mzkitty
I give up.
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WAR 12-21-2019-to-12-27-2019___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
- Thread starter Housecarl
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Hummm.....
Posted for fair use.....
www.koreatimes.co.kr
Nuclear-arming Japan, South Korea: Is it feasible and desirable?
2019-12-25 : 17:21
By Nobuyasu Abe
In short it is feasible but not desirable for South Korea and Japan to become nuclear-armed.
First, think about the catastrophic devastation of the use of nuclear weapons. A simulation of a today's typical strategic nuclear bomb detonated in central Mumbai showed 1.1 million deaths and 2.2 million casualties.
In the U.S., Russia and all others combined, there are 17,000 of such bombs in the world today. Humankind would be brought close to annihilation if a nuclear war starts. It is almost insane to think about using nuclear bombs. Pope Francis called them "immoral" in Japan recently.
Still, countries hang on to nuclear bombs and North Koreans are building them. Should South Korea and Japan join them? No, both countries should think about ways to secure their national security without joining the ranks of "immorals."
Practically, as far as their alliances with the U.S. are firm and its extended nuclear deterrence covers them, South Korea and Japan don't need nuclear weapons to defend themselves.
The credibility of the American extended nuclear deterrence has been shaken recently due to the erratic utterance by President Donald Trump that Japan and South Korea might as well acquire nuclear weapons to defend themselves against the North Korean nuclear threat rather than continue depending on the U.S.
This certainly caused a concern in both countries about the dependability of the American nuclear deterrence, but the prevailing view among American security experts and policymakers is that the alliances with the U.S. are not solely for the benefit of the allies but also for the overall benefit of the U.S.
Without the alliances, the U.S. would be pushed back to the middle of the Pacific Ocean and have to defend itself from there. The maintenance of close economic, industrial and technological alliances with the advanced economies of South Korea and Japan would be an essential element for the future well-being of the U.S., Japan and South Korea.
Thus, the U.S. alliance and its extended nuclear deterrence should better be maintained as long as South Korea and Japan face nuclear threats. If North Korea accepts its denuclearization realizing a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, the need for the nuclear extended deterrence will be greatly reduced.
Another way to reduce the practical possibility of the use of nuclear weapons is to strengthen the application of the principles of international humanitarian law that prohibit indiscriminate, unnecessary and disproportionate use of force even during warfare.
If these principles are strictly applied, there will be very limited cases where the use of nuclear bombs are permitted. Let us proclaim that anybody who broke the rule will be brought to justice.
With the advanced industrial and technological bases of South Korea and Japan, it would not be difficult for them to produce nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them. So, it is not a matter of feasibility but a political choice.
To acquire nuclear weapons South Korea and Japan would have to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), cancel safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and leave bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements with the U.S.
This would sever the civil nuclear cooperation with the U.S. and other members of the export control regime called the Nuclear Suppliers Group and put the civil nuclear industries in both countries in hardship. Uranium and nuclear fuel supply may be disrupted and technical cooperation may be cut off. License agreements may be canceled.
A persistent misunderstanding is in the argument that Japan or South Korea needs to maintain their nuclear industries, in particular, the spent-fuel reprocessing plant in Japan.
But you do not need a huge reprocessing plant that can pro-duce a maximum 8 tons of plutonium a year. North Korea is continually building plutonium bombs using a laboratory-sized facility.
Such argument agitates unnecessary speculation about Japanese intentions. The nuclear industry and reprocessing plants should be maintained or abandoned on their own merits, not for any hidden intentions.
The important thing is for South Korea and Japan to maintain their strong political, economic and industrial ties with the U.S. that back up the close security ties with America. If you have to keep an alliance with a nuclear power in the real world, the U.S. is definitely the best ally you can find in today's world.
Nobuyasu Abe (nobuy.abe@gmail.com), former U.N. under-secretary-general for disarmament affairs, spent last year at Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The Korea Times published his article in cooperation with the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN: www.apln.network).
Posted for fair use.....
Nuclear-arming Japan, South Korea: Is it feasible and desirable?
In short it is feasible but not desirable for South Korea and Japan to become nuclear-armed. First, think about the catastrophic devastation of the use of nuclear weapons. A simulation of a today's typical strategic nuclear bomb detonated in central Mumbai showed 1.1 million deaths and 2.2...
www.koreatimes.co.kr
Nuclear-arming Japan, South Korea: Is it feasible and desirable?
2019-12-25 : 17:21
By Nobuyasu Abe
In short it is feasible but not desirable for South Korea and Japan to become nuclear-armed.
First, think about the catastrophic devastation of the use of nuclear weapons. A simulation of a today's typical strategic nuclear bomb detonated in central Mumbai showed 1.1 million deaths and 2.2 million casualties.
In the U.S., Russia and all others combined, there are 17,000 of such bombs in the world today. Humankind would be brought close to annihilation if a nuclear war starts. It is almost insane to think about using nuclear bombs. Pope Francis called them "immoral" in Japan recently.
Still, countries hang on to nuclear bombs and North Koreans are building them. Should South Korea and Japan join them? No, both countries should think about ways to secure their national security without joining the ranks of "immorals."
Practically, as far as their alliances with the U.S. are firm and its extended nuclear deterrence covers them, South Korea and Japan don't need nuclear weapons to defend themselves.
The credibility of the American extended nuclear deterrence has been shaken recently due to the erratic utterance by President Donald Trump that Japan and South Korea might as well acquire nuclear weapons to defend themselves against the North Korean nuclear threat rather than continue depending on the U.S.
This certainly caused a concern in both countries about the dependability of the American nuclear deterrence, but the prevailing view among American security experts and policymakers is that the alliances with the U.S. are not solely for the benefit of the allies but also for the overall benefit of the U.S.
Without the alliances, the U.S. would be pushed back to the middle of the Pacific Ocean and have to defend itself from there. The maintenance of close economic, industrial and technological alliances with the advanced economies of South Korea and Japan would be an essential element for the future well-being of the U.S., Japan and South Korea.
Thus, the U.S. alliance and its extended nuclear deterrence should better be maintained as long as South Korea and Japan face nuclear threats. If North Korea accepts its denuclearization realizing a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, the need for the nuclear extended deterrence will be greatly reduced.
Another way to reduce the practical possibility of the use of nuclear weapons is to strengthen the application of the principles of international humanitarian law that prohibit indiscriminate, unnecessary and disproportionate use of force even during warfare.
If these principles are strictly applied, there will be very limited cases where the use of nuclear bombs are permitted. Let us proclaim that anybody who broke the rule will be brought to justice.
With the advanced industrial and technological bases of South Korea and Japan, it would not be difficult for them to produce nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them. So, it is not a matter of feasibility but a political choice.
To acquire nuclear weapons South Korea and Japan would have to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), cancel safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and leave bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements with the U.S.
This would sever the civil nuclear cooperation with the U.S. and other members of the export control regime called the Nuclear Suppliers Group and put the civil nuclear industries in both countries in hardship. Uranium and nuclear fuel supply may be disrupted and technical cooperation may be cut off. License agreements may be canceled.
A persistent misunderstanding is in the argument that Japan or South Korea needs to maintain their nuclear industries, in particular, the spent-fuel reprocessing plant in Japan.
But you do not need a huge reprocessing plant that can pro-duce a maximum 8 tons of plutonium a year. North Korea is continually building plutonium bombs using a laboratory-sized facility.
Such argument agitates unnecessary speculation about Japanese intentions. The nuclear industry and reprocessing plants should be maintained or abandoned on their own merits, not for any hidden intentions.
The important thing is for South Korea and Japan to maintain their strong political, economic and industrial ties with the U.S. that back up the close security ties with America. If you have to keep an alliance with a nuclear power in the real world, the U.S. is definitely the best ally you can find in today's world.
Nobuyasu Abe (nobuy.abe@gmail.com), former U.N. under-secretary-general for disarmament affairs, spent last year at Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The Korea Times published his article in cooperation with the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN: www.apln.network).
Posted for fair use.....
taskandpurpose.com
global war on terror
2 years after the Niger ambush, the US reportedly plans on ramping up counterterrorism efforts in the region
Jared Keller
December 22, 2019 at 12:12 PM
The United States plans on ramping up counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel region of Africa in response to an alarming rise in violent extremism there, Foreign Policy reports.
The Sahel includes Niger, where four U.S. Army Special Forces personnel were killed in a deadly October 2017 ambush carried out by Islamic extremists.
The Trump administration "is preparing to create a new special envoy position and task force" to handle growing security threats in the region, Foreign Policy reports, a move that reflects "a growing alarm in Washington about the rise of extremist groups in West Africa."
The U.S. has gradually ramped up counterterrorism efforts in the region since the 2017 Niger ambush. Weeks after the attack, U.S. Army Africa announced plans to increase security, intelligence, and training operations Niger, Mali, Chad, Cameroon, and other neighboring countries.
More recently, U.S. Africa Command announced the completion of a critical drone base in the Nigerien city of Agadez from which armed drones will conduct that intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations for the foreseeable future.
But according to a December brief from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, attacks involving violent extremist groups have only doubled in the region since 2015, so far that nearly 700 such incidents have lead to nearly 2,000 fatalities this year alone.
(Africa Center for Strategic Studies)
Those violent extremists include ISIS in the Greater Sahara (ISIS-GS), the terror group thought to be responsible for the 2017 Niger ambush and perpetrator of several coordinated ambushes across Burkina Faso and Mali.
According to Foreign Policy, UN officials have in recent months come to worry that this current rise in violence in the Sahel will only worsen as other ISIS extremists return home from the battlefields of the Iraq and Syria following the group's territorial defeat there.
"We say we have wiped out the Islamic State in Iraq, in Syria. Do people ask the question where these people are going?" as Mahamat Saleh Annadif, special envoy for the UN peacekeeping initiative in Mali, told Al Jazeera in July. "There is a breeze going towards the Sahel."
Despite the recent influx of resources into the region, a renewed focus on the Sahel appears top of mind to U.S. officials.
"I think [the Sahel] is the most difficult and challenging situation we have now in the continent," Assistant Secretary of State Tibor Nagy, the United States's top diplomat on Africa, told Foreign Policy in November. "The threat of terrorism and violent extremism is expanding."
Air Force Maj. Gen. Marcus Hicks, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command Africa, put it more bluntly at the sidelines of the U.S. exercise Flintlock back in February: "I would tell you at this time, we are not winning."
The US is offering a ton of cash for help hunting down those responsible for the 2017 Niger attack
2 years after the Niger ambush, the US reportedly plans on ramping up counterterrorism efforts in the region
The United States plans on ramping up counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel region of Africa in response to an alarming rise in violent extremism there, Foreign Policy reports
taskandpurpose.com
global war on terror
2 years after the Niger ambush, the US reportedly plans on ramping up counterterrorism efforts in the region
Jared Keller
December 22, 2019 at 12:12 PM
The United States plans on ramping up counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel region of Africa in response to an alarming rise in violent extremism there, Foreign Policy reports.
The Sahel includes Niger, where four U.S. Army Special Forces personnel were killed in a deadly October 2017 ambush carried out by Islamic extremists.
The Trump administration "is preparing to create a new special envoy position and task force" to handle growing security threats in the region, Foreign Policy reports, a move that reflects "a growing alarm in Washington about the rise of extremist groups in West Africa."
The U.S. has gradually ramped up counterterrorism efforts in the region since the 2017 Niger ambush. Weeks after the attack, U.S. Army Africa announced plans to increase security, intelligence, and training operations Niger, Mali, Chad, Cameroon, and other neighboring countries.
More recently, U.S. Africa Command announced the completion of a critical drone base in the Nigerien city of Agadez from which armed drones will conduct that intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations for the foreseeable future.
But according to a December brief from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, attacks involving violent extremist groups have only doubled in the region since 2015, so far that nearly 700 such incidents have lead to nearly 2,000 fatalities this year alone.
(Africa Center for Strategic Studies)
Those violent extremists include ISIS in the Greater Sahara (ISIS-GS), the terror group thought to be responsible for the 2017 Niger ambush and perpetrator of several coordinated ambushes across Burkina Faso and Mali.
According to Foreign Policy, UN officials have in recent months come to worry that this current rise in violence in the Sahel will only worsen as other ISIS extremists return home from the battlefields of the Iraq and Syria following the group's territorial defeat there.
"We say we have wiped out the Islamic State in Iraq, in Syria. Do people ask the question where these people are going?" as Mahamat Saleh Annadif, special envoy for the UN peacekeeping initiative in Mali, told Al Jazeera in July. "There is a breeze going towards the Sahel."
Despite the recent influx of resources into the region, a renewed focus on the Sahel appears top of mind to U.S. officials.
"I think [the Sahel] is the most difficult and challenging situation we have now in the continent," Assistant Secretary of State Tibor Nagy, the United States's top diplomat on Africa, told Foreign Policy in November. "The threat of terrorism and violent extremism is expanding."
Air Force Maj. Gen. Marcus Hicks, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command Africa, put it more bluntly at the sidelines of the U.S. exercise Flintlock back in February: "I would tell you at this time, we are not winning."
The US is offering a ton of cash for help hunting down those responsible for the 2017 Niger attack
jward
passin' thru
Japan to send warship, aircraft to Middle East to protect vessels |
| JAPAN DECEMBER 26, 2019 / 6:24 PM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO Kiyoshi Takenaka 2 MIN READ TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan will send a warship and patrol planes to protect Japanese ships in the Middle East as the situation in the region, from which it sources nearly 90% of its crude oil imports, remains volatile, a document approved by the cabinet showed on Friday. Under the plan, a helicopter-equipped destroyer and two P-3C patrol planes will be dispatched for information-gathering aimed at ensuring safe passage for Japanese vessels through the region. If there are any emergencies, a special order would be issued by the Japanese defense minister to allow the forces to use weapons to protect ships in danger. Friction between Iran and the United States has increased since last year, when U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of a 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran and re-imposed sanctions on it, crippling its economy. In May and June, there were several attacks on international merchant vessels, including the Japanese-owned tanker Kokuka Courageous, in the region, which the United States blamed on Iran. Tehran denies the accusations. apan, a U.S. ally that has maintained friendly ties with Iran, has opted to launch its own operation rather than join a U.S.-led mission to protect shipping in the region. Last week, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe briefed visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tokyo’s plan to send naval forces to the Gulf The planned operation is set to cover high seas in the Gulf of Oman, the northern Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, but not the Strait of Hormuz, the cabinet-approved document showed. The Japanese government aims to start the operation of the patrol planes next month, while the destroyer will likely begin activities in the region in February, a defense ministry official said. A European operation to ensure safe shipping in the Gulf will also get underway next month, when a French warship starts patrolling there. Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Hugh Lawson Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. 
Japan to send warship, aircraft to Middle East to protect vesselsJapan will send a warship and patrol planes to protect Japanese ships in the Middle East as the situation in the region, from which it sources nearly 90% of its crude oil imports, remains volatile, Japan's top government spokesman said on Friday.
www.reuters.com
|
danielboon
TB Fanatic
Russia deploys first hypersonic missiles
Avangard capable of carrying 2-megaton nuclear weapon at 27 times the speed of sound
Staff and agencies in Moscow
Fri 27 Dec 2019 11.01 ESTLast modified on Fri 27 Dec 2019 13.10 EST
Shares
211
Vladimir Putin told an annual military meeting this week that Russia is the only country with hypersonic weapons. Photograph: Mikhail Klimentyev/AP
Russia has deployed its first hypersonic nuclear-capable missiles, with Vladimir Putin boasting that it puts his country in a class of its own.
The president described the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, which can fly at 27 times the speed of sound, as a technological breakthrough comparable to the 1957 Soviet launch of the first satellite.
Putin has said Russia’s new generation of nuclear weapons can hit almost any point in the world and evade a US-built missile shield, though some western experts have questioned how advanced some of the weapons programmes are.
The Avangard is launched on top of an intercontinental ballistic missile, but, unlike a regular missile warhead, which follows a predictable path after separation, it can make sharp manoeuvres en route to its target, making it harder to intercept.
Putin threatens US arms race with new missiles declaration
Read more
The defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, told Putin the first missile unit equipped with the Avangard had entered combat duty.
“I congratulate you on this landmark event for the military and the entire nation,” Shoigu said later during a conference call with top military leaders.
The strategic missile forces chief, Gen Sergei Karakaev, said during the call that the Avangard had been put on duty with a unit in the Orenburg region in the southern Ural mountains.
Putin unveiled the Avangard and other prospective weapons systems in his state-of-the-nation address in March 2018, saying its ability to make sharp manoeuvres on its way to a target would render missile defense useless.
“It heads to target like a meteorite, like a fireball,” he said at the time.
The Russian leader said the Avangard had been designed using new composite materials to withstand temperatures of up to 2,000C (3,632F) which can be reached while travelling at hypersonic speeds. The missile can carry a nuclear weapon of up to 2 megatons.
Putin has said Russia had to develop the Avangard and other weapons systems because of US efforts to develop a missile defence system that he claimed could erode Russia’s nuclear deterrent. Moscow has scoffed at US claims that its missile shield isn’t intended to counter Russia’s missile arsenals.
This week, Putin noted that for the first time Russia was leading the world in developing a new class of weapons, unlike in the past when it was catching up with the US.
In December 2018, the Avangard was launched from the Dombarovskiy missile base in the southern Urals and hit a practice target on the Kura shooting range on the Kamchatka peninsula, 3,700 miles (6,000km) away.
The defence ministry said last month it had demonstrated the Avangard to a team of US inspectors as part of transparency measures under the New Start nuclear arms treaty between the two countries.
China has tested its own hypersonic glide vehicle, believed to be capable of travelling at least five times the speed of sound. It displayed the weapon called Dong Feng 17, or DF-17, at a military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese state.
Read more
US officials have talked about putting a layer of sensors in space to more quickly detect enemy missiles, particularly the hypersonic weapons. The administration also plans to study the idea of basing interceptors in space, so the US can strike incoming missiles during the first minutes of flight when the booster engines are still burning.
The Pentagon has been working on developing hypersonic weapons in recent years, and the defence secretary, Mark Esper, said in August that he believed it would be a couple of years before the US had one
www.theguardian.com
Avangard capable of carrying 2-megaton nuclear weapon at 27 times the speed of sound
Staff and agencies in Moscow
Fri 27 Dec 2019 11.01 ESTLast modified on Fri 27 Dec 2019 13.10 EST
Shares
211
Vladimir Putin told an annual military meeting this week that Russia is the only country with hypersonic weapons. Photograph: Mikhail Klimentyev/AP
Russia has deployed its first hypersonic nuclear-capable missiles, with Vladimir Putin boasting that it puts his country in a class of its own.
The president described the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, which can fly at 27 times the speed of sound, as a technological breakthrough comparable to the 1957 Soviet launch of the first satellite.
Putin has said Russia’s new generation of nuclear weapons can hit almost any point in the world and evade a US-built missile shield, though some western experts have questioned how advanced some of the weapons programmes are.
The Avangard is launched on top of an intercontinental ballistic missile, but, unlike a regular missile warhead, which follows a predictable path after separation, it can make sharp manoeuvres en route to its target, making it harder to intercept.
Putin threatens US arms race with new missiles declaration
Read more
The defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, told Putin the first missile unit equipped with the Avangard had entered combat duty.
“I congratulate you on this landmark event for the military and the entire nation,” Shoigu said later during a conference call with top military leaders.
The strategic missile forces chief, Gen Sergei Karakaev, said during the call that the Avangard had been put on duty with a unit in the Orenburg region in the southern Ural mountains.
Putin unveiled the Avangard and other prospective weapons systems in his state-of-the-nation address in March 2018, saying its ability to make sharp manoeuvres on its way to a target would render missile defense useless.
“It heads to target like a meteorite, like a fireball,” he said at the time.
The Russian leader said the Avangard had been designed using new composite materials to withstand temperatures of up to 2,000C (3,632F) which can be reached while travelling at hypersonic speeds. The missile can carry a nuclear weapon of up to 2 megatons.
Putin has said Russia had to develop the Avangard and other weapons systems because of US efforts to develop a missile defence system that he claimed could erode Russia’s nuclear deterrent. Moscow has scoffed at US claims that its missile shield isn’t intended to counter Russia’s missile arsenals.
This week, Putin noted that for the first time Russia was leading the world in developing a new class of weapons, unlike in the past when it was catching up with the US.
In December 2018, the Avangard was launched from the Dombarovskiy missile base in the southern Urals and hit a practice target on the Kura shooting range on the Kamchatka peninsula, 3,700 miles (6,000km) away.
The defence ministry said last month it had demonstrated the Avangard to a team of US inspectors as part of transparency measures under the New Start nuclear arms treaty between the two countries.
China has tested its own hypersonic glide vehicle, believed to be capable of travelling at least five times the speed of sound. It displayed the weapon called Dong Feng 17, or DF-17, at a military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese state.
Read more
US officials have talked about putting a layer of sensors in space to more quickly detect enemy missiles, particularly the hypersonic weapons. The administration also plans to study the idea of basing interceptors in space, so the US can strike incoming missiles during the first minutes of flight when the booster engines are still burning.
The Pentagon has been working on developing hypersonic weapons in recent years, and the defence secretary, Mark Esper, said in August that he believed it would be a couple of years before the US had one
Russia deploys first hypersonic missiles
Avangard capable of carrying 2 megaton nuclear weapon at 27 times the speed of sound
www.theguardian.com
10 Conflicts to Watch in 2020
Friends and foes alike no longer know where the United States stands. As Washington overpromises and underdelivers, regional powers are seeking solutions on their own—both…
foreignpolicy.com
The Year Ahead
10 Conflicts to Watch in 2020
Friends and foes alike no longer know where the United States stands. As Washington overpromises and underdelivers, regional powers are seeking solutions on their own—both through violence and diplomacy.
By Robert Malley December 26, 2019, 5:29 AM
A fighter loyal to the Libyan Government of National Accord fires a machine gun as a photographer take pictures of the scene during clashes against forces loyal to the Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar south of Tripoli on May 25. MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP via Getty Images
Local conflicts serve as mirrors for global trends. The ways they ignite, unfold, persist, and are resolved reflect shifts in great powers’ relations, the intensity of their competition, and the breadth of regional actors’ ambitions. They highlight issues with which the international system is obsessed and those toward which it is indifferent. Today these wars tell the story of a global system caught in the early swell of sweeping change—and of regional leaders both emboldened and frightened by the opportunities such a transition presents.
Only time will tell how much of the United States’ transactional unilateralism, contempt for traditional allies, and dalliance with traditional rivals will endure—and how much will vanish with Donald Trump’s presidency. Still, it would be hard to deny that something is afoot. The understandings and balance of power on which the global order had once been predicated—imperfect, unfair, and problematic as they were—are no longer operative. Washington is both eager to retain the benefits of its leadership and unwilling to shoulder the burdens of carrying it. As a consequence, it is guilty of the cardinal sin of any great power: allowing the gap between ends and means to grow. These days, neither friend nor foe knows quite where America stands.
The roles of other major powers are changing, too. China exhibits the patience of a nation confident in its gathering influence, but in no hurry to fully exercise it.
It chooses its battles, focusing on self-identified priorities: domestic control and suppression of potential dissent (as in Hong Kong, or the mass detention of Muslims in XInjiang); the South and East China Seas; and the brewing technological tug of war with the United States, in which my own colleague Michael Kovrig—unjustly detained in China for over a year—has become collateral damage. Elsewhere, its game is a long one.
Russia, in contrast, displays the impatience of a nation grateful for the power these unusual circumstances have brought and eager to assert it before time runs out. Moscow’s policy abroad is opportunistic—seeking to turn crises to its advantage—though today that is perhaps as much strategy as it needs. Portraying itself as a truer and more reliable partner than Western powers, it backs some allies with direct military support while sending in private contractors to Libya and sub-Saharan Africa to signal its growing influence.
To all of these powers, conflict prevention or resolution carries scant inherent value. They assess crises in terms of how they might advance or hurt their interests, how they could promote or undermine those of their rivals. Europe could be a counterweight, but at precisely the moment when it needs to step into the breach, it is struggling with domestic turbulence, discord among its leaders, and a singular preoccupation with terrorism and migration that often skews policy.
The consequences of these geopolitical trends can be deadly. Exaggerated faith in outside assistance can distort local actors’ calculations, pushing them toward uncompromising positions and encouraging them to court dangers against which they believe they are immune. In Libya, a crisis risks dangerous metastasis as Russia intervenes on behalf of a rebel general marching on the capital, the United States sends muddled messages, Turkey threatens to come to the government’s rescue, and Europe—a stone’s throw away—displays impotence amid internal rifts. In Venezuela, the government’s obstinacy, fueled by faith that Russia and China will cushion its economic downfall, clashes with the opposition’s lack of realism, powered by U.S. suggestions it will oust President Nicolás Maduro.
Syria—a conflict not on this list—has been a microcosm of all these trends: There, the United States combined a hegemon’s bombast with a bystander’s pose. Local actors (such as the Kurds) were emboldened by U.S. overpromising and then disappointed by U.S. underdelivery. Meanwhile, Russia stood firmly behind its brutal ally, while others in the neighborhood (namely, Turkey) sought to profit from the chaos.
The bad news might contain a sliver of good. As leaders understand the limits of allies’ backing, reality sinks in. Saudi Arabia, initially encouraged by the Trump administration’s apparent blank check, flexed its regional muscle until a series of brazen Iranian attacks and noticeable U.S. nonresponses showed the kingdom the extent of its exposure, driving it to seek a settlement in Yemen and, perhaps, de-escalation with Iran.
To many Americans, Ukraine evokes a sordid tale of quid pro quo and impeachment politics. But for its new president at the center of that storm, Volodymyr Zelensky, a priority is to end the conflict in that country’s east—an objective for which he appears to recognize the need for Kyiv to compromise.
Others might similarly readjust their views: the Afghan government and other anti-Taliban powerbrokers, accepting that U.S. troops won’t be around forever; Iran and the Syrian regime, seeing that Russia’s newfound Middle East swagger hardly protects them against Israeli strikes. These actors may not all be entirely on their own, but with their allies’ support only going so far, they might be brought back down to earth. There is virtue in realism.
There’s another trend that warrants attention: the phenomenon of mass protests across the globe. It is an equal-opportunity discontent, shaking countries governed by both the left and right, democracies and autocracies, rich and poor, from Latin America to Asia and Africa. Particularly striking are those in the Middle East—because many observers thought that the broken illusions and horrific bloodshed that came in the wake of the 2011 uprisings would dissuade another round.
Protesters have learned lessons, settling in for the long haul and, for the most part, avoiding violence that plays in the hands of those they contest.
Political and military elites have learned, too, of course—resorting to various means to weather the storm. In Sudan, arguably one of this past year’s better news stories, protests led to long-serving autocrat Omar al-Bashir’s downfall and ushered in a transition that could yield a more democratic and peaceful order. In Algeria, meanwhile, leaders have merely played musical chairs. In too many other places, they have cracked down. Still, in almost all, the pervasive sense of economic injustice that brought people onto the streets remains. If governments new or old cannot address that, the world should expect more cities ablaze this coming year.
Afghan boys play with plastic guns in Herat, Afghanistan, on June 4. HOSHANG HASHIMI/AFP via Getty Images
Afghanistan
More people are being killed as a result of fighting in Afghanistan than in any other current conflict in the world. Yet there may be a window this coming year to set in motion a peace process aimed at ending the decadeslong war.
Levels of bloodshed have soared over the past two years. Separate attacks by Taliban insurgents and Islamic State militants have rocked cities and towns across the country. Less visible is bloodshed in the countryside. Washington and Kabul have stepped up air assaults and special-forces raids, with civilians often bearing the brunt of violence. Suffering in rural areas is immense.
Amid the uptick in violence, presidential elections took place in late September. Preliminary results, announced on Dec. 22, gave incumbent President Ashraf Ghani a razor-thin margin over the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. Final results, following adjudication of complaints, aren’t expected before late January. Ghani’s main opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, whose challenge to results based on widespread fraud in the 2014 election led to a protracted crisis and eventually a power-sharing deal, is crying foul this time too. Whether the dispute will lead to a second round of voting is unclear, but either way it will likely consume Afghan leaders into 2020.
Last year did, however, see some light in U.S.-Taliban diplomacy. For the first time since the war began, Washington has prioritized reaching a deal with the insurgents.
After months of quiet talks, U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban leaders agreed on and initialed a draft text. Under the deal, the U.S. pledged to pull its troops out of Afghanistan—the primary Taliban demand—and, in return, the insurgents promised to break from al Qaeda, prevent Afghanistan from being used for plotting attacks abroad, and enter negotiations with the Afghan government as well as other key power brokers.
Hopes were dashed when Trump abruptly declared the talks dead in early September. He had invited Taliban leaders to Camp David, along with Ghani, and when the insurgents declined to come unless the agreement was signed first, Trump invoked a Taliban attack that killed a U.S. soldier as a reason to nix the agreement his envoy had inked.
After a prisoner swap in November appeared to have overcome Trump’s resistance, U.S. diplomats and Taliban representatives have started talking again, though whether they will return to the same understanding remains unclear. In reality, the United States has no better option than pursuing a deal with the Taliban. Continuing with the status quo offers only the prospect of endless war, while precipitously pulling U.S. forces out without an agreement could herald a return to the multifront civil war of the 1990s and even worse violence.
Any deal should pave the way for talks among Afghans, which means tying the pace of the U.S. troop withdrawal to both counterterrorism goals and the Taliban’s good-faith participation in talks with the Afghan government and other powerful Afghan leaders. A U.S.-Taliban agreement would mark only the beginning of a long road to a settlement among Afghans, which is a prerequisite for peace. But it almost certainly offers the only hope of calming today’s deadliest war.
A fighter poses with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and the southern separatist flag (the old flag of South Yemen) in the Khormaksar district of Aden, Yemen, on Aug. 29. NABIL HASAN/AFP via Getty Images
Yemen
In 2018, aggressive international intervention in Yemen prevented what U.N. officials deemed the world’s worst humanitarian crisis from deteriorating further; 2020 could offer a rare opportunity to wind down the war. That chance, however, is the product of a confluence of local, regional, and international factors and, if not seized now, may quickly fade.
The war’s human cost is painfully clear. It has directly killed an estimated 100,000 people while pushing a country that was already the Arab world’s poorest to the brink of famine. Yemen has become a critical fault line in the Middle East-wide rivalry between Iran on the one hand and the United States and its regional allies on the other. Yet a year after it briefly grabbed international headlines, the five-year-old conflict is at risk of slipping back out of international consciousness.
The loss of focus is the flip side of recent good news. A December 2018 deal known as the Stockholm Agreement, fostered a fragile cease-fire around the Red Sea port city of Hodeida between the internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and the Houthi rebels who seized the capital, Sanaa, from him in September 2014. The agreement likely prevented a famine and effectively froze fighting between the two sides. Since then, the more dynamic aspects of the conflict have been a battle within the anti-Houthi front pitting southern secessionists against the Hadi government, and a cross-border war that has seen the launch of Houthi missiles and retaliatory Saudi airstrikes.
Today’s window of opportunity reflects movement on these latter two fronts. First, fighting between loyalists of the Southern Transitional Council and the government in August 2019 pushed the anti-Houthi bloc to the point of collapse. In response, Riyadh had little choice but to broker a truce between them to sustain its war effort. Second, in September, a missile attack on major Saudi oil production facilities—claimed by the Houthis, but widely suspected to have been launched by Tehran—highlighted the risks of a war involving the United States, its Gulf allies, and Iran that none of them seems to want.
In Yemen, the opportunity for peace should be seized now.
This helped push the Saudis and Houthis to engage in talks aimed at de-escalating their conflict and removing Yemen from the playing field of the regional Saudi-Iran power struggle; both sides have significantly reduced cross-border strikes. If this leads to a U.N.-brokered political process in 2020, an end may be in sight.
But the opportunity could evaporate. A collapse of the government’s fragile deal with the Southern Transitional Council in the south or of its equally vulnerable agreement with the Houthis along the Red Sea coast would upend peacemaking efforts. The Houthis’ impatience with what they consider the Saudis’ sluggishness in transitioning from de-escalation to a nationwide cease-fire, coupled with their access to a stockpile of missiles, could rapidly reignite the cross-border war. Heightening U.S.-Iranian tensions could also spill into Yemen. The lull in violent conflict in the second half of 2019, in other words, should not be mistaken for a new normal. The opportunity for peace should be seized now.
Continued.....
Continued.....
Supporters of Jawar Mohammed, a member of the Oromo ethnic group who has been a public critic of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, gather in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Oct. 24 following rumors of Jawar’s mistreatment by state forces. STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images
Ethiopia
Perhaps nowhere are both promise and peril for the coming year starker than in Ethiopia, East Africa’s most populous and influential state.
Since assuming office in April 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has taken bold steps to open up the country’s politics. He has ended a decadeslong standoff with neighboring Eritrea, freed political prisoners, welcomed rebels back from exile, and appointed reformers to key institutions. He has won accolades at home and abroad—including the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.
But enormous challenges loom. Mass protests between 2015 and 2018 that brought Abiy to power were motivated primarily by political and socioeconomic grievances. But they had ethnic undertones too, particularly in Ethiopia’s most populous regions, Amhara and Oromia, whose leaders hoped to reduce the long-dominant Tigray minority’s influence. Abiy’s liberalization and efforts to dismantle the existing order have given new energy to ethnonationalism, while weakening the central state.
Ethnic strife across the country has surged, killing hundreds, displacing millions, and fueling hostility among leaders of its most powerful regions. Elections scheduled for May 2020 could be violent and divisive, as candidates outbid each other in ethnic appeals for votes.
Adding to tensions is a fraught debate over the country’s ethnic federalist system, which devolves authority to regions defined along ethnolinguistic lines. The system’s supporters believe it protects group rights in a diverse country formed through conquest and assimilation. Detractors argue that an ethnically based system harms national unity. It is past time, they say, to move beyond the ethnic politics that has long defined and divided the nation.
Abiy has generally sought a middle ground. But some recent reforms, including his merger and expansion of the ruling coalition, the Ethiopia People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), move him more firmly into the reformers’ camp. Over the coming year, he’ll have to build bridges among Ethiopian regions, even as he competes with ethnonationalists at the ballot box. He’ll have to manage the clamor for change while placating an old guard that stands to lose.
Ethiopia’s transition remains a source of hope and deserves all the support it can get, but also risks violently unraveling. In a worst-case scenario, some warn the country could fracture as Yugoslavia did in the 1990s, with disastrous consequences for an already troubled region. Ethiopia’s international partners need to do what they can—including pressing all the country’s leaders to cut incendiary rhetoric, counseling the prime minister to proceed cautiously on his reform agenda, and offering multiyear financial aid—to help Abiy avert such an outcome.
A group of soldiers from the Burkina Faso Army patrol a rural area during a joint operation with the French Army in the Soum region along the border with Mali on Nov. 9. MICHELE CATTANI/AFP via Getty Images
Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso is the latest country to fall victim to the instability plaguing Africa’s Sahel region.
Islamist militants have been waging a low-intensity insurgency in the country’s north since 2016. The rebellion was initially spearheaded by Ansarul Islam, a group led by Ibrahim Malam Dicko, a Burkinabé citizen and local preacher. Though rooted in Burkina Faso’s north, it appeared to have close ties to jihadis in neighboring Mali. After Dicko died in clashes with Burkinabé troops in 2017, his brother, Jafar, took over but reportedly was killed in an October 2019 airstrike.
Violence has spread, blighting much of the north and east, displacing about half a million people (of the country’s total population of 20 million) and threatening to destabilize regions further afield, including the southwest. Precisely who is responsible is often murky. In addition to Ansarul Islam, jihadi groups based in Mali, including the local Islamic State and al Qaeda franchises, now also operate in Burkina Faso.
Militant strikes can be intermingled with other sources of violence, such as banditry, herder-farmer competition, or all-too-common disputes over land. Self-defense groups that have mobilized over recent years to police rural areas fuel local intercommunal conflicts. Old systems to manage disputes are breaking down, as more young people question the authority of traditional elites loyal to a state that itself is distrusted. All this makes fertile ground for militant recruitment.
Unrest in the capital, Ouagadougou, hinders efforts to curb the insurgency. People regularly take to the streets in strikes over working conditions or protests over the government’s failure to tackle rising insecurity. Elections loom in November 2020, and violence could affect their credibility and thus the next government’s legitimacy. The ruling party and its rivals accuse each other of preparing vigilantes to mobilize votes. Burkina Faso appears close to collapse, yet elites focus on internecine power struggles.
Burkina Faso’s volatility matters not only because of harm inflicted on its own citizens, but because the country borders other nations, including several along West Africa’s coast. Those countries have suffered few attacks since jihadis struck resorts in Ivory Coast in 2016. But some evidence, including militants’ own statements, suggest they might use Burkina Faso as a launching pad for operations along the coast or to put down roots in the northernmost regions of countries such as Ivory Coast, Ghana, or Benin.
In May 2019, Ivoirian authorities report having disrupted planned attacks in the country’s largest city, Abidjan. Coastal countries exhibit weaknesses militants have exploited in their northern neighbors, particularly neglected and resentful peripheries. Some—notably Ivory Coast—also face contentious elections this year. This both distracts their governments and means any crisis would make them more vulnerable still.
Cooperation between Burkina Faso and its neighbors thus far has focused mostly on joint military operations. Coastal states may be gearing up to do the same. Yet governments in the region would be better off focusing as much on intelligence sharing, border controls, and policies aimed at winning over villagers in areas affected. Without those, the turmoil appears set to spread further.
A fighter loyal to the Libyan Government of National Accord fires his gun during clashes with forces loyal to the strongman Khalifa Haftar in the Tripoli suburb of Ain Zara on Sept. 7. MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP via Getty Images
Libya
The war in Libya risks getting worse in the coming months, as rival factions increasingly rely on foreign military backing to change the balance of power. The threat of major violence has loomed since the country split into two parallel administrations following contested elections in 2014. U.N. attempts at reunification faltered, and since 2016 Libya has been divided between the internationally recognized government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli and a rival government based in eastern Libya. The Islamic State established a small foothold but was defeated; militias fought over Libya’s oil infrastructure on the coast; and tribal clashes unsettled the country’s vast southern desert. But fighting never tipped into a broader confrontation.
Over the past year, however, it has taken a dangerous new turn. In April 2019, forces commanded by Khalifa Haftar, which are backed by the government in the east, laid siege to Tripoli, edging the country toward all-out war. Haftar claims to be combating terrorists. In reality, while some of his rivals are Islamists, they are the same militias that defeated the Islamic State, with U.S. and other Western support, three years ago.
Libya has long been an arena for outside competition. In the chaos after former leader Muammar al-Qaddafi’s 2011 overthrow, competing factions sought support from foreign sponsors. Regional rivalries overlaid the split between the two rival governments and their respective military coalitions, with Egypt and the United Arab Emirates backing Haftar-led forces and Turkey and Qatar supporting western armed groups loyal to Sarraj.
Haftar’s latest offensive has found support not only in Cairo and Abu Dhabi but also in Moscow, which has provided Haftar military aid under the cover of a private security company. U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration had supported the Sarraj government and U.N.-backed peace process since coming to office, reversed course in April 2019, following a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Turkey, in turn, has upped support for Tripoli, thus far helping stave off its fall to Haftar. Ankara now threatens to intervene further.
As a result, the conflict’s protagonists are no longer merely armed groups in Tripoli fending off an assault by a wayward military commander. Instead, Emirati drones and airplanes, hundreds of Russian private military contractors, and African soldiers recruited into Haftar’s forces confront Turkish drones and military vehicles, raising the specter of an escalating proxy battle on the Mediterranean.
The proliferation of actors also stymies efforts to end the bloodshed. A U.N.-led attempt in Berlin to bring the parties back to the table appears to be petering out. Whether the peace conference that the United Nations and Germany hoped to convene in early 2020 will take place is unclear. For their part, Europeans have been caught flat-footed. Their main concern has been to check the flow of migrants, but disagreements among leaders over how to weigh in have allowed other players to fuel a conflict that directly undercuts Europe’s interest in a stable Libya.
To end the war, foreign powers would need to stop arming their Libyan allies and press them into negotiations instead, but prospects of this happening appear dim. The result could be a more destructive stalemate or a takeover of Tripoli that could give rise to prolonged militia fighting, rather than a stable single government.
A picture obtained from Iranian News Agency ISNA on June 13 reportedly shows fire and smoke billowing from an oil tanker said to have been attacked in the waters of the Gulf of Oman. The attack on two tankers came amid spiraling tensions between Tehran and Washington, which has pointed the finger at Iran over earlier tanker attacks. -/AFP via Getty Images
The United States, Iran, Israel, and the Persian Gulf
Tensions between the United States and Iran rose dangerously in 2019; the year ahead could bring their rivalry to boiling point. The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear agreement and impose mounting unilateral sanctions against Tehran has inflicted significant costs, but thus far has produced neither the diplomatic capitulation Washington seeks nor the internal collapse for which it may hope. Instead, Iran has responded to what it regards as an all-out siege by incrementally ramping up its nuclear program in violation of the agreement, aggressively flexing its regional muscle, and firmly suppressing any sign of domestic unrest. Tensions have also risen between Israel and Iran. Unless this cycle is broken, the risk of a broader confrontation will rise.
Tehran’s shift from a policy of maximum patience to one of maximum resistance was a consequence of the United States playing one of the aces in its coercive deck: ending already-limited exemptions on Iran’s oil sales. Seeing little relief materialize from the nuclear deal’s remaining parties, President Hassan Rouhani in May announced that his government would begin to violate the agreement incrementally. Since then, Iran has broken caps on its uranium enrichment rates and stockpile sizes, started testing advanced centrifuges, and restarted its enrichment plant in its Fordow bunker.
With every new breach, Iran may hollow out the agreement’s nonproliferation gains to the extent that the European signatories will decide they must impose their own penalties. At some point, Iran’s advances could prompt Israel or the United States to resort to military action.
A string of incidents in the Gulf in the past year, culminating in the Sept. 14 attack against Saudi energy facilities, underscored how the U.S.-Iranian standoff reverberates across the broader region. Meanwhile, recurrent Israeli military strikes against Iranian and Iran-linked targets inside Syria and Lebanon—as well as in Iraq and the Red Sea basin, according to Tehran—present a new, dangerous front. Any of these flash points could explode, by design or by accident.
Continued.....
Supporters of Jawar Mohammed, a member of the Oromo ethnic group who has been a public critic of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, gather in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Oct. 24 following rumors of Jawar’s mistreatment by state forces. STRINGER/AFP via Getty Images
Ethiopia
Perhaps nowhere are both promise and peril for the coming year starker than in Ethiopia, East Africa’s most populous and influential state.
Since assuming office in April 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has taken bold steps to open up the country’s politics. He has ended a decadeslong standoff with neighboring Eritrea, freed political prisoners, welcomed rebels back from exile, and appointed reformers to key institutions. He has won accolades at home and abroad—including the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.
But enormous challenges loom. Mass protests between 2015 and 2018 that brought Abiy to power were motivated primarily by political and socioeconomic grievances. But they had ethnic undertones too, particularly in Ethiopia’s most populous regions, Amhara and Oromia, whose leaders hoped to reduce the long-dominant Tigray minority’s influence. Abiy’s liberalization and efforts to dismantle the existing order have given new energy to ethnonationalism, while weakening the central state.
Ethnic strife across the country has surged, killing hundreds, displacing millions, and fueling hostility among leaders of its most powerful regions. Elections scheduled for May 2020 could be violent and divisive, as candidates outbid each other in ethnic appeals for votes.
Adding to tensions is a fraught debate over the country’s ethnic federalist system, which devolves authority to regions defined along ethnolinguistic lines. The system’s supporters believe it protects group rights in a diverse country formed through conquest and assimilation. Detractors argue that an ethnically based system harms national unity. It is past time, they say, to move beyond the ethnic politics that has long defined and divided the nation.
Abiy has generally sought a middle ground. But some recent reforms, including his merger and expansion of the ruling coalition, the Ethiopia People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), move him more firmly into the reformers’ camp. Over the coming year, he’ll have to build bridges among Ethiopian regions, even as he competes with ethnonationalists at the ballot box. He’ll have to manage the clamor for change while placating an old guard that stands to lose.
Ethiopia’s transition remains a source of hope and deserves all the support it can get, but also risks violently unraveling. In a worst-case scenario, some warn the country could fracture as Yugoslavia did in the 1990s, with disastrous consequences for an already troubled region. Ethiopia’s international partners need to do what they can—including pressing all the country’s leaders to cut incendiary rhetoric, counseling the prime minister to proceed cautiously on his reform agenda, and offering multiyear financial aid—to help Abiy avert such an outcome.
A group of soldiers from the Burkina Faso Army patrol a rural area during a joint operation with the French Army in the Soum region along the border with Mali on Nov. 9. MICHELE CATTANI/AFP via Getty Images
Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso is the latest country to fall victim to the instability plaguing Africa’s Sahel region.
Islamist militants have been waging a low-intensity insurgency in the country’s north since 2016. The rebellion was initially spearheaded by Ansarul Islam, a group led by Ibrahim Malam Dicko, a Burkinabé citizen and local preacher. Though rooted in Burkina Faso’s north, it appeared to have close ties to jihadis in neighboring Mali. After Dicko died in clashes with Burkinabé troops in 2017, his brother, Jafar, took over but reportedly was killed in an October 2019 airstrike.
Violence has spread, blighting much of the north and east, displacing about half a million people (of the country’s total population of 20 million) and threatening to destabilize regions further afield, including the southwest. Precisely who is responsible is often murky. In addition to Ansarul Islam, jihadi groups based in Mali, including the local Islamic State and al Qaeda franchises, now also operate in Burkina Faso.
Militant strikes can be intermingled with other sources of violence, such as banditry, herder-farmer competition, or all-too-common disputes over land. Self-defense groups that have mobilized over recent years to police rural areas fuel local intercommunal conflicts. Old systems to manage disputes are breaking down, as more young people question the authority of traditional elites loyal to a state that itself is distrusted. All this makes fertile ground for militant recruitment.
Unrest in the capital, Ouagadougou, hinders efforts to curb the insurgency. People regularly take to the streets in strikes over working conditions or protests over the government’s failure to tackle rising insecurity. Elections loom in November 2020, and violence could affect their credibility and thus the next government’s legitimacy. The ruling party and its rivals accuse each other of preparing vigilantes to mobilize votes. Burkina Faso appears close to collapse, yet elites focus on internecine power struggles.
Burkina Faso’s volatility matters not only because of harm inflicted on its own citizens, but because the country borders other nations, including several along West Africa’s coast. Those countries have suffered few attacks since jihadis struck resorts in Ivory Coast in 2016. But some evidence, including militants’ own statements, suggest they might use Burkina Faso as a launching pad for operations along the coast or to put down roots in the northernmost regions of countries such as Ivory Coast, Ghana, or Benin.
In May 2019, Ivoirian authorities report having disrupted planned attacks in the country’s largest city, Abidjan. Coastal countries exhibit weaknesses militants have exploited in their northern neighbors, particularly neglected and resentful peripheries. Some—notably Ivory Coast—also face contentious elections this year. This both distracts their governments and means any crisis would make them more vulnerable still.
Cooperation between Burkina Faso and its neighbors thus far has focused mostly on joint military operations. Coastal states may be gearing up to do the same. Yet governments in the region would be better off focusing as much on intelligence sharing, border controls, and policies aimed at winning over villagers in areas affected. Without those, the turmoil appears set to spread further.
A fighter loyal to the Libyan Government of National Accord fires his gun during clashes with forces loyal to the strongman Khalifa Haftar in the Tripoli suburb of Ain Zara on Sept. 7. MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP via Getty Images
Libya
The war in Libya risks getting worse in the coming months, as rival factions increasingly rely on foreign military backing to change the balance of power. The threat of major violence has loomed since the country split into two parallel administrations following contested elections in 2014. U.N. attempts at reunification faltered, and since 2016 Libya has been divided between the internationally recognized government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli and a rival government based in eastern Libya. The Islamic State established a small foothold but was defeated; militias fought over Libya’s oil infrastructure on the coast; and tribal clashes unsettled the country’s vast southern desert. But fighting never tipped into a broader confrontation.
Over the past year, however, it has taken a dangerous new turn. In April 2019, forces commanded by Khalifa Haftar, which are backed by the government in the east, laid siege to Tripoli, edging the country toward all-out war. Haftar claims to be combating terrorists. In reality, while some of his rivals are Islamists, they are the same militias that defeated the Islamic State, with U.S. and other Western support, three years ago.
Libya has long been an arena for outside competition. In the chaos after former leader Muammar al-Qaddafi’s 2011 overthrow, competing factions sought support from foreign sponsors. Regional rivalries overlaid the split between the two rival governments and their respective military coalitions, with Egypt and the United Arab Emirates backing Haftar-led forces and Turkey and Qatar supporting western armed groups loyal to Sarraj.
Haftar’s latest offensive has found support not only in Cairo and Abu Dhabi but also in Moscow, which has provided Haftar military aid under the cover of a private security company. U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration had supported the Sarraj government and U.N.-backed peace process since coming to office, reversed course in April 2019, following a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Turkey, in turn, has upped support for Tripoli, thus far helping stave off its fall to Haftar. Ankara now threatens to intervene further.
As a result, the conflict’s protagonists are no longer merely armed groups in Tripoli fending off an assault by a wayward military commander. Instead, Emirati drones and airplanes, hundreds of Russian private military contractors, and African soldiers recruited into Haftar’s forces confront Turkish drones and military vehicles, raising the specter of an escalating proxy battle on the Mediterranean.
The proliferation of actors also stymies efforts to end the bloodshed. A U.N.-led attempt in Berlin to bring the parties back to the table appears to be petering out. Whether the peace conference that the United Nations and Germany hoped to convene in early 2020 will take place is unclear. For their part, Europeans have been caught flat-footed. Their main concern has been to check the flow of migrants, but disagreements among leaders over how to weigh in have allowed other players to fuel a conflict that directly undercuts Europe’s interest in a stable Libya.
To end the war, foreign powers would need to stop arming their Libyan allies and press them into negotiations instead, but prospects of this happening appear dim. The result could be a more destructive stalemate or a takeover of Tripoli that could give rise to prolonged militia fighting, rather than a stable single government.
A picture obtained from Iranian News Agency ISNA on June 13 reportedly shows fire and smoke billowing from an oil tanker said to have been attacked in the waters of the Gulf of Oman. The attack on two tankers came amid spiraling tensions between Tehran and Washington, which has pointed the finger at Iran over earlier tanker attacks. -/AFP via Getty Images
The United States, Iran, Israel, and the Persian Gulf
Tensions between the United States and Iran rose dangerously in 2019; the year ahead could bring their rivalry to boiling point. The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear agreement and impose mounting unilateral sanctions against Tehran has inflicted significant costs, but thus far has produced neither the diplomatic capitulation Washington seeks nor the internal collapse for which it may hope. Instead, Iran has responded to what it regards as an all-out siege by incrementally ramping up its nuclear program in violation of the agreement, aggressively flexing its regional muscle, and firmly suppressing any sign of domestic unrest. Tensions have also risen between Israel and Iran. Unless this cycle is broken, the risk of a broader confrontation will rise.
Tehran’s shift from a policy of maximum patience to one of maximum resistance was a consequence of the United States playing one of the aces in its coercive deck: ending already-limited exemptions on Iran’s oil sales. Seeing little relief materialize from the nuclear deal’s remaining parties, President Hassan Rouhani in May announced that his government would begin to violate the agreement incrementally. Since then, Iran has broken caps on its uranium enrichment rates and stockpile sizes, started testing advanced centrifuges, and restarted its enrichment plant in its Fordow bunker.
With every new breach, Iran may hollow out the agreement’s nonproliferation gains to the extent that the European signatories will decide they must impose their own penalties. At some point, Iran’s advances could prompt Israel or the United States to resort to military action.
A string of incidents in the Gulf in the past year, culminating in the Sept. 14 attack against Saudi energy facilities, underscored how the U.S.-Iranian standoff reverberates across the broader region. Meanwhile, recurrent Israeli military strikes against Iranian and Iran-linked targets inside Syria and Lebanon—as well as in Iraq and the Red Sea basin, according to Tehran—present a new, dangerous front. Any of these flash points could explode, by design or by accident.
Continued.....
Continued.....
Recognition of the high stakes and costs of war has nudged some of Iran’s Gulf rivals to seek de-escalation even as they continue to back the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” approach. The United Arab Emirates has opened lines of communication with Tehran, and Saudi Arabia has engaged in serious dialogue with Yemen’s Houthis.
The potential for conflict has also prompted efforts, led by French President Emmanuel Macron, to help the United States and Iran find a diplomatic off-ramp. U.S. President Donald Trump, eager to avoid war, has been willing to hear out his proposal, and the Iranians are also interested in any proposition that provides some sanctions relief.
But with deep distrust, each side has tended to wait for the other to make the first concession. A diplomatic breakthrough to de-escalate tensions between the Gulf states and Iran or between Washington and Tehran remains possible. But, as sanctions take their toll and Iran fights back, time is running out.
U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un talk before a meeting in the Demilitarized Zone in Panmunjom on June 30. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
United States-North Korea
The days of 2017, when U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hurled insults at each other and exchanged threats of nuclear annihilation, seemed distant during most of 2019. But tensions are escalating.
The dangers of 2017 yielded to a calmer 2018 and early 2019. The United States halted most joint military drills with South Korea, and Pyongyang paused long-range missile and nuclear tests. U.S.-North Korea relations thawed somewhat, with two Trump-Kim summits. The first—in Singapore in June 2018—produced a flimsy statement of agreed principles and the possibility of diplomatic negotiations. The second—in Hanoi in February 2019—collapsed when the gulf between the two leaders on the scope and sequencing of denuclearization and sanctions relief became clear.
Since then, the diplomatic atmosphere has soured. In April 2019, Kim unilaterally set an end-of-year deadline for the U.S. government to present a deal that might break the impasse. In June, Trump and Kim agreed, over a handshake in the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas, to start working-level talks. In October, however, an eight-hour meeting between envoys in Sweden went nowhere.
The two leaders have at times floated the idea of a third summit, but they have backed away at least for the time being. That may be for the best: Another ill-prepared meeting could leave both sides feeling dangerously frustrated.
Meanwhile, Pyongyang—which continues to seek leverage to obtain sanctions relief and an end to joint military drills—stepped up short-range ballistic missile tests, which are widely understood not to be covered by the unwritten freeze. North Korea seemed to be motivated by both practical reasons (tests help perfect missile technology) and political ones (those tests appear intended to pressure Washington to propose a more favorable deal). In early December, Pyongyang went further, testing what appeared to be the engine for either a space-launch vehicle or a long-range missile and related technology, at a site that Trump claimed Kim had promised to dismantle.
Although Pyongyang’s warning of a “Christmas gift” for Washington if the United States does not propose what Kim deems a satisfactory way forward had not materialized at the time of writing, prospects for diplomacy seem to be dimming.
Yet both sides should think about what will happen if diplomacy fails. If the North escalates its provocations, the Trump administration could react much like it did in 2017, with name-calling and efforts to further tighten sanctions and by exploring military options with unthinkable consequences.
That dynamic would be bad for the region, the world, and both leaders. The best option for both sides remains a confidence-building, measure-for-measure deal that gives each modest benefits. Pyongyang and Washington need to put in the time to negotiate and gauge possibilities for compromise. In 2020, Trump and Kim should steer clear of high-level pageantry and high-drama provocations, and empower their negotiators to get to work.
Security personnel stand guard as they block a road during a lockdown at Maisuma locality of Srinagar, Kashmir, on Sept. 27. TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP via Getty Images
Kashmir
After falling off the international radar for years, a flare-up between India and Pakistan in 2019 over the disputed region of Kashmir brought the crisis back into sharp focus. Both countries lay claim to the Himalayan territory, split by an informal boundary, known as the Line of Control, since the first Indian-Pakistani war of 1947-48.
First came a February suicide attack by Islamist militants against Indian paramilitaries in Kashmir. India retaliated by bombing an alleged militant camp in Pakistan, prompting a Pakistani strike in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Tensions spiked again in August when India revoked the state of Jammu and Kashmir’s semiautonomous status, which had served as the foundation for its joining India 72 years ago, and brought it under New Delhi’s direct rule.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, emboldened by its May reelection, made the change in India’s only Muslim-majority state without any local consultation. Not only that: Before announcing its decision, it brought in tens of thousands of extra troops, imposed a communications blackout, and arrested thousands of Kashmiris, including the entire political class, many of whom were not hostile to India.
These moves have exacerbated an already profound sentiment of alienation among Kashmiris that will likely further fuel a long-running separatist insurgency. Separately, the Indian government’s new citizenship law, widely regarded as anti-Muslim, has sparked protests and violent police responses in many parts of India. Together with the actions in Kashmir, these developments appear to confirm Modi’s intention to implement a Hindu nationalist agenda.
The Indian government’s actions in Kashmir, coupled with India’s new citizenship law, appear to confirm Modi’s intention to implement a Hindu nationalist agenda.
New Delhi’s claims that the situation is back to normal are misleading. Internet access remains cut off, soldiers deployed in August are still there, and all Kashmiri leaders remain in detention. Modi’s government seems to have no road map for what comes next.
Pakistan has tried to rally international support against what it calls India’s illegal decision on Kashmir’s status. But its cause is hardly helped by its long record of backing anti-India jihadis. Moreover, most Western powers see New Delhi as an important partner. They are unlikely to rock the boat over Kashmir, unless violence spirals.
The gravest danger is the risk that a militant attack sets off an escalation. In Kashmir, insurgents are lying low but still active. Indeed, India’s heavy-handed military operations in Kashmir over the past few years have inspired a new homegrown generation, whose ranks are likely to swell further after the latest repression. A strike on Indian forces almost certainly would precipitate Indian retaliation against Pakistan, regardless of whether Islamabad is complicit in the plan. In a worst-case scenario, the two nuclear-armed neighbors could stumble into war.
External actors should push for rapprochement before it is too late. That won’t be easy. Both sides are playing to domestic constituencies in no mood for compromise. Resuming bilateral dialogue, on hold since 2016, is essential and will necessitate concerted pressure, particularly from Western governments. Any progress requires Pakistan taking credible action against jihadis operating from its soil, a nonnegotiable precondition for India to even consider engaging. For its part, India should lift the communications blackout, release political prisoners, and urgently reengage with Kashmiri leaders. Both sides should resume cross-border trade and travel for Kashmiris.
If a new crisis emerges, foreign powers will have to throw their full weight behind preserving peace on the disputed border.
Members of the National Bolivarian Militia take part in military exercises in Caracas, Venezuela, on Sept. 16. MATIAS DELACROIX/AFP via Getty Images
Venezuela
Venezuela’s year of two governments ended without resolution. President Nicolás Maduro is still in charge, having headed off a civil-military uprising in April and weathered a regional boycott and a stack of U.S. sanctions. But his government remains isolated and bereft of resources, while most Venezuelans suffer from crushing poverty and collapsing public services.
Juan Guaidó, who as National Assembly head laid claim to the interim presidency last January, attracted huge crowds and foreign backing for his demand that Maduro, reelected in a controversial poll in 2018, leave office. Yet the unpopular government’s survival has offered Guaidó, as well as the United States and its Latin American allies such as Brazil and Colombia, harsh lessons. No one can rule out the government’s collapse. Still, hoping for that is, as one opposition deputy told my International Crisis Group colleagues, “like being poor and waiting to win the lottery.”
For a start, Maduro’s rivals underestimated his government’s strength—above all, the armed forces’ loyalty.
The crisis is having other ripple effects. The United Nations estimates that 7 million Venezuelans need humanitarian aid, many of them in border areas patrolled by armed groups, including Colombian guerrillas. Though sharing more than 1,300 miles of criminalized, violent, and largely unguarded border, the Colombian and Venezuelan governments no longer talk to each other, instead trading insults and blame for sheltering armed proxies. The border has become Venezuela’s primary flash point. In the meantime, the split between those Latin American countries backing Guaidó and those supporting Maduro has aggravated an increasingly polarized regional climate.
With the United States seemingly downplaying the possibility of a military intervention—even as Venezuelan opposition hard-liners pine for one—the issue is now whether Maduro’s obstinacy and the opposition’s and Washington’s lack of realism will mean a deepening crisis and possible flare-up, or whether more pragmatic voices can find a path to agreement. The omens are not overly promising. Government-opposition talks facilitated by Norway were suspended in September.
But there is still a negotiated way out of the turmoil. It would entail compromise from all sides: The opposition would need to drop its demand that Maduro leave now; the government would have to accept steps ensuring a credible and internationally monitored parliamentary election in 2020 as well as an early—and equally credible— presidential poll in the near future; and the U.S. government would need to incrementally relieve sanctions as progress is made toward a resolution. This would be an acceptable price for Venezuela’s peace and stability, and to avoid a far worse calamity.
A Ukrainian serviceman patrols along the front line with Russia-backed separatists not far from the town of Avdiivka, Donetsk region, on Nov. 7. ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images
Ukraine
Ukraine’s comedian-turned-president, Volodymyr Zelensky, elected in April 2019, has brought new energy to efforts to end Kyiv’s six-year-old conflict with Russia-backed separatists in the country’s eastern Donbass region. Yet if peace seems slightly more plausible than it did a year ago, it is far from preordained.
Zelensky’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, negotiated the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements, which aim to end the Donbass conflict; they call for the separatist-held areas’ reintegration into Ukraine in exchange for their autonomy, or “special status.” But the agreements remain unimplemented as Kyiv and Moscow disagree on their specifics and sequencing.
Zelensky pledged while campaigning to make peace. He interpreted his and his party’s landslide wins in 2019 elections as mandates to do so. He started by negotiating mutual withdrawals from front-line positions and a cease-fire with Russia and its proxies. In September, he cut a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin on a prisoner swap. The following month, he endorsed the so-called Steinmeier Formula put forward in 2016 by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, then Germany’s foreign minister and now its president, which proposed that elections in separatist-held areas would trigger first provisional, and then, if the vote was credible, permanent special status and reintegration into Ukraine.
Zelensky’s take on the formula required Ukrainian control in those territories before the vote. He nonetheless faced immediate domestic backlash from an unlikely coalition of military veterans’ organizations, far-right groups, and public intellectuals. In contrast, Moscow and separatist leaders welcomed Zelensky’s acceptance of the formula, despite his conditions.
In December, Zelensky and Putin met in Paris with Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The leaders failed to agree on Minsk sequencing but left with plans for a more comprehensive cease-fire, further disengagement at front-line positions, increased Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe monitoring, and new crossing points for civilians at the line of contact separating Ukrainian and separatist forces.
Zelensky’s detractors at home appear satisfied he did not sell out in Paris. This gives him more room for maneuver.
Much could go wrong. Cease-fire and disengagement plans might collapse and fighting could escalate. Even if they hold, Zelensky needs Moscow to compromise for peace to stand a chance. So far, however, although Moscow has been more amenable to deals with Zelensky than with his predecessor, its core positions remain unchanged: It denies being party to the conflict it initiated, fought in, and funded. It insists Kyiv should negotiate the Donbass region’s self-rule with separatist leaders.
Peace would offer clear dividends for Ukraine and carry benefits for Russia: It could bring sanctions relief and remove the burden of financial and military support to separatist-held areas. From his Western allies, Zelensky needs all the help he can get as he continues his charm offensive in eastern Ukraine and outreach to Moscow.
Robert Malley is president and CEO of the International Crisis Group. He served as a special assistant for the Middle East under President Barack Obama.
© 2019, The Slate Group
Recognition of the high stakes and costs of war has nudged some of Iran’s Gulf rivals to seek de-escalation even as they continue to back the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” approach. The United Arab Emirates has opened lines of communication with Tehran, and Saudi Arabia has engaged in serious dialogue with Yemen’s Houthis.
The potential for conflict has also prompted efforts, led by French President Emmanuel Macron, to help the United States and Iran find a diplomatic off-ramp. U.S. President Donald Trump, eager to avoid war, has been willing to hear out his proposal, and the Iranians are also interested in any proposition that provides some sanctions relief.
But with deep distrust, each side has tended to wait for the other to make the first concession. A diplomatic breakthrough to de-escalate tensions between the Gulf states and Iran or between Washington and Tehran remains possible. But, as sanctions take their toll and Iran fights back, time is running out.
U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un talk before a meeting in the Demilitarized Zone in Panmunjom on June 30. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
United States-North Korea
The days of 2017, when U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hurled insults at each other and exchanged threats of nuclear annihilation, seemed distant during most of 2019. But tensions are escalating.
The dangers of 2017 yielded to a calmer 2018 and early 2019. The United States halted most joint military drills with South Korea, and Pyongyang paused long-range missile and nuclear tests. U.S.-North Korea relations thawed somewhat, with two Trump-Kim summits. The first—in Singapore in June 2018—produced a flimsy statement of agreed principles and the possibility of diplomatic negotiations. The second—in Hanoi in February 2019—collapsed when the gulf between the two leaders on the scope and sequencing of denuclearization and sanctions relief became clear.
Since then, the diplomatic atmosphere has soured. In April 2019, Kim unilaterally set an end-of-year deadline for the U.S. government to present a deal that might break the impasse. In June, Trump and Kim agreed, over a handshake in the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas, to start working-level talks. In October, however, an eight-hour meeting between envoys in Sweden went nowhere.
The two leaders have at times floated the idea of a third summit, but they have backed away at least for the time being. That may be for the best: Another ill-prepared meeting could leave both sides feeling dangerously frustrated.
Meanwhile, Pyongyang—which continues to seek leverage to obtain sanctions relief and an end to joint military drills—stepped up short-range ballistic missile tests, which are widely understood not to be covered by the unwritten freeze. North Korea seemed to be motivated by both practical reasons (tests help perfect missile technology) and political ones (those tests appear intended to pressure Washington to propose a more favorable deal). In early December, Pyongyang went further, testing what appeared to be the engine for either a space-launch vehicle or a long-range missile and related technology, at a site that Trump claimed Kim had promised to dismantle.
Although Pyongyang’s warning of a “Christmas gift” for Washington if the United States does not propose what Kim deems a satisfactory way forward had not materialized at the time of writing, prospects for diplomacy seem to be dimming.
Yet both sides should think about what will happen if diplomacy fails. If the North escalates its provocations, the Trump administration could react much like it did in 2017, with name-calling and efforts to further tighten sanctions and by exploring military options with unthinkable consequences.
That dynamic would be bad for the region, the world, and both leaders. The best option for both sides remains a confidence-building, measure-for-measure deal that gives each modest benefits. Pyongyang and Washington need to put in the time to negotiate and gauge possibilities for compromise. In 2020, Trump and Kim should steer clear of high-level pageantry and high-drama provocations, and empower their negotiators to get to work.
Security personnel stand guard as they block a road during a lockdown at Maisuma locality of Srinagar, Kashmir, on Sept. 27. TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP via Getty Images
Kashmir
After falling off the international radar for years, a flare-up between India and Pakistan in 2019 over the disputed region of Kashmir brought the crisis back into sharp focus. Both countries lay claim to the Himalayan territory, split by an informal boundary, known as the Line of Control, since the first Indian-Pakistani war of 1947-48.
First came a February suicide attack by Islamist militants against Indian paramilitaries in Kashmir. India retaliated by bombing an alleged militant camp in Pakistan, prompting a Pakistani strike in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Tensions spiked again in August when India revoked the state of Jammu and Kashmir’s semiautonomous status, which had served as the foundation for its joining India 72 years ago, and brought it under New Delhi’s direct rule.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, emboldened by its May reelection, made the change in India’s only Muslim-majority state without any local consultation. Not only that: Before announcing its decision, it brought in tens of thousands of extra troops, imposed a communications blackout, and arrested thousands of Kashmiris, including the entire political class, many of whom were not hostile to India.
These moves have exacerbated an already profound sentiment of alienation among Kashmiris that will likely further fuel a long-running separatist insurgency. Separately, the Indian government’s new citizenship law, widely regarded as anti-Muslim, has sparked protests and violent police responses in many parts of India. Together with the actions in Kashmir, these developments appear to confirm Modi’s intention to implement a Hindu nationalist agenda.
The Indian government’s actions in Kashmir, coupled with India’s new citizenship law, appear to confirm Modi’s intention to implement a Hindu nationalist agenda.
New Delhi’s claims that the situation is back to normal are misleading. Internet access remains cut off, soldiers deployed in August are still there, and all Kashmiri leaders remain in detention. Modi’s government seems to have no road map for what comes next.
Pakistan has tried to rally international support against what it calls India’s illegal decision on Kashmir’s status. But its cause is hardly helped by its long record of backing anti-India jihadis. Moreover, most Western powers see New Delhi as an important partner. They are unlikely to rock the boat over Kashmir, unless violence spirals.
The gravest danger is the risk that a militant attack sets off an escalation. In Kashmir, insurgents are lying low but still active. Indeed, India’s heavy-handed military operations in Kashmir over the past few years have inspired a new homegrown generation, whose ranks are likely to swell further after the latest repression. A strike on Indian forces almost certainly would precipitate Indian retaliation against Pakistan, regardless of whether Islamabad is complicit in the plan. In a worst-case scenario, the two nuclear-armed neighbors could stumble into war.
External actors should push for rapprochement before it is too late. That won’t be easy. Both sides are playing to domestic constituencies in no mood for compromise. Resuming bilateral dialogue, on hold since 2016, is essential and will necessitate concerted pressure, particularly from Western governments. Any progress requires Pakistan taking credible action against jihadis operating from its soil, a nonnegotiable precondition for India to even consider engaging. For its part, India should lift the communications blackout, release political prisoners, and urgently reengage with Kashmiri leaders. Both sides should resume cross-border trade and travel for Kashmiris.
If a new crisis emerges, foreign powers will have to throw their full weight behind preserving peace on the disputed border.
Members of the National Bolivarian Militia take part in military exercises in Caracas, Venezuela, on Sept. 16. MATIAS DELACROIX/AFP via Getty Images
Venezuela
Venezuela’s year of two governments ended without resolution. President Nicolás Maduro is still in charge, having headed off a civil-military uprising in April and weathered a regional boycott and a stack of U.S. sanctions. But his government remains isolated and bereft of resources, while most Venezuelans suffer from crushing poverty and collapsing public services.
Juan Guaidó, who as National Assembly head laid claim to the interim presidency last January, attracted huge crowds and foreign backing for his demand that Maduro, reelected in a controversial poll in 2018, leave office. Yet the unpopular government’s survival has offered Guaidó, as well as the United States and its Latin American allies such as Brazil and Colombia, harsh lessons. No one can rule out the government’s collapse. Still, hoping for that is, as one opposition deputy told my International Crisis Group colleagues, “like being poor and waiting to win the lottery.”
For a start, Maduro’s rivals underestimated his government’s strength—above all, the armed forces’ loyalty.
Despite hardship, poor communities remained mostly unconvinced by the opposition. U.S. sanctions heaped stress on the population and decimated an ailing oil industry, but were circumvented by shadowy actors working through the global economy’s loopholes. Gold exports and cash dollars kept the country afloat and enriched a tiny elite. Many of those left out joined the mass exodus of Venezuelans, now numbering 4.5 million, who in turn funneled remittances back home to sustain their families.
The crisis is having other ripple effects. The United Nations estimates that 7 million Venezuelans need humanitarian aid, many of them in border areas patrolled by armed groups, including Colombian guerrillas. Though sharing more than 1,300 miles of criminalized, violent, and largely unguarded border, the Colombian and Venezuelan governments no longer talk to each other, instead trading insults and blame for sheltering armed proxies. The border has become Venezuela’s primary flash point. In the meantime, the split between those Latin American countries backing Guaidó and those supporting Maduro has aggravated an increasingly polarized regional climate.
With the United States seemingly downplaying the possibility of a military intervention—even as Venezuelan opposition hard-liners pine for one—the issue is now whether Maduro’s obstinacy and the opposition’s and Washington’s lack of realism will mean a deepening crisis and possible flare-up, or whether more pragmatic voices can find a path to agreement. The omens are not overly promising. Government-opposition talks facilitated by Norway were suspended in September.
But there is still a negotiated way out of the turmoil. It would entail compromise from all sides: The opposition would need to drop its demand that Maduro leave now; the government would have to accept steps ensuring a credible and internationally monitored parliamentary election in 2020 as well as an early—and equally credible— presidential poll in the near future; and the U.S. government would need to incrementally relieve sanctions as progress is made toward a resolution. This would be an acceptable price for Venezuela’s peace and stability, and to avoid a far worse calamity.
A Ukrainian serviceman patrols along the front line with Russia-backed separatists not far from the town of Avdiivka, Donetsk region, on Nov. 7. ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images
Ukraine
Ukraine’s comedian-turned-president, Volodymyr Zelensky, elected in April 2019, has brought new energy to efforts to end Kyiv’s six-year-old conflict with Russia-backed separatists in the country’s eastern Donbass region. Yet if peace seems slightly more plausible than it did a year ago, it is far from preordained.
Zelensky’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, negotiated the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements, which aim to end the Donbass conflict; they call for the separatist-held areas’ reintegration into Ukraine in exchange for their autonomy, or “special status.” But the agreements remain unimplemented as Kyiv and Moscow disagree on their specifics and sequencing.
Zelensky pledged while campaigning to make peace. He interpreted his and his party’s landslide wins in 2019 elections as mandates to do so. He started by negotiating mutual withdrawals from front-line positions and a cease-fire with Russia and its proxies. In September, he cut a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin on a prisoner swap. The following month, he endorsed the so-called Steinmeier Formula put forward in 2016 by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, then Germany’s foreign minister and now its president, which proposed that elections in separatist-held areas would trigger first provisional, and then, if the vote was credible, permanent special status and reintegration into Ukraine.
Zelensky’s take on the formula required Ukrainian control in those territories before the vote. He nonetheless faced immediate domestic backlash from an unlikely coalition of military veterans’ organizations, far-right groups, and public intellectuals. In contrast, Moscow and separatist leaders welcomed Zelensky’s acceptance of the formula, despite his conditions.
In December, Zelensky and Putin met in Paris with Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The leaders failed to agree on Minsk sequencing but left with plans for a more comprehensive cease-fire, further disengagement at front-line positions, increased Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe monitoring, and new crossing points for civilians at the line of contact separating Ukrainian and separatist forces.
Zelensky’s detractors at home appear satisfied he did not sell out in Paris. This gives him more room for maneuver.
If things go as planned, the next meeting in France, set for spring, should tackle other components of the Minsk agreement, including amnesties, further troop withdrawals, and a path to reintegrating separatist-held areas into Ukraine.
Much could go wrong. Cease-fire and disengagement plans might collapse and fighting could escalate. Even if they hold, Zelensky needs Moscow to compromise for peace to stand a chance. So far, however, although Moscow has been more amenable to deals with Zelensky than with his predecessor, its core positions remain unchanged: It denies being party to the conflict it initiated, fought in, and funded. It insists Kyiv should negotiate the Donbass region’s self-rule with separatist leaders.
Peace would offer clear dividends for Ukraine and carry benefits for Russia: It could bring sanctions relief and remove the burden of financial and military support to separatist-held areas. From his Western allies, Zelensky needs all the help he can get as he continues his charm offensive in eastern Ukraine and outreach to Moscow.
Robert Malley is president and CEO of the International Crisis Group. He served as a special assistant for the Middle East under President Barack Obama.
© 2019, The Slate Group
Posted for fair use.....
www.military.com
American, Iraqi Wounded in Rocket Attack on Base in Kirkuk
27 Dec 2019
Stars and Stripes | By Chad Garland
IRBIL, Iraq -- A U.S. contractor and an Iraqi federal police officer were wounded in a rocket attack that struck a munitions storage facility on a coalition base in northern Iraq Friday evening, a security official said.
The Iraqi government confirmed the attack had taken place in a statement posted to Facebook.
"A number of missiles" fell inside the Kirkuk base, the Iraq Security Information Cell statement said. "We will provide details later."
Initially, an estimated 10 rockets were thought to have hit the K1 base in Kirkuk, but that number was determined to likely be incorrect, said the official who was not authorized to speak officially on the matter and declined to be named. Several of the blasts appeared to have come from the stored munitions.
The rockets struck as a major Iraqi mission was preparing to get underway, the official said.
Barzan Sadiq, a journalist for the local outlet Kurdistan24, tweeted shortly before 8 p.m. that two mortars had struck base.
The U.S.-led coalition did not immediately respond to an inquiry on the matter.
U.S. troops have curtailed some operations in Iraq in recent months over concerns of a heightened threat of attack from Iranian proxy groups who operate in the country.
In early November, a coalition base in Iraq's northern Nineveh province was hit with a barrage of more than 30 rockets fired from a truck about two-thirds of a mile from a base used by a Shiite militia group, officials at Qayara Airfield West told Stars and Stripes this week.
In that incident, the U.S. located the source of the attack and fired on it with Howitzers, officials said.
It is unclear if coalition forces responded to the attack Friday night.
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American, Iraqi Wounded in Rocket Attack on Base in Kirkuk
27 Dec 2019
Stars and Stripes | By Chad Garland
IRBIL, Iraq -- A U.S. contractor and an Iraqi federal police officer were wounded in a rocket attack that struck a munitions storage facility on a coalition base in northern Iraq Friday evening, a security official said.
The Iraqi government confirmed the attack had taken place in a statement posted to Facebook.
"A number of missiles" fell inside the Kirkuk base, the Iraq Security Information Cell statement said. "We will provide details later."
Initially, an estimated 10 rockets were thought to have hit the K1 base in Kirkuk, but that number was determined to likely be incorrect, said the official who was not authorized to speak officially on the matter and declined to be named. Several of the blasts appeared to have come from the stored munitions.
The rockets struck as a major Iraqi mission was preparing to get underway, the official said.
Barzan Sadiq, a journalist for the local outlet Kurdistan24, tweeted shortly before 8 p.m. that two mortars had struck base.
The U.S.-led coalition did not immediately respond to an inquiry on the matter.
U.S. troops have curtailed some operations in Iraq in recent months over concerns of a heightened threat of attack from Iranian proxy groups who operate in the country.
In early November, a coalition base in Iraq's northern Nineveh province was hit with a barrage of more than 30 rockets fired from a truck about two-thirds of a mile from a base used by a Shiite militia group, officials at Qayara Airfield West told Stars and Stripes this week.
In that incident, the U.S. located the source of the attack and fired on it with Howitzers, officials said.
It is unclear if coalition forces responded to the attack Friday night.
Posted for fair use.....
www.washingtontimes.com
China's test of sub-launched missile a threat to peace, retired captain warns
Underwater JL-3 launch comes amid fears of North Korean missile test
By Bill Gertz - The Washington Times - Tuesday, December 24, 2019
China’s military this week conducted a flight test of a new submarine-launched missile capable of hitting the entire United States with a nuclear warhead, according to Pentagon officials.
The Chinese test comes amid heightened concerns North Korea is preparing its own long-range missile launch, possibly as early as Wednesday.
The test firing of China’s new JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile took place Sunday in the Bohai Sea off the coast of northern China, from a submerged Jin-class ballistic missile submarine, said two defense officials familiar with reports of the launch who spoke on condition of anonymity.
SEE ALSO: Iran to hold joint, four-day navy drill with Russia, China
The missile firing was monitored by U.S. intelligence satellites and other platforms from a position in the same sea and was monitored on a flight path westward.
No other details of the launch were disclosed, including whether the missile test was successful.
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. David W. Eastburn said he had no information on the launch.
The Chinese launch followed reports that U.S. intelligence agencies are on alert for an anticipated long-range missile test by North Korea.
North Korea’s government has announced it was planning to conduct some type of provocative action coinciding with the Christmas or New Year’s holiday.
A U.S. official said the Trump administration is prepared to take harsh action against North Korea if Pyongyang ends its moratorium on long-range missile tests. The official did not elaborate.
That U.S. message, however, was conveyed last week to North Korea’s main Asian patron — China — during talks in Beijing between U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Stephen E. Biegun and Chinese officials.
The JL-3 is part of a major building of Chinese strategic nuclear forces that includes the new submarine missile, new land-based missiles, including the multi-warhead DF-41, and development of a new strategic bomber and upgrading of older nuclear-capable aircraft.
Sunday’s test was is at least the fourth launch of the JL-3 in the past two years, an indication China — referred to formally as the People’s Republic of China or PRC — is rapidly developing the weapon.
The first JL-3 test launch took place in December 2018 and successive tests were carried out in June and October.
Like Sunday’s test, the October JL-3 firing took place from the Bohai Sea and flew westward to an impact zone in the Gobi desert.
The test launch from a Jin-class submarine indicates the new JL-3 may be retrofitted into China’s six deployed Jin-class submarines.
The JL-3 is a new missile system with an estimated range of 5,600 miles. By contrast, the currently deployed JL-2 has a range of 4,350 miles.
Retired Navy Capt. James E. Fanell said the flight test just before Christmas, if confirmed, “is not only a demonstration of the advances the PLA Navy has made in SLBM technology, but is a statement to the USA, and world, of Beijing’s strategic intention to hold the USA at risk from PRC nuclear blackmail.”
“Operationally speaking, this launch is not a surprise and demonstrates the perfidy of the PRC’s Oct. 1 national day parade of the JL-2 missile as representing the ‘maximum’ extent of PLA Navy missile technology,” Capt. Fanell said. “The reality is the PRC represents the same existential threat to global peace and security that the USSR presented to the world 30 years ago.”
China’s state-run media has made no secret of its plans to use submarine-launched missile attacks on the U.S.
The jingoistic Communist Party of China newspaper Global Times in 2013 published a report outlining plans for submarine-launched nuclear missile strikes on the Western U.S. that the newspaper estimated would kill up to 12 million Americans through a combination of blast and radiation.
The report, using maps showing potential blast zones, stated that JL-2 nuclear missiles would target areas in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles that would spread radiation as far east as Chicago.
“In general, after a nuclear missile strikes a city, the radioactive dust produced by 20 warheads will be spread by the wind, forming a contaminated area for thousands of kilometers,” the Global Times report said at the time. “Based on the actual level of China’s one million tons TNT equivalent small nuclear warhead technology, the 12 JL-2 nuclear missiles carried by one Type 094 nuclear submarine could cause the destruction of 5 million to 12 million people, forming a very clear deterrent effect.”
China is known to use its missile tests to send political signals.
Adm. Philip S. Davidson, commander of the Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific Command, revealed during remarks earlier this year at the Aspen Security Forum that China had conducted a flight test of a new nuclear ballistic missile within 24 hours of a June 2 speech that Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe had given during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
Without mentioning the JL-3, Adm. Davidson was referring to the June test by China of the new submarine-launched missile.
The four-star admiral also described Gen. Wei’s speech in Singapore as “chilling” for the general’s assertion that China is seeking to dominate Asia and the Western Pacific.
The latest JL-3 launch took place four days after China’s most powerful military leader, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission Gen. Xu Qiliang, met in Beijing with visiting Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono.
Japan is a major rival of China and has been a target of threatening rhetoric by Chinese military leaders in the past.
The Pentagon said in its latest annual report on the Chinese military that the JL-3 was expected to be deployed aboard the next generation missile submarine, known as the Type 096, to be built beginning in the early 2020s.
Current Jin-class submarines are armed with the JL-2 missiles, a less capable variant of China’s land-based DF-31 intercontinental-range ballistic missile.
The operational status of the JL-3 has not been disclosed by the secretive Chinese military. However, the JL-2 was showcased in October as one of the major strategic weapons systems on parade in Beijing.
“Equipped with the [JL-2] submarine-launched ballistic missile, China’s four operational JIN-class [ballistic missile submarines] represent China’s first credible, sea-based nuclear deterrent,” the Pentagon’s annual report on China said. “China’s next-generation Type 096 SSBN reportedly will be armed with the follow-on JL-3 SLBM, which will likely begin construction in the early-2020s.”
The Jin-class submarine is considered to be relatively “noisy” in underwater warfare terms, meaning that it is difficult to hide from American attack submarines.
The new JL-3 will have great range giving it the capability of striking targets as far away as Florida and the and follow on Type 096 is expected to be quieter and more difficult to track.
A Chinese Embassy spokesman did not return an email seeking comment.
Following the June flight test of the JL-3, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Sr. Col. Ren Guoqiang said that “it is normal for China to conduct scientific research and tests according to plan.”
“These tests are not targeted against any country or specific entity,” Col. Ren said. “China follows a defense policy which is defensive in nature and an active defense military strategy, and our development of weapons and equipment is to meet the basic demand of protecting China’s national security.”
China tests submarine-launched JL-3 missile capable of hitting U.S with nuke
China’s military this week conducted a flight test of a new submarine-launched missile capable of hitting the entire United States with a nuclear warhead, according to Pentagon officials.
www.washingtontimes.com
China's test of sub-launched missile a threat to peace, retired captain warns
Underwater JL-3 launch comes amid fears of North Korean missile test
By Bill Gertz - The Washington Times - Tuesday, December 24, 2019
China’s military this week conducted a flight test of a new submarine-launched missile capable of hitting the entire United States with a nuclear warhead, according to Pentagon officials.
The Chinese test comes amid heightened concerns North Korea is preparing its own long-range missile launch, possibly as early as Wednesday.
The test firing of China’s new JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile took place Sunday in the Bohai Sea off the coast of northern China, from a submerged Jin-class ballistic missile submarine, said two defense officials familiar with reports of the launch who spoke on condition of anonymity.
SEE ALSO: Iran to hold joint, four-day navy drill with Russia, China
The missile firing was monitored by U.S. intelligence satellites and other platforms from a position in the same sea and was monitored on a flight path westward.
No other details of the launch were disclosed, including whether the missile test was successful.
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. David W. Eastburn said he had no information on the launch.
The Chinese launch followed reports that U.S. intelligence agencies are on alert for an anticipated long-range missile test by North Korea.
North Korea’s government has announced it was planning to conduct some type of provocative action coinciding with the Christmas or New Year’s holiday.
A U.S. official said the Trump administration is prepared to take harsh action against North Korea if Pyongyang ends its moratorium on long-range missile tests. The official did not elaborate.
That U.S. message, however, was conveyed last week to North Korea’s main Asian patron — China — during talks in Beijing between U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Stephen E. Biegun and Chinese officials.
The JL-3 is part of a major building of Chinese strategic nuclear forces that includes the new submarine missile, new land-based missiles, including the multi-warhead DF-41, and development of a new strategic bomber and upgrading of older nuclear-capable aircraft.
Sunday’s test was is at least the fourth launch of the JL-3 in the past two years, an indication China — referred to formally as the People’s Republic of China or PRC — is rapidly developing the weapon.
The first JL-3 test launch took place in December 2018 and successive tests were carried out in June and October.
Like Sunday’s test, the October JL-3 firing took place from the Bohai Sea and flew westward to an impact zone in the Gobi desert.
The test launch from a Jin-class submarine indicates the new JL-3 may be retrofitted into China’s six deployed Jin-class submarines.
The JL-3 is a new missile system with an estimated range of 5,600 miles. By contrast, the currently deployed JL-2 has a range of 4,350 miles.
Retired Navy Capt. James E. Fanell said the flight test just before Christmas, if confirmed, “is not only a demonstration of the advances the PLA Navy has made in SLBM technology, but is a statement to the USA, and world, of Beijing’s strategic intention to hold the USA at risk from PRC nuclear blackmail.”
“Operationally speaking, this launch is not a surprise and demonstrates the perfidy of the PRC’s Oct. 1 national day parade of the JL-2 missile as representing the ‘maximum’ extent of PLA Navy missile technology,” Capt. Fanell said. “The reality is the PRC represents the same existential threat to global peace and security that the USSR presented to the world 30 years ago.”
China’s state-run media has made no secret of its plans to use submarine-launched missile attacks on the U.S.
The jingoistic Communist Party of China newspaper Global Times in 2013 published a report outlining plans for submarine-launched nuclear missile strikes on the Western U.S. that the newspaper estimated would kill up to 12 million Americans through a combination of blast and radiation.
The report, using maps showing potential blast zones, stated that JL-2 nuclear missiles would target areas in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles that would spread radiation as far east as Chicago.
“In general, after a nuclear missile strikes a city, the radioactive dust produced by 20 warheads will be spread by the wind, forming a contaminated area for thousands of kilometers,” the Global Times report said at the time. “Based on the actual level of China’s one million tons TNT equivalent small nuclear warhead technology, the 12 JL-2 nuclear missiles carried by one Type 094 nuclear submarine could cause the destruction of 5 million to 12 million people, forming a very clear deterrent effect.”
China is known to use its missile tests to send political signals.
Adm. Philip S. Davidson, commander of the Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific Command, revealed during remarks earlier this year at the Aspen Security Forum that China had conducted a flight test of a new nuclear ballistic missile within 24 hours of a June 2 speech that Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe had given during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
Without mentioning the JL-3, Adm. Davidson was referring to the June test by China of the new submarine-launched missile.
The four-star admiral also described Gen. Wei’s speech in Singapore as “chilling” for the general’s assertion that China is seeking to dominate Asia and the Western Pacific.
The latest JL-3 launch took place four days after China’s most powerful military leader, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission Gen. Xu Qiliang, met in Beijing with visiting Japanese Defense Minister Taro Kono.
Japan is a major rival of China and has been a target of threatening rhetoric by Chinese military leaders in the past.
The Pentagon said in its latest annual report on the Chinese military that the JL-3 was expected to be deployed aboard the next generation missile submarine, known as the Type 096, to be built beginning in the early 2020s.
Current Jin-class submarines are armed with the JL-2 missiles, a less capable variant of China’s land-based DF-31 intercontinental-range ballistic missile.
The operational status of the JL-3 has not been disclosed by the secretive Chinese military. However, the JL-2 was showcased in October as one of the major strategic weapons systems on parade in Beijing.
“Equipped with the [JL-2] submarine-launched ballistic missile, China’s four operational JIN-class [ballistic missile submarines] represent China’s first credible, sea-based nuclear deterrent,” the Pentagon’s annual report on China said. “China’s next-generation Type 096 SSBN reportedly will be armed with the follow-on JL-3 SLBM, which will likely begin construction in the early-2020s.”
The Jin-class submarine is considered to be relatively “noisy” in underwater warfare terms, meaning that it is difficult to hide from American attack submarines.
The new JL-3 will have great range giving it the capability of striking targets as far away as Florida and the and follow on Type 096 is expected to be quieter and more difficult to track.
A Chinese Embassy spokesman did not return an email seeking comment.
Following the June flight test of the JL-3, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Sr. Col. Ren Guoqiang said that “it is normal for China to conduct scientific research and tests according to plan.”
“These tests are not targeted against any country or specific entity,” Col. Ren said. “China follows a defense policy which is defensive in nature and an active defense military strategy, and our development of weapons and equipment is to meet the basic demand of protecting China’s national security.”
jward
passin' thru
Aleph ️ א (@no_itsmyturn) Tweeted: Second day of the Iranian, Chinese and Russian joint naval drills (Increased the speed by x1.25) #Iran #China #Russia Aleph ️ א on Twitter View: https://twitter.com/no_itsmyturn/status/1210893242272755712?s=20
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