already seems to be encouraging Chinese assertiveness and aggression toward Taiwan. Failing to clarify the true depth of Washington’s commitment—or lack thereof—increases the risk of a war that both sides could have avoided had one side (the United States) not misrepresented its true resolve.

It is therefore time to move from ambiguity to clarity. Options for a more explicit policy run the gamut from unequivocal security guarantees to abandoning Taiwan entirely, and although we have our preferences, a decision of this magnitude requires serious deliberation at the highest levels of elected power. Our point is simply that America’s status quo policy is fast losing its ability to maintain the cross-Strait status quo.

Reviewing—let alone changing—a policy this important entails risks. Teeth will gnash and sabers will rattle throughout Asia. People fear change, especially in a national security community that prizes “stability” above all. But a policy designed to keep the peace must evolve alongside facts on the ground.

And the facts are unambiguous. American credibility is in doubt. Washington is not in the driver’s seat, because it no longer has the power to dictate how the cross-Strait relationship will unfold. And Beijing is as clear-eyed about its intentions towards Taiwan as Taiwanese voters are steadfast in their willingness to reject Beijing’s vision.

In the Analects, Confucius demands that words speak clearly and reflect reality: “If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.” For three decades, Taiwan’s uncertain aims and China’s uncertain response characterized the Taiwan question, and strategic ambiguity was the right answer. Today, the uncertainty is gone and the question has changed. America’s answer must change as well.
article-end.png


  • Michael Hunzeker is an assistant professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. He is also the associate director of the Center for Security Policy Studies. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2000–06 and holds an A.B. from the University of California, ... Full bio
  • Mark A. Christopher is a fellow with the Truman National Security Project. Full bio
 

Housecarl

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U.S. General Links Chinese Hypersonic Glider To Nuclear Program
Steve Trimble February 26, 2020
medium-range hypersonic weapon
A line of medium-range DF-17s on parade in Beijing this past October may have offered only the first glimpse of China’s planned hypersonic weapon capabilities.
Credit: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images



A powerful new weapon has appeared in a U.S. military assessment of China’s nuclear arsenal as Pentagon officials launch a campaign to win congressional support for allocating 4.1% of the fiscal 2021 defense budget to its own nuclear weapon enterprise.
All the U.S. military’s previous assessments of China’s nuclear arsenal included a mix of ICBMs, with silo-based DF-4 and DF-5 rockets, along with road-mobile DF-31, DF-31A and the recently unveiled DF-41 missiles. The warheads for each missile are known to include several multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles, with maneuverable reentry vehicles also believed to be in development or already deployed.
  • New assessment echoes 2014 warning
  • U.S. Air Force adds $4.4 billion for B-21 procurement
Now added to this inventory is a nuclear warhead on a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), says Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, head of U.S. Northern Command.
“Among the novel weapon systems China is testing is an intercontinental-range hypersonic glide vehicle—similar to the Russian Avangard—which is designed to fly at high speeds and low altitudes, complicating our ability to provide precise warning,” O’Shaughnessy said in written testimony submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 13.
The acknowledgment by the head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command that China is actively testing a nuclear intercontinental-range HGV took many nuclear and defense analysts by surprise.
O’Shaughnessy’s testimony echoes a nearly forgotten 2014 statement by Lee Fuell, then technical director for Force Modernization and Employment at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, the U.S. Air Force’s clearinghouse for technical assessments of foreign weapons. An appearance by Fuell before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in 2014 came as China ramped up testing of an HGV then known as the WU-14. Although most nonmilitary analysts attributed China’s interest in HGV technology to conventional weapons, Fuell, privy to classified information sources, linked the efforts to the People’s Liberation Army’s strategic nuclear weapon programs.
If later confirmed, the U.S. military assessment of a nuclear role for China’s nearly operational HGV technology would add a significant new capability. So far, China has confirmed plans to deploy an HGV only on the DF-17 missile, which, as unveiled at the National Day Parade on Oct. 1 in Beijing, appears to be a conventional weapon with medium-to-intermediate range. Only Russia has a nuclear HGV on an intercontinental-range missile: the aforementioned Avangard, which the Kremlin declared operational at the Dombarovsky launch site in December. By contrast, among the Pentagon’s several ongoing HGV and scramjet-powered cruise missile programs, none are linked to a nuclear weapon capability.
The disclosure comes as the U.S. Defense Department continues to justify a more than $1 trillion nuclear weapon modernization program over the next decade, including a $28.9 billion request for fiscal 2021 released on Feb. 10. The Pentagon’s spending plan lacks a nuclearized HGV but continues support for replacing the Minuteman III ICBM with the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, the Northrop Grumman B-2 bomber with the B-21, the AGM-129 with the Long-Range Standoff cruise missile and the Ohio-class fleet with the Columbia ballistic missile submarine.
The funding profile, as signaled by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein’s remarks in an October speech, indicates a significant increase in procurement spending for the B-21. The $22.6 billion requested for that aircraft in the fiscal 2021 version of the Pentagon’s five-year spending plan reserves about $10.3 billion for procurement. By contrast, the fiscal 2020 version of the five-year plan requested only $5.9 billion through fiscal 2024 for B-21 procurement, starting with about a $200 million allocation for long lead-procurement in fiscal 2022, followed by $2.4 billion in fiscal 2023 and $3.3 billion in fiscal 2024. The new five-year plan adds about $4.4 billion for B-21 procurement compared with the fiscal 2020 proposal.
The B-21 spending plan suggests the Air Force is continuing or even accelerating an aggressive production ramp-up for the new bomber. The first flight of the prototype aircraft funded under the engineering and manufacturing development is not expected until at least December 2021, which overlaps with the first year of long-lead funding for the production aircraft. The Air Force’s vague in-service target for the B-21 remains in the “mid-2020s.”

Trimble_Steve_sized_0.jpg

Steve Trimble
Steve covers military aviation, missiles and space for the Aviation Week Network, based in Washington DC.
 

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Russian Officials Slam US Nuclear 'Mini-Exercise'
By Greg Richter | Tuesday, 25 February 2020 05:37 PM

Russian politicians are furious over a "mini-exercise" last week in which the Pentagon simulated a "low-yield limited nuclear weapon against a site on NATO territory" near Russia that was met with a "limited" nuclear response, Newsweek reported.

The Russians accused the United States of reckless fearmongering, according to The Moscow Times, suggesting the move was an attempt to normalize nuclear war.
Alexander Sherin of the State Duma's defense committee told state-run RIA Novosti news agency the U.S. goal was to "get the population used to such an inconceivable conflict resolution scenario as a Russian-NATO nuclear strike."

"The second goal is to intimidate Europe's population and justify the presence of American bases on their territory as guarantors of security," he said.
Alexey Chepa, deputy of the State Duma, called the drill "a good PR campaign." He told RIA Novosti it was part of President Donald Trump's effort to pressure allies to spend more on the military.

Sergei Tsekov of the Federal Council's foreign affairs committee accused U.S. military officials of acting like "sick people."
Newsweek noted, experts warn against use of low-yield nuclear weapons, as they increase the chances of Mutually Assured Destruction. The Pentagon deployed at least one low-yield nuclear warhead on a submarine earlier this month.

The Trump administration has increased efforts to modernize the United States' nuclear stockpile to catch up to Russia. Trump also has withdrawn from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Related Stories:

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US Nuclear Sea-Launched Cruise Missile Program Is Moving Forward, But Why?

The Trump administration is determined to push ahead with its plans for a sea-launched cruise missile.

Ankit Panda

By Ankit Panda
February 25, 2020

US Nuclear Sea-Launched Cruise Missile Program Is Moving Forward, But Why?

Credit: U.S. Navy photo

Plans under the Trump administration for a new nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missile are alive and well. The capability, called for by the Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, is slated to enter initial development, even as much about the precise system remains unclear and the introduction of the capability itself remains years away.

According to Defense News last week, the U.S. Department of Defense intends “to create a program of record for a new nuclear-armed, submarine-launched cruise missile in its next budget request, with the goal of deploying the weapon in 7-10 years.” The Diplomat’s Robert Farley took a look at some of the problems that a new sea-launched cruise missile presents—for strategic stability and operations generally.

It’s unclear to me why exactly the administration is pushing ahead with the sea-launched cruise missile when one of the most prominent stated rationales in the Nuclear Posture Review no longer applies. In the original document, the Trump administration underscored the role for this new system as potentially playing a role in creating incentives for Russia to come back to the table on addressing its alleged violation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Neither the United States no Russia is a participant in that treaty, which barred an entire class of ground-launched missiles in the 500 to 5,500 km range category, as of last year. After more than five years of accusations that Russia was noncompliant with the treaty after developing and deploying a cruise missile known as the 9M729, the Trump administration articulated its intent to withdraw from the treaty in February 2019 and U.S. withdrawal was effectuated in August 2019.

“SLCM will provide a needed non-strategic regional presence, an assured response capability, and an INF-Treaty compliant response to Russia’s continuing Treaty violation,” the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review noted.

“If Russia returns to compliance with its arms control obligations, reduces its non-strategic nuclear arsenal, and corrects its other destabilizing behaviors, the United States may reconsider the pursuit of a SLCM,” the document added, making explicit the notion of using this system as leverage to be traded in arms control negotiations with Russia.

The Nuclear Posture Review goes further than just INF, noting that “U.S. pursuit of a SLCM may provide the necessary incentive for Russia to negotiate seriously a reduction of its non-strategic nuclear weapons, just as the prior Western deployment of intermediate-range nuclearforces in Europe led to the 1987 INF Treaty.”

Even as the SLCM remains years out, it may rear its head should the Trump administration enter into serious negotiations to extend the 2011 Strategic Arms Reduction (or New START) treaty, which expires in less than a year. The treaty applies to Russian and U.S. strategic offensive arms and critics—including in the Trump administration—have expressed interest in addressing Russia’s nonstrategic nuclear arsenal as part of extension talks.

Still, as Farley discusses, given the problems that appear to arise from the development and deployment of a new SLCM and the limited role of such a system in arms control after the demise of the arms control treaty, the Trump administration’s determination to push ahead with this system appears particularly ill-advised.

One reason may be an impulse to expand U.S. lower-yield nuclear use options in the Indo-Pacific, where concerns persist about China, but the Trump administration has not made this case explicitly. In any case, the nuclear SLCM would exist alongside the already-fielded W76-2 lower-yield nuclear warhead for the U.S. Trident D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile—another capability called for by the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review.

Given the long development timeline associated with the SLCM, it is possible that a new U.S. administration may call off the weapon’s development. The U.S. has not possessed a nuclear-capable, sea-launched cruise missile capability since the Obama administration retired the nuclear Tomahawk land-attack missile (TLAM-N) starting in 2010.
Authors
Ankit Panda
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Ankit Panda


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

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Los Alamos National Laboratory
Proposed budget would almost triple plutonium spending

By Scott Wyland swyland@sfnewmexican.com
  • Feb 24, 2020 Updated 8 hrs ago

Funding to upgrade Los Alamos National Laboratory’s plutonium operations would almost triple to $845 million next year under the U.S. Department of Energy’s preliminary budget request, which reveals the growing costs of producing nuclear cores for new warheads.

The Energy Department released a budget outline over the weekend that shows how President Donald Trump’s proposed 25 percent increase in nuclear weapons spending would trickle down to the Los Alamos lab and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina — the two sites slated to make a combined 80 plutonium pits a year by 2030.

LANL’s budget would jump to $3.4 billion from this year’s $2.6 billion. More than half the additional money would be used to increase spending on “plutonium modernization,” raising the amount to $845 million from this year’s $309 million.

The preliminary budget offered no explanation of how the money would be spent, although past plans have indicated pit production will require renovation, new construction, hiring and training of personnel, and infrastructure improvements.

Officials at the National Nuclear Security Administration, an Energy Department branch, did not respond to questions about the budget Monday.

Anti-nuclear watchdog groups decried what they called out-of-control spending on weapons production.

“The decisions in Washington can seem very remote and unreal, but this brings Trump’s proposed nuclear weapons spending surge home in a very aggressive and alarming way,” said Greg Mello, executive director of the nonprofit Los Alamos Study Group.

Mello and other activists have questioned the necessity of making new pits — the explosive cores that detonate warheads — when thousands of usable pits are left over from the Cold War.

Defense officials have said a different type of pit is required to arm two new warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles. One would be land-based, while the other would be housed in submarines.

One critic called the military’s “re-nuclearization” disturbing.

“The notion that we need a huge nuclear arsenal is a Cold War relic,” said Mark Thompson, national defense analyst with the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog. “There is only one real truth when it comes to nuclear weapons: The more there are, the more likely they are to be used — deliberately, accidentally or by bad guys who have stolen them.”

The U.S. could defend itself easily with submarines and bombers, and eliminate the third leg of the nuclear triad — land-based missiles — with no harm to national security, Thompson said.

Meanwhile, as the Energy Department seeks to spend more on pit production, it has proposed a $100 million cut in the program to clean up legacy waste generated before 1999, including during the Manhattan Project and Cold War. Almost half of the cleanup program’s current funding would be slashed.

Activists say it’s irresponsible of federal agencies to produce more pits while reducing cleanup of the vast radioactive waste the lab created and disposed of poorly in past decades.

U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, New Mexico Democrats, have denounced the proposed cut in the lab’s environmental cleanup but have given guarded support of beefed-up nuclear weapons spending that puts money in the lab’s coffers.

“Funding for Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories is critical as their employees play an essential role in America’s national security ... as well as in the community, and in New Mexico’s economy,” the senators said in a joint statement when Trump released his proposed budget earlier this month. “We will carefully review the White House’s budget request as details become available.”

The preliminary budget also calls for increasing Savannah River Site’s budget by $200 million. It’s unclear how much money would go toward turning the facility into a pit factory.

Los Alamos lab’s budget includes $618 million to help modernize Savannah River Site for pit production. Mello said some of the contracting was likely assigned to the lab because it has experience with pit production.

Tom Clements, executive director of the nonprofit Savannah River Site Watch, said the Energy Department is preparing to throw a huge sum toward pit production at the South Carolina facility, even though it may be incapable of production.

Some congressional leaders are likely to challenge the proposed spending, Clements said, calling the budget outline murky and confusing.

Both Clements and Mello have said the Energy Department has requested money without showing any tangible plan for producing pits.

“There’s no clear path forward on how they’re going to pull off expanded pit production,” Clements said. “It doesn’t exist.”
 

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:cool:
The US Air Force just started up an effort to buy a ‘flying car’

By: Valerie Insinna   18 minutes ago


WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force has officially started its search for a “flying car” able to speedily shuttle troops and equipment into warzones.

L4RJZM4GP5HTPDSUSZZO5VSILU.jpg

On Feb. 25, the service released a solicitation for Agility Prime, its effort to explore commercial advances in electronic vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) technologies.

“Now’s the perfect time to make Jetsons cars real,” Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper told reporters during a briefing last Friday.

Here is the first thing the Air Force would fund if it had more money in FY21

Here is the first thing the Air Force would fund if it had more money in FY21
Congress is going to have to step in if it wants the Air Force to make a Skyborg prototype this year.

By: Valerie Insinna

But Agility Prime won’t be a typical program where companies compete for funds for development, he said. Instead, it will be structured as a challenge where companies race toward getting airworthiness certifications that can benefit companies in the commercial market.

“We see numerous companies that are pushing really cool technology that has a chance to really change the world, but their challenge is getting certification,” Roper said. “The value proposition we have with those companies isn’t our R&D money. They’re flush with cash from private investors. Our value proposition is our test ranges, our safety and airworthiness certifications.”

The Air Force isn’t dictating strict requirements for proposed Agility Prime aircraft. According to the solicitation, the service is interested in eVTOL and urban/advanced air mobility aircraft that could incorporate electric or hybrid propulsion and be controlled by onboard pilot, remote pilot, or autonomously. However, it also notes that the service is open to alternative technologies.

The Air Force is especially interested in air vehicles that can carry three to eight troops more than 100 miles at a speed of greater than 100 miles per hour for periods of an hour or more, the solicitation said. Companies also have to fly their aircraft prior to Dec. 17, 2020 in order to move on to later phases of the program.

According to the solicitations, companies must first submit data about their eVTOL technologies in the hopes of scoring a contract from the Air Force to produce a “prototype test report.” Those reports will include test data verifying aircraft performance, outline a plan for the certification of the aircraft and show the technology’s utility and cost-effectiveness — paving the way for initial procurement.

The hope is to buy a “handful-plus” vehicles by fiscal year 2023 for an initial operating capability, said Col. Nathan Diller, Agility Prime integrated product team lead, according to Aviation Week.

The air vehicles tested throughout the program could be used for a variety of operations, including quickly shuttling security forces across missile fields, search and rescue and logistics, Roper said. But even more importantly, efforts like Agility Prime give the Air Force a much-needed avenue to influence commercial markets, resulting in more technology companies that sell products to the public as well as to the Defense Department.

The Air Force wants to avoid repeating the mistakes it did during the early days of the small drone market. Because the Pentagon did not take an active interest in shaping the market, many companies moved part or all of their supply chain to China, Roper said.

“If we had realized that commercial trend and had shown that the Pentagon is willing to pay a higher price for a trusted supply chain drone, we probably could have kept part of the market here and not have to go through the security issues we do now when someone wants to use a foreign made drone at some kind of Air Force or service event,” he said.

Although the Air Force has keen interest in Agility Prime, it did not request money for the program in FY21, Aviation Week reports. Rather, the service will use previously appropriated funds — $10 million in FY19 and $25 million in FY20 — to get the effort started and plans to request further funding in FY22, Diller said.


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.

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Zagdid

Veteran Member

Superior Custom Boat Builder Awarded Up To $56M US Navy Contract
fair use by Danielle Kaeding Published:
Wednesday, February 26, 2020, 6:00am

navy.jpg


A Superior-based boat manufacturer has been awarded a five-year contract worth up to $56 million to build patrol boats for the U.S. Navy.
A Navy spokesperson confirmed the contract was officially awarded within the last two weeks.
Lake Assault Boats, which is part of Fraser Shipyards, will build up to 119 force protection-medium (FP-M) boats to provide anti-terrorism and protection patrols at U.S. Navy installations. The 33-foot boats will include a 10-foot beam and four weapon mounts to house up to .50-caliber machine guns.
Lake Assault submitted its proposal to the Navy last October, according to Chad DuMars, the company's vice president of operations.
"It's been a long time coming, and we couldn’t be more excited to be a supplier to our U.S. government," said DuMars.
The award is the company's first large Navy contract, said Bob Beck, director of sales and marketing for Lake Assault Boats.

"It helps us show our capabilities to the government for future business," said Beck.
The contract is the largest the company has been awarded since it secured a $6.2 million contract to build 43 riverboats for San Antonio's River Walk in Texas. Depending on demand, Beck expects Lake Assault Boats will build about 21 to 23 boats each year that will be delivered to the Navy in California or Virginia.
DuMars said Lake Assault currently employs 45 workers and expects to add 20 to 25 more employees to fulfill the Navy contract.
Lake Assault Boats was founded in 2003 as Lake Assault Custom Boats, which built boats in Elk River, Minnesota. The company became a part of Fraser Shipyards in 2010. Lake Assault has historically built fire rescue boats and transitioned into manufacturing patrol boats for military and law enforcement in the last five years.
"This is a win for the community. This is a win for Superior. This is a win for Lake Assault. Quite honestly, this is a win for the state of Wisconsin," said Taylor Pedersen, president and CEO of the Superior-Douglas County Area Chamber of Commerce.
Local lawmakers also hailed the contract and its potential impact on the region, including state Rep. Nick Milroy, D-South Range.
"They build a very high quality product, and they have a good reputation in the market for that," said Milroy. "They’ve been growing by leaps and bounds, and I think this new contract is really going to turn the corner for Lake Assault Boats and put them on the map for future small boat-building."

Beck said the company is finalizing the design on the boats and expects to meet with the Navy in March. Lake Assault Boats will likely begin manufacturing the vessels mid-year and anticipates the first deliveries will begin this November.
 

jward

passin' thru
Home/Articles/World/Foreign Affairs/What Role Will Pakistan Play in Taliban Peace Talks?

Foreign Affairs
What Role Will Pakistan Play in Taliban Peace Talks?

The country gave Osama bin Laden and the Taliban a safe haven for years. Can they be an honest broker now?
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Irfan Siddiqui, member committee appointed to conduct talks with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTB) and Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and TTP committee member and senior religious party leader Maulana Sami-ul-Haq in peace talks back in 2014. (Photo by Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

February 26, 2020

12:01 am
Barbara Boland

Pakistan was never held to account for its role in sheltering Osama bin Laden, or offering refuge to terrorists as they organized attacks on American forces across the border in Afghanistan. Now, on the eve of a historic peace deal between the U.S. and the Taliban, the time may finally have come for Washington to reckon with Pakistan.
For the last 12 years, Pakistan gave the Taliban a “safe haven,” allowing them to reorganize and mount attacks, Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the U.S., says in an interview with The American Conservative.
“When the Taliban comes for these peace talks, where do they fly from? What planes are they flying on? Whose passports do they use for international travel? …They’re not traveling on Iranian or U.S. passports; they’re using Pakistani passports,” says Haqqani. “Pakistan is facilitating their travel. Pakistan is behind the peace talks, and the talks allow the Taliban to declare victory.”

Trump is eager to deliver on his campaign promise to end America’s longest war. And if the Taliban succeeds in its promise of a “reduction in violence” this week in Afghanistan, negotiators plan to sign a broader agreement on February 29, which will include a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops. The Taliban has rejected the term “cease-fire” to describe this.
Nevertheless, if all goes well, the U.S., the Taliban, and the Afghan government are expected to cease all offensive operations, according to The Hill. The Taliban and the Afghan government will then begin talks, and the Taliban will guarantee that Afghanistan will never again become a staging ground for terrorist attacks against the U.S.
Though an unnamed senior administration official said the terms of the deal are “very specific,” the United States has not yet spelled out what those terms are, or what metrics will be used to determine success. Reportedly, the deal includes an end to suicide attacks, roadside bombings, and rocket strikes.

“The Trump administration has obtained the best return on investment from its Afghanistan-Pakistan policy than any other U.S. president has in the past 30 years,” Asfandyar Mir, postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, says in an interview with The American Conservative. “It is close to a peace settlement in Afghanistan; it has induced some degree of cooperation with Pakistan; and meanwhile it has reduced the amount of money it has put into both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Trump administration has been more realistic about what can be achieved, and it has calibrated its coercive tools and positive inducement much better than previous administrations.”
“A lot of credit goes to the president for being unambiguous in calling for a settlement” and cutting “through the ambivalence of the bureaucratic process on what to do about Afghanistan,” Mir said.
Many of the details remain murky, and there are still dozens of pitfalls that could derail the tentative peace deal. But perhaps the biggest unknown is what role Pakistan will play.
“Building a sustainable peace in Afghanistan will be impossible without the support of Pakistan,” says Elizabeth Threlkeld, fellow and deputy director of the South Asia program at the Stimson Center, in an interview with The American Conservative. “They have thus far demonstrated their willingness to cooperate by helping to bring the Taliban to the table, but this is only the first step in a long process of negotiations between the Taliban and Afghan government representatives.”

“Pakistan is one of the primary external factors in these negotiations; they played an important role in getting the Taliban to the table in the first place,” says Adam Wunische, a Middle East program research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, in an interview with The American Conservative. “The sort of impact Pakistan will have in the negotiations, and whether it will be successful, will depend on whether they pursue their priority of helping the Taliban to get as much as they can—the biggest piece of the pie as possible.”
Pakistan became a linchpin early on in America’s war on terror. Because Afghanistan is landlocked, all the main American supply lines ran through Pakistan. President Musharraf’s government assisted the U.S. with the capture of Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and others in 2002 and 2003, while also receiving millions of dollars in American aid. Directorate S author Steven Coll called that money a “kind of legal bribery to Pakistan’s generals”:
The Pentagon would receive bills for air-defense expenses, even though al-Qaeda had no air force. One Special Forces colonel, Barry Shapiro, recalls invoices from Pakistan’s navy listing per diem pay for sailors “on duty fighting the Global War on Terrorism.” Shapiro tried to question some of the expenses: Was there any proof that the Pakistani army had indeed shot off the missiles it was asking to be reimbursed for? But he was told by his superiors to be quiet and pay up.
The few high-level al-Qaeda captures delivered by Pakistan’s military intelligence, the ISI, bought years of America looking the other way as the ISI continued its “more secretive activities: arming and financing the Taliban and other Afghan militant groups sympathetic to Pakistan rather than India,” writes Coll.
Two fertilizer factories in Pakistan were used to make 85 percent of the improvised explosive devices that killed and maimed U.S. troops and civilians in Afghanistan. Yet despite repeated American requests to eliminate those plants, the Pakistanis refused to do so, says General Jack Keane, former Army vice chief of staff, in an interview with The American Conservative.

Keane was the first senior U.S. military leader to go after the Taliban in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks, and within weeks of the American invasion, he says the Taliban had crumbled. Unfortunately, instead of following al-Qaeda into Pakistan and eliminating them, U.S. military assets and intelligence capability began to shift into Iraq. The Iraq war didn’t begin until the spring of 2003, but because the U.S. took its eye off the ball, Keane says, al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were able to quietly move across the border into Pakistan.
“Pakistan’s government and military have been complicit in supporting the Taliban since the Taliban re-emerged after the U.S. disposed of the Taliban government in 2001. When the Taliban government was deposed and its fighters defeated, many of the fighters fled to Quetta in Southern Pakistan and the Haqqani network headquartered in Miram Shah,” says Keane. “From these two locations, Pakistan provided support to the Taliban by providing intelligence, training Taliban fighters, and logistical and financial support as well. These two safe havens not only protected the leadership of the Taliban, but provided a place for Taliban fighters to come to refresh themselves and get off the battlefield.”
“Despite three administrations telling Pakistan to stop supporting the Afghan Taliban at these two locations, the Pakistanis have never conceded that they were protecting the Afghan Taliban. In other words, they lie to our faces,” Keane says.
Another first-hand account comes from intelligence officer Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer’s Operation Dark Heart. The Department of Defense bought the entire first printing of the book in order to prevent the public from reading it unredacted.
When it comes to the current peace talks, Keane is skeptical.
The Taliban calculates that a U.S. withdrawal will provide a massive morale boost to their movement and perhaps even enable them to overthrow the Afghan government. So they are willing to say anything to get America out, says Keane.
“I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t try to make a deal with the Taliban, but I’m arguing for all U.S. and Afghan officials to be very clear-eyed about what the Taliban’s ultimate objective is,” he says.
Despite its claims to the contrary, the Taliban doesn’t want democracy. They are deeply unpopular in Afghanistan and can’t win a political election.

Haqqani says the difficulty heading into negotiations with the Taliban is that America has already telegraphed that it will be leaving within a year, which makes it easy for enemies to hang on just a little bit longer.
“The Taliban used to say, ‘The Americans have the watches; we have the time,'” says Haqqani. “Meaning: we will wait them out. When someone is trying to wait you out, you try to make them think they will have to wait a long time. But instead, we’ve made them think it will only be another six months before we withdraw” and we have been doing that for nearly two decades.
“The problem is that Americans have never been able to decide what to do with Pakistan,” says Haqqani. “What do you do with the terrorists that take refuge in Pakistan and then return and shoot at you the next day? The stalemate we are facing has been created by the unwillingness to do something about the safe havens in Pakistan. Pakistan receives $33 billion in U.S. aid, but the Pakistan military doesn’t want to do what we ask. There’s an unwillingness to acknowledge that reality, especially when Washington has the desire to cut a deal.”

Barbara Boland is TAC’s foreign policy and national security reporter. Previously, she worked as an editor for the Washington Examiner and for CNS News. She is the author of Patton Uncovered, a book about General George Patton in World War II, and her work has appeared on Fox News, The Hill, UK Spectator, and elsewhere. Boland is a graduate from Immaculata University in Pennsylvania. Follow her on Twitter @BBatDC.

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jward

passin' thru
Cleaning up Turkey’s Mess in Idlib and Ending the War

Aaron Stein

February 25, 2020


Erdy-fox.jpg


Next week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will trek to a summit with the leaders of France,


Next week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will trek to a summit with the leaders of France, Germany, and Russia to attempt to sort out the utter mess that is Idlib Province. The location has not yet been announced, but whether he travels by car or jet, one wonders what he will be thinking about his country’s long-running involvement in Syria’s disastrously internationalized civil war.

Under Erdoğan’s leadership, Ankara staked much of its recent fortunes in Syria on cooperation with Russia, believing that President Vladimir Putin would negotiate on behalf of the Syrian regime in good faith and ultimately reach a mutually beneficial agreement with Ankara that would make concessions to the opposition Turkey backs and take into account Turkish security concerns about Syrian Kurdish nationalists.


Turkey is paying for this poor decision. Putin is intent on defeating the Syrian opposition forces Turkey supports in Idlib and seems to care little what Erdogan thinks about it. Meanwhile, key leaders in Washington still seem to believe that America can somehow deny the Syrian regime a victory, and that because Damascus is in such financial distress it will be willing to make political compromises that Bashar al-Assad has signaled are off the table. The available evidence suggests that Moscow and Damascus are committed to absorbing the cost of escalation, including the use of force to deter the movement of Turkish soldiers aimed at reinforcing positions along the M4 and M5 highways. This offensive has led to a breathtaking amount of civilian suffering and raised the specter of a Turkish-Assad regime conflict for control over northwestern Syria, an outcome that risks more bloodshed and state-on-state conflict in the now nine-year civil war.

As Idlib collapses, the best path forward also seems the most unlikely: Washington should pressure Turkey to negotiate the opposition’s surrender, rather than backing Ankara’s decision to give open-ended but inadequate support to these armed groups. Absent a dramatic Turkish escalation, support from Ankara will not stop Damascus’ advance against the opposition forces in Syria’s last rebel held enclave. Turkey’s support to armed groups in Idlib will make the war longer, but will not change the outcome — a lesson that too few have learned from this tragic war.

How can the United States convince Turkey to change course? How can it reach agreements with various parties to prevent the slaughter of innocents, ease Turkey’s refugee burden, and encourage reconciliation in a post-conflict Syria? I will try to answer these questions and more, knowing that suffering will continue regardless of the policy chosen, and that an ascendant Syrian regime cannot ever be truly trusted to protect civilians. Still, if ending the war and easing suffering is a goal worth pursuing, a pathway to de-escalating and freezing the violence will save more lives than indefinitely arming an opposition that cannot win.

In September 2018, Ankara agreed with Moscow on establishing a de-escalation zone in Idlib and signed the accompanying Sochi Memorandum of Understanding, a poorly worded document that obligated Ankara to clear terrorist groups from Idlib and to allow safe passage on the M4 and M5 highways, in exchange for a freeze in Syrian regime attacks on the opposition. This agreement has collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions.

After close to two years of talks and overt joint efforts to pressure the United States to withdraw from the conflict, Ankara’s relationship with Russia is under strain. The Russian military is enforcing a de facto no-fly zone over Idlib, where the Syrian army, backed by Russian and Iranian units, has retaken the M5 highway, and appears poised to continue an offensive to capture the M4. The offensive has uprooted hundreds of thousands of people, forcing them to flee to the border with Turkey, where they are being stacked up in refugee camps, or shunted in to Turkish-controlled Afrin and northern Aleppo.

The United States may, on the surface, appear to share overlapping interests with Turkey. Ankara and Moscow remain embroiled in tense negotiations for the future of Idlib and Turkish soldiers have been killed fighting against the Russian-backed Syrian government. The United States has won its war in Syria against the Islamic State group and should consider how to manage unintended escalation, rather than encouraging Ankara to continue a fight it cannot win at acceptable cost.

In a fair fight, the Syrian Arab Army is no match for the Turkish armed forces. But Idlib is not a fair fight. Turkey’s options to escalate with the Syrian regime risk a counter-escalation from Russia, which knows that Ankara fears such a counter-strike. Russia can tailor such an escalation in a number of ways. It can make life miserable for Turkish forces in Syria, either by bombing supply lines or by extending the fight into areas Ankara occupies and administers along the border.

The United States has a clear interest in challenging Russia. Idlib is not the place to do this. Ankara fears a mass movement of people that would upend Turkey’s three-year-old effort to stave off more refugees and settle people in parts of Turkish-controlled northern Syria once dominated by Kurds. The Russian-Syrian offensive may push an overwhelming number of refugees to flood these areas and, eventually, Turkey itself. Knowing this, Turkey has a strong interest in reaching an agreement with Russia on the future of Idlib. Turkey needs Idlib to remain relatively violence-free to prevent the type of mass displacement that risks Turkish gains elsewhere in the country. Moscow understands this and can pressure Ankara by targeting Turkish forces if they are used to aid the rebels in Idlib. Russia can extend that pressure to areas Turkey now occupies along the border. If Russia were to do this, the safe zones Turkey has created will no longer be safe, risking more displacement of the Syrians that Turkey wants to remain in Syria.

Turkey has sought to coerce Russia through the buildup its forces, betting that because they are so qualitatively superior to the Syrian regime Russia will step in and make concessions on behalf of Assad that are amenable to Turkish interests. Ankara used this strategy with the United States, most recently in late 2019, when the Turkish military invaded Syria’s northeast after efforts at cooperation on border security collapsed. The Turkish action forced an American withdrawal from the border and ended with U.S. Amb. James Jeffrey traveling to Ankara to sign a ceasefire that capitulated to Turkey’s demands along the border. Russia faces fewer constraints in playing hardball with Turkey.

Turkey shares few interests in Syria with its allies, and the Syrian civil war is not an issue NATO is prepared to deal with. It is out of NATO’s core area, as defined in Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty, and Turkish support for the Syrian opposition presents a series of broader problems for much of Europe and for many in the United States. The fundamental challenge is that the most dominant group inside Idlib is Hayat Tahrir al Sham, a militant group that has links to al Qaeda, and which Ankara has pledged to defeat in its negotiations with Moscow. This group, however, is enmeshed within the anti-Assad insurgency, so any Turkish effort to defeat it would come at the expense of its overarching effort to hold together the menagerie of militias it has dubbed the National Army. Russia has exploited the very real presence of HTS in Idlib to justify its bombing. As it has increased its support for Assad in Idlib, Russia claims it is simply targeting al Qaeda and enforcing the terms Ankara agreed to in September 2018 but never followed through with.

The West is unlikely to do more than condemn. On the military level, the threat of escalation with Russia outweighs the benefits of stepping in to defend the insurgency, taking a Western military operation off the table. Moscow can then comfortably assume that the worst it may face is more punitive sanctions or more Turkish support to its rebel proxies. However, that support is insufficient to thwart the Syrian regime’s advances. Ankara, knowing this as well, is then faced with the option of escalating on behalf of the rebels, as it is doing now, or sitting back and letting Idlib collapse. Ankara has no leverage. Pumping more money and guns into the conflict will extend it, but will not tilt the outcome in favor of the anti-Assad opposition.

The United States is not going to intervene in Syria. President Donald Trump has sought to narrow American goals in Syria to guarding oil facilities and conducting counter-terrorism raids. NATO is not going to do much more in the absence of political will from Washington and divisions within the alliance about how to respond to the Syrian crisis. Turkey’s current course is therefore unsustainable.

If one accepts these facts, Washington’s options appear extremely limited. The “least worst” option is to prepare for Idlib to fall to Damascus and take steps to minimize the suffering that will follow, accepting that Turkey is unlikely to accept more refugees. The best way to do this is to engage Russia on terms for a permanent ceasefire, with the intent of negotiating an end to the war. Assad will not step down. What will be the opposition’s terms for surrender? What can the United States demand? And how could Ankara join the process, in support of the American-preferred outcome, now that it has hopefully learned the costs of being an enabler of Russian interests in Syria?

We already see the argument that America’s best option is to show resolve and somehow double down on Idlib, somehow supporting Turkish military efforts to defend the enclave. This leads to obvious questions: Wouldn’t a Turkish zone protected in perpetuity be preferable to surrender? Couldn’t Turkey just de facto annex much of its border with Syria, joining the United States in control over swaths of Syria that the regime can never return to? The answer, of course, is: probably not.

Ankara cannot and will not protect Idlib forever. To do so, the Turkish military would need to attack and target regime forces probing around the periphery of these zone for the foreseeable future, and then flood these zones with aid and assistance. Ankara retains the capability to launch offensive operations close to its borders, but as its burdens have increased, it has had trouble managing the five interlinked operations it is now conducting. The Turkish military has been engaged in continuous combat operations since December 2015, beginning with a large effort to clear Kurdish militants in the country’s southeast, then three operations in Syria, ongoing efforts in northern Iraq, and now with the deployment in Idlib.

Ankara has sought to ease the burden, transferring responsibilities to its proxies. But these groups remain unable to operate in even basic ways without significant Turkish support. And, as Turkey has assumed responsibility for safe zones in Syria, it has also absorbed the costs for the Syrians it is now protecting. It does not have the military capacity to keep fighting indefinitely even if relatively small operations can still be executed and small operating bases maintained inside a narrow strip of territory in Syria.

The United States is Turkey’s ally, but has little interest in the Turkish armed forces being bogged down in an unwinnable war in Syria, taking casualties and being humiliated by Russian bombardment. It is distracting. A ceasefire makes sound strategic sense. It also would be preferable to an outcome in which more Syrians will die fighting for an unwinnable endeavor. Negotiations with Russia will not be easy, nor straightforward. Idlib is a massive humanitarian catastrophe and the Assad regime is almost certain to exact revenge on innocent civilians it accuses of being disloyal. The United States ought to work to prevent this, but the path to doing so is not continuing aid to an insurgency that will not win. The United States and Europe both should consider continuing — if not expanding — its humanitarian assistance to ease Turkey’s burden and support Syrian civilians. These efforts will be insufficient, but better than not trying at all.

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Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
Hummm.....

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Information Series



Issue No. 454 February 27, 2020
Automatically Extending New START Will Not Increase Stability

Rebeccah L. Heinrichs
Rebeccah L. Heinrichs is a Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute specializing in nuclear deterrence and missile defense.

Distrust between the United States and Russia grows and with it a fear of an arms race. As the February 2021 deadline for the expiration of the New START nuclear arms treaty approaches, a growing chorus of voices insist that President Trump should decide now to extend the treaty. But the causes of distrust between the two nations belie the wisdom in extending the treaty without conditions. For the president to make the decision now to extend the treaty for another five years, still almost 10 months from its deadline, would be to squander an opportunity to improve the agreement and American security.

Russia’s national objectives are to 1) establish an uncontested sphere of influence in the post-Soviet region now comprised of sovereign nations—nations that labor to live peaceably, responsibly, and free from Russian interference; and 2) to earn the reputation as a formidable power-broker able to contest U.S. influence and undermine U.S. interests all the way from Syria to Venezuela.[1]

Although the nations Russia has invaded—Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014– are not members of the NATO alliance, the United States has sanctioned Russia over its actions and has, to varying degrees across administrations, provided support to the invaded nations.

But the U.S. and international denunciations have not persuaded Russia to change its national goals or military strategies. To the contrary, Russia has exploited Cold War era arms control agreements to improve its military capabilities to better position Moscow to outmaneuver the United States and to threaten the viability of NATO.

Russia outright violated the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) by deploying ground-based intermediate-range missiles. Neither the Obama nor Trump diplomats succeeded in persuading Moscow to comply, thus the Trump administration, with support from NATO, withdrew from the treaty.

The Russians are also straining the viability of the Open Skies Treaty,[2] a treaty meant to foster trust between member nations by permitting unarmed overflights of their nations with surveillance planes. Unfortunately, the Russians are using the treaty as an instrument of distrust by prohibiting the United States to fly over certain parts of Russia, while they fly over nonmilitary areas such President Trump’s retreat in Bedminster, N.J—causing U.S. government officials to suspect Russia is using the treaty to extract valuable information about U.S. nuclear command and control.

This brings us to the New START Treaty (NST), signed by President Obama in 2010. The treaty seeks to cap both nations’ accountable strategic deployed nuclear weapons. Although this seems like it would ensure a modicum of parity at least with this category of weapons, due to the treaty’s counting rules, a bomber is counted as one weapon no matter how many nuclear bombs it carries. This permits greater uncertainty rather than clarity and demonstrates that New START’s much-vaunted “caps” on deployed strategic nuclear weapons really are not.

Moreover, the NST completely leaves out entire classes of nuclear weapons. Russia’s non-strategic nuclear forces outnumber U.S. nuclear weapons in the same category by a ratio of 10:1 and continue to grow unconstrained by arms control, which conveys a coercive advantage to Moscow in its foreign policy actions, especially in Europe. Simply extending New START without including these weapons eliminates any incentive for the Russians to negotiate limits.

And, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lt. General Ashley, told Hudson Institute on May 29, 2019, “The United States believes that Russia probably is not adhering to the nuclear testing moratorium in a manner consistent with the zero-yield standard.”[3] The United States abides by a 1992 unilateral nuclear testing ban.

Russia is also modernizing and improving the weapons bound by the NST, and by its own admission, has completed modernization of 80 percent of its arsenal.[4] In contrast, the United States has been slowly modernizing its force and the Trump modernization budget request to Congress, although what the nation needs, might not receive Congressional support.

Since the NST was implemented, the stability situation has deteriorated, rather than improved.

All the while China has risen as the most formidable threat to U.S. vital interests in the long term. Trump officials have been sounding alarm bells about the nature and trajectory of the Chinese nuclear weapons force, though China refuses to engage in any kind of strategic dialogue with other nuclear powers. Bringing China to the table to negotiate on nuclear arms is something the Russians have promoted. When NST was negotiated in 2013, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov insisted, “Making nuclear disarmament a multilateral process is becoming a priority.”[5] The Russians should endeavor with the United States to make this happen.

The prudent path forward is for Congress to appropriate the funds the Trump budget requests for the nuclear deterrent, which will empower U.S. diplomats to engage Russia and China about nuclear arms. Even if China does not engage in time before the NST deadline, at the very least diplomats should work to negotiate an improved treaty that includes Russia’s exotic and non-strategic nuclear weapons and closes the counting loopholes inherent in the treaty. If Russia refuses to help engage China on its nuclear arms and refuses to constrain the weapons the United States finds most concerning, President Trump would be wise to let the treaty expire. The next president to take the helm can reengage and seek an agreement that makes sense for the increasingly complex and fraught nuclear weapons environment.

[1]. For a good discussion of Russia’s strategic objectives, see U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, “Russian Strategic Intentions – A Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) White Paper,” May 2019, available at https://nsiteam.com/social/wp-conte...an-Strategic-Intentions-White-Paper-PDF-1.pdf.

[2]. Cotton, Tom, The Open Skies Treaty is Giving Russia Spying Capabilities, The Washington Post, Dec. 10, 2019, available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...-is-giving-russia-spying-capabilities-end-it/.

[3]. Remarks at Hudson Institute by Lt. General Robert P. Ashley, Jr. Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, May 29, 2019, available at Events - The Arms Control Landscape - May - 2019 - Hudson Institute.

[4]. Statement of Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, “Supreme Commander-in Chief of the Russian Federation attends an extended session of the Russian Defense Ministry board session,” Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, December 18, 2018, available at Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Federation attends extended session of the Russian Defence Ministry board session : Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation.

[5]. Oswald, Rachel, Russia Insists on Multilateral Nuclear Arms Control Talks, May 28, 2013, available at https://www.nti.org/gsn/article/russia-insists-next-round-nuke-cuts-be-multilateral/.

The National Institute for Public Policy’s Information Series is a periodic publication focusing on contemporary strategic issues affecting U.S. foreign and defense policy. It is a forum for promoting critical thinking on the evolving international security environment and how the dynamic geostrategic landscape affects U.S. national security. Contributors are recognized experts in the field of national security.

The views in this Information Series are those of the author and should not be construed as official U.S. Government policy, the official policy of the National Institute for Public Policy or any of its sponsors. For additional information about this publication or other publications by the National Institute Press, contact: Editor, National Institute Press, 9302 Lee Highway, Suite 750 |Fairfax, VA 22031 | (703) 293-9181 |www.nipp.org. For access to previous issues of the National Institute Press Information Series, please visit http://www.nipp.org/national-institutepress/information-series/.

© National Institute Press, 2020
 

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Russia conducts first ship-based hypersonic missile test
Reuters StaffFeb 27, 2020 12:26 PM EST
The Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov


The Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov
(Russian Ministry of Defense via Wikimedia Commons)

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia successfully test-launched its Tsirkon (Zircon) hypersonic cruise missile from a military vessel for the first time early last month, the TASS news agency said on Thursday, citing two military sources.

President Vladimir Putin talked up hypersonic missiles in a March 2018 speech, saying they were part of a new generation of Russian weapons that could hit almost any point in the world and evade a U.S.-built missile shield.

State television presenter Dmitry Kiselyov said in February 2019 that the Tsirkon missile could hit targets in the United States in less than five minutes if launched from submarines.

"In accordance with the Tsirkon's state testing program, in early January this year, the Admiral Gorshkov (ship) carried out the test launch of this missile from the Barents Sea to a ground target in one of the military ranges in the northern Urals," one source told TASS.

The next stage in the Tsirkon's development after tests from the Admiral Gorshkov were complete would be a test launch from a nuclear submarine, the source said.

The successful launch of the missile, whose January flight exceeded 500 kilometers (310 miles) according to another source, increased Russia's military capabilities.

In August, the United States pulled out of a landmark strategic arms accord, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), adding to tensions between the two former Cold War adversaries, but giving both countries the opportunity to expand their nuclear arsenals with increased impunity.

Putin oversaw the launch of a different hypersonic missile, the Kinzhal (Dagger), which is air-launched, from a naval vessel in the Black Sea near Crimea in January.

SEE ALSO: Russia admits its deadly Zircon hypersonic missile is suffering from 'childhood diseases'

Tags3m22 zirconnewszirconRussiagreat power competitionhypersonicshypersonic weaponshypersonic missilesmilitary techHow The Other Half Fights
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Reuters Staff
 

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Kratos begins XQ-58A Valkyrie production, despite funding delay caused by mishap

By Garrett Reim
26 February 2020

Kratos Defense and Security Solutions has started building production examples of its XQ-58A Valkyrie attritable unmanned air vehicle (UAV), despite an investigation into an October 2019 mishap which delayed an expected contract from the US Air Force (USAF).

The company had expected the USAF to grant it a production contract within 90 days of the start of FY2020, which for the US government begins 1 October 2019. That funding was delayed as the US Department of Defense (DoD) investigated an “anomaly” that caused the UAV to be damaged on landing after its third test flight in the fall, the company says in an earnings call on 25 February.

US Air Force Research Labratory XQ-58A Valkyrie demonstrator - 2

Source: US Air Force Research Laboratory
US Air Force Research Laboratory XQ-58A Valkyrie demonstrator

“This resolved [parachute] recovery system situation and related now complete customer investigation resulted in delays that have pushed Kratos’ previous Valkyrie expectation and programme plan approximately six months to the right,” says Eric DeMarco, president and chief executive officer of Kratos Defense, in the earnings call.




The XQ-58A returned successfully to flight in a fourth test in January 2020.

Nonetheless, the USAF contract was to be an important part of Kratos Defense’s 2020 revenue and the stock market reacted negatively to the news, with the company’s stock price falling by more than 22% to $15 a share on 26 February.

Kratos remains bullish on the production potential for the XQ-58A, which is continuing flight tests as a technology demonstrator with the US Air Force Research Laboratory. The company has started production of the UAV, using its own cash, at its Oklahoma City, Oklahoma facilities ahead of receiving a USAF contract.

“We expect an initial Valkyrie related production system and payload integration award sometime in the current months as we complete the process to work the details with the [USAF] stakeholders,” says DeMarco. “This is just one of several Valkyrie related opportunities we are currently pursuing, including one with an entity, where we are currently forecasting orders for a total of approximately 30 XQ-58 drones within the next 18 months.”

He did not disclose what other US defense services or entities are interested in the UAV.

The company plans to start delivery of the first 12 production examples of the Valkyrie in the first quarter of 2021, and aims to deliver one or two per month every month thereafter that.

“We are leaning forward here, ahead of the expected contract awards as we are highly confident that receipt of initial Valkyrie production contracts is not if, but when based on the most recent information that we have,” says DeMarco.

DeMarco says the USAF remains enthusiastic about the Valkyrie as a loyal wingman to manned fighter aircraft. He notes the service’s plans to fly the UAV in an exercise with the Lockheed Martin F-35 and the Lockheed Martin F-22 in the first half of 2020. The Valkyrie is also a candidate for the USAF’s top unfunded priority, the Skyborg programme, an effort to develop artificially intelligence software to control a loyal wingman UAV, he says.
 

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Africa
Fear reigns in Africa's Sahel region amid US military drawdown plan

The annual US-led military exercise Flintlock is underway in Mauritania amid concerns that the US will draw down its military in Africa. In response, France and Germany are pushing for greater EU involvement.



Mauretanien, Kaedi: Operation Flintlock (DW/F. Muvunyi )

In Sahel desert – German special forces introduce Mauritanians to different shooting techniques and how to take care of their rifles in event of intense fighting. In an assimilated operation, Mauritanian soldiers alongside Germans walk a couple of miles in Kaedi, Mauritania. Then they attack a would-be terrorist stronghold. Two assailants are arrested in process.

The weather is a major challenge to the Western forces operating in the Sahel. "We look at what Mauritanians do to cope with the weather and we adjust accordingly to make sure that we are not tired,” the head of the German special team in Mauritania tells DW. His name is withheld for safety reasons.

Mauretanien, Kaedi: Operation Flintlock (DW/F. Muvunyi )
German soldier are training the Mauritanian army

The German army, known as the Bundeswehr, is currently engaged in one UN and one EU mission in Mali and another EU mission in Somalia. Around 840 German soldiers are in Mali.

Scores of German special forces have been conducting training West African soldiers in Mauritania, under US-led military exercise known as Flintlock. At least 31 countries from Europe, Africa and America, participated in the annual exercise.

US officials sought to reassure its allies

While the conflict in Sahel is taking toll, the US is planning a military drawdown in Africa – a decision that has left its allies in Europe and Africa shocked. But the Public Affairs Director for the US' Special Operations Command – Africa says the military capability in Africa will not change if the drawdown happens.

"I don't want to get into that because it's speculative at this point. That's a decision that hasn't been made and rest up to the Secretary of Defense in the United States,” Major Andrew Caulk says.

Mauretanien, Kaedi: Operation Flintlock (DW/F. Muvunyi )
Major Andrew Caulk, Public Relations director for US Special Operations - Africa

Caulk says the talk about resizing US troops in Africa is overshadowing the work done by countries like France incombatting terrorism in the Sahel.

"The French have lost forces fighting alongside African partners. The African partners are also taking causalities and I think we have to recognize them and honor them for their sacrifices to protect their people.”

Caulk's statement emphasizes the notion that the international community sees the Sahel as France's territory and certainly Europe's problem.

The US is seen as a bridge that connects the Sahelians and Paris amid the tainted image of France due to its colonial history in Africa.

"We work with Americans – we get their support,” Chadian Lieutenant Mahamat Saleh Erda tells DW. Erda is confident that his country stands firm and can now repel terrorists' attacks with or without the support of the United States.

"We have to figure out what to do as a country when they leave.”

There are approximately 6,000 US military personnel deployed to Africa, including some 800 in West Africa and 500 Special Operations Forces in Somalia. The EU has 15,000 troops operating in West Africa.

France and Germany are pushing forgreater EU involvement in counterterrorism operations in the Sahel through a new special forces task force called Takuba.

Mauretanien, Kaedi: Operation Flintlock (DW/F. Muvunyi )
Mauritanian soldiers are trained for combat operations during Flintlock

Trump administration's interest in Africa

Experts say the Trump administration's interest is limited, especially compared to his predecessors. "His personal engagement has been stunningly low,” says Judd Devermont, Africa Program Director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Trump has hosted only Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta in the White House. All of Trump's predecessors, starting with President Kennedy, have met with more African leaders than the current US president.

Devermont adds that the decision to cut down troops in Africa will have adverse effects on US programs and resources overseen by other departments and agencies that work closely with the US military.

"Moreover, it threatens to revive criticism that the United States does not care about Africa and undercut progress in strengthening US relations with African partners.”

Mauretanien, Kaedi: Operation Flintlock (DW/F. Muvunyi )
Mauritanian soldier taking part in Operation Flintlock

Homegrown solutions in combatting terrorism

The violence linked to the jihadist groups are doubling every year since 2015. Over 2,600 people were killed in 2019 alone. Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad are hugely affected – while Mauritania has, so far, kept the jihadists at bay. No terrorist attack has been recorded since December 2012.

US ambassador in Nouakchott calls Mauritania a "success story in the region” that other neighbors should emulate.

"There has been concerted effort led by the Mauritanian government to make sure that there's a message coming from Imams – coming throughout the society – a one based on tolerance, based on a moderate form of Islam,” Ambassador Michael J. Dodman says.

Experts say the Mauritanian response, based on an ideology that portrays Islam as a religion of tolerance, has so far helped to reconcile citizens with faith. The approach has also been discrediting jihadists in the eyes of the population by dismantling ideological claims made by militants.

Watch video 02:28

Merkel promises millions in aid for Africa's Sahel region

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  • Date 28.02.2020
 

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Extremists' tie-up called Africa threat Al-Qaida, ISIS merger worries general
by CARLEY PETESCH
The Associated Press | Today at 4:10 a.m.

THIES, Senegal -- The only place in the world where fighters linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group are cooperating is in West Africa's sprawling Sahel region, giving the extremists greater depth as they push into new areas, according to the commander of the U.S. military's special forces in Africa.

"I believe that if it's left unchecked it could very easily develop into a great threat to the West and the United States," U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Dagvin Anderson told The Associated Press in an interview this week.


The leader of U.S. Special Operations Command Africa described the threat even as the Pentagon considers reducing the U.S. military presence in Africa.

Experts have long worried about collaboration between al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. While the cooperation in the Sahel is not currently a direct threat to the U.S. or the West, "it's very destabilizing to the region," Anderson said.

He spoke on the sidelines of the U.S. military's annual counterterrorism exercise in West Africa, currently the most active region for extremists on the continent.

The alarming new collaboration in the Sahel between affiliates of al-Qaida and ISIS is a result of ethnic ties in the region that includes Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

"Whereas in other parts of the world they have different objectives and a different point of view that tends to bring Islamic State and al-Qaida into conflict, here they're able to overcome that and work for a common purpose," Anderson said, emphasizing that it's a local phenomenon.

The cooperation allows the extremist groups to appeal to a wider audience in a largely rural region where government presence is sparse and frustration with unemployment is high.

The past year has seen a surge in deadly violence in the Sahel, with more than 2,600 people killed and more than half a million displaced in Burkina Faso alone.

Al-Qaida is the deeper threat both in the region and globally, Anderson said.

The most prominent of those affiliates is a coalition of al-Qaida-linked groups known as JNIM with about 2,000 fighters in the region, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

West Africa's Sahel, the vast strip of land just south of the Sahara Desert, for years has struggled to contain the extremist threat. In 2012, al-Qaida-linked fighters seized large areas of northern Mali. French forces pushed them from strongholds in 2013 but the fighters have regrouped and spread south.

The largest ISIS affiliate in the region, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, emerged more recently and claimed responsibility for killing four U.S. soldiers in Niger in 2017. The attack led to an outcry in Washington and questions about the U.S. military presence in Africa.

The strategy for countering the growing threat from the patchwork of Islamic extremist groups is a whole-of-governance one that goes beyond military efforts, Anderson said.

"Al-Qaida, whether we agree with it or not, brings some level of justice to many of these areas, and some level of services that aren't provided by central governments," Anderson said. "And they provide some representation to minority groups that don't feel part of the larger community, such as the Fulani or the Tuareg."


More related headlines
The French lead the military effort in the Sahel with more than 5,000 forces.

But the French have urged the U.S. to reconsider any cuts to its already small military footprint of about 1,400 personnel in West Africa. The U.S. has about 6,000 personnel on the continent.

Anderson countered that the U.S. is already doing a lot in the Sahel through the State Department, a large USAID presence and investment. "Instead of looking at the size of the presence, I think we should look at what is the appropriate engagement across the government, from all levels," he said.

A Section on 02/28/2020

Print Headline: Extremists' tie-up called Africa threat

Topics
Dagvin Anderson, United States, Africa, West Africa, Islamic State, al-Qaida, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso

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