WAR 10-17-2020-to-10-23-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(439) 09-26-2020-to-10-02-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****



WAR - 09-26-2020-to-10-02-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
(436) 09-05-2020-to-09-11-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** WAR - 09-05-2020-to-09-11-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** (433)...

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(440) 10-03-2020-to-10-09-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****



WAR - 10-03-2020-to-10-09-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
WAR - 09-12-2020-to-09-18-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** (434) 08-22-2020-to-08-28-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** WAR - 08-22-2020-to-08-28-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** (435)...

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(441)10-10-2020-to-10-16-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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(438) 09-19-2020-to-09-25-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** WAR - 09-19-2020-to-09-25-2020___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR**** Sorry for the delay...

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Russian President Vladimir Putin proposes one-year extension of nuclear arms treaty - UPI.com

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday proposed a one-year extension of the New START nuclear arms agreement with the United States, which is set to expire in February.

www.upi.com

Defense News

Oct. 16, 2020 / 1:04 PM

Putin proposes one-year extension of nuclear arms treaty



By Ed Adamczyk


Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday proposed a one-year extension of the New START nuclear arms agreement with the United States, which is set to expire in February.

"It would be extremely sad if this treaty ceased to exist and was not replaced by another fundamental document of this kind," Putin told members of Russia's Security Council in a Friday videoconference.

"During all the previous years, the New START [the current treaty, initiated in 2010] worked and worked properly, performing its fundamental role as a constraint curtailing the arms race and a tool of arms control," Putin said. "In this regard, I have a proposal, namely, to extend the Treaty now in effect unconditionally for at least a year in order to have a chance to hold substantive talks on all the parameters of problems that are regulated by treaties of this kind."

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START, is the only remaining nuclear arms treaty left between the United States and Russia.
RELATED China enters arms trade treaty after selling drones to Serbia


The United States withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty, meant to reduce the chances of an accidental nuclear war, earlier this year.

Negotiations regarding the treaty have been ongoing, but intensified last week. Chief U.S. arms negotiator Marshall Billingslea met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in Helsinki on Oct. 6, after discussions in Vienna in August.

The United States has not received Russian support in broadening the 2010 terms of the treaty.
RELATED Russia says using new U.S. warheads would provoke nuclear retaliation


Earlier this month, a senior U.S. official said the outlines of a deal had been reached, but Russian officials quickly said there was no agreement. Russia had earlier called for a five-year extension.

In the videoconference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov referred to numerous U.S. proposals as "conditions, or rather preconditions" which are "outside our frame of reference."

RELATED Russia ready to talk hypersonic weapons with U.S., foreign minister says

 

[Housecarl]

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The First Space Force Recruits Are Headed to Basic Military Training

Seven new recruits will head to basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.

www.military.com

The First Space Force Recruits Are Headed to Basic Military Training

16 Oct 2020

Military.com | By Hope Hodge Seck

U.S. Space Force may not yet have its own boot camp, but the service's very first direct enlistees are about to head to entry-level training nonetheless.

Chief Master Sgt. Roger Towberman, senior enlisted leader of the Space Force, said seven new recruits will head to basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, where they'll train alongside Air Force recruits -- albeit with a few distinctions.


Read Next: Navy's Top Officer Wants a New Mid-Size Destroyer That Packs a Major Punch

"They needed to know they were different; that's important to us," Towberman told Military.com in an interview Thursday.

In addition to their Occupational Camouflage Pattern uniforms with service-specific blue-stitched name tapes, the recruits will each have tablets loaded with information about the fledgling service they're joining, he said.

"We've preloaded those tablets with some learning materials and different things that they can get a head start on -- 'Hey, what is this Space Force thing all about?'" he said.
And while the majority of the 8.5 weeks of Basic Military Training will be spent training together with Air Force recruits, a little over 20 hours will be specialized instruction and mentoring from Space Force personnel, Towberman said.

"There's several hours where we will cull them from the herd, if you will, and bring them somewhere else and give them a very different experience," he said, emphasizing that the training approach and specialized content offered will evolve based on feedback from students.

"They'll graduate, I think, the first week of December, so I hope to be there ... and thank them as they graduate, and give them a Space Force coin instead of the airman's coin that we hand all the airmen," Towberman said. "And they'll get their own salute at the end."

Following that, newly minted Space Force operators will move on to technical training in line with their job requirements.

Since Space Force was formally activated on Dec. 20, 2019, the service has welcomed dozens of new Air Force Academy graduates to its ranks. Beginning in September, it began the process of adding in thousands more troops transferring from other services.
Towberman said he was glad to no longer be the only enlisted member of Space Force.

"It's great to see the big smiles, the energy, the cool blue name tapes, the Space Force patches; it's really exciting to get this physical feedback of what we knew was going on," he said. "To see them walking around the Pentagon, to see them when we get out and visit folks -- it's just really, really neat to finally be sort of growing our ranks and have a couple thousand people join us."

A new list of transfers to the service is expected to be released within days, he added.

In the long term, he said, Space Force basic training will likely look "quite a bit different" than it does today, and may take place at a separate installation. But recruiting and other service needs will play a role in determining those moves, he said.

"We don't want to attack something that's just good for basic military training," he said. "We will always want to attack things that are good for the whole ecosystem."

Hear the rest of Towberman's interview at Military.com's Left of Boom podcast beginning Oct. 17.
-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.

 

[Housecarl]

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Army’s V Corps, with a long history in Europe, is back in action

The Army’s storied V Corps officially reactivated Friday during a ceremony at Fort Knox, Ky., and a small portion of the unit is already on the ground in Poland to take up a new mission.

www.stripes.com

Army’s V Corps, with a long history in Europe, is back in action

• 

A Bradley Fighting Vehicle is set up in front of the V Corps headquarters at Fort Knox, Ky., Oct. 14, 2020. V Corps officially activated Oct. 16, but it is still not clear when it will send troops to its forward headquarters in Poznan, Poland.

FACEBOOK/V CORPS





By JOHN VANDIVER | STARS AND STRIPES Published: October 16, 2020


STUTTGART, Germany — The Army’s storied V Corps officially reactivated Friday during a ceremony at Fort Knox, Ky., and a small portion of the unit is already on the ground in Poland to take up a new mission.

“We currently have a handful of V Corps troops stationed in Poland and will continue to build capacity throughout the year,” U.S. Army Europe said in a statement.

Full rotations to Poland will begin in the 2022 fiscal year, USAREUR said.

The military announced in February that it was reforming V Corps to bring more command and control support to an expanding Army mission in Europe. In September, the Army selected Poznan, Poland as the site for a command post.

• 

Lt. Gen. John Kolasheski, V Corps commanding general, speaks at the unit's activation ceremony Oct. 16, 2020, at Fort Knox, Ky.
FACEBOOK/SCREENSHOT

The U.S. and Poland are still working through red tape before fully launching the mission in Poznan, Defense Secretary Mark Esper indicated Thursday. “We also plan to rotate forward the lead element of the Army’s new V Corps into Poland once the appropriate agreements are finalized,” he said during a speech at the annual meeting of the Association of the U.S. Army in Washington.

The reactivation of V Corps will bring the Army much-needed manpower to manage operational planning and mission command, and oversee various rotational forces maneuvering around in Europe. Its main headquarters will remain at Fort Knox under the command of Lt. Gen. John. S. Kolasheski, but 200 out of the unit’s 635 soldiers will be on rotation in Poznan at any given time.

V Corps has a long history in Europe, dating to 1918 when it was activated during World War I. It activated again for World War II and was a fixture in Germany during the Cold War. It also supported the Army during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan but was deactivated in 2013 as part of the Army’s post-Cold War drawdown in Europe.


article continues below






Its return represents one of several major changes in how the Army is organizing itself in Europe. Earlier this month, it elevated a new consolidated U.S. Army Europe and Africa headquarters into a four-star command, giving the service added clout.
At the same time, however, the Pentagon has announced plans to reduce the number of troops on the Continent in response to a White House directive that called for force levels in Germany to be slashed by 12,000. If those cuts go through, the Army would take the brunt of the reduction with the Vilseck, Germany-based 2nd Cavalry Regiment and its 4,500 soldiers slated to return to the U.S. at some point.
vandiver.john@stripes.com
Twitter: @john_vandiver

 

[Housecarl]

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Jihadist attacks increase in Burkina Faso’s Sahel region

At least 20 people were killed, injured or remain missing after attacks by extremist rebels

africa.cgtn.com

Jihadist attacks increase in Burkina Faso’s Sahel region

By AP
-
14 hours ago
At least 20 people were killed, injured or remain missing after attacks by extremist rebels on three villages in Burkina Faso’s Sahel region, the government announced.

The attacks occurred in Bombofa, Peteguerse, and Demniol towns, in Seno province and the army, is searching the area, government spokesman Remis Fulgance Dandjinou said.

The victims were internally displaced people attacked on the road while trying to return to their villages, the Emir of Liptako Dicko Ousmane Amirou whose home is near the attacks, told The Associated Press on Friday. One of the victims was the son of a chief, he said

“It’s concerning for everyone,” said Amirou. “The government no longer has a monopoly on security … It is only once security and justice are guaranteed that displaced people can be asked to return to their villages,” he said.

Burkina Faso’s army is struggling to stem jihadist violence that has spread across the country, killing almost 2,000 people so far this year and causing more than 1 million to flee their homes. This week’s attacks come after one last week in the Center-North region where extremist rebels killed 25 displaced people also trying to return home to collect their belongings, according to three survivors of the attacks.

The extremist violence has created a humanitarian crisis and civilians living in makeshift displacement sites in insecure areas say they are living in fear.

“I’m afraid of terrorists, I hear that they’re all around us,” Mariam Sawadogo told the AP during a visit to Boulounga village this week in the Center-North region where some 4,000 people have been displaced. The remote village is one of two towns where people have fled for safety in the hard-hit area.

As violence against communities increases, Burkina Faso experts warn that more empty villages could “potentially turn into new bases or harbors for jihadists, while the state keeps losing ground,” said Flore Berger, a Sahel analyst.

Related

• Burkina Faso authorities arrest 8 after jihadist attacks
• US Officials warn of potential for further attacks in Sahel region
• UN chief condemns Burkina Faso attacks

 

[jward]

12 killed, dozens wounded by car bomb targeting Afghan police

The attack took place in Feroz Koh, the capital of Ghor, a province that has not seen much violence compared to some other regions of the conflict-wracked country
AFP, Sunday 18 Oct 2020

Security personnel and residents gather around the site of a car bomb attack that targeted an Afghan police headquarters in Feroz Kho, the capital of Ghor Province on October 18, 2020. - A car bomb on October 18 targeting an Afghan police headquarters in the western province of Ghor killed at least 12 civilians and wounded more than 100, officials said. AFP

A car bomb Sunday targeting an Afghan police headquarters in the western province of Ghor killed at least 12 civilians and wounded more than 100, officials said.
The attack took place in Feroz Koh, the capital of Ghor, a province that has not seen much violence compared to some other regions of the conflict-wracked country.
The ministry of interior said the car bomb detonated in front of Ghor police headquarters at about 11:00 am.
"The terrorists detonated an explosives-filled car... as a result 12 civilians were killed and more than 100 people were wounded," the interior ministry said.

Juma Gul Yakoobi, a Ghor health official, told AFP victims also included members of security forces.
No group has claimed responsibility, but fighting between the Taliban and government has surged in recent weeks.
"The explosion was very powerful," said Aref Abir, spokesman to Ghor governor.
"There are fatalities and casualties, and people are taking them to hospitals."
He said the blast damaged nearby buildings handling affairs for women and the disabled.
Peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan government began in Qatar last month, but violence has continued unabated on the ground.
The talks appear to be stalled as the Taliban and the Kabul administration have struggled to establish a basic framework for negotiations.

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12 killed, dozens wounded by car bomb targeting Afghan police - International - World

The attack took place in Feroz Koh, the capital of Ghor, a province that has not seen much violence compared to some other regions of the conflict-wracked country

english.ahram.org.eg

 

[jward]

Establishment Disinformation Is Killing Western Democracy

Establishment disinformation and censorship are causing more offline harm than any other force.

By Jeff Giesea

October 17, 2020

A few years ago I participated in a national security work group on disinformation. I was the only one in the group of about 20 people who had openly supported Trump in 2016. The other attendees were smart and professional, but there was a noticeable imbalance in partisan representation.
Since then, I’ve followed the disinformation community and have studied these issues. I take them seriously. My conclusion? Establishment disinformation, more than any other form of disinformation, is killing Western democracy. Establishment disinformation has caused more real-world harm to Western democracy than any other force in the last two decades.

Consider the fallout from the sweeping information operations promoting lies about weapons of mass destruction. Remember how difficult it was to question these claims at the time? The WMD narrative created the pretext for wars that cost $6.4 trillion and 801,000 lives, according to a Brown University study. And we continue to pay the price. The suicide rate among veterans remains double that of the nation as a whole, and we’re still not out of Afghanistan after nearly 20 years.
Consider also the impact of the fake Russian collusion narrative—the lives ruined, loss of public trust, increased polarization, and damage to the peaceful transfer of presidential power, a cornerstone of healthy democracy.
It is now a proven fact that Hillary Clinton and her Democratic National Committee stooges initiated a coordinated, multimillion-dollar disinformation campaign to undermine Donald Trump and detract from her email scandal. Establishment media breathlessly amplified false, paranoid, and circular narratives, many of which were greased by actual Russian disinformation laundered through the Steele dossier. Where are the calls from establishment media to identify journalists paid by Fusion GPS?

The FBI knew the Steele dossier and collusion narrative were false, just as they knew Hillary Clinton had weaponized these issues to cover up her email scandal—and they still used it as a predicate to spy on Trump’s campaign and launch the Mueller investigation, falsifying documents along the way. The FBI’s actions represent the greatest abuse of law enforcement power in half a century, and they were largely fueled by establishment disinformation.
Now consider the destruction and real-world harm caused by narratives about police racism following the death in May of George Floyd. Many of these narratives were based on falsehoods, anecdotes, and incidents where full information was suppressed to advance Black Lives Matter and Antifa mobilization efforts. The vandalism and looting that took place caused $1 billion to $2 billion in damages. Homicides are up 24 percent from last year in America’s 50 largest cities.

Of course, the looting and riots took place against the backdrop of the pseudo-academic “1619 Project,” an establishment journalism disinformation effort that subverts the history of America’s founding in a way Russia Today or People’s Daily could only dream of doing. It would be tempting to dismiss the “1619 Project” as a fringe polemic by radical journalists, except it was sponsored by the New York Times, won the Pulitzer Prize, and now shapes public school curricula. That’s as established-endorsed as one can get. But the project is so factually flawed that there is now a movement to revoke its Pulitzer by the National Association of Scholars.

Then there’s the most destructive event of 2020: the pandemic. Establishment disinformation around COVID-19 is hard to pinpoint, but anyone paying attention can see the wreckage of attempts to advance certain narratives and suppress others. Remember when the U.S. Surgeon General said masks weren’t effective and then flip-flopped? Or how anyone questioning lockdowns was persecuted? Or how Facebook and Twitter banned posts downplaying COVID’s deadliness? Now even the World Health Organization has moderated its position on lockdowns, which have caused unprecedented job losses, business closures, and economic damage.
Establishment disinformation comes from both sides of the political aisle, but the “woke” radicalization of the Left combined with Trump derangement and a left-leaning media have given it a far-Left flavor. Thus, fake attacks against Jussie Smollett and Althea Bernstein go unquestioned by the same media that slanders the Covington kids and Brett Kavanaugh. Leaks targeting Trump are not scrutinized or censored in the same way they are when targeting Biden or his son Hunter. Dictionary definitions are conveniently changed to enforce establishment narratives.

It may be a cliché, but Orwell didn’t write 1984 as a playbook. Yet here we are. As a friend quipped recently: “I thought we were becoming more like Brazil. Instead we’re looking more like East Germany.”
Establishment disinformation becomes tyrannical when false establishment narratives are combined with the active suppression of authentic dissenting discourse, which has been made highly efficient by the consolidation of discourse on social media platforms. Instead of state persecution and social credit scores, citizens of Western democracies face deplatforming, job losses, and character assassination by power-crazed, petty hall-monitor journalists and Soros-funded NGO researchers. Today’s Hester Prynne is the person who says all lives matter or gender is real. Woke narratives are our Xi Jinping Thought.

There are constructive ways we could address establishment disinformation, but you are unlikely to hear the disinformation community talk about it as an issue. That’s because much of the disinformation community consists of partisans who operate as arms of the DNC and left-wing foundations. While the Right has stupidly ignored these issues, the Left has weaponized “countering disinformation” as a DNC strategy backed by millions of dollars. The term has become so abused that a friend now jokes that “disinfo researcher” in someone’s Twitter bio is code for “DNC hack.” As you can imagine, the partisan weaponization of disinformation has done untold damage to the civic unity needed to address these issues in good faith.
There’s still a segment of disinformation researchers who are earnest, fair, and professional. But these folks almost all lean Left and exist in institutional environments that prevent pushing back on establishment narratives. This is why we haven’t seen reports on the Steele dossier or WMDs as disinformation case studies. And this is why we never hear BLM discussed in the same way QAnon is, even though any neutral definition would label them both conspiracy movements—with BLM causing dramatically more offline harm. Meanwhile, challenging the First Amendment has become part of the zeitgeist for many of these people, an argument Emily Bazelon articulates in a recent New York Times Magazine essay.

My focus on establishment disinformation is not meant to underplay disinformation from foreign adversaries and bad actors. Those remain important issues. But there’s something particularly insidious about coordinated false narratives from authority figures and institutions in our own democracies. It’s even more insidious when the legitimate threat of foreign disinformation is instrumentalized to advance establishment narratives, as we saw in Russiagate and as we’re seeing again with the Hunter Biden leaks.

I am not saying there are not legitimate issues to discuss. For example, how to handle hack-and-leaks and how to appropriately regulate social media platforms are valid, complex issues. But at the very least we should strive to apply neutral principles evenly and consistently. That’s not what we’ve seen.
Establishment disinformation abuses public trust. It too often goes unchecked. No one in the disinformation community talks about it. Until we confront the problem of establishment disinformation, Western democracy will suffer and the rise of a new, networked form of tyranny will condemn those who step out of line.

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Establishment Disinformation Is Killing Western Democracy › American Greatness

A few years ago I participated in a national security workgroup on disinformation. I was the only one in the group of about 20 people who had openly supported Trump in 2016. The other attendees were…

amgreatness.com

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

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ESR | October 19, 2020 | Iran’s “breakout�? ability more dangerous than before

Iran’s “breakout” ability more dangerous than before
By Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser
web posted October 19, 2020

Iran keeps seeking ways to secure the capability to produce a sufficient quantity (SQ) for two nuclear devices within a short time, in defiance of growing American economic pressure. Today, Iran needs about three months to secure 1SQ, compared to a year that the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was supposed to provide. On the other hand, the Iranians’ guaranteed and “safe” pathway to having the capability to produce a large arsenal of nuclear weapons in 10 years, as detailed in the JCPOA, has been severely disrupted.

The embargo on arms sales to and from Iran that was included in the JCPOA expires on October 18, 2020, in the view of the participants of the Iran deal. The United States disagrees, insisting that all UN sanctions on Iran were reimposed on September 20, 2020, due to its “snapback” application to the UN Security Council. At the same time, the U.S. administration also introduced unprecedentedly harsh economic sanctions on Iran, but the Ayatollah regime keeps moving forward with its nuclear program and blatantly violates all its commitments in the JCPOA, despite the growing economic hardships and other setbacks it has suffered.

Following the explosion at the advanced centrifuges production and assembly facility at the Natanz nuclear enrichment site on July 2, 2020, on September 8, 2020, Ali Akbar Salehi, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), announced that Iran had begun constructing a new facility for the same purpose in the mountains near the Natanz enrichment site. However, unlike the Natanz facility that was hit by a mysterious explosion and was built on the surface, the new facility is underground. Meanwhile, the AEOI’s spokesman reiterated that Iran had managed to unravel most of the details related to the mysterious explosion.

Following the construction of the new facility, the Iranians might try to expedite the production of the advanced centrifuges.

The IAEA’s periodic report published in September 2020 did not include any reference to the explosion at Natanz or to Iran’s intention to build a new facility for the production and assembly of advanced centrifuges.1 As a general rule, Iran is obliged to notify the Agency in advance about the establishment of nuclear facilities and allow the Agency’s inspectors access to all enrichment-related facilities at its nuclear sites. Still, by implication, it does not do so when it comes to centrifuge production (this is one of the many holes in the JCPOA).

However, news reports in August 2020 based on a restricted IAEA document2 extensively describe Iran’s activities in experimenting and developing advanced centrifuges of various types for uranium enrichment. (A summary of that report was included in the agency’s September 2, 2020, periodic report on Iran.) One news account refers to Iran’s intention to install, for the first time, advanced centrifuges that are now operating in the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) in Natanz, in the underground enrichment Hall B of Natanz. According to the report, this step was supposed to have been carried out but was postponed at the last minute. In any case, the preparations for assembling cascades of advanced centrifuges at the site are already in progress. It should be emphasized that such a development would be another significant violation of the nuclear agreement, which allows the Iranians to operate only 5,060 basic centrifuges for enriching uranium at Natanz. It is not clear if the delay is related to the damage to the facility for the centrifuge assembly.

At the pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant, Iran is enriching uranium in advanced experimental centrifuges, developing a wide variety of advanced centrifuges, and violating the timetable for R&D that is included in the JCPOA.

The Iranians are also violating their obligations by enriching uranium with 1,044 centrifuges in the deep underground Fordow facility near Qom. Defiantly, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, declared on September 13, 2020, that his organization “activated an enrichment wing in the Fordow nuclear facility.” The use of these 1,044 centrifuges at the Fordow uranium enrichment plant for enriching uranium was in line with steps to reduce its commitments [emphasis added] to the nuclear deal, according to Salehi. “We had promised not to enrich using these 1,044 centrifuges, but according to the reduction of commitments, enrichment will be done as needed, and we will also store the enriched materials.”

It should be pointed out that in the last year Iran is enriching uranium to the level of 4.5% instead of 3.67% allowed by the 2015 nuclear agreement. Iran has already accumulated an amount of uranium enriched to that level ten times greater than what it is permitted according to the agreement (about 2,100 kg instead of the 202 kg that is allowed).

It is clear that Iran is determined to continue rapidly expanding its capacity to produce nuclear weapons in a short period. The amount of enriched uranium in its possession and the current enrichment capacity already would allow it, if it wishes so, to enrich the uranium to a military level and produce fissile material for two nuclear explosive devices. Whereas a sufficient amount for the first nuclear explosive device can be produced in a little more than three months, within two months afterward, Iran would have the required quantity for the production of the second explosive device. Installing the advanced centrifuges at the enrichment site could shorten by a few weeks the time required for military-level enrichment. (Under the 2015 Iran agreement, Iran was supposed to be a year away from obtaining sufficient fissile material for one explosive device.)

All this is happening as Iran continues to develop long-range missiles that will allow it to launch nuclear weapons not only against Israel but also against targets in Europe. At the same time, Europe, China, and Russia ignore the U.S. attempts to renew international sanctions against Iran. They are determined to allow the Iranian regime to continue violating the nuclear deal.

It is, therefore, no wonder that as the U.S. Election Day approaches, tensions between Washington and Tehran increase, with implications for Israel’s security.

Three Worrisome Statements
Three recent expressions regarding Iran’s nuclear program deserve clarification and context:

First, Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), declared in an interview with the Austrian newspaper Die Presse said that Iran does not have at the moment the significant quantity of enriched uranium needed to produce a nuclear bomb. This is true and untrue at the same time. The truth is that they are about three months away from having this amount if they decide to produce it. Grossi admitted that Iran accumulates uranium enriched to a higher level than what it committed to but avoided referring to the question of the time required for having 1SQ by claiming the IAEA does not deal with breakout scenarios.

Second, Brigadier General Dror Shalom, the outgoing head of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate’s Research Division, said in an interview with Yediot Aharonot that Iran needs about two years to produce a nuclear bomb from the day they decide to do so. This may be a bit misleading as the critical part of this period is the enrichment of the low-enriched uranium to high-enriched uranium, and, as noted above, this requires about three months. Since Iran has already acquired considerable know-how to weaponize enriched uranium (as seen in the captured Iran nuclear archives) and has already made significant progress in producing delivery systems, it is hard to assess how long the other stages are going to take.

Third, Shalom and others also refer to the post-American elections possibilities and claim that there is not much difference between the two candidates as both are interested in reaching an agreement with Iran regarding its nuclear program. In fact, there is a considerable difference between the two. Republican Trump seeks a deal based on Iran’s readiness to accept his demands to give up the nuclear project and its regional hegemony aspirations, whereas Democrat Biden looks for a formula that will bring Iran back to a slightly improved version of the JCPOA and enable it to keep promoting its regional policy.

By now, the entire context in which the struggle over the future of the Iran nuclear program is conducted has changed. The JCPOA has put the focus on the questions of whether Iran is going to have a big arsenal of nuclear weapons by 2030 or not and whether the parties to the JCPOA are comfortable in the way the acquisition of this arsenal is going to be. After the withdrawal of the United States from the deal, the question became again, as it was until 2015, whether Iran will have enough fissile material for one or two nuclear devices, and how is it going to overcome the threshold that separates it from reaching this goal under economic pressure and military threats. This has been the case since President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA. Iran and everybody else, including Israel, are waiting anxiously to see what the U.S. elections portend.

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser is Director of the Project on Regional Middle East Developments at the Jerusalem Center. He was formerly Director General of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and head of the Research Division of IDF Military Intelligence.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

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Dissident group presents evidence of possible new Iran nuclear site

Iran has developed a new nuclear bomb-making facility, potentially adding a heightened level of fuel to skyrocketing tensions between the U.S. and Iran, according to an exiled dissident group which has exposed parts of Tehran’s covert nuclear infrastructure in the past.

www.washingtontimes.com

Dissident group presents evidence of possible new Iran nuclear site

By Lauren Toms - The Washington Times - Sunday, October 18, 2020

Iran has developed a new nuclear bomb-making facility, potentially adding a heightened level of fuel to skyrocketing tensions between the U.S. and Iran, according to an exiled dissident group which has exposed parts of Tehran’s covert nuclear infrastructure in the past.

Citing what it said were sources within the Iranian government, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a French- and Albanian-based group that advocates for the overthrow of Iran’s government, said Friday it had uncovered details of a previously unknown weapons development facility in the northeast region of Sorkheh-Hesar.

“New information received from sources within the Iranian regime reveals that a new center has been built to continue its work for the weaponization of the Iranian regime’s nuclear program,” said Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the NCRI-U.S. Representative Office.

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The claims could not be verified independently, but Iran’s Islamic regime has taken measured steps to exceed limits imposed in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal after President Trump renounced the deal in 2018 and moved to reinstate economic sanctions on Iran and its trading partners.

The exile group, which was once on the U.S. list of official terrorist groups but now has supporters high in the U.S. government, says it has sources inside the Iranian nuclear bureaucracy that supply information Western intelligence sources cannot get. Most notably, the NCRI revealed in August 2002 the existence of two major covert sites at Natanz and Arak that exposed for the first time the extend of Tehran’s effort to develop a nuclear capability.

Mr. Jafarzadeh said that the exact location of the new site is on Damavand Highway, east of Tehran, just over a mile into the exit road to Sorkheh-Hesar where a military-style checkpoint stands before the facility.

Mr. Jafarzadeh told The Washington Times that his groups believes the newest facility is fully operational and is controlled by Iran’s shadowy Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, also known by its Farsi acronym SPND. The U.S. last year imposed sanctions on 14 people and 17 entities connected to the research agency.

According to the dissident group, the site also conducts work related to underground nuclear testing, focused on “preliminary explosions to build nuclear weapons and record results by seismometers.”

It also claimed that Iran “engaged in the secret and illicit purchase of military-grade sensitive seismometers from Russia.”


The weapons center will likely open the door to Iran’s Ministry of Defense obtaining some of the last capabilities needed to build a nuclear weapon, the organization said. U.S. and regional officials have expressed concern that Iran’s recent nuclear moves bring it closer to the breakout point where it could develop and deploy a nuclear bomb.

Satellite imagery, obtained by NCRI and displayed Friday, appears to show that the facility was built near other weapons-development centers including Khojir. Khojir, the largest complex manufacturing ballistic missiles for two missile development companies and the command headquarters of Iran’s military aerospace branch, was the site of a still-murky explosion in June that Iranian officials blamed on a gas leak but which was widely believed to be an Israeli missile strike.

“Tehran has built its new site for SPND in the area of the complexes involved in building missiles, which would also provide a safe cover for its nuclear activities,” Mr. Jafarzadeh said.


“What we have found out is that this site and the area surrounding it is completely controlled by the IRGC,” he added. “Locals are not allowed in the area.”

The State Department, which with the Treasury Department has led the way on imposing sanctions on Iran and pressuring other countries to break commercial ties, has yet to confirm the group’s allegations.

The Trump administration earlier this month announced a sweeping new round of sanctions on Iran, a financial blockade that cuts off virtually all of the few remaining Iranian lenders able to work with international banks to finance deals. Critics say the move could spark a cutoff of humanitarian aid at time when Iran is dealing with one of deadliest outbreak of COVID-19 in the Middle East.

But U.S. allies and adversaries alike largely ignored a Trump administration push to “snap back” trade bans and a weapons embargo set to be lifted under terms of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Although the group did not provide extensive evidence that nuclear activity was being conducted at the new facility, Mr. Jafarzadeh argued that the 2015 nuclear has failed to constrain Tehran.

“Our revelation today once again proves the fact that the [nuclear deal] did not prevent the mullahs’ activities to acquire nuclear weapons and even the regime has reneged on its commitments stipulated” in the agreement, the group said.

 

[danielboon]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1318326727731458049

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/AuroraIntel/status/1318326727731458049

 

[jward]

"they" seem to think that the Russian bombers in flight is typical- but what do "they" know, eh?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1318326727731458049

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/AuroraIntel/status/1318326727731458049

 

[jward]

Nuclear arms treaty: Hopes rise for breakthrough on US-Russia deal
Published
56 minutes ago

image copyrightRussian Defence Ministry
image captionThe treaty limits armaments including deployed long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles
There is hope that the last remaining nuclear arms pact between the US and Russia can be extended after Washington said it wanted to immediately finalise an agreement.
The New Start treaty, signed in 2010, limits the number of long-range nuclear warheads that each side can possess.
But its future has been in jeopardy amid tensions between the two countries over arms control and other issues.
Months of talks have now appeared to have found a breakthrough.
A statement from Russia on Tuesday said it was proposing to extend New Start - which expires in February - by one year, with both countries making a commitment to "freeze" the number of warheads held over that period.
The US had previously rejected any extension that did not involve such a freeze.

• Is nuclear control set to self-destruct?
• New START - a detailed guide

In Washington, the US state department welcomed the fresh offer, saying it appreciated Russia's "willingness to make progress on the issue of nuclear arms control".
"The United States is prepared to meet immediately to finalise a verifiable agreement," said spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus.
How exactly each side would verify that nuclear warhead stockpiles were not being increased remains a stumbling block.
Without the treaty, experts say, each side could build and deploy nuclear weapons without restraint, causing a spiralling, costly and potentially dangerous arms race.

Last year, the US formally withdrew from another key nuclear treaty with Russia that banned ground-launched missiles with ranges between 500km and 5,500km (310-3,400 miles).
Washington and the Nato military alliance accused Russia of violating the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) pact by deploying a new type of cruise missile.

media captionAre we on the cusp of a new nuclear arms race?
Russia denied that but confirmed the treaty was "formally dead".
New Start then became the only remaining strategic nuclear arms control pact between Washington and Moscow.

What does the treaty actually do?
New Start was signed by then US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, in 2010.
It replaced the 1991 Start treaty, which expired in December 2009.
The new treaty limits each side to 1,550 long-range nuclear warheads, a lower limit than under the original Start treaty.
Each country is allowed, in total, no more than 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear arms. Another 100 are allowed if they are not operationally deployed - for example, missiles removed from a sub undergoing a long-term overhaul.
Again, this is a significant reduction from the original treaty.
Crucially New Start allows the US and Russia to visually inspect the other's nuclear capability.
posted for fair use

Nuclear arms treaty: Hopes rise for breakthrough on US-Russia deal

A breakthrough appears to have been made to extend the nations' last-remaining treaty - New Start.

www.bbc.com

Trump administration rejects Putin’s offer on nuclear arms deal extension

National security adviser Robert O’Brien called Russia’s proposal on the New START treaty a “non-starter.” (Leah Millis/Reuters)
By
John Hudson and
Paul Sonne
Oct. 16, 2020 at 4:04 p.m. CDT
The Trump administration rejected a proposal by Russian President Vladimir Putin for a one-year extension of a critical nuclear arms-control treaty Friday, dimming the chances of a diplomatic breakthrough before the Nov. 3 U.S. presidential election.

Putin offered to extend New START, a 10-year treaty that places limits on the two countries’ nuclear warheads, without preconditions at a meeting of his security council, but national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien called the proposal a “non-starter.”
“We hope that Russia will reevaluate its position before a costly arms race ensues,” O’Brien said in a statement.
The breakdown in negotiations comes as President Trump, trailing Democratic rival Joe Biden in national polling, urges his diplomats to bring him foreign policy victories.

The 2010 treaty, which expires in February, restricts the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and certain launch platforms. If the treaty isn’t extended or replaced, the world’s two biggest nuclear powers will return to an era without substantive restraints on their arsenals for the first time in decades.

As with other last-minute efforts to forge diplomatic breakthroughs before the election, such as a rapprochement between Sudan and Israel, U.S. diplomats appear in need of more time to work out the details.
On Friday, Putin said it would be “exceedingly sad” if the treaty expired. His foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, blamed U.S. intransigence for demanding a large number of preconditions that go beyond the treaty.

The Trump administration didn’t start negotiations in earnest until earlier this year, prompting criticism from arms-control advocates who said discussions with the Russians should have begun much sooner.
U.S. scrambles to do nuclear deal with Russia before election, issuing ultimatum
The Trump administration’s arms-control envoy, Marshall Billingslea, initially insisted that China participate in talks. He wanted any replacement treaty to include China and to encompass all of Russia’s nuclear weapons — not just the “strategic” weapons covered under New START but also its sizable stockpile of smaller, “tactical” nuclear weapons that fall outside the treaty. Billingslea also insisted that verification mechanisms for any follow-on treaty be strengthened.

Russia rejected the demands, and China has refused to take part in negotiations.

Trump then dispatched O’Brien to meet with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, early this month in Geneva.
“We’ve come to a logjam in our meetings with the Russians on New START, and so we felt — the president thought it would be helpful if I went and spoke to my counterpart to break the logjam,” O’Brien said in an Oct. 5 interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt.
After that meeting and the calls between Trump and Putin, the Trump administration thought an agreement in principle had been reached, prompting Billignslea to divert a trip in Asia to Helsinki to again meet with his Russian counterpart. The administration was hoping to agree to extend New START for one or two years and in the meantime place a freeze on both countries’ full nuclear arsenals, Billingslea told reporters. But that deal hasn’t materialized.


Speaking Tuesday at the Heritage Foundation, Billingslea reiterated that he believed the United States and Russia had reached an “agreement in principle at the highest levels of our two governments” and said he hoped the “gentleman’s agreement” would “percolate down through their system so that my counterpart hopefully will be authorized to negotiate.”
“We’re ready to strike this deal. We could strike it tomorrow, in fact,” Billingslea said. “But Moscow is going to have to show the political will to do so as well.”
On Friday, Putin made no mention of a mutual freeze on the countries’ nuclear stockpiles, proposing instead a simple one-year extension of the treaty with no conditions while Moscow and Washington negotiate what comes next.

The White House rejected the proposal out of hand, saying it wanted a more ambitious agreement.

“The United States proposed an extension of New START for one year, in exchange for Russia and the United States capping all nuclear warheads during that period,” O’Brien said. “This would have been a win for both sides, and we believed the Russians were willing to accept this proposal when I met with my counterpart in Geneva.”
Threat from nuclear weapons, missiles has grown since Trump entered office
The treaty includes a clause that allows the leaders of both nations to extend the agreement by five years without requiring ratification. Both Putin and Biden have said they would agree to the five-year extension.
Despite the apparent breakdown in talks on Friday, Washington and Moscow could still revive the negotiations before the election. But the Russians have an incentive to wait and see the outcome of the vote, because Biden so far has signaled his willingness to extend the current treaty as it stands. If Biden wins, he would have about two weeks after inauguration to extend the pact.


Billingslea initially warned that the Russians would pay a price if they didn’t agree to a deal before the election and Trump emerged victorious, but he later appeared to back off that threat.
“We can have a deal tomorrow, or we can have a deal whenever. We’re ambivalent,” Billingslea said Tuesday. “The ball is in Russia’s court, but I do think this will be in Russia’s interest ultimately, so hopefully they’ll take the deal.”
On Friday, Billingslea signaled defeat in a tweet. “The United States made every effort,” he wrote. “It is disappointing that the Russian Federation backtracked on an agreement covering all nuclear warheads for the first time. This would have been an historic deal, good for the U.S., Russia, and the world.”

While it is unclear how much significance American voters place on U.S. foreign policy, Trump has sought to showcase his skills as a peacemaker in the final stretch of the election.
Last month, he tweeted that U.S. troops “should” come home from Afghanistan by Christmas, a timeline his military leaders have questioned. He also previewed that “five or six” nations were poised to make normalization agreements with Israel following the U.S.-brokered deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, but those have yet to materialize.
Posted for fair use

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-administration-rejects-putins-offer-on-nuclear-arms-deal-extension/2020/10/16/48d01db8-0fe2-11eb-bfcf-b1893e2c51b4_story.html

 

[jward]

Russia Still Uses This Cold War Relic Of An Underground Anti-Ship Missile System In Crimea
In service for almost 50 years, the 3M44 Progress anti-ship missile system, and the elaborate bunker that houses it, still supports defending Crimea.

By Thomas Newdick
October 18, 2020
A recently released video provides a close look at one of Russia’s lesser-known weapons, the mighty Utes coastal-defense anti-ship missile system, in action. The particular weapon is assigned to the hardened battery that protects the maritime approaches to Sevastopol, on the strategically important Crimea peninsula that was seized by Russia in 2014.
It’s unclear when the footage was recorded, but it was posted online on October 14, 2020, by TV Zvezda, the official television channel of the Russian Ministry of Defense. The accompanying report suggests the missile-firing exercise occurred after the large-scale Kavkaz-2020 maneuvers, which also took place partly in the Black Sea, in late September.



This Russian Beach Landing Drill in Crimea Is Downright FerociousBy Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone
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Air Force Reveals B-1Bs Were Practicing Decapitating Russia's Black Sea Fleet Last WeekBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Russia May Be Testing Its GPS Spoofing Capabilities Around The Black SeaBy Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone
American Destroyer Packed New Electronic Warfare System During Black Sea MissionBy Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone

According to a summary provided by TV Zvezda, the video shows a joint missile firing exercise involving the Russian Navy’s frigate Admiral Grigorovich, which is the lead ship of its class, and Sevastopol’s Utes battery.

The report explains that a 3M44 Progress anti-ship missile was launched from the Utes battery and was then successfully intercepted by the frigate’s air defense systems from a distance of more than 6.2 miles. Two video shows the Progress missile’s fiery departure from the right-side of the twin-tube launcher, which then disappears back into its bunker, protected by huge metal doors.

RUSSIAN MINISTRY OF DEFENSE SCREENCAP
The Utes’ twin-launcher for the 3M44 Progress anti-ship missile in a semi-retracted position.

RUSSIAN MINISTRY OF DEFENSE SCREENCAP
The missile leaps out of its launch canister, with the wings still folded.

RUSSIAN MINISTRY OF DEFENSE SCREENCAP
The missile climbs out over the Black Sea as the wings deploy.
The anti-ship weapon was downed by a missile from the frigate’s Shtil air defense system, in this, its latest form, known to NATO as SA-N-7C Gollum. A 9M317M missile — an advanced, containerized version of the weapon used in the land-based Buk mobile surface-to-air missile system — is seen being launched from the warship’s 24-cell vertical launch system (VLS) at around the 2:10-minute mark in the accompanying video. The missile launch is seen from various different perspectives, emphasizing the “cold launch” ejection from the VLS before the rocket motor engages.

RUSSIAN MINISTRY OF DEFENSE SCREENCAP
A 9M317M is launched from the Russian Navy’s frigate Admiral Grigorovich.

RUSSIAN MINISTRY OF DEFENSE SCREENCAP
The 9M317M launch viewed from the bow, looking back down the warship.
To ensure safety, the maritime range in the waters off Sevastopol that hosted the live-fire exercise was closed to other maritime traffic, with more than 10 warships and auxiliary vessels from the Black Sea Fleet patrolling the area to keep out intruders.

While these drills showcase some of the latest Russian weaponry, they also reveal the continued importance of the veteran Utes and its unique relationship to the Crimea peninsula.
The story of the Utes, meaning Cliff in Russian, dates all the way back to 1954, according to this authoritative Russian-language account. What is claimed to be the world’s first coastal underground anti-ship missile system was installed in the mountains near Balaklava, to protect Sevastopol and the Soviet Union’s southern maritime approaches.

RUSSIAN MINISTRY OF DEFENSE SCREENCAP
The commanding location of the Utes site today.
The secretive site at Balaklava was codenamed Object 100 and consisted of two identical launch sites and associated underground complexes located 3.7 miles apart and armed with first-generation Sopka anti-ship cruise missiles, with a range of around 62 miles.

JAN REHSCHUH/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
A former East German Sopka anti-ship cruise missile preserved at the Bundeswehrmuseum in Dresden.
Buried under thick layers of concrete to protect it from nuclear attack, the complete facilities included command posts, missile storage, and workshops for preparing and refueling the missiles, which were themselves transported on special trucks, with their wings folded.

To provide a degree of independent operation, the underground missile base was provided with diesel powerplants, filtration and ventilation units, plus stocks of fuel, water, and food.
The initial version of Object 100 was commissioned into service in July 1957 as the Soviet Navy’s first coastal missile unit.
By the early 1960s, the subsonic Sopka was showing its age and the decision was taken to replace it with the Utes system armed with a new supersonic anti-ship missile, the P-35B, which was also used in a road-mobile coastal defense system, the Redut.

SERGEY KONOVALOV/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
A road-mobile Redut coastal defense system assigned to the Russian Pacific Fleet.
The Utes complex went online in April 1973 and also involved the installation of a new radar, identification-friend-or-foe system, as well as an updated control center, launchers, and various new ground equipment.
The liquid-fueled P-35B missiles could be prepared below ground with their wings folded, before being raised to their firing position by elevating the launchers. These would then return below ground for reloading.
In 1982, the Utes complex was modernized again with the introduction of a third-generation missile, the 3M44 Progress. This had an effective range of a reported 286 miles, compared to 168 miles for the previous P-35B. It also included the option of a 350-kiloton nuclear warhead.
In December 1991, the Soviet Union broke up into 15 new states, each of which set about organizing its own armed forces. The Soviet-era Black Sea Fleet was divided between Russia and Ukraine, with Kyiv allowing temporary stationing of the Russian Black Sea fleet in Crimea. Meanwhile, Objekt 100 was transferred to the Ukrainian Navy in 1996 and apparently fell out of use.

However, a change in fortunes came with Russia’s illegal seizure and subsequent annexation of Crimea in 2014. The Utes was rapidly returned to combat status, with a first missile launch during an exercise occurring in April 2016.
More recently, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has begun to deploy more modern and capable coastal defense assets in the region, as well. These include the K-300P Bastion-P mobile system, known to NATO as the SSC-5 Stooge. The missiles launched by this system reportedly have a range of 186 miles and a speed of around Mach 2.5.

Shorter-ranged, but similarly mobile, is the 3K60 Bal coastal defense missile system, which is also in use with the Black Sea Fleet. Designated SSC-6 Sennight by NATO, the Bal is a subsonic missile, broadly similar to the American Harpoon, and has a range of 75 miles. Each Bal launch vehicle can carry eight missiles, and a pair of launch vehicles can deliver a 16-missile volley against their target.

Both the Bastion-P and Bal were used during the live-fire portion of the recent Kavkaz-2020 exercise. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the missile systems were employed against a simulated enemy amphibious task force approaching the Black Sea coast in the Krasnodar region, immediately east of Crimea.
Compared to the aging Utes system, the Bastion-P and Bal are harder to target, being able to launch their solid-fuel missiles rapidly before moving to another location. They are also able to receive targeting data from a wide variety of sources, including unmanned aerial vehicles, which was also practiced during Kavkaz-2020. Both these new systems have also been deployed in Crimea.

These coastal defense systems are just one aspect of what is one of the largest concentrations of anti-ship missile capabilities in the world. Combined with their Black Sea fleet and Russian airpower counterparts, they can quickly transform nearly the whole of the confined Black Sea into a super anti-ship missile engagement zone on short notice.
While the combat efficiency of the Utes cruise missile system is questionable, it’s clear that the Russian Navy still sees value in it. Even if it is now at least partially being used for air defense training, this Cold War warrior is still playing a useful role.
Contact the author: thomas@thedrive.com

posted for fair use

Russia Still Uses This Cold War Relic Of An Underground Anti-Ship Missile System In Crimea

In service for almost 50 years, the 3M44 Progress anti-ship missile system, and the elaborate bunker that houses it, still supports defending Crimea.

www.thedrive.com

 

[jward]

..May be of some interest or utility for anyone else who needs some Russia refreshing courses..
Russian Hybrid Warfare


Download the PDF

This paper is part of ISW's Military Learning & The Future of War series. Click here to go to the series homepage.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (Download the full report here)
​

America’s current strategy for responding to the Russian threat is based on a misunderstanding of the Russian approach to war and exposes the United States and its allies to a high risk of strategic defeats. The 2018 US National Defense Strategy gives primacy to deterring major conventional great power wars. Russia also seeks to avoid such wars even as it designs a different way of waging war to achieve its revisionist objectives. The US largely views this Russian approach, hybrid war, as a set of activities below the level of conventional conflict. But Russia includes significant conventional conflict in its conception and execution of hybrid war. If the US continues to focus on deterring the kind of war Russia does not intend to fight while underestimating the role military force can and must play in preventing Moscow from accomplishing its aims through hybrid war, then the US will likely suffer serious strategic defeats even as its defense strategy technically succeeds.

The Kremlin is even now waging a hybrid war against the United States. The Kremlin assesses that hybrid wars already dominate 21st century conflict and will continue to do so. The Kremlin believes it must adapt to win this struggle, profoundly shaping Russian military development and assessments of the future of war.

Russian hybrid wars include the use of significant conventional forces and conflict. The Russian military defines a “hybrid war” as a strategic-level effort to shape the governance and geostrategic orientation of a target state in which all actions, up to and including the use of conventional military forces in regional conflicts, are subordinate to an information campaign.

The Russians define hybrid war precisely and coherently as a type of war, rather than a set of means to conduct state policy. The U.S discussion of hybrid war overly focuses on the means short of conventional forces and conflict that the Russians have most famously used. The Russian soldiers without insignia (“little green men”) who helped seize Crimea in 2014, and the proxies Russia uses in eastern Ukraine, are most often the focus of Western assessments about how to respond to Russian hybrid war.

The Russian conception of hybrid war is much more expansive. It covers the entire “competition space,” including subversive, economic, information, and diplomatic means, as well as the use of military forces extending above the upper threshold of the “gray zone” concept that more accurately captures the Chinese approach to war.

The Kremlin considers conflicts including Belarus, Ukraine, Syria, Libya, and Venezuela to be hybrid wars. The Russian Armed Forces openly discuss several ongoing conflicts as hybrid wars. The Kremlin is actively refining and utilizing its theory of hybrid war in Europe and around the world. It uses a blend of means and instruments, including conventional military forces. Russian Air Force aircraft in Syria constitute its most important means of influencing that conflict, although it has also deployed Russian Army Military Police and special forces (SPETSNAZ) troops as well. Russian hybrid war efforts in Belarus include sending three battalion tactical groups from Russian Airborne Forces divisions to exercise there, along with Tu-160 nuclear-capable bombers. Russia’s engagement in Libya, by contrast, has been primarily through its private military companies (PMCs), which are also operating in Syria. The Kremlin adjusts the kinds of forces it commits to hybrid conflicts according to its assessment of the conflict’s requirements. The Kremlin does not shy away from sending and using units from its conventional military forces just because it has defined the war as hybrid.

Russia sees hybrid wars as the main line of future military development, rather than a temporary phenomenon. The Russian military maintains theoretical space for the idea of a traditional conventional war and does not assert that all conflicts are now inherently hybrid. It instead argues that conventional war is a legacy type of conflict that is increasingly unlikely in the 21st century due to technological changes and strategic power balances. The Kremlin further asserts that Russia should shape its military and national security tools to optimize for hybrid wars not only because they are increasingly common, but also because they are now more practical and effective than traditional conventional warfare.

The Russian military is therefore adapting to improve its capabilities to conduct hybrid wars. The Russian military is not attempting to hide its intent to conduct offensive hybrid wars. Russian military theorists write extensively and openly on general strategies and doctrine for offensive hybrid wars, and additionally discuss the development of individual hybrid means. The Kremlin’s ongoing adaptations include efforts to:

• Centralize all potential Russian decision-making bodies—civilian, military, media, and economic—to coordinate whole-of-government efforts.
• Adapt traditional military theories and doctrine to enable the Russian military to conduct hybrid wars as a core mission.
• Conduct society-wide information campaigns to improve “patriotic consciousness,” which the Kremlin assesses is essential in hybrid war.
• Increase the adaptability and strength of Russian information campaigns to successfully conduct hybrid wars over many years.
• Improve the conventional expeditionary capabilities of the Russian Armed Forces to enhance their capability to deploy abroad in support of hybrid wars.
• Improve the Kremlin’s capability to employ PMCs and other supposedly deniable proxy forces.
• Subordinate kinetic operations to information operations—which the Kremlin assesses is the ongoing foundational change in the character of war—in planning processes and execution.

The United States must revise its strategy for confronting the Russian threat and re-examine the tools and resources it will need to support that strategy in light of a more accurate understanding of the Russian concept of hybrid wars. The US must avoid imposing its own conceptual boundaries on the Russian threat—particularly regarding the Russian theory of hybrid war. The Kremlin has established a continuum between and among military and non-military means to conduct unified campaigns – hybrid wars - to achieve its strategic objectives. The United States must also recognize that deterring major conventional and nuclear war with Russia is not a sufficient objective to preserve US interests in the face of Russian hybrid war efforts. And it must accept that US and NATO conventional military forces must play an essential role in any counter-hybrid war strategy.

The United States should take several actions to support this revision of its strategy and approach to Russia.

• Analyze the Kremlin’s decisions within the Russian framework of hybrid war to understand and mitigate Russian lines of effort. Obfuscating the nature and purpose of Kremlin activities is a key objective of hybrid war, and US confusion about the term and the Russian approach to such conflicts hinders the development of effective counterstrategies.
• Confront Russian hybrid wars in their entirety as synthetic threats instead of confronting individual Russian lines of effort separately and partially.
• Counter the Kremlin globally as well as in Europe. Putin is not playing three-dimensional chess, but instead playing many games of checkers simultaneously. The US policy and military community should increase its analysis of the Kremlin’s hybrid wars outside Europe, including in Syria, Libya, and Venezuela while retaining necessary focus on Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic States.
• Pursue whole-of-government coordination of information and kinetic operations.
• Reinforce Western norms and institutions—key targets of Russian hybrid wars. The United States should not allow the Kremlin to normalize its malign behavior and worldview.
• Work to align the Russia policy of the United States and its allies. The United States should particularly seek to standardize across NATO the red lines that would lead to responses to Russian actions.
• Actively challenge Russian information campaigns. The Kremlin’s information campaign is its center of gravity in each hybrid war. The United States cannot win hybrid wars with Russia if it loses in the information space.
• Deprive Russian PMCs and proxy forces of their deniability. The United States and its allies must relentlessly work to expose the connections between these forces and the Kremlin and highlight that they are direct tools of Russian military policy to reduce the Kremlin’s freedom of action.
• Recognize and plan for the military requirements to confront hybrid threats. The United States should be prepared to confront Russian hybrid wars with the conventional forces that will be required and avoid establishing false red lines for the use of Western forces against Russian aggressions.
• Recognize that Russia also aims to avoid major great power war. The US must of course continue to deter both nuclear and full-scale conventional war with Russia. But it must revise its strategy to recognize that Russia also seeks to avoid such conflicts while nevertheless accomplishing it goals.
• Shift its military posture to confront the global nature of the Kremlin threat.
• Enable deployed US forces to combat Russian hybrid wars with non-kinetic means. Conventional forces can act as a platform for additional cyber, civil-military relations, intelligence, technical, and special operations assets which are essential in hybrid wars.

The challenges presented by Russian hybrid war and preparations for the future of war are not insurmountable. The West must not throw up its hands at the challenge of confronting an unfamiliar conception of the future of war. The Kremlin is optimizing for its expectations of the future of war, not ours, and the West must fully understand the Russian threat to successfully confront the Kremlin.
CONTINUE READING THE REPORT (PDF)
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Institute for the Study of War

If the US focuses on deterring the kind of war Russia does not intend to fight, underestimating the role of military force in hybrid war, then the US will likely suffer defeats even as its strategy technically succeeds. Read the latest paper in ISW's

www.understandingwar.org

 

[danielboon]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1318326727731458049

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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1318532860719104000

View: https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1318532860719104000

 

[danielboon]

U.S., Japan, Australia Conduct Trilateral Naval Exercises in South China Sea
By Commander, Task Force 70 Public Affairs | Oct. 19, 2020


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SOUTH CHINA SEA (Oct. 20, 2020) - The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) (rear), Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) ship JS Kirisame (DD 104) (middle), and Royal Australian Navy ship HMAS Arunta (FFH 151) (front) sail together in the South China Sea during multinational exercises. These exercises marked the fifth time of 2020 that Australia, Japan, and the U.S. have conducted operations together in the 7th Fleet area of operations. (Photo by Courtesy Photo)

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SOUTH CHINA SEA (Oct. 20, 2020) - The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) (rear), Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) ship JS Kirisame (DD 104) (middle), and Royal Australian Navy ship HMAS Arunta (FFH 151) (front) sail together in the South China Sea during multinational exercises. These exercises marked the fifth time of 2020 that Australia, Japan, and the U.S. have conducted operations together in the 7th Fleet area of operations. (Photo by Courtesy Photo)

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SOUTH CHINA SEA (Oct. 20, 2020) - The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) (right), Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) ship JS Kirisame (DD 104) (middle), and Royal Australian Navy ship HMAS Arunta (FFH 151) (left) sail together in the South China Sea during multinational exercises. These exercises marked the fifth time of 2020 that Australia, Japan, and the U.S. have conducted operations together in the 7th Fleet area of operations (Photo by Courtesy Photo)

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SOUTH CHINA SEA (Oct. 20, 2020) - The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) (right), Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) ship JS Kirisame (DD 104) (middle), and Royal Australian Navy ship HMAS Arunta (FFH 151) (left) sail together in the South China Sea during multinational exercises. These exercises marked the fifth time of 2020 that Australia, Japan, and the U.S. have conducted operations together in the 7th Fleet area of operations. (Photo by Courtesy Photo)

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SOUTH CHINA SEA (Oct. 20, 2020) – Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) joined the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) in the South China Sea for multinational exercises, Oct. 19.
Participants included John S. McCain, JS Kirisame (DD 104) of the JMSDF, and HMAS Arunta (FFH 151) of the RAN. These exercises marked the fifth time of 2020 that Australia, Japan, and the U.S. have conducted operations together in the 7th Fleet area of operations.
Throughout the naval exercises, participants trained together and conducted trilateral operations designed to increase the allies’ collective ability to maintain maritime security and readiness to respond to any regional contingency. Professional engagement and cooperation with allies and partners is the foundation of regional stability, which fosters peace and prosperity for all nations.
HMAS Arunta’s Commanding Officer, Cmdr. Troy Duggan said Australia was continuing to build on its already close relationship with Japan and the United States.
“This activity is a valuable and important opportunity for all three nations,” said Duggan. “Operating with our partners is essential for building and maintaining high levels of interoperability, and contributes to our shared commitment to the security, stability and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region.”
Operations together included surface, subsurface, and air defense exercises, and a variety of other training events to strengthen regional maritime security operations.
“We are grateful to have the opportunity of the trilateral exercise with the United States Navy and the Royal Australian Navy. Especially about HMAS Arunta, I feel the connection. Because I had the chance to conduct the exercise with her when I coincidentally was the commanding officer of JS KIRISAME in 2014.” said CAPT YOKOTA Kazushi, the commander, the escort division eight. “For the regional peace and stability, we are making efforts to maintain and develop a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. The iron bond with our partners is its foundation. Even though COVID-19 spreads, the JMSDF continues to strengthen the relationship with our ally partners.”
Australia and Japan have both fostered long-standing alliances with the U.S., built on shared interests, promoting global security, stability, and economic prosperity through trade, investment, and connectivity.
“By operating with our close allies in this way, here in the South China Sea, we promote transparency, the rule of law, freedom of navigation and overflight, all principles that underpin security and prosperity for the Indo-Pacific, so that all nations in the region may benefit," said Cmdr. Ryan T. Easterday, commanding officer, USS John S. McCain.
John S. McCain’s participation in this trilateral exercise comes on the heels of Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group’s return to the South China Sea, during which USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), USS Antietam (CG 54), USS Halsey (DDG 97), and McCain conducted maritime security operations in support of free and open access to the international commons.
Previous exercises this year involving the U.S., Japan, and Australia in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations include exercise Sea Dragon in February, a trilateral exercise with the Reagan Carrier Strike Group in late July, a multinational group sail with USS Barry (DDG 52) in early September, which also included the Republic of Korea Navy, and Exercise Pacific Vanguard in mid-September.
John S. McCain is underway conducting operations in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific, while assigned to Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 15, the Navy's largest forward-deployed DESRON and the U.S. 7th Fleet's principal surface force. U.S. 7th Fleet conducts forward-deployed naval operations in support of U.S. national interests in the Indo-Pacific area of operations. As the U.S. Navy's largest numbered fleet, 7th Fleet interacts with 35 other maritime nations to build partnerships that foster maritime security, promote stability, and prevent conflict.

U.S., Japan, Australia Conduct Trilateral Naval Exercises in South China Sea

SOUTH CHINA SEA (Oct. 20, 2020) – Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) joined the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) in the

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[jward]

Marine Corps general under investigation for using racial slur is relieved of duty

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Marine Maj. Gen. Stephen M. Neary, shown here as a brigadier general commanding the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force in North Carolina in 2018, was relieved of command of Marine forces in Europe and Africa on Oct. 19, 2020, as an investigation continues into allegations that he used a racial slur in front of Marines.

JERED T. STONE/U.S. MARINE CORPS

By JOHN VANDIVER | STARS AND STRIPES Published: October 20, 2020

STUTTGART, Germany — Maj. Gen. Stephen Neary has been relieved of command of U.S. Marines in Europe and Africa while the service investigates allegations he used a racial slur that denigrates Black people, the Corps said Tuesday.
Marine Commandant Gen. David H. Berger relieved Neary on Monday “due to a loss of trust and confidence in his ability to serve in command,” the Corps said in a statement.
The Marine Corps previously said that the investigation was connected to the use of a racial slur but declined to go into detail.
Stars and Stripes reported earlier this month that the two-star general’s actions were being probed for using the word during a training event at his Stuttgart-area headquarters.
The incident occurred in August on the parade field outside Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa headquarters in Boeblingen, Germany. A lance corporal who was present told Stars and Stripes that Neary used the N-word while Marines were doing physical training outdoors with loud music playing. Some of the rap music incorporated the word, which prompted Neary to ask the junior Marines how they would feel if he said it, the lance corporal said.

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Maj. Gen. Stephen M. Neary, commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa, stands with Senegalese naval chief of staff Rear Adm. Oumar Wade during a visit to Dakar, Senegal, on Oct. 6, 2020. Neary has been relieved of duty after an investigation found he used a racial slur in front of Marines.
BRYTANI MUSICK/U.S. MARINE CORPS

The Marine, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said Black, white and Latino Marines were jolted when the general said the word. Even if Neary was attempting to be instructive about the taboo nature of the word, it came as a shock to hear it from a white general officer, the lance corporal said.
“He lost respect right there,” the Marine said.
As the weeks passed and Neary remained in command, several Marines brought the matter to the attention of Stars and Stripes.
The incident came at a time of racial upheaval in the U.S. and inside the military, itself, as troops grappled with how to respond to police-brutality cases that have sparked protests in U.S. cities in recent months.
In August, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police in May served as a “wake-up call” for the military.
“I don’t think what everybody [in the Defense Department’s leadership] appreciated, at least me, personally, is the depth of sentiment out there among our service members of color, particularly Black Americans, about how much [impact] the killing of George Floyd … had on them, and what they are experiencing in the ranks, as well … We must do better,” Esper said during a security forum.

The unrest triggered by Floyd’s and others’ deaths prompted the military to reexamine instances of racism in the ranks and sparked calls for a more inclusive military culture.
The Marine Corps, which has long faced questions about a lack of diversity within its senior ranks, has taken some steps to deal with racism. In June, it banned all Confederate battle flags from being displayed on its bases. Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger said there would be no tolerance for prejudice or any expression of bias, “direct or indirect, intentional or unintentional.”

“The trust Marines place in one another on a daily basis demands this,” Berger said.

Neary, who assumed command of Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa in July, previously served as deputy commander of II Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, N.C. The Boston native was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1988 after graduating from Virginia Military Institute.

Col. James T. Iulo will serve as the acting commander until a replacement is determined, the Marines said Tuesday.
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Marine Corps general under investigation for using racial slur is relieved of command

Maj. Gen. Stephen Neary has been relieved of command of U.S. Marines in Europe and Africa while the service investigates allegations he used a racial slur that denigrates Black people, the Corps said Tuesday.

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[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

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Evolution of the Fleet: A Closer Look at the Chinese Fishing Vessels off the Galapagos | Center for International Maritime Security

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Ocean Governance
Evolution of the Fleet: A Closer Look at the Chinese Fishing Vessels off the Galapagos

October 19, 2020 Guest Author 1 Comment


By Dr. Tabitha Mallory and Dr. Ian Ralby
A flurry of news stories in late July 2020 reported on the “discovery” of a “massive” fleet of Chinese fishing vessels in the waters off the Galapagos, which fluctuated to over 350 before the fleet finally left by mid-October to fish farther south. Yet the presence of the Chinese distant water fishing fleet in the area has been expanding for several years. Concerns over the fleet’s illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing have also grown, spurred by the August 2017 arrest of the FU YUAN YU LENG 999, a Chinese-flagged refrigerated vessel found in the Galapagos with roughly 3,000 tons of rare, near extinct or endangered species onboard, including 600 sharks.
Using data and insight from Windward, a predictive maritime intelligence platform, our analysis examines how this fishing phenomenon has evolved over time and who is behind this increasingly intensive fishing effort. We argue that this fishing activity is the outcome of China’s global fisheries strategy, including the generous subsidies provided to the industry. We examine the extent to which China may be engaging in IUU fishing, arguing that although the Chinese government has moved to curtail IUU fishing activities, several challenges remain. While the fleet appears to largely be operating legally, some behavior indicates exceptions. Furthermore, despite any seemingly technical compliance with existing laws and regulations, some of Chinese fishing activity falls into the “unreported” and “unregulated” categories and deserves careful consideration in terms of the sustainability of such operations.
New Attention, but Not New
Windward data helps to visualize the Chinese fleet’s activity over time, illustrating that the presence of Chinese fishing vessels in the waters around the Galapagos 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) has been increasing for several years. In 2015, there was virtually no Chinese fishing activity in the Galapagos and the waters outside the archipelago’s EEZ. Beginning in 2016, however, that changed dramatically. In August 2016, for example, 191 different Chinese-flagged vessels engaged in fishing operations in the wider Galapagos area—a stark contrast to the one Chinese vessel that was detected in that area the same month in 2015. The numbers have only increased since then, fluctuating with the fishing seasons. Over the course of 2017, three months saw more than 200 vessels fishing in the area, peaking at 263 in the month of July. In 2018, there were four consecutive months—May through August—with over 200 Chinese vessels fishing in the area, and a fifth month, December, with 193. The peak that year was 286 in June. In 2019, there were five months with over 200 vessels, and two more, June and July, with 197 and 130, respectively. The peak in 2019 was September, with 298.

Chinese Fishing Vessels Near the Galapagos, January 2015 – September 2020 [Click to expand] (Source: Windward)The phenomenon has now become more extreme, as 2020 saw four months with over 200 vessels, two of which had over 300 vessels. In July 2020, there were 342 Chinese vessels fishing in the area and in August, there were 344. Even in September, 295 different Chinese-flagged vessels fished in the waters around the Galapagos.

To better understand what is behind this huge increase in activity, it is important to understand the policies that are driving the Chinese fishing industry.
Understanding China’s Global Fishing Strategy
Thanks to the data aggregation capabilities of Windward, it is possible to examine some of the details behind this massive fleet. Between July and August 2020, 364 different Chinese vessels in the area transmitted on automated information system (AIS). All vessels over 300 gross tons operating internationally must, under the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Convention, be fitted with AIS and keep it turned on. Therefore, there may have been more than 364 vessels, as some may have been present but “dark” and thus undetectable through AIS. Examining just those 364, however, reveals valuable insights into the ownership behind them and their provinces of origin. Notwithstanding a few vessels whose ownership is unknown, 55 companies own the fleet on paper, though several companies have identical addresses, indicating that there may be fewer than 55 beneficial owners.
The vessels off the Galapagos are part of China’s distant water fishing (DWF) fleet, which operates in areas beyond national jurisdiction—or the “high seas” as defined under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)—and in the EEZs of host countries on the basis of bilateral fisheries access agreements. China officially reported a total of 2,701 DWF vessels in 2019, and a total of 159 DWF enterprises in 2017.
The fleet around the Galapagos is the result of distinct shifts in Chinese fisheries policy. From the launch of China’s DWF industry in 1985 until around the mid-2010s, China’s strategy was to expand the fleet and increase catch. Yet in China’s 13th fisheries five-year plan—the most recent— the strategy shifted away from a focus on pure expansion to one of upgrading and consolidating the industry. China aims to have more control over the entire supply chain, from point of harvest, transport and landing, to processing and distribution and ultimately to retail markets. Concurrent with this shift, as China upgrades its vessel technology to better process and store catch, China aims to send more of its DWF catch back to China for sale on the domestic market. China has been building domestic port infrastructure for this seafood distribution. In 2018, China sent 65 percent of its catch home, an increase from 49 percent in 2009.
Simultaneously, China has been moving away from reliance on catch from other EEZs toward high-seas fishing, as host countries have become more concerned about unsustainable fishing by foreign fleets in their waters and costs have increased. While some high seas areas are managed by regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs), there is no comprehensive regulatory body for fishing on the high seas with global scope. As high seas areas become increasingly regulated by the patchwork of RFMOs, fishing quotas may be distributed to fleets that have historical fishing presence in the area. A task force report published in 2010 by Chinese government, industry, and academics argued that countries that have a longer history of using the ocean have more power in determining how resources are distributed and thus receive a larger share of those resources: “occupying brings about rights and interests” (占有即权益). In accordance with these trends, in 2017, China’s DWF fleet caught 66 percent of its catch from the high seas, versus in the EEZs of other countries, compared to 43 percent in 2010.

Ecuadorian Navy vessels surround a fishing boat after detecting a fishing fleet of mostly Chinese-flagged ships in an international corridor that borders the Galapagos Islands’ exclusive economic zone, in the Pacific Ocean, Aug. 7, 2020. (Photo via Reuters)
Chinese investment in this strategy is reflected by which provinces these vessels call home. Of the 364 vessels found operating outside the Galapagos in July and August, 92 could not be definitively linked to a specific owner. Of the remaining 272, 188 were from Zhejiang Province. Because Chinese vessel names tend to be uniform and reflect a group owned by the same company but distinguished by different numbers, it is likely that 50 more vessels without company names are also from Zhejiang, because of the similarities in the vessel names. Therefore, two-thirds of the fishing vessels are likely from Zhejiang (238 out of 364). Of the remainder, 46 vessels are from Shandong Province, plus another 19 likely to be from Shandong, for a total of 65, or 18 percent.

Share of Fishing Vessels near the Galapagos by Chinese Province [Click to Expand] (Authors’ graphic)It is no coincidence that Zhejiang and Shandong are the home provinces for 83 percent of the fleet. Zhejiang and Shandong are the largest recipients of at least one DWF fisheries subsidy program, receiving RMB ¥ 2.141 and ¥ 2.111 billion, respectively, from the central government across two years from 2018 to 2019. The third largest recipient, Fujian Province, which accounted for the next largest batch of fishing vessels, received RMB ¥ 1.181 billion in government subsidies during the same time period. These three provinces were also the top three producers of China’s official total DWF catch, which amounted to 2.257 million tons in 2018.


Home provinces of vessels [Click to Expand] (Authors’ graphic)As China aims to increasingly bring its global catch home, these three provinces are also the location of three new ports dedicated to landing DWF catch on Chinese shores. Zhejiang brings in the largest share of China’s DWF catch (24 percent in 2018). Thus, in 2015, the first national DWF fishing port was proposed for construction in the town of Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province. Zhoushan National Distant Water Fishing Base(舟山国家远洋渔业基地), supported by government funding, serves to promote DWF seafood to the Chinese domestic market, with port infrastructure to support the docking of 1,300 fishing vessels, processing and storage facilities, throughput for one million tons of catch annually, and a shipbuilding center. The main species landed at this port is squid, facilitated by a China DWF Squid Trade Center at the base.

Shandong Province, the country’s third largest producer of DWF catch (20 percent in 2018), is home to the second national DWF base, Shaowodao National DWF Base (荣成沙窝岛国家远洋渔业基地), approved for construction in 2016 in the city of Rongcheng. With similar support facilities, Shawodao will have the capacity to dock 1,000 fishing vessels and be able to handle the trade of 600,000 tons of fish, including squid and tuna. Fujian Province, home to China’s first group of DWF vessels and the country’s second largest producer of DWF catch (21 percent in 2018), will be the host province for China’s third national DWF base, Fuzhou (Lianjiang) National DWF Base (福州 (连江) 国家远洋渔业基地) in the city of Fuzhou, which was approved for construction in 2019.
The changing patterns in China’s DWF policies are also reflected in the trade and catch data. Over this time period, China’s imports of squid from Peru and Argentina have fallen, while China’s own catch of squid has risen, possibly because China decided to catch the squid directly through its DWF fleet. According to China’s official statistics, Zhejiang’s catch of squid grew from 69,000 tons in 2009 to 356,000 tons in 2018, while Shandong’s squid catch grew from 21,000 tons to 102,000 tons over the same period.

Chinese imports of squid from Peru and Argentina by volume in tons, 2012–2016 [Click to Expand] (Authors’ graphic)IUU Fishing in the Galapagos EEZ?

Visualizing even a portion of the fishing activities in July and August 2020 is instructive on a few fronts. Based on Windward’s algorithmic analysis of AIS data indicating fishing activities, each dot on the image below represents a Chinese vessel engaged in fishing during that two-month window.

Windward visualization of fishing activity by the Chinese fleet in July and August 2020. Each dot indicates the location of a fishing operation. The line is the outer limit of the Ecuadorian EEZ around the Galapagos Islands. [Click to Expand] (Source: Author graphic via Windward)Most strikingly, not a single dot appears within the EEZ of the Galapagos. The edge of the 200 nautical mile zone is almost perfectly drawn by the dots. This is consistent with statements made by President Lenín Moreno of Ecuador on Twitter, namely that the focus of Ecuador is on protection of the EEZ.

The Chinese fleet is not permitted to fish in Ecuador’s EEZ, and, insofar as the AIS data indicates, the fleet appeared to be only on the high seas, and thus not illegally in Ecuador’s EEZ.
This behavior contrasts with activities in the past. Take, for example, the visualization of fishing activities in July and August 2017, in which fishing Chinese vessels fished within the Galapagos EEZ:

Windward visualization of fishing activity by the Chinese fleet in July and August 2017. Each dot indicates the location of a fishing operation. The line is the outer limit of the Ecuadorian EEZ around the Galapagos Islands which can be seen at the top of the image. [Click to expand] (Source: Author graphic via Windward)These illegal fishing activities culminated in the arrival of the FU YUAN YU LENG 999, a refrigerated cargo vessel, in the Galapagos EEZ on 12 August 2017. Three days later, the vessel was arrested and the captain and crew ultimately were sentenced to four years in prison and fined $6.1 million. As a refrigerated cargo vessel, rather than a fishing vessel, the operators may have thought that it was not likely to be detected much less arrested for its involvement in illegal fishing. As has been reported, however, the cargo vessel was meeting and transshipping illegal catch from “dark” fishing vessels at sea, though these fishing vessels were never arrested and prosecuted for their illegal activities.


Windward visualization of the path of the FU YUAN YU LENG 999 beginning on 12 August 2017 and ending with its arrest. [Click to Expand] (Source: Author graphic via Windward)Judging from both the AIS activity and China’s policy responses, the FU YUAN YU LENG 999 experience has made the Chinese fleet more cautious. China created an IUU blacklist by the end of 2017; removed some fishing subsidies as punishment for vessels caught engaging in IUU fishing; created a DWF training and compliance center; and capped the number of fishing vessels in the fleet to 3,000. In February 2020, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) revised its DWF Regulations, formalizing the prohibition on IUU fishing and calling on vessels to leave a buffer around off-limits areas. While the DWF regulations do not specify the size of the buffer, a follow-on notification on DWF safety determined the buffer to be one nautical mile, though this is a decrease from three nautical miles.

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[Housecarl]

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IUU Fishing on the High Seas?
While the fleet does not seem to be illegally fishing in the Galapagos EEZ, the vessels are still subject to various RFMO rules that govern fishing on the high seas. The RFMO that manages tuna in this area is the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), of which China is a member. The IATTC sets annual quotas for tuna species, keeps lists of registered fishing and transport vessels, as well as vessels caught engaging in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. China has 415 longline tuna vessels registered with the IATTC. Of the 364 vessels fishing outside the Galapagos EEZ, only one of them was on the IATTC list of registered vessels.
The vast majority of the rest of the fleet is under management jurisdiction of the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO), which regulates high seas species aside from tuna such as jack mackerel and soon, squid. Of the other 363 vessels fishing outside the Galapagos EEZ, all but 16 of them were registered with the SPRFMO. As one of the globe’s newer RFMOs, established in 2012, its species coverage is still growing. China began fishing jack mackerel (竹荚鱼) with 15 vessels in 2003 after conducting exploratory catch missions in 2001 and 2002. China’s catch of jack mackerel grew from 14,000 tons in 2005 to 61,229 tons in 2018, with Shandong Province accounting for 65 percent, followed by Zhejiang Province at 24 percent.
The year 2020 marks the advent of the first large-scale regulation of high seas squid. The SPRFMO issued measures to regulate jumbo flying squid, which will enter into force in 2021. Thus, through the present, China’s squid fishing is not illegal but rather unreported. In the run-up to the entry into force of these measures, China may be establishing as great a fishing presence as possible and taking advantage of this being the last year without regulations. At the same time, also in 2020, the Chinese government initiated the first moratorium on high seas squid fishing, with one area adjacent to the Galapagos. The fact that China has taken this step suggests that China recognizes the current fishing levels by its large fleet are so unsustainable that the fishing effort is undermining the fleet’s own long-term interests.
After all, of the 1,135 vessels registered to the SPRFMO, 700 vessels—62 percent—are flagged to China. The next two largest fleets are 127 and 99 in number, flagged to Panama and Peru, respectively.
The Remaining Challenges
While the Chinese fleet seemed to have avoided illegal fishing in the Galapagos EEZ, and is largely registered with the relevant RFMOs, there are still causes for concern. Vessels can turn their AIS transponders off and go dark. There are some concerns with the flagging of Chinese vessels to other countries, and issues with transshipping catch. Similar vessel names and changing reported vessel measurements increase law enforcement challenges. And finally, even if it is legal, this fishing activity is not necessarily sustainable.
Though the Chinese seemed to stay out of the Galapagos EEZ, what may have occurred is one of three things:
1. The Chinese fleet was being very careful not to break the law and was staying just outside the Galapagos exclusive economic zone.
2. The Chinese fleet was being very careful not to appear to break the law, so was only sending “dark” vessels into the Galapagos exclusive economic zone.
3. The Chinese fleet was being very careful not to appear to break the law, so was using non-Chinese-flagged vessels to provide the catch from within the Galapagos exclusive economic zone and transshipping on the high seas.
By concentrating so many vessels outside the exclusive economic zone, with AIS on, the approach may be to distract from any “dark” incursions into the Galapagos’ waters or to hide the transshipments with other vessels in plain sight. The picture of fishing activities in July and August 2020 when looking at all vessels, not just Chinese vessels, shows that a total 554 vessels—not just 364—engaged in fishing operations, many of them inside the Galapagos exclusive economic zone.

Windward visualization of fishing activity in July and August 2020. Each dot indicates the location of a fishing operation. The line is the outer limit of the Ecuadorian EEZ around the Galapagos Islands which can be seen in the upper portion of the image. [Click to Expand] (Source: Author graphic via Windward)Delving into the data further, Windward indicates that between July and August 2020, 363 of those 554 vessels have engaged both in fishing operations and a meeting with another vessel, suggesting either transshipment or bunkering. Not surprisingly, the majority of the meetings have been either Chinese-to-Chinese or Ecuadorian-to-Ecuadorian. Excluding those meetings and further excluding passenger craft, there are actually only 20 vessels of note. The overwhelming majority those vessels are Chinese-owned, Panamanian-flagged, and most of them are refrigerated cargo vessels—the sort used to transport fish.


Chart indicating the non-Chinese vessels operating in the area around the Galapagos EEZ in July and August 2020. [Click to Expand] (Source: Author chart)The Reefers

Looking at the behavior of the refrigerated cargo vessels (or “reefers”) on this list, however, shows that the fleet may have learned from the FU YUAN YU LENG 999 experience. The HE TAI, for example is owned by a Chinese company that has the same address as the Chinese company that operates it. That address is in the same area as a number of the companies that own and operate some of the Chinese-flagged vessels that comprise the fleet. But the HE TAI is actually flagged in Panama and has not ever crossed into the Galapagos EEZ. The HE TAI has, however, had rendezvous with 25 of the 364 Chinese vessels that were fishing in the area, two of them twice. While this is not necessarily illegal, reflagging is generally seen as a means to seek lower standards for fishing operations. China has announced new measures regulating transshipment of catch on the high seas, however it is unclear whether these would cover transshipment to vessels flagged to other countries.

Windward visualization of path of the Panama-flagged reefer HE TAI in July and August 2020, meeting with numerous Chinese fishing vessels in the area outside the Galapagos EEZ. [Click to Expand] (Source: Author graphic via Windward)Other examples suggest issues with dark vessels and altered vessel measurements. Take, for example, the MING HANG 5, a Hong Kong-flagged refrigerated cargo vessel that in July and August 2020 rendezvoused 42 times with the Chinese fishing fleet. But the behavioral patterns indicate highly suspicious activity. For example, on the 13th of July alone, the MING HANG 5 met with six of the Chinese fleet and changed its draft three times from 0.0 to 6.8 to 0.0 and back to 6.8—a tactic indicative of efforts to obscure the real draft of the vessel and any changes to it arising from fishing or transshipment. Furthermore, after the six meetings, it deviated course. In looking more closely at those meetings, the GANG TAI 8 had been dark for the four days prior to the meeting, and the MING ZHOU 622 had been dark for 10 hours the day prior. Similarly on the 30th of July, the MING HANG 5 changed its draft between 0.0 and 6.8 five times and had a 14-hour meeting with the FU YUAN YU 7875, which had spent 13 hours of the previous day dark. Coincidentally, that partner vessel just so happens to be owned by the same company as the FU YUAN YU 7862, which was the last vessel known to meet with FU YUAN YU LENG 999 before it was arrested in August 2017.


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[Housecarl]

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Windward visualization of paths of the Hong Kong-flagged reefer MING HANG 5 and the Chinese-flagged FU YUAN YU 7862 in July and August 2020, with a timeline indicating their 14 hour meeting on the 30th of July. Note the crossing of the Galapagos EEZ by the MING HANG 5 between the 10th and 11th of July. [Click to Expand] (Source: Windward visualization via author)As this image of the two vessels’ paths indicates, however, the MING HANG 5 also crossed the Galapagos EEZ between the 10th and 11th of July. Right before entering on the morning of the 10th, it changed its registered length from 172 meters to 150 meters. That evening, it changed its draft from N/A to 6.8 and its length from 150 back to 172. Two hours later, it changed its draft from 6.8 to 0.0 and its length back to 150. Less than an hour later—just after midnight on the 11th—it changed the draft back to 6.8 and the length back to 172. This back and forth continued several more times before leaving the zone. This confusing pattern of conduct, along with its other erratic draft changes, indicates an effort to obfuscate its activity and intended purpose. A look at its sister vessel, under common ownership, the MING HANG 7, provides an interesting comparison, having had 54 meetings with the Chinese fleet before heading for China with 119 percent of its cargo capacity by tonnage. In other words, despite not calling at any ports, it is now over full, strongly indicating fisheries transshipment.

This dynamic is consistent with some of the other reefers. The YONG HANG 3, similar to the MING HANG 5, repeatedly changed its draft between 6.5 and 0.0, making it impossible to determine what effect the 19 meetings it had with the Chinese fleet had on its actual draft. The SHEN JU had been in the area since April and constantly switched its draft between 7.8 and 0.0, similarly making the effect of its 55 meetings with the fleet impossible to determine. The SHUN ZE LENG 6 only became the SHUNG ZE LENG 6 on 29 March 2020 when it changed ownership. Since then, it never called at a port, but did meet 50 times with the Chinese fleet and added a half meter of draft before heading back to China at 83 percent of max capacity by tonnage. The YONG XIANG 9 was in the area since April, without making a port call, and meeting with the fleet 18 times before heading back to China.
All of this points to a systematic and conscious attempt to transship the catch on the high seas to bring it back to China. The obfuscation tactics may be a mix of concern about reputational harm and uncertainty about applicable law.
The Tankers
Of the 20 refrigerated cargo vessels, six are tankers. One of them is unidentifiable, suggesting it was operating illegally, but it only had two meetings with vessels in the Chinese fleet, both with the same vessel, the LU RONG YUAN YU 939. The B. PACIFIC, which only had one meeting, is the sister vessel to the B. ATLANTIC which is well-known for bunkering in the Gulf of Guinea. Interestingly, though, that one meeting was with the FU YUAN YU 7876, the sister vessel to the 7875 and 7862, both mentioned above. The HAI SOON 26 engaged in eight meetings, but only entered the area at the end of August and left at the beginning of September, suggesting it was possibly just taking advantage of the high concentration of vessels for bunkering. Conversely, the remaining three vessels—the HAI XING (39 meetings), the HAI GONG YOU 303 (69 meetings) and the OCEAN SPLENDID (89 meetings)—all seem to have been in the area specifically to service not only the Chinese fleet but the reefers like the SHUN ZE LENG 6 that seem to be transshipping with the fishing vessels. While such bunkering is not illegal, it is indicative of the extent of this operation as the maintenance of the Chinese fleet at sea requires a variety of service vessels, including tankers.
Twinsies
Another questionable practice is the use of the same name for different vessels because the duplication may serve as an obfuscation tactic to make interdiction more difficult, allowing each vessel to point a finger at the other should anything occur. An interesting example is the United Kingdom-flagged ZHOU YU 921, not to be confused with the Chinese-flagged ZHOU YU 921, which is part of the Chinese fleet. The vessels are not at all physically identical—the British one is 33 meters in length and the Chinese vessel is 51 meters. While the owners of the British ZHOU YU 921 cannot be verified, there is substantial reason to suspect a close relationship to the Chinese-flagged ZHOU YU 921 because 19 meetings occurred between the two vessels in July and August 2020.
In three other cases, vessels had exactly the same name and International Maritime Organization (IMO) number, but were in fact different vessels. Both the CHANG AN 168 and the CHANG TAI 812 had second vessels with the same name and IMO number, though in the latter case, they did have different Mobile Maritime Service Identity (MMSI) numbers. One name, the JIN HAI 779, was used by three different vessels fishing in the area, each of which also used identical IMO and MMSI numbers. Such use of identical names and identifying numbers by multiple vessels is illegal. And two vessels had very similar names, the JIA DE 12 and the JIA DA 12, but only the former was on the SPRFMO list of registered vessels.
Conclusion and Policy Recommendations
This analysis provided an examination of the Chinese fleet around the Galapagos in order to better understand its macro behavior over time, the industry drivers, some of the recent tactics employed by the fleet, and to ascertain whether IUU fishing is occurring. In most cases, what is detectable may not be illegal, and care is clearly being taken by the Chinese fleet to give the appearance of legal compliance with national and international laws. As the recent changes in Chinese policy suggest, some of this compliance is likely to be genuine. China cares about its international reputation, and knowledge in China about marine environmental protection is growing.
At the same time, China’s competing domestic priorities are resulting in what is likely some illegal fishing activity, and definitely unreported and unregulated fishing activity, requiring different policy responses. The evidence suggests that dark vessel activity and multi-national shell games are obscuring illegal fishing inside the Ecuadorian EEZ around the Galapagos. If Ecuador can more closely monitor the activities, not just of the fleet, but the companies that own the fleet, and the vessels that service the fleet, a more complete picture can be drawn.
The fishing activities on the high seas outside the Galapagos EEZ are unregulated, and the total fishing effort seems unsustainable and irresponsible from an environmental standpoint. The fleet likely would not be able to operate without the enormous subsidies the Chinese government provides every year. In 2018, China provided an estimated 21 percent of all global fisheries subsidies, and 27 percent of the harmful global subsidies. The deep pockets of the Chinese government result in a global fishing fleet that exceeds the size of any other fleet in the world.
While this analysis focused on the peak months of July and August 2020 around the Galapagos, the phenomenon has by no means ended—the majority of the vessels have moved south and, as of mid-October, are now concentrated in the high seas outside of the central and southern portions of the Peruvian EEZ.

Windward visualization of fishing activity by the Chinese fleet in October 2020 outside Peru’s EEZ. Each dot indicates the location of a fishing operation. [Click to Expand] (Source: Author graphic via Windward)The response to high seas fishing must be global. Scientific understanding of high seas fisheries is not as robust as that of coastal fisheries, and thus a precautionary approach is important. Not only does unsustainable fishing threaten long-term food security and the economic viability of the industry, but it may also decrease marine biodiversity, which is already under threat from climate change. At the national level, the U.S. Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) could be expanded to cover squid, which is the main genus the fleet targets. Regionally, organizations like the Comisión Permanente del Pacífico Sur, which looks after the collective fisheries interests and management of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile, can collaborate on high seas management and protection. At the international level, we must support the efforts of the United Nations to establish an agreement on protecting biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ). And the outcome of the World Trade Organization negotiations on fisheries subsidies, concluding possibly at the end of 2020, is crucial—China is currently seeking exemptions arguing that it is still a developing country.

Development, however, can never be to the detriment of the entire planet, and unsustainable fishing practices around the world have put extreme pressure on global fish stocks and dramatically diminished ocean health. Our ability to sustain human life depends on our ability to maintain the resources needed for our sustenance. As much as this matter is up for legal, political or environmental debate, it is most fundamentally a concern for all humanity.

Tabitha Grace Mallory is Founder and CEO of the consulting firm China Ocean Institute and Affiliate Professor of the University of Washington Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. Dr. Mallory specializes in Chinese foreign and environmental policy. She conducts research on China and global ocean governance and has published work on China’s fisheries and oceans policy. She previously served as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Princeton–Harvard China and the World Program. Dr. Mallory holds a Ph.D. (with distinction) in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). She is currently a fellow in the National Committee on U.S.–China Relations Public Intellectuals Program.
Dr. Ian Ralby is a recognized expert in maritime law and security and serves as CEO of I.R. Consilium. He has worked on maritime security issues in more than 80 countries around the world, including in Ecuador and the wider Pacific Coast of South America. He spent four years as Adjunct Professor of Maritime Law and Security at the United States Department of Defense’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies, and three years as a Maritime Crime Expert for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. I.R. Consilium is a family firm that specializes in maritime and resource security and focuses on problem-solving around the globe.

Featured Image: A fishing boat is seen from an aircraft of the Ecuadorian Navy after a fishing fleet of mostly Chinese-flagged ships was detected in an international corridor that borders the Galapagos Islands’ exclusive economic zone, in the Pacific Ocean, August 7, 2020.(Photo via Reuters/Santiago Arcos)

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

Posted for fair use.....

Agreement on warheads brings U.S., Russia closer to extending nuclear treaty

Trump's top arms control negotiator is in Brussels briefing fellow NATO members on the status of the talks.

www.yahoo.com

Agreement on warheads brings U.S., Russia closer to extending nuclear treaty

By Bryan Bender
,
Politico•October 20, 2020

The U.S. and Russia on Tuesday came closer to extending the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty for one year in exchange for a freeze on all nuclear weapons, a breakthrough as President Donald Trump seeks a foreign policy win ahead of the election.

Russia brought the sides closer on Tuesday when it agreed to a U.S. offer that both countries should freeze their number of nuclear warheads of all types for one year.

"Our proposal can only and exclusively be implemented on the understanding that the United States will not advance any additional conditions with regard to freezing the arsenals," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"If this suits Washington," the statement added, "the time gained through the extension of the New START could be used to hold comprehensive bilateral talks on the future of nuclear missile control, with the mandatory discussion of all factors that can influence strategic stability."

Russian President Vladimir Putin had earlier offered to extend the treaty for five years without any preconditions, which the U.S. rejected. Late last week, Putin proposed a one-year extension without conditions, and the U.S. countered that any agreement must include the one-year freeze on all nuclear arms, including those not covered by New START.

The Trump administration on Tuesday sounded a positive note after Russia's statement.

"We appreciate the Russian Federation’s willingness to make progress on the issue of nuclear arms control," Megan Ortagus, a State Department spokesperson, said in a statement. "The United States is prepared to meet immediately to finalize a verifiable agreement. We expect Russia to empower its diplomats to do the same."

Ambassador Marshall Billingslea, Trump's top arms control negotiator, is in Brussels briefing fellow NATO members on the status of the talks.

New START, which began in 2010, limits both sides to 1,550 strategic warheads and 700 delivery systems. It is set to expire on Feb. 5, but allows for an extension of up to five years if both sides agree.

The developments raise the prospect that Trump could notch a major diplomatic achievement just two weeks from the election. His opponent Joe Biden has said he would extend the treaty with Russia for five years without preconditions, while Trump has insisted on a new arrangement that also limits nonstrategic, or battlefield, nuclear weapons.

“It’s a big win because no matter who wins the election, this is significant progress, dislodging a very entrenched Russian position," said Rebeccah Heinrichs, an arms control expert at the Hudson Institute.

But she also cautioned that the details of a freeze need to be worked out quickly.
“We obviously need a detailed verification plan before the U.S. moves forward with a one-year extension," she said. "A detailed verification plan should be intrinsic to the deal and not something the Russians can credibly count as an additional burden.”
"But this is a good commitment," she added.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, noted that the Russians have moved on from their original "clean" five-year extension. "And the Trump administration has shifted its position, too," he added. "The two sides are now closer, but there are still some differences and it will be interesting to see if Trump takes 'yes' for an answer."

"A one-year freeze would buy some time to negotiate something that is more durable," Kimball said.

But he also agreed that the key will be how to verify a freeze. New START requires each side to declare twice a year how many deployed strategic warheads it has but there is no formal accounting of the full breakdown on "exactly how many and which type of warheads," he said.

Lara Seligman contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Islamic State claims prison break in the DRC | FDD's Long War Journal

At least 1,300 inmates were freed in an operation conducted by the Allied Democratic Forces, the Islamic State's local affiliate.

www.longwarjournal.org

Islamic State claims prison break in the DRC

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

Photo of Kangbayi prison in Beni, DRC. (Source: Radio Okapi)

Earlier today, at least 1,300 inmates held in a prison in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were freed in an attack claimed by the Islamic State.
The raid was conducted by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), the Islamic State’s local affiliate within its ‘Central African Province.’

In its short statement released through its Amaq News Agency, the jihadist group said “fighters of the Islamic State this morning [Oct. 20] attacked the Kangbayi central prison and military base of the Congolese army in the town of Beni in northeastern Congo.”

The lack of additional details is common in statements released through Amaq. Additional details or visual evidence has not yet been provided by the Islamic State, as of the time of publishing.

However, the ADF has also claimed the attack through its private social media channel. In the statement, the group refers to itself as part of the Islamic State’s Central African Province. The communique and translation were provided to FDD’s Long War Journal by the Bridgeway Foundation.

In the short statement, the ADF said “your Muslim brothers and sisters from the Central African Province assaulted an army base and also liberated 1300 inmates.” The group also alleges the prison was used as a facility for torture by the Congolese government.
According to local reports, ADF militants launched two simultaneous attacks targeting the Kangbayi prison and adjacent military base.

Other reporting has indicated a third attack on a Congolese military position took place just outside of Beni immediately prior to the assaults on the prison and military base.
As a result, at least 1,300 inmates were freed. It is unclear, however, how many of these inmates are actually members of the ADF, local militias, or general criminals.

Local officials, including the mayor of Beni, Modeste Bakwanamaha, quickly placed blame on the ADF. According to Bakwanamaha, 20 inmates who had been freed in the raid later surrendered themselves and identified the attackers as the ADF.

Additional reporting by Reuters added that the Kangbayi prison was also holding several ADF members at the time of the raid. The group has also been accused of perpetrating a similar attack on the same prison in 2017.

Interestingly, yesterday’s prison assault comes just days after official Islamic State spokesman, Abu Hamza al-Quraishi, praised the group’s Aug. 2 prison break in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. In referring to that assault, al-Quraishi called on members and supporters to conduct similar operations around the world.

While it’s unclear if the ADF took direct orders from the Islamic State to mount today’s assault, it is, however, evident that there is an ongoing trend in which IS leaders have urged more jailbreaks in speeches and messages which have then correlated with attacks on the ground.

It is possible this has now occurred in the DRC. In a separate message on its channel, the ADF acknowledged al-Quraishi’s recent speech saying that “Abu Hamza al-Qurayshi said the Khalifah [referring to current Islamic State emir Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi] advises all mujahidin to set their eyes on breaking the walls of prisons and free our brothers.”

The statement also added that “he [Abu Hamza al-Qurayshi] said the conquest over lands comes after prisons are destroyed and brothers are set free to join hands in destroying the Tawaghit [tyrant] oppressors and their fortifications.”

The ADF and the Islamic State
Originally dedicated to overthrowing the Ugandan government, the ADF fled to eastern Congo in the mid 1990’s and began aligning itself with other groups operating in the area and forging relationships with local communities.

Over time, and notably after a shift in leadership around 2014-2015, the ADF further radicalized, dramatically escalating attacks on Congolese civilians. It soon became clear that this radicalization accompanied efforts by the group to align itself with the Islamic State.

In 2016, the ADF began releasing a series of videos in an apparent attempt to publicly declare its radical ideology. Many of the videos demonstrate clear jihadist messaging, including mantras of establishing a caliphate, calls for violence against “infidels,” and a declaration of their intention to impose a strict interpretation of Sharia in the DRC and Uganda.

The following year, the ADF received financing from Waleed Ahmed Zein, an East Africa-based terrorist who was later sanctioned by the US Treasury for his role within the Islamic State. Treasury noted that his network was able to move money to Islamic State fighters in “Syria, Libya, and Central Africa.”

Zein’s partner, Halima Adan Ali, was also sanctioned by the US Treasury for providing support to the Islamic State. In its press release, Treasury reiterated that Ali and Zein moved money for the Islamic State to fighters in Central Africa.

In February 2018, Congolese troops found Islamic State material and books during a raid on an ADF camp near Beni. One of these books was published by the Islamic State’s Maktabah al Himma, an important wing of the group that once produced theological and ideological treatises.

These links appear to have progressed such that, in April of 2019, the Islamic State claimed its first attack in the DRC under the “Central Africa Province” moniker. In its locally produced media, the group has also referred to itself as the Islamic State.

Since then, the group has claimed more than 71 operations in the Congo according to data kept by this author. The majority of these can be tied to verified ADF attacks based on reporting by the Kivu Security Tracker (a project that maps violence in eastern Congo) and by local media.

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

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

Posted for fair use.....

Breaking the Ice: High Stakes in the High North

A brand-new crimson-hulled Chinese icebreaker recently concluded an expedition through the Arctic, crunching ice up to five feet thick. The ominously named Xue Long 2 (or Snow Dragon) is a recent newc

www.realcleardefense.com

Breaking the Ice: High Stakes in the High North


.

https://assets.realclear.com/images/52/524734.jpg


By Henri-Nicolas Grossman
October 21, 2020
A brand-new crimson-hulled Chinese icebreaker recently concluded an expedition through the Arctic, crunching ice up to five feet thick. The ominously named Xue Long 2 (or Snow Dragon) is a recent newcomer in an increasingly crowded Arctic. Competition is heating up as fast as the ice is melting. Countries north and south of the Arctic circle believe themselves to be in a 21st century "Scramble for Africa," their sights set on natural gas, oil, and minerals to exploit.


While some decry an "icebreaker gap" (the U.S. only has one, and it will take years before more come online), the real problem is that U.S. policy in the Arctic lacks direction. The United States needs a better approach – a new cooperative arrangement with Russia to protect the environment, maintain peace in the region, and box-out China.
Unfortunately, current U.S. Arctic policy shamefully denies the reality of climate change and its impact on the Arctic. In 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo scuttled a multi-nation declaration by the Arctic Council highlighting climate change. The Pentagon’s Arctic strategy is no better, describing the region as a place to compete with Russia. By focusing narrowly on climate denial and competition, current U.S. policy hampers international climate cooperation, overestimates geopolitical risks, and hurts regional efforts that could pro-mote other U.S. objectives, such as boxing-out China.



The United States needs a new framework of cooperation with Russia in the Arctic. The challenges ahead are too great to go it alone. The United States should accept that it is normal for Russia to develop a robust defensive military apparatus within its own territory. Both sides should agree to halt provocative military maneuvers. Russian policy calls for [1] the Arctic to be "bracketed" from issues in Europe. American strategy should match this policy and encourage the use of the Arctic Council as a forum for dialogue. American and Russian relations should focus on climate change and sovereignty. Expansionist China should be kept at bay.
The Arctic should not become a new hotbed of great power rivalry. Such competition distracts from climate cooperation at this most crucial time in history. Russia has indeed rebuilt its Arctic military presence, commissioning nuclear-powered icebreakers and military bases. But the Arctic is more important to Moscow than to the United States, with 53 percent of the Arctic's coastline in Russian territory. Not surprisingly, Russia deploys more re-sources in the Arctic than does the U.S. There is no "icebreaker gap" as many claim [2]. The U.S. Navy should not focus on surface warfare planning. The U.S. and Russia have historically cooperated in the Arctic despite fierce competition elsewhere and should do so again.


China has colonial ambitions in the Arctic [3]. It has described itself as a “near-Arctic nation” and seeks to establish a presence to displace western powers. Inter-Arctic cooperation can effectively box-out Beijing; buying Greenland is not necessary. Russia is happy to limit its Arctic relationship with China to commercial development. The Arctic Council is the forum where Chinese expansion can be halted. A 2018 ban on unregulated fishing on the Arctic’s high seas supported by Russia was aimed at stopping Chinese fishing fleets from ravaging yet another ocean. Council members should block Chinese efforts to buy mines and vital infrastructure in northern Canada and Greenland.


It will not be easy to cooperate with Russia. Many will question Moscow's sincerity. But America's Arctic allies like Norway [4] cannot exist in a state of permanent tension with Russia. Critics will also complain that this framework does not solve freedom of navigation issues, as Russia and Canada will continue to claim jurisdiction over Arctic trade routes. The U.S. should contest these claims but through arbitration. Appeals to escalation [5] should go unheeded. Let Moscow come to its own conclusions about its uneconomical policies.


The Arctic is in peril. The ground is literally exploding as the permafrost heats up [6]. The United States and Russia must "bracket" their rivalry when dealing with Arctic issues. Much of the Arctic is clearly within Russian territory. Recognizing this is the only way to keep the climate crisis a priority and effectively box-out expansionist China. It is time for Russia and America to break the ice and bring to the table global climate leadership.

Henri-Nicolas Grossman is pursuing a Master of Arts in Security Policy Studies at the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs. He graduated from King’s College London in 2019 with a B.A. in War Studies & History.

Notes:


[1]: https://doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2017.1318849 [doi.org]
[2]: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2014-12-11/breaking-ice [foreignaffairs.com]
[3]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46386867 [bbc.com]
[4]: https://www.americansecurityproject.org/arctic-security-with-norwegian-state-secretary-audun-halvorsen/ [americansecurityproject.org]
[5]: https://www.economist.com/europe/2020/05/10/america-and-britain-play-cold-war-games-with-russia-in-the-arctic [economist.com]
[6]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/05/world/europe/russia-arctic-eruptions.html [nytimes.com]

 

[jward]

Patriot Missile Battery Suddenly Appears At Small Regional Airport In Texas
Waking up to a sea of missile launchers and military vehicles left some asking what was going on and nobody seemed to have an answer, until now.
ByTyler RogowayOctober 21, 2020

• The War Zone

Tyler RogowayView Tyler Rogoway's Articles
Aviation_Intel

The inbox here at The War Zone can be pretty interesting on any given morning, but today's correspondence featured something you definitely don't see every day—an entire Patriot air defense battery sprawled out on a runway at a small regional airport. Apparently, very few people, if anyone, at Easterwood Airport in College Station, Texas knew exactly what was going on with the sudden deployment of the Army's preeminent air defense system, either.
"Nobody knows anything, they just showed up" one commercial pilot that flies in and out of Easterwood daily told The War Zone.



Enhanced Patriot Missile Enters Full Rate Production, Will Sell Like HotcakesBy Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone
Missile Defense Madness: Myth Of Perfect Patriots, Magic THAAD, And The ICBM ShieldBy Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone
Here's Why Patriot Missiles Weren't Protecting US Troops In Iraq And Why They Still Aren'tBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Turkey Asks America To Send Patriot Missiles To Its Border As Its Troops Die In Syria AirstrikesBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Ukraine Requests To Buy Patriot Missiles As It Delivers A Mobile Radar To The U.S. ArmyBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone

We reached out to the Easterwood Airport's administration and they had very little knowledge of what exactly was the deal with the Army setting-up shop on their grounds. They mentioned that around 300 soldiers accompanied the radars, command and control elements, and multiple transporter-erector-launchers that make up the Patriot system that is currently arrayed along Taxiway G and Runway 11-29 at the airport.

Reader Submission
The airport is still open and traffic is coming and going, although it looks a bit like a war zone. Notices to airman (NOTAMs) have been published denoting that the taxiway and runway will be closed for a week.

FAA
NOTAMs associated with the deployment.
Airport officials also mentioned that they were told the battery came from Fort Hood, also in Texas, and gave us a contact number there to inquire with. We called that number and also reached out to Fort Hood's public affairs team and got an answer to the mystery.

Google Earth
Easterwood Airport in College Station, Texas.
The public affairs officer for the 1st Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery Regiment (1-44th ADA), part of the 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade at Fort Hood, told The War Zone that the unit was executing a relatively rare deployment where they set up shop in an unfamiliar location, just as they would during a crisis. After setting up their gear, which as you can see in the images below is quite extensive, as well as an operations center, they will operate as they would in a wartime-like setting and run drills associated with a real-world deployment, This includes defending against air-breathing threats, such as airplanes and cruise missiles, and high and fast-flying ballistic missiles. It's worth noting that there are no live missiles being used as part of the training evolution.
There will also be an opportunity for ROTC Cadets from nearby Texas A&M University to take part in the exercise and see what one of the Army's top air defense battalions looks and operates like during an actual deployed operation.

Submission
As to why this airport was chosen, it isn't exactly clear. But an operational airport facility like this is likely much more realistic to train for expeditionary operations at than a vacated one. An active airbase may have been considered a bit too familiar and convenient. Air defense batteries are often deployed to airfields overseas. Still, we really can't remember when such a high-profile deployment has occurred at a small civilian airport in the past.

Submission

Submission
So, there you have it! The folks at the airport are getting a front-row look at a Patriot unit in action and the soldiers that are deployed to Easterwood Airport are getting some high-level training. And once again, while there has been an uptick in homeland air defense training as of late, this Patriot battery is just there to simulate expeditionary operations, although that's not to say that their services couldn't be called upon in a crisis to defend key areas of the country.
We will update this post when we find out more information as to the true nature of this very peculiar deployment.
Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com

posted for fair use

Patriot Missile Battery Suddenly Appears At Small Regional Airport In Texas

Waking up to a sea of missile launchers and military vehicles left some asking what was going on and nobody seemed to have an answer, until now.

www.thedrive.com

 

[Housecarl]

Patriot Missile Battery Suddenly Appears At Small Regional Airport In Texas
Waking up to a sea of missile launchers and military vehicles left some asking what was going on and nobody seemed to have an answer, until now.
ByTyler RogowayOctober 21, 2020

• The War Zone

Tyler RogowayView Tyler Rogoway's Articles
Aviation_Intel

The inbox here at The War Zone can be pretty interesting on any given morning, but today's correspondence featured something you definitely don't see every day—an entire Patriot air defense battery sprawled out on a runway at a small regional airport. Apparently, very few people, if anyone, at Easterwood Airport in College Station, Texas knew exactly what was going on with the sudden deployment of the Army's preeminent air defense system, either.
"Nobody knows anything, they just showed up" one commercial pilot that flies in and out of Easterwood daily told The War Zone.



Enhanced Patriot Missile Enters Full Rate Production, Will Sell Like HotcakesBy Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone
Missile Defense Madness: Myth Of Perfect Patriots, Magic THAAD, And The ICBM ShieldBy Tyler Rogoway Posted in The War Zone
Here's Why Patriot Missiles Weren't Protecting US Troops In Iraq And Why They Still Aren'tBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Turkey Asks America To Send Patriot Missiles To Its Border As Its Troops Die In Syria AirstrikesBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Ukraine Requests To Buy Patriot Missiles As It Delivers A Mobile Radar To The U.S. ArmyBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone

We reached out to the Easterwood Airport's administration and they had very little knowledge of what exactly was the deal with the Army setting-up shop on their grounds. They mentioned that around 300 soldiers accompanied the radars, command and control elements, and multiple transporter-erector-launchers that make up the Patriot system that is currently arrayed along Taxiway G and Runway 11-29 at the airport.

Reader Submission
The airport is still open and traffic is coming and going, although it looks a bit like a war zone. Notices to airman (NOTAMs) have been published denoting that the taxiway and runway will be closed for a week.

FAA
NOTAMs associated with the deployment.
Airport officials also mentioned that they were told the battery came from Fort Hood, also in Texas, and gave us a contact number there to inquire with. We called that number and also reached out to Fort Hood's public affairs team and got an answer to the mystery.

Google Earth
Easterwood Airport in College Station, Texas.
The public affairs officer for the 1st Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery Regiment (1-44th ADA), part of the 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade at Fort Hood, told The War Zone that the unit was executing a relatively rare deployment where they set up shop in an unfamiliar location, just as they would during a crisis. After setting up their gear, which as you can see in the images below is quite extensive, as well as an operations center, they will operate as they would in a wartime-like setting and run drills associated with a real-world deployment, This includes defending against air-breathing threats, such as airplanes and cruise missiles, and high and fast-flying ballistic missiles. It's worth noting that there are no live missiles being used as part of the training evolution.
There will also be an opportunity for ROTC Cadets from nearby Texas A&M University to take part in the exercise and see what one of the Army's top air defense battalions looks and operates like during an actual deployed operation.

Submission
As to why this airport was chosen, it isn't exactly clear. But an operational airport facility like this is likely much more realistic to train for expeditionary operations at than a vacated one. An active airbase may have been considered a bit too familiar and convenient. Air defense batteries are often deployed to airfields overseas. Still, we really can't remember when such a high-profile deployment has occurred at a small civilian airport in the past.

Submission

Submission
So, there you have it! The folks at the airport are getting a front-row look at a Patriot unit in action and the soldiers that are deployed to Easterwood Airport are getting some high-level training. And once again, while there has been an uptick in homeland air defense training as of late, this Patriot battery is just there to simulate expeditionary operations, although that's not to say that their services couldn't be called upon in a crisis to defend key areas of the country.
We will update this post when we find out more information as to the true nature of this very peculiar deployment.
Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com

posted for fair use

Patriot Missile Battery Suddenly Appears At Small Regional Airport In Texas

Waking up to a sea of missile launchers and military vehicles left some asking what was going on and nobody seemed to have an answer, until now.

www.thedrive.com

They say that there are no live missile rounds deployed. I've got to wonder about that.

ETA:

https://www.flyeasterwood.com/wp-content/uploads/revslider/Home/routemapnew.jpg

When you consider the coverage of a Patriot battery, never mind a THADD battery, that is an interesting location for a training exercise deployment. Never mind what's to the south....

https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/02/21/46/17373598/4/640x0.jpg

https://www.mapsofworld.com/usa/states/texas/maps/texas-airports.jpg

https://pics2.city-data.com/city/maps/fr429.png

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b4/d0/d5/b4d0d576b74b8ac3db6845ab9b71b75c.gif

https://www.tripsavvy.com/thmb/4paulSk6PfRFwwlFzb8s7Rkje6g=/1699x956/smart/filters:no_upscale()/Caribbean_general_map-56a38ec03df78cf7727df5b8.png

 

[Doc1]

I wouldn't sweat the Patriot deployment at the Texas airport. The public affairs officer for the 1st Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery Regiment presented a very plausible explanation.

I once lived near a southern Mississippi general aviation airport which had intermittent .mil aircraft deployments. Additionally, a private avionics contractor was based at the airport and frequently did work on .gov aircraft. That airport had been constructed - at least in part - as an alternative landing site for the Space Shuttle so has a huge runway. It could (and can) accommodate anything that flies. It was a bit incongruous to see all of the tiny Cessnas and Beechcraft Barons parked on the apron of that huge effing runway!

My son went to high school at a campus immediately adjacent to the airport. I always told him that if he noticed lots of B-52s landing there to quietly leave the campus and start walking south along the woodline where I'd pick him up. It was standard USAF practice to disperse their bombers if they thought the Big One was imminent. Barksdale Air Force Base in northern Louisiana is/was - in flying terms - close to that southern Mississippi airport.

Best
Doc

 

[jward]

Thanks for that input. While I'm the opposite of sweaty- frozen solid, in truth- I've been trained to listen when Taylor talks.
..and it does feel like something is tres mal bad in the force these days

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm........

Posted for fair use.....

U.S. Foreign Policy: Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing

Regardless of whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden wins in November, the next president will confront both a divided America and a world in its usual disarray. Among the many foreign policy challenges fa

www.realcleardefense.com

U.S. Foreign Policy: Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing


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By Gil Barndollar
October 21, 2020

Regardless of whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden wins in November, the next president will confront both a divided America and a world in its usual disarray. Among the many foreign policy challenges facing the new administration, three are critical: China, Russia, and America’s own broken diplomatic instrument.
Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing

Trump’s biggest foreign policy accomplishment has been to reorient America’s China policy, discarding the three preceding administrations' naivete in favor of a clear-headed evaluation of China as a competitor and threat. This belated shift was probably inevitable, but Trump accelerated the end of America’s embrace of China as a purported partner in prosperity.


It won’t get any easier from here. China has both economic tailwinds and demographic headwinds. The latter is a far larger factor – “demographics are destiny” – but perhaps somewhat mitigated in an age of automation and artificial intelligence. The United States, meanwhile, is confronting massive debts, internal disunity, and the looming “Terrible Twenties” of major naval recapitalization that analysts have long warned about.



Despite the uncertainty, his erratic tweets breed, President Trump has actually strengthened many of America’s partnerships in Asia. The other members of the Quad – Japan, Australia, and India – are critical to the region and vital U.S. national interests. They are likely to be America’s most important twenty-first century partners.


Biden sounds committed to continued strategic ambiguity on Taiwan. This is probably prudent, but it is no barrier to arming Taiwan to the teeth and helping it become a “porcupine nation” that can make China think twice about invading. The Taiwanese commitment to their own defense, however, is in question.


Asian allies are key, and a 500-ship navy would be nice, but the Sino-American competition's critical arena is likely to be economic and technological. The next administration must put America’s long-term trajectory ahead of Wall Street’s quarterly earnings calls and restore key industries and supply chains to at least the Western Hemisphere, if not to the United States itself. The COVID pandemic and America's initial shameful lack of capacity to make even basic personal protective equipment (PPE) should have been the needed wake-up call.


Perhaps U.S. – China technological separation can be limited, “small plots with high walls,” as tech billionaires like Eric Schmidt prefer. A broader decoupling and a de facto two internets may be where we end up. Regardless, both its 5G failure and the recent TikTok fiasco show that the United States has yet to get serious about its growing tech vulnerabilities.

Realism on Russia

Russia, that other remixed Cold War threat, is increasingly adjacent to China in American strategists' eyes. Yet Russia is a distinct and far lesser security challenge than China. President Obama's dismissing Russia as “a regional power” may not have been sound messaging to Americans or Russians. Still, it remains a more accurate assessment than the Russian hysteria that has gripped much of the American body politic for the last four years.


The past decade has shown that Russia remains a great power, albeit one with clear limits. The massive Red Army is long gone, replaced by a more proficient and agile Russian military that gets a maximum return on limited interventions like Syria. Russia has achieved many of its aims in its near abroad and has become an influential actor in the Middle East and North Africa. The Russians have assassinated spies and dissidents in Europe with little regard for the headlines. And while Russian interference in U.S. elections does not seem to have moved many votes, it has likely succeeded beyond its authors’ wildest dreams in disrupting and delegitimizing American politics.


Vladimir Putin’s Russia is America’s adversary, not an outright enemy. The United States must not let Russia fall into China’s camp. Whether one hearkens to Halford Mackinder’s Heartland Theory or simply does the math on defense spending, the power of a Russo-Chinese alliance is clear.


It is in America’s national interest to get past Russian provocations and our own politics and find a modus vivendi, however uncomfortable, with Putin’s Russia. Remaining in the Open Skies Treaty and renewing New START are good first steps. A broad nuclear framework and an accord on mutual political non-interference are potential long-term goals. America’s European allies will have their say, but most will probably welcome a lowering of tensions.


Some theorists argue that structural factors will prevent Russia and China from being more than partners of convenience. Perhaps. Even a limited attempt at an American reset with Russia could fail as completely as the last effort – though hopefully without a goofy prop. Nonetheless, the next administration should at least keep its options open and remain realist in its approach to Russia.

Diplomacy and Demilitarization

“Ending endless wars” has become a trope in American politics, thanks to Donald Trump. But the campaign promises of 2016 remain unfulfilled, with U.S. troops still in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a handful of other low-intensity wars across the Greater Middle East. Like Trump, Biden increasingly speaks of a smaller footprint and limited counterterrorism aims. A broader demilitarization of American foreign policy and restoration of the declining State Department should be among the next president’s foremost foreign policy goals.


Both the hapless Rex Tillerson and the swaggering Mike Pompeo gutted the State Department, presiding over a 16-month hiring freeze, plummeting morale, and an unprecedented politicization of the department. Morale at State is 13th out of the 17 large federal agencies, and vacancies are endemic, both overseas and in key positions at Foggy Bottom. In an increasingly multipolar world, the decline of American diplomacy is a critical vulnerability.

The U.S. military has, for decades now, filled the vacuum that the State Department has left. America’s senior generals have become proconsuls while her junior officers are told that they are diplomats too. One wonders why America hasn’t won a war in thirty years.


A Foreign Service ROTC program is overdue. America’s diplomats are every bit as important as her soldiers. As foreign service officers sometimes like to note, since Vietnam, the United States has had more ambassadors than generals killed in the line of duty. If Biden wants to be bold, he can take a page from Elizabeth Warren and end America’s archaic, corrupt practice of giving ambassadorships to campaign donors and other amateurs.


The ends, ways, and means of U.S. foreign policy are all in need of serious reappraisal and reform. The State Department is a good place for the next administration to start.



Gil Barndollar is a Senior Fellow at Defense Priorities and a Senior Research Fellow at the Catholic University of America’s Center for the Study of Statesmanship.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

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US urges countries to withdraw from UN nuke ban treaty

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States is urging countries that have ratified a U.N. treaty to ban nuclear weapons to withdraw their support as the pact nears the 50 ratifications needed to trigger its entry into force, which supporters say could happen this week.

apnews.com

US urges countries to withdraw from UN nuke ban treaty
By EDITH M. LEDERER
today

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States is urging countries that have ratified a U.N. treaty to ban nuclear weapons to withdraw their support as the pact nears the 50 ratifications needed to trigger its entry into force, which supporters say could happen this week.

The U.S. letter to signatories, obtained by The Associated Press, says the five original nuclear powers -- the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France -- and America’s NATO allies “stand unified in our opposition to the potential repercussions” of the treaty.

It says the treaty “turns back the clock on verification and disarmament and is dangerous” to the half-century-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, considered the cornerstone of global nonproliferation efforts.

“Although we recognize your sovereign right to ratify or accede to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), we believe that you have made a strategic error and should withdraw your instrument of ratification or accession,” the letter says.

The treaty requires that all ratifying countries “never under any circumstances ... develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” It also bans any transfer or use of nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive devices — and the threat to use such weapons -- and requires parties to promote the treaty to other countries.

Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning coalition whose work helped spearhead the nuclear ban treaty, told The Associated Press Tuesday that several diplomatic sources confirmed that they and other states that ratified the TPNW had been sent letters by the U.S. requesting their withdrawal.

She said the “increasing nervousness, and maybe straightforward panic, with some of the nuclear-armed states and particularly the Trump administration” shows that they “really seem to understand that this is a reality: Nuclear weapons are going to be banned under international law soon.”

Fihn dismissed the nuclear powers’ claim that the treaty interferes with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as “straightforward lies, to be frank.”

“They have no actual argument to back that up,” she said. “The Nonproliferation Treaty is about preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and eliminating nuclear weapons, and this treaty implements that. There’s no way you can undermine the Nonproliferation Treaty by banning nuclear weapons. It’s the end goal of the Nonproliferation Treaty.”

The NPT sought to prevent the spread of nuclear arms beyond the five original weapons powers. It requires non-nuclear signatory nations to not pursue atomic weapons in exchange for a commitment by the five powers to move toward nuclear disarmament and to guarantee non-nuclear states’ access to peaceful nuclear technology for producing energy.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the nuclear weapons ban treaty “a very welcome initiative.”

“It is clear for me that we will only be entirely safe in relation to nuclear weapons the day where nuclear weapons no longer exist,” he said in an interview Wednesday with AP. “We know that it’s not easy. We know that there are many obstacles.”

He expressed hope that a number of important initiatives, including U.S.-Russia talks on renewing the New Start Treaty limiting deployed nuclear warheads, missiles and bombers and next year’s review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, “will all converge in the same direction, and the final objective must be to have a world with no nuclear weapons.”

“That the Trump administration is pressuring countries to withdraw from a United Nations-backed disarmament treaty is an unprecedented action in international relations,” Fihn said. “That the U.S. goes so far as insisting countries violate their treaty obligations by not promoting the TPNW to other states shows how fearful they are of the treaty’s impact and growing support.”

The treaty was approved by the 193-member U.N. General Assembly on July 7, 2017 by a vote of 122 in favor, the Netherlands opposed, and Singapore abstaining. Among countries voting in favor was Iran. The five nuclear powers and four other countries known or believed to possess nuclear weapons — India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel — boycotted negotiations and the vote on the treaty, along with many of their allies.

The treaty currently has 47 ratifications and needs 50 ratifications to trigger its entry into force in 90 days.

Fihn said there are about 10 countries that are trying very hard to ratify to get to 50, “and we know that there are a few governments that are working towards Friday as the date. ... We’re not 100 percent it will happen, but hopefully it will.”

Friday has been an unofficial target because it is the eve of United Nations Day on Oct. 24 which marks the anniversary of the entry into force in 1945 of the U.N. Charter. The day has been observed since 1948 and this year is the 75th anniversary of the founding of the U.N.

Fihn stressed that the entry into force of the treaty will be “a really big deal” because it will become part of international law and will be raised in discussions on disarmament, war crimes and weapons.

“And I think that over time pressure will grow on the nuclear-armed states to join the treaty,” she said.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

Posted for fair use.....

Will America Help Britain Build a New Nuclear Warhead? - War on the Rocks

The future of the United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent depends, in part, on decisions being made right now in the U.S. Congress. At stake are Britain’s

warontherocks.com

Will America Help Britain Build a New Nuclear Warhead?

Matthew Harries

October 22, 2020

Commentary
The future of the United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent depends, in part, on decisions being made right now in the U.S. Congress. At stake are Britain’s plans to build a replacement for its current nuclear warhead. According to the U.K. defense secretary and senior U.S. officials, the United Kingdom’s program is reliant on the United States pursuing its own new warhead program of record, the W93. But the Donald Trump administration’s Fiscal Year 2021 request for funds for the W93 was first nixed by House appropriators and then excluded from the stopgap continuing resolution. It is neither clear whether the W93 program will eventually make it into the budget proper, nor whether it would be taken up immediately by a potential incoming Joe Biden administration.


The United Kingdom’s new warhead will be housed in the U.S. Navy’s proposed new Mk7 aeroshell, and is intended to be developed in parallel with the W93 warhead, sharing key design parameters and using some common non-nuclear components. In April, U.K. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace wrote to members of Congress on relevant committees, claiming that their “support to the W93 program in this budget cycle is critical to the success of our replacement warhead program and to the long-term viability of the U.K.’s nuclear deterrent.” Senior Trump administration officials have also repeatedly told Congress that a failure to fund the W93 will prevent the United States from supporting the British program. The future of a nuclear deterrent that the United Kingdom calls its “ultimate insurance policy as a nation” and a contribution to the “ultimate guarantee of collective Euro-Atlantic security” is being called into question.

Most media discussion of Wallace’s letter focused on the propriety of the defense secretary lobbying Congress. But Wallace’s letter was remarkable on grounds of substance, not just process. At face value, his letter made very serious claims, suggesting that the fate of the United Kingdom as a nuclear power is in the hands not of members of Parliament, but of congressional appropriators. These claims deserve close interrogation — not least by Parliament, which has so far failed in its duty of scrutiny. British legislators should be asking why, exactly, a new warhead is needed; what the backup plan in case U.S. assistance is disrupted; what military and technical requirements are being set for the new warhead; whether the United Kingdom’s fraying infrastructure can deliver what is asked of it; and how much this endeavor will cost. Buried in these questions are significant risks and long-term strategic choices for the United Kingdom, the future of its nuclear deterrent, and Anglo-American defense ties.


Dependent Deterrent


The United Kingdom’s nuclear force is strongly dependent, in material and programmatic terms, on the United States. The Royal Navy deploys four nuclear-armed submarines equipped with the U.S.-built and maintained Trident II D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile, drawing from a common missile pool at King’s Bay, Georgia. The essence of this cooperative relationship on delivery systems has been in place since the conclusion of the Polaris Sales Agreement in 1963, signed after Prime Minister Harold Macmillan persuaded President John F. Kennedy to sell the United Kingdom the Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missile. Bilateral cooperation on warhead-relevant matters, including the transfer to the United Kingdom of special nuclear material and non-nuclear weapon components, is authorized under the 1958 U.K.-U.S. Mutual Defense Agreement, which freed London from Washington’s postwar prohibition on nuclear cooperation under the 1946 McMahon Act.


The United Kingdom is currently working on a successor submarine, the Dreadnought class, which will replace the currently deployed Vanguard class in the 2030s, and which will share a common missile compartment with America’s own successor class, the Columbia. In 2006, Prime Minister Tony Blair secured from President George W. Bush an agreement that the United Kingdom would participate in a missile life extension program so that the Dreadnought class could continue to carry the Trident II D-5. In addition, London would be invited to participate in any program to replace or further life extend the D-5. A program is now underway to develop a successor missile once the D-5 leaves service in 2042, currently designated the D-5 Life Extension 2.


The basic parameters of the British warhead are thus set by the need for it to be certified for use with an American missile system and housed in an American aeroshell. The United Kingdom’s current nuclear warhead, the Holbrook, is sometimes referred to as an “Anglicized” version of the U.S. W76. It is certainly a similar design, and is referred to as such by U.S. national laboratories, although the degree of similarity is not publicly known. Several non-nuclear components of the warhead are known to be procured from the United States, including the arming, fusing, and firing system; neutron initiator; and the gas transfer system. The United Kingdom has made some updates to the Holbrook while the United States has conducted a life extension of the W76, now designated the W76-1, including at least the incorporation of the Mk4a arming, fusing, and firing system. However, it has not been publicly disclosed whether the United Kingdom has conducted an equally extensive life extension program of its own.


There is little reason to believe that the United Kingdom wishes to depart significantly from this model when it comes to building the next warhead. The structural incentives to hew closely to U.S. plans are strong. Procurement of non-nuclear components from the United States is seen as an obvious cost-saving measure, and reliance on U.S. facilities and information-sharing gives Britain a hedge against technological risks in design and certification. An explicit goal of the United Kingdom’s program to modernize its nuclear infrastructure has in recent years been to “increase engagement with the United States to align capabilities and requirements for any future warhead decision.”


Unless the United Kingdom wants to diverge significantly from the United States, then its new warhead program needs a parallel U.S. program against which to align. Enter the W93. The announcement of a new program of record was good news for the U.K. nuclear establishment, which had been in a holding pattern during several years of U.S. deliberations and interservice wrangling. But the United Kingdom fields only one warhead in its nuclear arsenal, and so has considerably less margin for error than the United States, which already has two warhead types delivered by submarine-launched ballistic missiles (the W76-1 and W88, plus a lower-yield W76-2 variant), as well as the redundancy of two alternative delivery vehicles (land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and strategic bombers), each with their own warhead types. The United Kingdom also appears to be working toward a rather pressing deadline. According to official U.K. statements, a replacement warhead could be needed as early as the late 2030s, and it has previously been estimated to take 17 years from a procurement decision to the eventual production of the warhead.


This sense of urgency leaves Britain in an uncomfortable position, because many in Congress do not appear convinced that the United States truly needs the W93 program to start right away. Funding for the W93 program was not anticipated to be required for two more years, and the timing of the administration’s request has provoked pushback from Democratic legislators. One possible theory is that Trump administration officials want the W93 on the books before a potential Biden administration enters office. Another more concrete explanation is that U.S. defense officials might not trust the National Nuclear Security Administration — the semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy which manufactures the United States’ nuclear warheads — to deliver the W93 on schedule, and would like a more generous margin of error. The National Nuclear Security Administration request is only for the first of seven phases of warhead development, and calls for the relatively modest sum of $53 million, alongside a Pentagon request for $32 million for the Navy Mk7 program. The latter request, unlike that of the National Nuclear Security Administration, was originally approved by House appropriators.


Even if a potential incoming Biden administration agreed with the requirement for a new warhead for its submarine-launched ballistic missiles, it might still choose to delay the program. This could be a symbolic gesture toward reducing emphasis on nuclear weapons, or a practical recognition both that National Nuclear Security Administration already has four life extension or modification programs to execute and a new sea-launched cruise missile warhead to produce, and that the U.S. nuclear modernization program is shaping up to be spectacularly expensive at a time of COVID-19 induced budget pressure. Even without a conscious decision to delay the program, it might still be pushed back if a Biden administration wished to consider the W93 in the context of a Nuclear Posture Review, which would take time to complete.


Unanswered Questions


The United Kingdom, in other words, is in quite a bind. The defense secretary has stated, in writing, that the viability of the British deterrent depends on a program which the U.S. Congress might be about to stymie. It could be the case that, if work on the Mk7 aeroshell can start even in the absence of National Nuclear Security Administration funding for the W93, the United Kingdom could begin work on its own program. But the longer that Britain proceeds without a parallel U.S. warhead program in place, the greater the risks it would be incurring. Vanishingly little is publicly known about the decision-making process which has led to this point, which makes the precise degree of risk facing the United Kingdom very difficult to judge.


Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

Congress has now had four public hearings at which the W93 was discussed, including several references to the program’s importance to the United Kingdom, and the administration has given briefings on the rationale behind the program. Yet in the United Kingdom, where the stakes are allegedly much higher, the sum total of the government’s public output on the warhead is a vaguely written statement to Parliament, and confirmation that the warhead will use the Mk7 aeroshell. This leaves open several key questions.


Why Has the United Kingdom Decided to Build a New Warhead, Rather Than Seeking to Further Refurbish or to Remanufacture Holbrook?


The fact that the United Kingdom has decided to build a new warhead at all, rather than seeking to further prolong the life of the Holbrook, is something that needs justifying. Has the United Kingdom made an independent judgment that a replacement warhead is essential, or is this decision simply the combination of a U.S. decision to proceed with W93 and the United Kingdom’s preference for alignment? Ever since the 2006 White Paper in which the decision to renew the ballistic missile submarine force was taken, the U.K. government has repeatedly told Parliament that at some point a decision on whether to build a new warhead would be need to be made. That decision has now been made, and Parliament and the public do not know why.


It is not clear that the United States sees a critical need to replace the W76-1, which has recently been life-extended, providing for additional decades of use. Some discussions of the W93’s role suggest that it could exist in parallel with both the W76-1 and the W88 as one of America’s three submarine-launched ballistic missile warheads. Were the United States to decide that the W76-1 could be further life-extended, or remanufactured from scratch, the U.K. government has not yet provided any public reasoning why the same could not be done for the Holbrook. Such reasons can certainly be imagined: there might be materials used in the original U.K. design that have now aged, and cannot for technical, legal, or safety reasons be remanufactured other than at disproportionate cost. There is also a case to be made that further life-extending old warheads introduces a degree of risk of technical failure that is unacceptably high for a country that depends on a single design, and that changes in the security environment, such as developments in missile defenses, could set future military requirements that the current warhead cannot meet. These arguments, however, have not yet been publicly made by the U.K. government.


What Are the Critical U.S. Activities on Which the U.K. Replacement Warhead Will Depend in the Next Few Years, and What Is the United Kingdom’s Backup Plan if These Activities Are Not Funded?


The U.K. government has emphasized the need for its warhead to be “compatible” with America’s Trident system. What this probably means in practice is that the United Kingdom needs to know key parameters of the Mk7 aeroshell which will define the size, shape, mass distribution, and other aspects of the British warhead which will fit inside it. Beyond that, in order for the United Kingdom to be able to cooperate closely with the United States on key scientific and engineering aspects of the warhead’s design, manufacturing, and certification, the United Kingdom will need to know U.S. intentions for various design choices. Until the United States starts work on the W93 program, the United Kingdom will either have to delay its own choices or make assumptions about likely U.S. decisions in order to begin necessary work. Either path could involve increased costs and technical risk.


Beyond a small delay, more serious disruption to the W93 program raises very challenging questions: would the United Kingdom pursue indigenous production of components that would otherwise have been procured from the United States, and if so, at what risk and cost? If the United Kingdom still wishes to remain aligned with the United States, are there alternatives to a replacement warhead based on the W93/Mk7? More broadly, Parliament might ask whether such close alignment to the United States is truly worth the accompanying loss of sovereignty. It is often assumed that the United Kingdom has simply no other option, and a more independent program would certainly involve taking a greater share of technical risk and would very likely incur greater financial costs. Nevertheless, close alignment with the United States has downsides as well as upsides, including greater vulnerability to disruption or delayed supply of materials, components, and expertise, and less discretion in setting military and other requirements for the warhead. This is a strategically important choice which has not yet been fully debated in public.


What Are the Likely Requirements for the W93, and How Do These Relate to the U.K. Program?


Assuming that the W93 program does go ahead, the first phases of its development will involve, among other things, the drafting of military characteristics and a stockpile-to-target sequence. Taken together, these will define the performance requirements and physical characteristics of the weapon, as well as the environments and threats it will be exposed to that must be taken into account in its design. This will require deciding, for example, what explosive yield the warhead will have, what defenses it must defeat — including nuclear, hit-to-kill, and (potentially) directed energy weapons — and what kind of hardening and countermeasures will be necessary. Choices will also be made regarding surety requirements, such as whether to use insensitive high explosives, which could mean a relative increase in mass and volume.


Requirements set in the United States during this process are likely to determine or strongly influence several characteristics of the British warhead. Embedded in those requirements are important implications for U.K. policy and strategy, and although London is likely to have a voice in U.S. discussions over such questions, it will not have a deciding vote. Briefings by U.S. officials suggest, for example, that the W93 is intended to be of higher yield than the W76-1. If the United Kingdom were to follow this path, the overall explosive yield of its operational stockpile could increase for the first time since it began deploying Trident in 1994. The emphasis placed by U.S. officials on the W93’s “flexibility” implies variable yield, which would be somewhat consistent with the existing lower-yield warhead variant the U.K. reportedly deploys at present, but would leave the United Kingdom vulnerable to accusations that it was reinforcing a global trend toward the development of supposedly more “usable” nuclear options. Any potential improvement to the warhead’s ability to strike hard targets might also draw criticism from those opposed to enhancements in nuclear weapon capabilities, as was the case when the U.K. began introducing the Mk4a arming, fusing and firing system. Lastly, U.K. defense planners might be thinking about future deterrence requirements for countries other than Russia, the traditional driver of U.K. warhead needs. This might have an impact on the requirements for a new warhead, such as on the question of the new warhead’s weight, which helps determine the maximum range that missiles can reach. This is a potentially relevant factor when considering the risk that future developments in anti-submarine warfare might complicate U.K. operations.


Can the United Kingdom Successfully Execute a Warhead Replacement Program?


The state of the United Kingdom’s nuclear weapons infrastructure suggests that the country will face significant challenges in producing its next warhead, even if cooperation with the United States runs entirely smoothly. By now, at least three key U.K. facilities should have been up and running: Pegasus (to handle enriched uranium components), Mensa (to assemble and disassemble warheads), and Hydrus (to conduct hydrodynamic tests). None is fully operational. Pegasus has been suspended after initial designs were judged too expensive and unwieldy, Mensa is now being built at least six years late and at more than twice the original cost, and Hydrus has been replaced by a joint U.K.-French hydrodynamic facility in France not scheduled to be fully operational for the United Kingdom at least until 2022.


More fundamentally, this will be the first warhead the United Kingdom has designed for some thirty years, and the first ever without explosive nuclear testing. It will also be designed just as the last generation of Atomic Weapons Establishment employees with firsthand experience designing new warheads are retiring. With civil nuclear projects also planned for the coming decades, the Atomic Weapons Establishment will be facing considerable workforce recruitment, training, and retention challenges.


How Much Will the United Kingdom’s New Warhead Cost?


In the context of the COVID-19 crisis, the forecast hit to the U.K. economy caused by Brexit, and an ongoing strategic review, there is likely to be financial pressure on the warhead program even if it is shielded from immediate cuts. Yet the government is staying remarkably coy about the projected costs of the new warhead. The 2006 White Paper estimated the cost to be 2 to 3 billion pounds ($2.6 to $3.9 billion). This estimate was confirmed in government documents as late as 2013. Since then, however, no official estimate has been provided, although the 2013 Trident Alternatives Review, a government-published document — though not a statement of policy — estimated the cost of a new submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead to be 4 billion pounds in 2012 prices.


The Nuclear Warhead Capability Sustainment Program, under which much of the supporting infrastructure for building a new warhead was supposed to be built, has an overall budget of 21 billion pounds spread out from 2005 to 2025, and is subject to the scrutiny requirements applied to major projects. The government has said that the program to build the new warhead will also be subject to those requirements, but is not giving a specific cost estimate, citing national security concerns. Likewise, it has not said which parts of the Nuclear Warhead Capability Sustainment Program will be subsumed under the new warhead program. It is certainly tricky to separate the costs of the new warhead from the overall costs of having nuclear infrastructure capable of maintaining the existing warhead. And yet not only has the U.K. government done so in the past — making it difficult to imagine national security grounds for withholding the information now — the U.S. government has also provided estimates of how much the W93 might cost: $14.4 billion, according to the Nuclear Security Administration’s last published assessment.


Take Back Control


The United Kingdom’s replacement nuclear warhead program is a long-term, complex, and expensive endeavor. It deserves proper scrutiny. And while many of the technical details of the U.K. warhead must remain classified, the broad parameters of the decision the government has made — and the risks the program faces — are fair game for public debate. The British public learned of the decision to replace the Holbrook warhead not because the government decided to announce it, but because U.S. officials told Congress and reporters in February. In several respects, the transparency of the U.S. government, and the persistence of Congress in extracting answers, is throwing the opacity of the United Kingdom’s nuclear warhead program into stark relief. It is time for Parliament to take back control.



Matthew Harries (@harries_matthew) is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI). He previously worked on the staff of the U.K. House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. Prior to that, he was managing editor of Survival and a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). This article is drawn from a research project supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

 

[Housecarl]

DOT..........

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Russian Navy Seen Escorting Iranian Tankers Bound for Syria - USNI News

Last week, the Iranian-flagged oil tanker Samah entered the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal. After a few miles, the 900-foot-long ship stopped reporting its position and destination. Evidence suggests the ship sailed to Syria, escorted by two Russian Navy ships, including a destroyer...

news.usni.org

Russian Navy Seen Escorting Iranian Tankers Bound for Syria

By: H I Sutton


October 21, 2020 11:22 AM • Updated: October 21, 2020 12:04 PM


HI Sutton Image used with permission
Last week, the Iranian-flagged oil tanker Samah entered the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal. After a few miles, the 900-foot-long ship stopped reporting its position and destination. Evidence suggests the ship sailed to Syria, escorted by two Russian Navy ships, including a destroyer.

Russia’s role in protecting the shipment may change the dynamics in the Eastern Mediterranean. In the past, Iranian tankers sailing to Syria have been intercepted by the U.K. Royal Navy. The Russian Navy escort could be viewed as a precautionary step, raising the political and military risks of any intervention by the Royal Navy or others.

Last July, an Iranian tanker destined for Syria, Adrian Darya-1, was seized by U.K. Royal Marines off Gibraltar. The British accused Iran of supplying Syria with oil in contravention of European Union sanctions. Iran quickly seized a British-flagged tanker in a likely retaliatory move. Eventually, in September, Adrian Darya-1 was released by a local court with the assurance that it would not deliver its oil to Syria – but days later, it transshipped its oil in Syrian waters.

HI Sutton Image used with permission
Samah has taken the shorter Suez Canal route, avoiding the Strait of Gibraltar. According to data provided by MarineTraffic.com, after exiting the Suez Canal Samah disappeared from automated identification system tracking. AIS is a system used to alert ships of each other’s presence and is required to be used by ships of this size. Other ships in the vicinity remained visible on AIS, which implies that Samah deliberately stopped broadcasting. This is termed going “dark.”

At the same time, the Russian Navy ship Akademik Pashin was heading south from the Syrian Coast toward the Suez. The two ships likely met on Oct. 14, since the next day they were seen together by a passing commercial satellite, heading north towards Syria.

Accompanying them was a warship, believed to be the Udaloy-class destroyer Vice Admiral Kulakov. They were seen traveling in loose formation, with Akademiks Pashin leading the way and the destroyer in rear guard, according to open-source intelligence analyst Frank Bottema.

Destroyer Vice Admiral Kulakow in 2012. Brian Burnell photo via Wikipedia
By the morning of Oct. 17, a tanker resembling Samah was anchored off the Baniyas oil terminal in Syria. Meanwhile, Akademik Pashin was sailing west toward Greece.

The Russian Navy has hinted it would be more active in escorting merchant ships in the region. After the Iranian delivery, the Russian Navy has publicized an exercise off Syria, meant to protect “smooth passage of civilian ships.” A simulated attack by a submarine was dealt with by Vice Admiral Kulakov, which may be intended to send a message to allies and potential adversaries alike that Russia will actively prevent any interference with the Iranian shipments.

Russia now maintains a permanent squadron in the Mediterranean, based in Tartus, Syria. This includes submarines and large warships. If Moscow decides the Iran-Syria oil run is now a regular mission for the Russian Navy, it’s set to complicate enforcement of international sanctions which could otherwise shut down one of the Syrian regime’s vital lifelines.




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Article Keywords: Iran, russian navy, Suez Canal, Syria, U.K. Royal Navy

Categories: Budget Industry, Foreign Forces, Iran, News & Analysis, Russia, Surface Forces

About H I Sutton
H I Sutton is a writer, illustrator and analyst who specializes in submarines and sub-surface systems. His work can be found at his website Covert Shores.





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[jward]

Dreams of a Red Emperor: The relentless rise of Xi Jinping

An illustration of Xi Jinping
(Adrià Fruitós / For The Times)

China’s paramount leader, Xi Jinping, sees himself as a savior, anointed to steer the Communist Party and China away from corruption and foreign influence, into a ‘new era’ of prosperity, power and political devotion. Whether his vision matches reality is another question.
By Alice Su

Oct. 22, 2020
1:30 AM

YANAN, China —
Stars showered from the ceiling as actors suspended by ropes ran through the air. An unseen man’s voice boomed through the theater: “I have followed this red flag, walking thousands of kilometers with the faith of a Communist Party member in my heart!”
Here in the hallowed ground of northern Shaanxi province, the Chinese Communist Party’s founding myths are on full display. A musical performed twice daily portrays revolutionaries rescuing China from foreign invasion and corruption: Conniving generals coerce Shanghai women dressed like flappers to dance. Communist students are hanged. Trapeze artists in military fatigues flip upside down amid flurries of fake snow.

It is rousing agitprop underscoring a slogan that has saturated the nation in recent years: “Buwang chuxin, laoji shiming” — “Don’t forget our original intentions; hold tightly to the mission.”
That mission’s changing parameters are key to understanding Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Since coming into power in 2012, Xi has often drawn comparisons to Mao Zedong, the party’s and People’s Republic of China’s founder, a demigod who ravaged the nation in pursuit of communist ideals that led to widespread starvation and arbitrary killing, yet commanded adoration from the masses.
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Actors run through the air, eager to join the Communist Party, in a propaganda musical in Yanan.
(Alice Su / Los Angeles Times)

No Chinese leader since has held as much authority — until Xi. But he is not Mao 2.0. A disciplinarian, not a revolutionary, Xi is driven by a need for control. He is a legalist in the tradition of Han Feizi, the philosopher who taught China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, that people are fickle and selfish and must be kept in line through law and punishment. An ethnic nationalist, Xi holds a vision of Chinese revival that draws on allusions to past empires. He speaks in Marxist terms of class struggle and uses Maoist tactics such as self-criticism and rectification, but his brand of communism also promotes Confucius and e-commerce.

The Chinese president sees himself as a savior, anointed to lead the country into a “new era” of greatness propelled by rising prosperity and political devotion. Whether his vision matches reality is another question.
The stakes of achieving Xi’s grand plan are high. His rule has led to sweeping crackdowns on corruption and political dissent at home and an increasingly strident foreign policy, including provocative naval exercises in the South China Sea and Beijing’s tense relations with Washington over trade, spying, technology, and repression of pro-democracy movements in Hong Kong.

Portraits of Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, and late communist leader Mao Zedong hang at a market in Beijing in 2017.
(Greg Baker / AFP/Getty Images)
To appreciate Xi’s grip on the country, one need only look at the coronavirus — China stumbled early with the Wuhan outbreak, but quickly recovered through strict lockdowns, contact tracing and mass testing. It has virtually stemmed the disease while racing to become the first nation with a publicly available vaccine. China’s economy grew nearly 5% in the third quarter while the United States and Europe continued to struggle with COVID-19. Xi and the party point to such signs as proof of the Chinese system‘s superiority.

Meanwhile, far from party headquarters in Beijing, an origin story is tended in a village of yellow hills.
Two hours away from the theater in Yanan, tourists in matching red scarves visited a set of caves in Liangjiahe, where Xi spent seven years during the Cultural Revolution. He was one of millions of city youths “sent down” to work in rural areas in the 1960s, officially to “learn from the peasants” but also to reduce urban unemployment and quiet the violence of radical student groups.
“Here is where the chairman ate coarse grain buns with the farmers,” a guide said as a group of teachers from Guangzhou peered inside one of the caves. Newspaper cutouts with headlines about Mao and a photo of teenage Xi, slightly smiling into the distance, hung above rolled-up blankets and a straw mat on a raised mud platform. A bag of anti-flea powder sat prominently displayed on the window ledge, a testament to the fleabites young Xi endured.
A small museum weaves Xi’s narrative with that of the Communist Party’s benevolence, explaining that Xi read stories and dug wells for the villagers as a teenager, then charting the village’s recent rise in average income per person — from $25 a year in 1984 to $3,218 a year in 2019.

Teachers from Guangzhou visited the Xi caves of Liangjiahe. They were all receiving required training as supervisors of the Young Pioneers, a Communist Party youth organization, and would then pass on the “red spirit” they’d acquired here to their students, one of the teachers said.
(Alice Su / Los Angeles Times)

When Xi speaks about his coming of age, he points to Liangjiahe. “Northern Shaanxi gave me a belief. You could say it set the path for the rest of my life,” Xi said in a 2004 interview with the People’s Daily.
He started out lazy and weak in the village, but by the end of seven years, he had experienced hard labor and developed a taste for the pickled vegetables of peasants. It is a folklore reminiscent of Mao’s claims of seeking liberation for the oppressed underclass. But whereas Mao incited grass-roots movements and armed struggle, Xi’s approach to power eschews mass mobilization.
“You see this huge emphasis on order and discipline. That’s seemingly a very strong reaction against the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and Mao’s chaotic approach,” said Ryan Mitchell, a professor of law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Under Mao, the legal system was “decimated,” he said. “Xi is instead trying to institutionalize things, including his own power.”

The seeds of Xi’s resolve and ruling style are in his upbringing. When the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, his father, Xi Zhongxun, a founding revolutionary who joined the party while in jail at age 14 for trying to poison his “reactionary” schoolteacher, had already fallen into disgrace.
Xi Zhongxun lived through hellish periods of internal party factionalism. He was purged multiple times — removed from power, incarcerated, even threatened with being buried alive — for his association with individuals and “gangs” who were deemed disloyal. Some of his mentors and associates committed suicide. Yet he remained devoted, even proud of his suffering at the party’s hands.

Posters of Mao Zedong hang in one of the caves where Xi Jinping once slept in Liangjiahe, Shaanxi province.
(Alice Su / Los Angeles Times)
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“It’s hard to think of someone who’d more fanatically put party interests above his own interest,” said Joseph Torigian, a professor of history and politics at American University who is writing a biography of Xi Zhongxun. “A lot of that generation took pride in how much they were able to suffer without losing faith in the party. They often wrote about it as a sort of forging process.”
At home, Xi Zhongxun — who worked at a tractor factory when he was purged but later became vice premier — was a “brutal disciplinarian” who struggled with depression, Torigian said, according to memoirs, unpublished diaries and interviews with friends of the family. When Xi Jinping was a child, he saw his father sometimes crying, screaming and hitting people, sitting in a room with all the lights off, and lashing out at his wife.

The family’s humiliation and persecution led one of Xi’s stepsisters to commit suicide. Xi Jinping was locked up several times because of his father’s position and had to denounce him in public, he said in a 1992 interview with the Washington Post: “‘Even if you don’t understand, you are forced to understand,’ he said with a trace of bitterness. ‘It makes you mature earlier.’”
At the same time, Xi’s peers, other “princeling” children of high-ranking Chinese Communist Party leaders whose parents hadn’t been purged, were rampaging through Beijing as Red Guards, given power to torture and often kill teachers, intellectuals and authority figures. They believed they were bringing about utopia. Xi was not allowed to join them, even as he saw himself as a true party disciple.

Some scholars suggest that the shame of that period pushed Xi not to question or renounce the extremities of Mao’s leadership, but to prove himself worthy to lead.
“He sees himself as the legitimate successor of the CCP red dynasty by blood,” said Yinghong Cheng, a professor of history at Delaware State University. Many princelings of Xi’s generation regard state power as their “family inheritance,” Cheng said. “They are entitled to it, must hold it firm, and losing it means losing everything.”

A photo from 1975 shows Xi Jinping sitting in the center of the front row, surrounded by villagers in Liangjiahe before he went to university as a “worker-peasant-soldier” student.
(Alice Su / Los Angeles Times)

‘Everything I’d built on — Marx, Lenin, Mao — they were all wrong. I needed to adjust from the roots, to spit out that wolf’s milk we had all drunk.’

A prominent Chinese historian
Most of Xi’s generation were idealists when they were young, said a prominent Chinese historian who also spent years as a “sent-down youth” and asked not to use his name for protection. But for him and many liberal intellectuals, returning to university in 1977, after Mao died and the Cultural Revolution ended, sparked a painstaking reassessment.
“Everything I’d built on — Marx, Lenin, Mao — they were all wrong. I needed to adjust from the roots, to spit out that wolf’s milk we had all drunk,” the historian said. “Inch by inch, you rebuild your worldview. It takes decades to become cleareyed, to say, ‘Where did we go wrong? What is China? Who are we?’”

Xi did not go through that process, the historian said. He left Liangjiahe for Tsinghua University in 1975 as a “worker-peasant-soldier” student, children with “red” class backgrounds who were nominated to return to school during the Cultural Revolution by their work teams. Chosen for their good performance in Mao’s system, many such students “strengthened their own red identity” rather than deconstructing it, the historian said.
After his father was rehabilitated in 1978, Xi Jinping worked as a party official in several coastal provinces. It was there he saw firsthand how market reforms brought wealth and rising living standards — but also an explosion of corruption. The experience would stay with him. In 2012, shortly after Xi came to power, he went on a “southern tour” to Shenzhen, retracing the footsteps of Deng Xiaoping, who in the 1970s and ‘80s oversaw China’s economic opening.

 

[jward]

continued.. . ..

But Xi’s vision of reform was different. In his view, China’s Communist Party was in crisis: Inequality and corruption were rampant and people had abandoned their ideals. The nation risked repeating the fate of the Soviet Union, he said in a 2012 speech, where “no one was man enough” to assert ideological control and resist “Western ideas” like democracy, separation of powers or rule of law. China needed a strong “man” to reassert the party’s power and inspire the masses.

Tourists visit a separate set of caves in Yanan where Mao Zedong once lived in the 1940s.
(Alice Su / Los Angeles Times)
Since 2012, after a steady rise through the party from being a secretary in the Central Military Commission to a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and then its paramount leader, Xi has been that man. He targeted corruption, taking on officials as powerful as Zhou Yongkang, the former head of China’s security apparatus. He restructured the military, media and legal-disciplinary institutions to assert stronger party control. He did away with term limits — in effect making himself leader for life — and enshrined ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ in the Constitution, rendering himself indivisible from a party that permeates every aspect of Chinese society

Xi’s ambitions abroad have been just as grand. He has expanded China’s global power through multibillion-dollar development projects like the Belt and Road initiative and by gaining more influence in institutions like the United Nations. He has capitalized on an America that has turned isolationist under President Trump, dispatching China’s corporations, diplomats and spies everywhere from Nairobi, Kenya, to Brussels in what is becoming a new world order.
Xi often says that this era is one of “great change unseen in a hundred years,” namely that the world’s top superpower is in decline, and that this is China’s moment to rise. “Systemic advantages are a nation’s greatest advantages, and systemic competition is the most fundamental competition between nations,” Xi was recently quoted saying in the People’s Daily.
That determination to prove the Chinese system superior has driven impressive moves toward combating poverty and pollution, making this nation of 1.4 billion people a dominant force in high-tech industries and allowing it to contain the coronavirus outbreak — even as much of the world blames China for allowing the disease to spread.

But Xi has also stifled all perceived threats to social “stability”: not only dissidents, but also human rights lawyers, labor activists, poets, feminists and more. He has launched “Sinicization” programs targeting religious and ethnic minorities, including the mass incarceration of Uighurs and other Muslims. He has imposed a new national security law that is smothering the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. He has tightened control over schools from kindergarten through university, reinforcing “patriotic education” with Xi Jinping Thought as a guiding ideology.

A poster of Mao and old newspapers hang on the wall in one of the caves where Xi once slept as a teenager in Liangjiahe.
(Alice Su / Los Angeles Times)
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In July, he announced a new “education and rectification” campaign to discipline China’s political and legal systems, including police officers, judges and members of the secretive Ministry of State Security. The campaign slogans call for “turning the knife inward” to “scrape poison off the bone,” meaning to find, punish and reform — or purge — any potentially disloyal individuals.

‘He has turned 90 million party members into slaves, tools to be used for his personal advantage.’

Cai Xia, granddaughter of a revolutionary leader
Officials leading the campaign have called it a renewed version of the rectification drive Mao launched at the party base of Yanan in the 1940s, where the chairman used group indoctrination, self-criticism, forced confession and “struggle” sessions to eliminate perceived internal rivals.
It is unusual that Xi “does not perceive his power to be completely consolidated, even eight years in,” said Sheena Greitens, a professor of public affairs who studies Chinese approaches to security at the University of Texas at Austin. Xi may be launching this campaign to prepare for 2022, when he will transition into an unprecedented third term, she said.
But a political system prone to crackdowns can turn suspicious and brittle, with everyone afraid to point out problems or admit mistakes. It is what allowed the initial cover-up of a virus spreading in Wuhan last winter, at the cost of thousands of civilian deaths. When things go wrong, however, Xi has used a classic technique: punishing local officials while keeping the emperor free of blame.

Perhaps the trickiest part of his reign is Xi’s attempts to combine market reforms with state leadership. China’s economy — despite its rebounding from the coronavirus — has slowed dramatically under Xi, in part because the private sector has been spooked by his talk of communist revival. The U.S.-China trade war, a drive for “decoupling” the two economies and the pandemic’s impact have also strengthened Xi’s support for state-owned enterprises, which he calls the core of China’s economy despite their inefficiencies.
He has made high-profile speeches reassuring China’s private companies, like tech giants Huawei and Alibaba, that they are crucial to the China dream — but also demanded that they “listen to the party, walk with the party,” and strengthen internal party committees’ role in companies’ decision-making.

Xi’s militant nationalism has also provoked backlash. The Chinese military has carried out aggressive maneuvers in the South China Sea and rattled Taiwan by sending fighter planes into its airspace. Chinese troops have had deadly clashes in recent months with Indian soldiers along a disputed border. Xi’s reorganized security forces have increased arbitrary detention of foreigners including citizens of the U.S., Canada, Australia, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Belize, Turkey and Kazakhstan.
A recent Pew Research Center survey found that unfavorable views of China have reached historical highs in 14 advanced world economies, with a median of 78% of respondents saying they have “no confidence” in Xi’s handling of world affairs — though the ratings on Trump are even worse.
Ironically, a popular nickname for Xi on the Chinese internet is the “accelerator in chief,” meaning that his aggressive approach to “stability” has caused more domestic and international conflict and is speeding his government toward self-demise. Criticism has risen even from fellow princelings: Cai Xia, the granddaughter of a revolutionary leader who taught at the central party school for four decades, was recorded calling Xi a “mafia boss” this year.

“He has turned 90 million party members into slaves, tools to be used for his personal advantage,” Cai said.
Ren Zhiqiang, a real estate tycoon who fell from the red elite, called Xi “a clown stripped naked” in a critique of Xi’s COVID-19 response this year. “The reality shown by this epidemic is that the party defends its own interests, the government officials defend their own interests, and the monarch only defends the status and interests of the core,” Ren said.
Ren and Cai have been expelled from the party. Cai is now in the United States. Ren has been sentenced to prison for 18 years.

Biographies of Xi Jinping and volumes of Xi Jinping thought outnumber Mao Zedong books 4 to 1 at a gift shop in Yanan.
(Alice Su / Los Angeles Times)
The rising ire of elites and foreign powers is, in Xi’s view, a necessary part of China’s struggle on its socialist path. The intellectuals may be alarmed, but not the masses. A recent Harvard Kennedy School study of Chinese public opinion from 2003 to 2016 found that satisfaction with the government had risen, especially among the rural poor in inland regions, who received more targeted social assistance during the survey years.

“This fits exactly with his self-understanding: ‘I’m here for the people, and that’s why I’m against you capitalists, corrupt elites and intellectuals,’” the historian said. “He thinks he is saving this party.”
Whether the people see Xi that way, however, is harder to tell. In Liangjiahe, two women carrying umbrellas followed a Times reporter everywhere she went. When two villagers, a man in his 60s and a woman surnamed Ma selling souvenirs and mooncakes, began telling the reporter that they were struggling economically, the two women approached and glared at the villagers, who stopped speaking.

“Life is hard, but they won’t let us talk about it,” Ma said under her breath as the women, who said they were also locals, approached.
Ma gave the reporter her phone number, but when the Times called later, she said only: “We don’t have any problems. We are very happy. We are thankful to the government.”
“Don’t come to the village. We wouldn’t dare speak to you even if you did,” she added, and hung up.

Dreams of a Red Emperor: The relentless rise of Xi Jinping

China's paramount leader, Xi Jinping, sees himself as a savior, anointed to steer the Communist Party and China away from corruption and foreign influence, into a 'new era' of prosperity, power and political devotion. Whether his vision matches reality is another question.

www.latimes.com

 

[jward]

Afghanistan conflict: 'Children among dead' in air strike on school
Published
3 hours ago

image captionBBC reporters saw injured children in hospital in Takhar, Afghanistan

At least 12 civilians have been killed in an air strike on a religious school in the northern Afghan province of Takhar, local officials say.
They said the strike on the madrassa in the village of Hazara Qurluq killed 11 children and their prayer leader.
The Afghan government disputed the account, saying it had killed 12 Taliban fighters in the village.
The strike came after more than 30 security force members were killed in a major Taliban ambush in the province.
Local officials said 14 others were wounded in the strike late on Wednesday. The imam of the mosque attached to the seminary, Abdul Awal, who was among the wounded and was admitted to hospital, told the BBC that only he and children were in the mosque at the time of the strike.

Doctors at a hospital close to the site of the air strike in the provincial capital Taloqan said the majority of victims brought in were children, and Mohammad Jawad Hejri, a spokesman for the provincial governor, also said the strike had killed children.
But Afghan government officials denied the reports that children had been killed, saying only Taliban fighters died. The Ministry of Defence did not deny that the strike hit a school. A spokesperson said an investigation team had been appointed to "assess allegations about civilian casualties resulting from this attack".

image captionA wounded man is treated in hospital in Takhar
The fighting the previous day, which reportedly began with a Taliban attack in Baharak district some 15km (nine miles) from Taloqan, came despite assurances from Taliban officials to the US that violence would be scaled back to facilitate historic peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
Violence between government forces and the Taliban has worsened in recent weeks in Afghanistan and threatens to imperil the talks, which have stalled on preliminary issues.

• Dispatch: Afghan fears rise as US ends its longest war
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• Many killed and wounded in Afghanistan visa stampede

It is estimated that about 40,000 civilians have fled their homes in recent weeks in the southern Helmand province as fighting has intensified. The battle over Helmand's provincial capital Lashkar Gah marks the first big Taliban offensive since the peace talks began last month.
More than 220,000 Afghans have been displaced by the conflict so far this year, according to the UNHCR, taking the total since 2012 to about 4.1 million

Afghanistan conflict: 'Children among dead' in air strike on school

Officials say some 12 people were killed and 14 wounded, a day after a major Taliban attack on troops.

www.bbc.com

 

[jward]

Japanese fishing boats told to look elsewhere for catch as Chinese ships take over traditional grounds

• Government says thousands of Chinese vessels refuse to leave area rich in flying squid and crabs
• Japanese fishermen advised to leave to avoid clashes as some warn that Beijing may be testing Tokyo’s territorial resolve

Julian Ryall

Published: 4:07pm, 22 Oct, 2020

Updated: 10:39pm, 22 Oct, 2020

Japan’s coastguard has ordered over 100 Chinese fishing boats out of Japanese waters so far this year. Photo: Japan Coast Guard

Thousands of Chinese
fishing
boats have ignored demands that they leave the rich fishing grounds within Japan’s exclusive economic zone off the northwest coast, with the Fisheries Agency in Tokyo forced to recommend that Japanese trawlers operate elsewhere to avoid clashes.
The Fisheries Agency on Wednesday said its patrol vessels had ordered 2,589 Chinese vessels to leave Japanese waters around the Yamatotai grounds as of the end of September, nearly four times the number compared with the same period of last year. Japan’s coastguard has confirmed that its ships had issued similar orders to 102 Chinese ships during the year through October 16, up from 12 incidents in 2019.
The Yamatotai area, some 350km off the Noto Peninsula, is a favourite among Japanese crews, who catch “surumeika” flying squid and crabs in the autumn months.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/poli...ary-standby-intrusions-dozens-chinese-fishing

In previous years, Japanese authorities have had a similar problem with
North Korean
fishing boats operating in the area, with 4,000 North Korean boats ordered to leave the area in 2019, sometimes hastened on their way with water cannons.
Confrontations between the two sides
have escalated, with a Japanese coastguard boat colliding with a North Korean ship in October last year. The Korean ship sank, with its 60 crew members picked up and placed on other fishing boats.

The coastguard has only encountered one North Korean vessel this year, although there is concern that it may be more difficult to dislodge thousands of Chinese ships from the area.

Akitoshi Miyashita, a professor of international relations at Tokyo International University, said the Japanese government may have made a mistake by instructing its fishermen to leave the area.
“The longer the Chinese stay in that area, the harder it becomes to force them to leave,” he said. “The Japanese government has to do something to force them to leave because if they are not challenged and are permitted to stay, then operating in those waters becomes an established fact.
“And that, in turn, will see more Chinese ships coming deeper into Japanese territorial waters,” he said.
The longer the Chinese stay in that area, the harder it becomes to force them to leave Akitoshi Miyashita
Analysts suggest there are a number of reasons Chinese vessels have started to appear off northeast Japan. One theory is that coastal waters close to the fishermen’s home ports have been overfished, meaning the crews are having to venture farther afield for a catch. An alternative suggestion is that
China
is testing Japan’s resolve over its territorial integrity and the responses of its coastguard and, potentially, the military.

“If it is a matter of seeking out new fishing grounds, then the issue should be possible to solve in talks between the two government,” said Miyashita. “If it is the second scenario and these are in fact state-sanctioned actions, then that is a far more serious problem.”
Japanese fishermen who have traditionally worked the Yamatotai area are reportedly furious at being told to leave and at the government’s weak response to the situation. Hiroshi Kishi, the president of the national federation of fisheries co-operatives, visited officials in a number of ministries in Tokyo earlier this month and requested that members of the federation be permitted to return to the fishing grounds.
“The Japanese government should implement a firm response so that Japanese boats can resume fishing,” he told local media. There has been no word on whether more coastguard vessels will be deployed to the area to protect Japanese vessels and to dissuade foreign boats from entering.

Japanese forced out of own fishing waters as Chinese boats swarm area

Government says thousands of Chinese vessels refuse to leave area rich in flying squid and crabs as some warn that Beijing may be testing Tokyo’s territorial resolve.

www.scmp.com

 

[jward]

All US Navy destroyers will get hypersonic missiles, says Trump’s national security adviser

By: David B. Larter   1 day ago

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer Sterett steams through the night in the Gulf of Oman on Sept. 17, 2020. (MCSN Drace Wilson/U.S. Navy)



PORTSMOUTH NAVAL SHIPYARD, Maine — The U.S. Navy plans to put hypersonic missiles on all Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, President Donald Trump’s top national security official said Wednesday.

The Navy wants to field hypersonic missiles first on the Virginia-class attack submarine, then on the new Zumwalt-class destroyers, and then finally across the Burkes, national security adviser Robert O’Brien told an audience at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine.

“The Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike program will provide hypersonic missile capability to hold targets at risk from longer ranges,” O’Brien said in prepared remarks. “This capability will be deployed first on our newer Virginia-class submarines and the Zumwalt-class destroyers. Eventually, all three flights of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers will field this capability.”

The Navy has discussed back-fitting some of the older Burke-class destroyers, but putting them on all three flights, including ships dating back to the early 1990s, would be a massive expansion of the capability in the surface fleet. The current launchers are not large enough to accommodate the larger diameter missiles.

Swapping out the launchers on all the destroyers would be a significant expense and would likely tie up shipyards for years to come. An alterative to back-fitting the older destroyers would be waiting for a smaller hypersonic missile to be developed, such as an air-breathing model, as opposed to the boost-glide design.

How to get more firepower on ships is a crucial push for the Navy as it considers the challenge of keeping China at arms length in the Asia-Pacific region. Another idea under consideration is to put larger Vertical Launching System cells on the next-generation surface combatant.

Defense News is travelling with O’Brien as he seeks support for a plan, first unveiled by Defense Secretary Mark Esper, that could see the Navy’s fleet grow to more than 500 ships.

“Investment in the future is vital. Lightly and unmanned vessels equipped with artificial intelligence are likely to play a role in the future of our nation’s fleet,” O’Brien said. “The same is true of the small amphibious ships necessary to move [Marine Commandant Gen. David] Berger’s Marine littoral regiments around the islands of the Indo-Pacific.”

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During his comments, O’Brien pledged that the push for the Battle Force 2045 plan would be accomplished without eating into readiness, saying: “The pursuit of these new systems, however, cannot be allowed to cause a ‘trough’ in force structure, whereby the nation endures reduced capability while we wait for future technologies and new ships to come online. Any such plan that trades current capability for future out-year promises is not acceptable to the president.”

O’Brien’s speech came the same day Forbes printed comments from Thomas Modly, the former acting Navy secretary, which threw skepticism at the Battle Force 2045 concept.

Esper and O’Brien hatched the idea in a private meeting “to discuss Navy strategy and shipbuilding, but no one from the Navy to include myself, the CNO, the Commandant, or any senior three-star involved in developing the shipbuilding plans budget were invited," claimed Modly, who resigned in April.

“Math is a very stubborn thing," Modly added. “If you are going to increase the size of the fleet from 275 to 355, or 500, and you aren’t going to increase the Navy’s top line to pay for it, you’ve merely created a mathematical challenge for yourself that cannot be solved.”

All US Navy destroyers will get hypersonic missiles, says Trump’s national security adviser

All three flights of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are going to get the weapons, according to Robert O'Brien.

www.defensenews.com

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm........

Posted for fair use.....

A no-first-use US nuclear posture would be bad for Australia and the region | The Strategist

With the presidential election only 10 days away, what US nuclear strategy might be under a Joe Biden administration and what that might imply for US extended nuclear deterrence should be key issues of concern ...

www.aspistrategist.org.au

A no-first-use US nuclear posture would be bad for Australia and the region

23 Oct 2020 | Malcolm Davis

With the presidential election only 10 days away, what US nuclear strategy might be under a Joe Biden administration and what that might imply for US extended nuclear deterrence should be key issues of concern for the region, and for Australia.

The US is facing a more adverse strategic environment than it has for a long time. It is confronted by two nuclear-capable peer adversaries: China, which is seen as the main threat, and Russia, whose nuclear force is being upgraded rapidly. The modernisation of China’s nuclear forces could cause Beijing to shift away from its traditional no-first-use policy.

The combination of Russian and Chinese nuclear capability development—not to mention an unpredictable and nuclear-armed North Korea, and the prospect of an Iranian nuclear breakout as a consequence of President Donald Trump’s scrapping of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—means that Biden would have to think carefully before succumbing to calls to adhere to a ‘no first use’ doctrine or to make a ‘sole purpose’ declaration. Both of these options will be advocated by proponents in the US arms-control and disarmament community.

As President Barack Obama’s deputy, Biden supported the idea of a no-first-use posture for nuclear weapons, stating in 2017 that, ‘Given our non-nuclear capacities and the nature of today’s threats, it’s hard to envision a plausible scenario in which the first use of nuclear weapons by the United States would be necessary or would make sense.’ The Democratic Party’s 2020 platform suggests that ‘the sole purpose of our nuclear arsenal should be to deter—and, if necessary, retaliate against—a nuclear attack, and we will work to put that belief into practice, in consultation with our allies and military’.

The platform also commits to ‘work to maintain a strong, credible deterrent while reducing our overreliance and excessive expenditure on nuclear weapons’, but would apparently cancel both the nuclear sea-launched cruise missile and low-yield warhead for the Trident—both initiatives of the Trump administration’s 2018 nuclear posture review.

So it seems probable that a Biden administration would seek to move back to nuclear policy that is similar to, if perhaps a bit more ambitious than, that suggested in Obama’s 2009 Prague speech, which emphasised nuclear disarmament that was consistent with maintaining a ‘safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies’.

The risk is that Biden may still view nuclear weapons through the lens of Prague 2009, rather than the strategic reality of 2020. In 2009, the main threat to the US came from international terrorism and nuclear weapons were largely seen as peripheral. But that was then and this is now, and the primary threat is from peer adversaries such as China and Russia.

Of course, Biden isn’t blind to the challenges from China and Russia, but the military capabilities—including nuclear ones—of America’s peer adversaries have improved considerably during the past 11 years.

Today, the US and its allies face a far more potent military challenge in technological terms and traditional advantages are being eroded in key areas. For example, the US Navy is being openly challenged by a rapidly expanding and modernising People’s Liberation Army Navy, and the PLA Air Force has undertaken a broad modernisation of its air combat capabilities that involves replacing obsolete third-generation platforms with advanced ‘ fourth-plus’ and fifth-generation systems, including for strategic strike.

The establishment of the PLA Strategic Support Force and the growth of advanced Chinese counter-space, cyber and electronic ‘network warfare’ capabilities is placing the US lead in C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) at risk, and with it the US ability to rapidly gain and sustain a knowledge edge in warfare. The PLA Rocket Force has grown dramatically and now has far more potent anti-access/area-denial capabilities that are increasingly putting the US ability to project power into the western Pacific at risk.

Russia’s military continues to engage in large-scale modernisation. Moscow faces greater challenges in economic terms to sustain such an effort, but investment in long-range hypersonic missiles, the blurring of boundaries between strategic non-nuclear and tactical nuclear weapons, and new counter-space and cyber systems are making Russia a more dangerous foe in 2020 than it was in 2009.

With these developments in mind, now is not the time for well-intentioned efforts towards denuclearisation or adoption of a no-first-use posture. Any decision by Biden to embrace a ‘sole purpose’ declaration would end US strategic ambiguity. With the military balance much less skewed in the US’s favour, China and Russia could use conventional military force to impose their will, without having to worry about a nuclear riposte from the US, so long as they themselves remained below the nuclear threshold. With enhanced conventional capabilities, they now have a much greater ability to inflict heavy losses on US forces. If they sink an aircraft carrier or two or use overwhelming force against US allies, for example, what would a Biden administration committed to a no-first-use policy do?

Such a state of affairs would not engender confidence in US extended nuclear deterrence among America’s allies. For Tokyo, Seoul and Canberra, or Warsaw for that matter, knowing that the US would no longer deter major conventional attacks by maintaining the possibility of a nuclear response would increase the prospects of military coercion or threats from China and Russia.

That prospect is certain to have some decision-makers—notably in Tokyo and Seoul—re-examining their options for acquiring an independent nuclear deterrent, simply because they could no longer count on the US.

It would also leave Australia in a difficult position. The 2009 defence white paper’s comment on the importance of extended nuclear deterrence still resonates today:

Australian defence policy under successive governments has acknowledged the value to Australia of the protection afforded by extended nuclear deterrence under the US alliance. That protection provides a stable and reliable sense of assurance and has over the years removed the need for Australia to consider more significant and expensive defence options.

Author
Malcolm Davis is a senior analyst at ASPI. Image: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Iran regime’s clandestine pursuit of nuclear weapons

Iranian workers stand in front of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, about 1,200km south of Tehran, October 26, 2010. (Reuters) Any policy analysts, scholars or politicians who still advocate for a return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, aka the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), must...

www.arabnews.com

Iran regime’s clandestine pursuit of nuclear weapons


Dr. Majid Rafizadeh
October 22, 2020 21:48

Any policy analysts, scholars or politicians who still advocate for a return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, aka the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), must recognize how the Iranian regime used the agreement as cover to further intensify its controversial nuclear projects.

Several credible reports and statements from senior Iranian officials have made it clear that Tehran was advancing its nuclear development even after the P5+1 (the US, the UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany) and Iran signed the nuclear deal in 2015.

A report published last week by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) shows that Tehran was lying to the world when it said it had stopped its nuclear activities under the JCPOA. The report claims that the Iranian regime continued to pursue the development of nuclear weapons, particularly at the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, which operates within the Ministry of Defense and is controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The NCRI had previously been the first to reveal Iran’s clandestine nuclear activities at two major sites, Natanz and Arak, in 2000. Due to its connections in Iran, its information is said to have a high level of credibility. Frank Pabian, an adviser on nuclear non-proliferation matters at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, told The New York Times in 2010 that the NCRI is “right 90 percent of the time.”

This new revelation should not come as a surprise, since the Tehran regime has a history of hiding its nuclear developments from the international community.

In his 2018 speech to the UN General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke a story when he stated that Iran had a “secret atomic warehouse for storing massive amounts of equipment and material from (its) secret nuclear weapons program,” at a time when the regime claimed it was complying with the terms of the nuclear deal. Although Iranian leaders insisted that the nuclear warehouse was a carpet cleaning facility, traces of radioactive uranium were later detected at the site by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors.

In addition, Israel’s seizure of documents from a nuclear archive in Tehran, also in 2018, answered some questions that the IAEA had failed to address for decades. The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) subsequently reported: “Iran intended to build five nuclear warheads, each with an explosive yield of 10 kilotons and able to be delivered by ballistic missile.”

Even the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, openly admitted to quietly purchasing replacement parts for its Arak nuclear reactor while Iran was conducting the negotiations for the JCPOA, under which it was required to destroy the original components. He recalled last year: “The leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) warned us that they (the P5+1) were violators of agreements. We had to act wisely.” He added of the Arak nuclear reactor core: “There are tubes where the fuel goes. We had bought similar tubes, but I could not declare this at the time. When they told us to pour cement into the tubes… we said: ‘Fine. We will pour.’ But we did not tell them that we had other tubes. Otherwise, they would have told us to pour cement into those tubes as well. Now we have the same tubes.”

Furthermore, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi in March raised serious concerns about possible clandestine and undeclared nuclear sites in Iran. He said: “The agency identified a number of questions related to possible undeclared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities at three locations in Iran. The agency sought access to two of the locations. Iran has not provided access to these locations and has not engaged in substantive discussions to clarify the agency’s questions.”

These developments demonstrate that the nuclear deal only paved the way for the Iranian regime to intensify its dangerous nuclear activities. The JCPOA provided the regime’s leaders with vast additional funding, most of which was funneled into the treasury of the IRGC for its ballistic missile and nuclear projects.

The JCPOA nuclear deal only paved the way for Tehran to intensify its dangerous activities.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh

Now, the Iranian regime’s estimated breakout time — the time required to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one nuclear weapon — is as short as three and a half months. It is violating all of the restrictions of the JCPOA, including by increasing its stockpile of low-enriched uranium from 1,020.9 kg to 1,571.6 kg as of May 20. That is nearly eight times more than the regime was allowed to maintain under the nuclear deal.

According to an ISIS report released last month: “A new development is that Iran may have enough low-enriched uranium to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a second nuclear weapon, where the second one could be produced more quickly than the first, requiring in total as little as 5.5 months to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for two nuclear weapons.”

Iran’s clandestine nuclear activities underline the fact that appeasing and providing relief to the regime will only empower and enable it to further pursue its controversial atomic weapon ambitions.

• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point-of-view

 

[jward]

Libya’s warring parties agree to ‘permanent ceasefire’: UN mission to Libya

Agencies Friday 23 October 2020


Libya’s warring sides signed an agreement for “a permanent ceasefire in all areas of Libya”, the United Nations Libya mission said in a Facebook post on Friday, showing live video of the ceremony to sign the agreement.
“The 5 + 5 Joint Military Commission talks in Geneva today culminate in a historic achievement as Libyan teams reach a permanent ceasefire agreement across Libya. This achievement is an important turning point towards peace and stability in Libya,” the UN’s Libya mission said on its Facebook page.

For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
“The road to a permanent cease-fire deal was often long and difficult,” UN envoy for Libya Stephanie Turco Williams said in a press conference in Geneva, noting that there’s a “great deal of work” to do in the coming weeks to implement the commitments.
She expressed hope the agreement will succeed “in ending the suffering of Libyans and allowing those displaced by the conflict to return to their homes.”
All mercenaries and foreign fighters must leave Libya within a maximum of three months from Friday, Williams said.
A commercial passenger plane flew from the Libyan capital Tripoli across front lines to the eastern city of Benghazi for the first time in more than a year on Friday following the talks between the country’s warring parties in Geneva.
Flights between them had stopped in the summer of 2019 after shelling by Khalifa Haftar’s eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) targeted Tripoli’s Mitiga airport.
The Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) drove the LNA back from the capital in June.
Read more:
Libyan warring sides agree to open air, land routes: UN Envoy
UN hosts Libyan military leaders in hopes of end to conflict

Last Update: Friday, 23 October 2020 KSA 13:25 - GMT 10:25

Libya’s warring parties agree to ‘permanent ceasefire’: UN mission to Libya

Libya’s warring sides signed an agreement for “a permanent ceasefire in all areas of Libya”, the United Nations Libya mission said in a Facebook post on

english.alarabiya.net

 

[Housecarl]

WTF?....."Interesting" to say the least!.........(I couldn't post the Washington Post article or the WSJ one due to the paywalls. HC)

Posted for fair use.....

Trump Administration Secretly Helped Afghan Taliban, Even Deployed MQ-9 Reaper Drones To Fight ISIS - Reports

As the war-torn Afghanistan awaits peace while US-Taliban deal to end the conflict remains underway, a report by The Washington Post has revealed that the US has been providing covert help to the Taliban in Afghanistan. F-35s Replace F-18 Super Hornets As US Establishes 2nd Squadron Of Stealth...

eurasiantimes.com

Trump Administration Secretly Helped Afghan Taliban, Even Deployed MQ-9 Reaper Drones For Assistance – Reports


Published
4 hours ago
on
October 23, 2020
By
EurAsian Times Desk

As the war-torn Afghanistan awaits peace while US-Taliban deal to end the conflict remains underway, a report by The Washington Post has revealed that the US has been providing covert help to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

As per the report, soon after the deal was finalised, the United States’ Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) began carrying out a mission (jokingly known as ‘Taliban Air Force’), which helps the old foes Taliban with air support in its fight against ISIS in Afghanistan’s northeastern Kunar Province by listening to their communication.

The tools such as reaper drones which were earlier used to spy on the Taliban were being used to figure out where they needed help.

“By using such signals intelligence, members of the task force told me, they could tell when and where in the mountains the Taliban was preparing thrusts against the Islamic State, then plan airstrikes where they would be most useful,” the report by Wesley Morgan says.

File Image
The US, as per the report, was helping the Taliban even when warplanes undertook strikes against the terror group in different parts of Afghanistan. The target is to help the Taliban weaken the Islamic State in Konar.

Morgan has shared that both Taliban and the ISIS are trying to gain control in the Korengal and its lucrative timber business, but US has been intervening in the region by undertaking strikes from drones and other aircraft only against ISIS in the region.

“What we’re doing with the strikes against ISIS is helping the Taliban move,” a member of the elite Joint Special Operations Command counterterrorism task force based at Bagram airbase has been quoted in the report as saying.

The report has come at a time when the US is 10 days away from the Presidential elections, scheduled for 3rd November. US President Donald Trump, ever since coming to power, has committed to bringing US troops back home following the peace deal with the Taliban.

The US will be reducing its troops in Afghanistan from 13,000 to 8,600 in the next 130 days and withdraw all its soldiers in 14 months, as per the Doha peace deal signed in February this year.

President Trump on Wednesday, during his election rally in Gastonia, in the battleground state of North Carolina, said the US has had enough of 19 years in Afghanistan and the country will reduce the number of its troops in Afghanistan to 4,000 in a very short period of time.

While the US troops may be returning home after America’s longest war, the operation like the one in Konar signals that CIA presence may remain. After the signing of the deal earlier this year, US officials had revealed that they may consider pulling back front-line CIA personnel from bases in Afghanistan as an effort to reduce violence in the country.

The American negotiators had long resisted the Taliban demand. The agency is said to have the largest presence outside the Washington area with the presence of several hundred CIA officers. Their operations had begun as an effort to hunt terror group Al Qaeda, which has associations with the Taliban.

The veterans quoted in the report have expressed disdain over the association between the two groups as Al Qaeda was responsible for 9/11 bombing and the deal doesn’t ask the Taliban to break its ties anyway.

The report also divulges how in 2016-2019 US military had provided similar air support to the Taliban when it refrained from bombing its units preparing for attacks against the ISIS. It also mentions the role of the Afghan military, which often maintains distance from Taliban, which sought help from them in an offensive against the ISIS in Konar’s Pech Valley.