Atlantic Sentinel

Category: News

  • Americans Gives Russia British Trident Numbers

    Recent newspaper reports bring to our attention an intriguing WikiLeaks revelation of American-Russian agreements as part of the New START treaty. The agreement, according to diplomatic cables released by the whistleblowers’ website, detailed plans for the Obama Administration to reveal to the Russians the serial numbers of all Trident D5 missiles which the United States provide to Britain.

    The issue here lays in the policy which Britain pursues with regard to its nuclear forces. The policy relies on ambiguity: officials never disclose the exact numbers of the nuclear arsenal that is held by Britain. One can well imagine why this was part of the New START process as part of its raison d’être is the reduction of delivery vehicles used by both Russia and the United States. By also disclosing the number of American supplied British delivery vehicles, the Obama Administration is making sure to gain Russia’s trust. It would make little sense for the Kremlin to accept American vehicle and warhead reductions, attempt to match them as part of the reduction treaty and yet have to completely ignore those it provides to allies and uses by proxy. (more…)

  • Boehner, McConnell Call for Spending Cuts

    As America braces for austerity, the top Republicans in Congress spoke about ways to rein in public spending on Sunday morning. The new Speaker of the House, John Boehner sat down with Fox News Sunday while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky appeared on Meet the Press.

    The Congressional Budget Office released its most recent figures on the country’s fiscal crisis this week, forecasting that up to the year 2021, the federal government will continue to run deficits and grow the national debt.

    The deficit is set to reach $1.5 trillion this year alone, equaling nearly 10 percent of GDP. By the end of this fiscal year, the debt will have increased to 70 percent of gross domestic product. If no significant spending reductions are made, it could grow up to 100 percent by the end of the decade.

    President Barack Obama addressed the reality in his State of the Union speech this week but other than a ban on congressional earmarks and a five year freeze in discretionary domestic spending, which accounts for barely $400 billion of the total budget, he proposed few spending reductions. He called for increased investment in education and infrastructure rather to enhance American competitiveness.

    McConnell was “disappointed” with the president’s unwillingness to address America’s looming entitlement disaster yet Republicans haven’t fully endorsed plans to reform Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security either even as they account for a third of all federal expenditures.

    The reason, said McConnell on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, was that entitlement reform should be a bipartisan effort. “I think the president needs to be more bold,” he suggested. “We’re happy to sit down and talk about entitlement reform with the president.”

    On Fox News Sunday, the new Speaker of the House was all the more audacious. While McConnell referred to the upcoming vote on raising the federal debt ceiling as an “opportunity,” Boehner said that the American people would not “tolerate” an increase in the debt limit “without serious reductions in spending and changes to the budget process so that we can make sure that this never happens again.”

    The country will not default on its obligations though. That, according to the Ohio congressman, would be “a financial disaster not only for our country, but for the worldwide economy.” He added that it would be nigh impossible to create jobs under such circumstances.

    Should Congress refuse to raise the debt ceiling, it would technically herald the bankruptcy of the United States and threaten the stability of the dollar, the world’s main reserve currency.

    In order to rein in federal spending, Boehner said that while Republicans won’t push for cuts across the board, items as the health insurance mandate, stimulus funding and mortgage subsidies have to go.

    On the matter of entitlements, Boehner, like McConnell, called on the president to lead — especially in his own party. With Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid denying that Social Security is even in trouble, Boehner said he didn’t know “how we begin to move down the path of having this adult conversation that I’d like to have and I, frankly, like the president would like to have.”

  • Hezbollah Withdraws from Lebanese Government

    There was once a time in Lebanon’s history when every major faction in its political system (the Hariri family, the Lebanese Armed Forces, Hezbollah, and the Maronite Catholic community) decided to throw down their weapons in order to forge a national unity government. Hezbollah and the Sunni community led by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, bitter enemies in the past, were able to cast aside many of their differences in the pursuit of this goal. In fact, the national unity government that would result from this cooperation boded relatively well for Lebanon. Differences over ideology and policy were still prevalent, but those differences were being played out in the cabinet, not on the streets.

    Unfortunately, this era in Lebanon’s history has now eroded. On January 12, Hezbollah lawmakers and Hezbollah sympathizers in Saad Hariri’s administration decided to pull out of the government altogether, giving Lebanon watchers another bout of worry that the entire country may be quickly coming apart at the seams.

    The issue that prompted the pullout is one that has hovered over Lebanon like a dark cloud for the past five years: the International tribunal tasked with investigating the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

    While the work of the tribunal has proceeded at a slow pace, analysts monitoring Lebanon expect indictments to come out soon. Western and Arab officials are bracing for the ruling, which will probably charge members of Hezbollah with at least partial responsibility for Hariri’s death. Yet the cost of issuing the indictments may in fact come at the expense of Lebanon’s national security: something that ordinary Lebanese are all too accustomed with.

    It was quite clear at the beginning of the investigation that Hezbollah would not, under any circumstances, respect the international tribunal. Hezbollah has launched verbal attacks against the tribunal in the past, describing it as an Israeli plot to destroy its movement. Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has vowed to “cut off the hand” of anyone who attempts to arrest a member of Hezbollah for Hariri’s murder.

    The departure of Hezbollah from the Lebanese government is already being viewed by American officials as a provocation meant to plunge Lebanon into another round of sectarian violence.

    But in reality, this move may simply be Hezbollah’s way of demonstrating to the United States and its moderate Arab allies in the region that it has both the power and the influence to rewrite a chapter in Lebanon’s tense political history. Washington may not like what Hezbollah’s political wing is doing, but the fact remains that the White House doesn’t possess any leverage to stop Hezbollah from doing what it wants to do.

    How the prime minister and his political allies respond is now the next stage in the game.  Hariri has already been asked by the Lebanese president to remain in a caretaker role, at least keeping some semblance of governance in place — even if the Lebanese government is usually gridlocked on a good day.

    Qatar, a tiny Gulf Emirate that negotiated an agreement between rival Lebanese politicians only two years ago, may feel tempted to renew its role as a power broker. Demonstrations in support of Hezbollah and demonstrations in support of Hariri will ensue on the streets of Beirut, which could quickly turn sectarian if the situation is not kept under a modicum of control. (Hezbollah is the main representative of Lebanon’s Shia, while Hariri is often regarded as the de facto leader of Lebanon’s Sunni community.)

    Meanwhile, the most the United States can do is sit back, make some telephone calls and hope for the best.

  • The World’s Brewing Conflicts of 2011

    One foreign-policy think tank among dozens that has attracted my attention over the past year is the infamous IGC, otherwise known as the International Crisis Group. The organization has been around for quite some time. In fact, many of its members are former diplomats who understand the deepest complexities of international politics. That ability is no more important than in today’s strategic environment, which is composed of a whole range of confusing scenarios: raging insurgencies, nuclear proliferation, the expansion of the drug market and the free flow of ideas otherwise referred to as globalization.

    In addition to the quality of the research that the IGC publishes on a near daily basis, I have immense respect for the types of projects that its members choose to take (most of which are extraordinarily dangerous and time consuming). Indeed, the IRG is notorious for placing its best and brightest analysts in the world’s most troubled regions, including Burma, Chad, Columbia and Nigeria. This, of course, should not be shocking, given the Crisis Group’s official mission statement: “prevent and resolve deadly conflicts around the world.”

    All of this notwithstanding, the ICG is a great pack of scholars for another reason — they boil down the globe’s pressing issues into a rhetoric that the ordinary human being can comprehend.

    Such is the case with its latest article in Foreign Policy magazine, which dissects what they label as the world’s 33 active and “raging” wars. This time, they seek to predict where the world’s next hotspots will be. If the United States were smart, it would read some of these predictions.

    The list is about fifteen countries long, with the usual suspects highlighted first and foremost. Columbia is mentioned early on due to its everlasting internal battle with FARC rebels. Zimbabwe is described as country that is ready to explode politically. Haiti is listed as a result of the horrible earthquake nearly a year ago. And Somalia once again made the cut for all the obvious reasons.

    There is just one problem: the list shortchanges one country that has been making the news consistently over the past year. It’s a country that I have personally blogged about at some length in the past yet one that continues to get overlooked.

    That country is Yemen, the poorest and most resource depleted state in the Arab world. For the sake of time, there is no need to hash out all of Yemen’s internal problems in detail.  Merely mentioning them does the job relatively well.

    Here is what is occurring inside Yemen today: A violent Shia Houthi rebellion in the northern provinces; an increasingly restive population in the south, where the bulk of Yemen’s dwindling oil reserves are located; a primary source of national income projected to run out by 2017; a capital city that is facing a water shortage; the most active Al Qaeda affiliate in the world; 35 percent unemployment; a large and growing youth population unable to find work

    All of these indicators are pretty horrific when assessed individually. No work, for example, is a tough experience to go through, even if the rest of somebody’s life is on a straight track. But taken together, the cumulative affect could have enormously negative consequences for the future of Yemen as a sovereign and functioning state. And unlike many of the conflicts listed in the ICG brief, Yemen would be far more detrimental to Americans interests than state collapse in Zimbabwe or a new outbreak of violence in Venezuela.

  • When Religion Meets War

    What do you do when you know the exact location of a top level terrorist operative, but dropping a bomb on that location would cause a firestorm that could engulf an entire country into further chaos? Do you suck it up, assess the target and kill the people responsible for numerous attacks? Or do you take the high ground, consider the political context and wait to fight another day?

    These are the types of questions that American intelligence analysts are asking themselves in Pakistan today. The target in question is a recruitment and training center of the Haqqani network, an independent insurgent organization responsible for some of the deadliest attacks on American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The American military believes that Haqqani leaders meet at this location on a near weekly basis, training new members and planning for the next operation.

    It sounds like a slam dunk case. The only problem is that this Haqqani compound is a mosque; the most potent and influential symbol in the Islamic world.

    Therein runs the conundrum which the United States face as its armed forces continue to take the fight to militants in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. In fact, therein lies the microcosm of America’s battle against extremism of the past ten years; what is normally a “no brainer” in conventional military terms quickly turns into a tricky situation in a counterinsurgency environment.

    The United States have run into a similar predicament before, when US Marines were heavily engaged with Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf. The battle lasted for weeks, Americans were suffering heavy casualties and the Iraqi population of the city was often caught in the crosshairs. But as the Marines cleared the city block by block, they found themselves closing in on Sadr’s whereabouts. At one point, they circled Sadr’s exact location, inside one of Shia Islam’s holiest of mosques.

    The Americans, faced with a choice of bombing the shrine or leaving it alone, wisely decided that the latter was the more plausible strategy. Surrounded from all sides, Sadr negotiated a ceasefire with the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) at the time, promising to halt attacks against Americans. The United States withdrew and many conservatives became highly critical of the decision. Yet the ceasefire agreement saved the Unites States a lot of aggravation with the Muslim world (to put it mildly) at a time when the military was still grappling with the prisoner abuse scandal at the Abu Ghraib detention center.

    Six years later, the United States are in much the same situation, this time in a country that has a nuclear weapons stockpile and a heck of a lot more people (approximately 170 million). Thus far, the CIA has concluded that bombing the madrassa in Miranshah is not the best approach, fearing a violent backlash from ordinary Pakistanis. Instead drones have taken another approach to the problem, bombing the suspected militants coming too and from the site.

    Coalition commanders who are eager for success in Afghanistan may be itching to pull the trigger on the mosque. But showing restraint, as the CIA is currently doing, may in fact be more effective in the long term rather than killing a few Haqqani militants now. If counterinsurgency depends on the support of the local population, the last thing the American image needs is another wave of angry protesters in South Asia.

    Showing restraint, on the other hand, is the best essence of what General David Petraeus so often refers to as “strategic patience.”

  • Chengdu J-20: China’s First Stealth Fighter

    For months there had been rumblings on Chinese Internet forums: rumors of photos quickly suppressed by censors. Word was, China’s first stealth fighter prototype, the Chengdu J-20, was nearing its inaugural flight. On Christmas Day, photos finally surfaced online — and stayed there. It was official: Beijing now possesses an apparently flyable prototype fifth-generation fighter, making it only the third country after Russia and the United States to join the stealth club.

    The J-20 appears to share design characteristics with earlier stealth types. It has the same angled chin as the Lockheed Martin F-22 and F-35, plus those jets’ all moving tailplanes. Its twin engines are probably Russian-made 117S models. Like the Russian T-50, it’s big: an estimated 70 feet, compared to 66 for the T-50, just over 60 for the F-22 and the F-35’s 50. “The bigger that the aircraft is, the more likely it is that it is a bomber as much as, if not more than, a fighter,” Ares‘ Bill Sweetman noted.

    Is the J-20 intended as a production program? If so, how soon might it enter service? There’s no way to know for sure, but Sweetman stressed that the J-20 might not spend as long in development as, say, the F-22 and F-35, both of which required 15 years from demonstrator first flight to service entry. “We don’t have a pattern for Chinese major programs,” Sweetman warned.

    If it enters service, and enters service fast, the J-20 could help China flesh out its still largely outdated fleet of some 1,500 fighters, bringing Beijing closer to achieving air parity against its local coalition of rival countries: the US, Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea and India. Even with the J-20, China will be overall outnumbered and behind technologically — but much less so.

    The J-20’s first flight should occur any day now.

    This story first appeared on War is Boring, December 29, 2010.

  • US Set to Expand Drone Strikes in Pakistan

    When Pakistan’s battle with militancy is concerned, the United States have very few options. Introducing American troops into North Waziristan to flush out the militants would be an extremely difficult mission, and it would no doubt further expand a war in Afghanistan that people are already growing tired off. Poking and prodding the Pakistani armed forces to launch another offensive has been rebuffed time and time again. The Pakistanis argue that they must first consolidate military gains in South Waziristan and Swat before another front is opened. Ordering US Special Forces into the area is risky, since disclosure would provoke a harsh Pakistani response.

    With all of these limitations, the use of drones has become the default alternative for Washington. It is not as if drone strikes have been a terrible policy. Top Al Qaeda and Taliban commanders have been killed as a result of the CIA program. Militants from the Haqqani network are constantly on the run, diverting time that could be used for planning attacks toward ensuring their own personal safety. The Pakistani government is even complicit in the attacks since much of the intelligence that makes drone strikes so successful is disseminated from Inter-Services Intelligence.

    Obviously, there are problems. The United Nations Human Rights Council submitted a report earlier in the year exposing the program’s unethical nature. Philip Alston, the man in charge of the council, claims that the attacks may even be illegal under international law.

    Pakistanis residing in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, North Waziristan in particular, are often killed when the missiles are targeting militants. There have been a number of cases where mothers and children were among the casualties due to their personal relationships with Al Qaeda, Haqqani, or Pakistani Taliban insurgents.

    Despite the criticism, there really isn’t another options for keeping militants on their toes.

    The tribal regions are nearly impossible to navigate by foot, rendering any ground operation lengthy and perhaps downright impossible. Therefore, it’s no wonder that Washington is trying to increase the range in which drones are permitted. American and NATO intelligence have already requested that American drones be allowed to scan targets in the Pakistani city of Quetta, where the Afghan Taliban leadership is believed to be based. The request has been denied by Pakistan, but the fact that the CIA submitted it expresses how valuable the unmanned vehicles have been in the fight against international terrorism.

    Civil and human rights activists and organizations will be disappointed by the request. But surely a missile targeting a single house, acting on accurate information, is better than the alternative: a full-scale ground invasion? The former kills the intended target with limited civilian casualties. The latter option would no doubt leave many more people dead or wounded, in addition to destroying a tribal infrastructure system that is already weak at the margins.

    The United States recognized this discrepancy long ago. It may be time for others in the international community, including the United Nations, to recognize it as well.

  • WikiLeaks Exposes American Diplomatic Cables

    Utter the word “WikiLeaks” in the Obama White House or the Pentagon, and you are sure to witness a sense of growing disillusionment among policymakers. The self-proclaimed whistleblower website has caused the administration a number of thumping headaches over the past year.

    Take last summers release of over 70,000 military field reports in Afghanistan. The first hand reports captured the essence of war in a country that few in the world seem to understand. The reports painted American and NATO troops as the middlemen in a seemingly endless confrontation from all sides, including not just the Taliban but also Hamid Karzai’s embattled regime.

    Not to be outdone, the organization’s disclosure of over 400,000 documents about the Iraq War also caused officials in the White House to bow their heads in embarrassment, albeit for a short time. Raw reporting from American officers on the ground described the frequent mistreatment and torture of detainees at the hands of the Iraqi security forces, in addition to Washington’s lingering distrust toward Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.

    Yet while both of those document dumps were indeed damaging to the United States, at least in terms of its international image, most of them could be contained with a bit of political damage control. After all, most of the content unveiled in the Afghan and Iraq War leaks occurred during President George W. Bush’s tenure, giving Obama staffers a “that was then, this is now” defense. In fact, this is exactly the type of defense that was used by White House spokesmen. Press secretary Robert Gibbs told the White House press corps a few days after the first release that the documents didn’t cover Obama’s post-surge strategy in Afghanistan and where therefore irrelevant.

    That argument proved effective. The media firestorm died down and President Obama was somewhat vindicated, since the leaked memos were largely remnants of the Bush era.

    But the latest wave of classified material that was published over the weekend by WikiLeaks (and disseminated to The New York Times, the British Guardian and Der Spiegel in Germany, among others) may prove to be much more damaging to American foreign policy. Rather than concentrating on war related exposés, the new trove of documents covers a wide range of issues, all of which the United States government would rather keep secret. All of the leaks are within the purview of the State Department and thus encompass private, candid and blunt conversations within America’s diplomatic establishment. So unlike previous wikileaks disclosures, the 250,000 State Department cables cut to the core of official American policy.

    As one can imagine, 250,000 leaked cables is an unprecedented amount of material. The Pentagon and the State Department are skimming the documents to make sure that names are redacted and sources are protected. And bloggers are combing through the communiqués to determine what exactly are the most controversial findings.

    Courtesy of The New York Times and The Washington Post, here are a few highlights:

    American and South Korean officials are planning for an eventual North Korean collapse.

    King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia desperately wants the United States to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities before the situation becomes intolerable.

    Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh acknowledges that his regime will continue to cover up American airstrikes in his country.

    American officials believe that North Korea has exported long range ballistic missiles to Iran, some of which may be able to reach targets in Western Europe.

    The State Department orders diplomats to spy on foreign dignitaries at the United Nations.

    Qatari prime minister Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani tells Senator John Kerry that Egypt is the main problem in Middle East peace talks.

    This is just a sample of the explosive material that can be found in the latest collection of leaks. Whether the content will have negative implications for American diplomacy is the subject of the next post, but at this short juncture, it may be safe to say that the Obama Administration is going to have some more headaches in the next few days.

    On a side note, one wonders whether these cables influence the decisionmaking process of other powers as well? Many of the leaks expose the suspicions, rivalries and personal disagreements that are often held by world leaders. For instance, Saudi king Abdullah is said to not trust Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak regards the Iranians as nothing but a bunch of “big fat lairs.” The ties between all of these countries are strenuous to begin with but one can assume that revealing this strong rhetoric to the public won’t help smooth over the relationship. Expressing frustration in private is pure diplomacy, but having those frustrations disclosed for the other side to see is just bad business.

  • European Navies Train for Coastal Warfare

    In September, the navies of thirteen nations gathered at the port of Turku in Finland for Exercise Northern Coasts 2010, a two week training event meant to “improve the interoperability between participating units and countries with main emphasis on maritime operations in confined and shallow waters,” according to the Finnish military. The event was tailored for “smaller naval units, such as fast patrol boats, corvettes, small frigates and Mine Counter-Measure Vessels,” Warships International Fleet Review reported. (more…)

  • Al Qaeda Terrorist Convicted in New York

    The Obama Administration’s counterterrorism policy just received a terrible setback. After a five day jury deliberation only a few blocks from where the World Trade Center towers once stood, a civilian jury decided to convict a known Al Qaeda operative on a single count of conspiring to destroy American government property with an explosive device.

    The defendant in question was a man named Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani who law enforcement experts believed played an instrumental role in Al Qaeda’s 1998 suicide bombing on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Some 224 people were killed on those attacks, among them twelve Americans.

    According to American counterterrorism officials, Ahmed Ghailani was one of the operatives involved in the plot. Throughout the trial, New York prosecutors claimed that he personally bought the explosives that were used in the attack, then skipped town to Pakistan once the operation was orchestrated. He has been on the American government’s terrorist list since. Pakistani authorities managed to capture him only six years later when he was subsequently transferred to a CIA interrogation facility for questioning.

    So after all of this evidence, why was Ghailani convicted on just one count?Or, to put it more dramatically, why was a member of Al Qaeda acquitted of 284 other charges, including murder, conspiracy to commit murder and terrorism?

    Part of the answer concerns the lack of evidence directed against Ghailani in the first place. There was a whole lot of speculation as to his involvement but the actual proof was hard to come by. The star witness in the trial — a man named Hussein Abebe who claimed to have sold Ghailani the explosives — was excused from testifying by the presiding judge. That left a wide gap in the prosecutor’s case.

    Something else that could be responsible is the nature of civilian trials in general — something that Republicans and New York legislators have been consistently hammering the Obama Administration on.

    In contrast to military tribunals or military commissions that handle the bulk of war related crimes, civilian courts are governed by strict rules that provide defendants with a whole range of rights. Whereas a military commission may have permitted evidence based on CIA interrogations, civilian trials are more inclined to throw that evidence out. This is precisely what Judge Lewis A. Kaplan did with respect to Ghailani, arguing that he was tortured numerous times by the agency throughout his detention.

    In the end, the trial will probably be seen as a failure by most. A terrorist being declared innocent on 284 charges while being convicted of only one leaves a bad taste in the Obama Administration’s mouth, particularly since the president has stressed his intention to continue to try captured terrorists through the regular court system.

    In the end, justice was in fact served. Ghailani faces a minimum of twenty years in federal prison, with the possibility of a life sentence during his January 25 hearing.

    The result wasn’t pretty, but the civilian courts did their job, convicting a killer on the one hand while upholding the rule of law in the process.

  • Senator Jim DeMint Discusses Earmarks, 2012

    Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, also known as Senator Tea Party due to his strong connection to this political movement, appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace to discuss congressional earmarks, the deficit, as well as his presidential ambitions.

    The interview started with a question about the White House’s offer to extend the Bush era tax cuts on the wealthy. DeMint said that there was no room for a compromise on the tax cuts but that an extension of just two or three years might be acceptable to Republicans.

    Many Republicans in Congress, including DeMint, have advocated an earmark ban for many months but not all of their leaders have been equally forthcoming. Mitch McConnell in particular, the Senate Minority Leader from Kentucky, has so far refused to commit to reform. On Fox Sunday, DeMint remarked that earmarks weren’t just a Tea Party issue but an American one. “Right now we’ve got over five hundred congressmen and senators who are in Washington who think it’s their job to bring home the bacon,” he said. “And that takes your eye off the ball.” DeMint was confident that this message has been received by those in the legislature.

    We can’t spend all our time trying to rob the federal treasury to get money for our states and congressional districts and still be serious about the big issues like reforming our tax code and fixing Social Security and Medicare.

    The senator was similarly confident that he could find the votes to pass an earmark ban. “You would see spending come down dramatically if you took out all the self-interest that earmarks represent,” he argued. As he pointed out on Meet the Press last week, John Boehner, who is likely to succeed Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House next year, has already committed to an earmark moratorium. “We’re not going to have earmarks,” he said then, “so it’s really silly for some senior Republicans in the Senate to try and block it.”

    Asked whether his position wasn’t hypocritical, seeing as DeMint used to vote for earmarks, the senator described himself as a “recovering earmarker,” thankful of the “support groups” that now exist all over the country. “We call them Tea Parties,” he joked.

    DeMint gained national notoriety during the end of the Bush Administration with his opposition to the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Three months later he also voted against the $814 billion dollar stimulus package. These actions as well as his opposition to earmarks have made him a household name. There is even talk of DeMint being in the race for the Republican presidential candidacy in 2012.

    Moderator Chris Wallace asked him about that and if DeMint thought that he was too far to the right to be a contender. The senator didn’t think so. “I think this election shows that my views of balancing the checkbook are not radical at all,” he said, referring to the Republicans’ impressive gains in this month’s midterm elections. “Americans want us to cut spending and debt,” he added. “And I think they want us to return the role of the federal government back to more of a limited constitutional role.”

    DeMint is not just a small-government conservative however. As he told Fox News two weeks ago, “you can’t be a fiscal conservative and not be a social conservative.” He blamed the expansion of government, at least in part, on society being “dysfunctional” and American culture “falling apart.” The senator is in fact regarded as one of the most conservative members of the upper chamber, supportive of school prayer, opposed to abortion and adamantly opposed to legalizing gay marriage which he fears could have “costly secondary consequences” due to the prevalence of certain diseases among homosexuals.

    Despite his popularity with tea partiers, DeMint said to have “no plans” to run for president in 2012. “I’m looking for someone who will have the courage and leadership abilities to come out and make the hard decisions that we need to turn this country away from a cliff,” he said.

  • Finally a Government in Iraq

    It took eight long months of frustration and political wrangling, but it now looks like Iraq’s leaders have set aside their differences over who will lead the next government. And from all of the reports coming out of the negotiations, Nouri al-Maliki will retain the post of prime minister for another four years.

    The actual deal, however, is a bit more complicated than that. Maliki is undoubtedly the big winner, especially when one considers that his State of Law Party didn’t even finish first in the parliamentary elections last month. But Jalal Talabani and Ayad Allawi (Maliki’s fiercest critic) also came out on top. Of course, the constituencies that are actually included in the government are more important for Iraq’s future than the individual figures leading those positions. But even in that context, Iraq has largely succeeded in drawing all major sectarian communities into the political process.

    From early reports coming out of Baghdad, Maliki will remain Iraq’s prime minister, thus giving the majority Shia population firm control over the country’s most powerful office. Talabani, a Kurd, will continue to be Iraq’s president. Ayad Allawi, the man who actually won the most votes, will chair a new body (the National Council on Strategic Policies) that will be responsible for Iraq’s security policy. And Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni, is rumored to head Iraq’s Foreign Ministry, although this is still based on an aura of speculation.

    All in all, the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds are finally under the same roof. Bringing the Sunnis into the government was an especially important decision for Maliki & Company to make. Without adequate representation in Baghdad, there was a very real possibility that millions of Sunni men would return to the insurgency, thereby jeopardizing the entire security situation as a time when American forces are scheduled to withdraw completely by 2011. The last time Sunnis were excluded from politics (in 2005), the insurgency in Iraq spread like wildfire. This time, the United States, specifically Vice President Joe Biden and Ambassador Jim Jeffries, recognized that a return to the past was no longer an option.

    Hard work remains to be done. While Iraq’s top positions appear to be filled, the coalition government will now get down to the tough job of dishing out ministerial duties. Who will head the Interior Ministry, which is tasked with keeping a lid on domestic violence? Who will lead the Health Ministry? These are all questions that need to be resolved quickly and efficiently. Iraqis are waiting for action that will actually improve their lives; another round of political dueling over the ministries will only increase resentment among the Iraqi people and widen the gap between the elite and the electorate.

    Another query still to be answered is what role the new National Council on Strategic Decisions will have with respect to Iraq’s foreign policy. The new institution was just established, so there are no rules and regulations governing the work of the council yet. What is more, there is still a chance that Maliki will simply make decisions on his own, without the council’s input (he has circumvented ministries in the past).

    All of this is for another day. The first step is actually forming a government that everyone can agree on; or at least forming a government that is tolerable for the next four years. That step has finally been taken.

  • Bombs, Packages and UPS

    To most Americans, foreign policy, war and the threat of terrorism have not been top issues in their minds during the campaign season. The economy and unemployment, for good reasons, have taken over those honors. But as the news of yet another uncovered terrorist plot demonstrates, terrorism isn’t going to magically fade away in the near future. So even if Americans are not weary of package bombs, disgruntled Army psychiatrists (Nidal Malik Hasan, the “Fort Hood shooter”) or American-Yemeni clerics inspiring western Muslims to wage jihad, terrorists of all forms are still desired to strike a blow to the United States and Western position.

    Of course, fear should never dominate an electoral season, even if most of the candidates running for the Congress engage in a bit of scaremongering in their campaign ads. Voting out of a sense of fear is dangerous, both because people tend to think irrationally when frightened and because American history is full of politicians making terrible decisions from threats that are exaggerated. In fact, Americans focusing predominately on the economy can perhaps be seen as a victory against terrorism in the long run. A big objective of terrorism is attention from the public, and American citizens have refused to cater to this demand despite a number of attacks that were thwarted at the last minute.

    Now that the American campaign season is over, we would nevertheless be wise to get back to reality. Despite ten years of effective counterterrorism efforts around the world, the American homeland and the West in general are still vulnerable.

    A case in point is last week’s foiled plot orchestrated by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the most lethal and media savvy franchise of the larger Al Qaeda movement. While the investigation is ongoing, US, European, and Arab officials are confident that AQAP’s chief bombmaking expert (Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri) was behind the plan to smuggle explosive material through sealed packages on passenger planes. Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom stated that the bombs were designed to explode while the planes were in the air. Others content that the bombs were supposed to explode once they reached their final destination, a series of synagogues in the Chicago area.

    Regardless of what the target was, the plot shows that AQAP in particular will leave no tactic untouched in their quest to send the American government a message.

    An American intelligence official has told the Associated Press anonymously that American law enforcement intercepted a couple of mail packages in mid September which they suspect was sent by AQAP militants. The search that was conducted did not reveal any explosives, but authorities are increasingly confident that the shipment could have been a “dry run” for last week’s attack.

    Al-Asiri is an interesting case study, not only due to his high ranking in the Al Qaeda organization but also because of his operational expertise and background. According to American and Saudi counterterrorism officials, al-Asiri used a similar explosive (commonly referred to as PETN) in an attempted assassination of Saudi counterterrorism chief Prince Mohammed bin Nayef a year ago.

    That attempt failed but demonstrated to the government of Saudi Arabia that the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda is quite adaptive in its techniques.  Disguised as a young repentant Muslim seeking to reach out to the Saudis, the suicide bomber approached Prince Nayef and narrowly missed his target. The plan sounds juvenile at first, until you discover where the bomb was stored: in the attacker’s rectum. Detectors missed the bomb, allowing the operation to go virtually unfettered.

    Ironically, this type of attack is quite similar to the operation aboard a Detroit bound airliner last Christmas. In that plot, the same PETN was sewn into the attacker’s underwear, which again escaped the routine checking of airline security. That plot was unsuccessful as well, but only because the operator (Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab) didn’t know how to set off the explosion.

    Now that the midterm elections are over, the Obama Administration needs to get back to work. And an urgent priority that President Barack Obama needs to contend with is the growing lethality of AQAP, coupled with an increased investment in Yemen’s counterterrorism machinery.

  • Rumors of Negotiation in Afghanistan

    Readers who have been following the news from Afghanistan lately have undoubtedly come across several front page articles suggesting that representatives of the Taliban have engaged in “peace talks” with the government in Kabul. The New York Times has run a couple of stories to this affect. On October 20 for instance the newspaper wrote that, “Taliban elite, aided by NATO, join talks for Afghan peace.”

    Talks to end the war in Afghanistan involve extensive, face-to-face discussions with Taliban commanders from the highest levels of the group’s leadership, who are secretly leaving their sanctuaries in Pakistan with the help of NATO troops, officials here say.

    From all of these stories — and from that single quotation — one may get the picture that the Taliban’s rank and file are being decapitated on the battlefield, Mullah Mohammad Omar is shivering in his boots, and that the United States are brokering a peace deal that could finally end the war after ten long years. Last week I warned that reports of NATO turning the page in the war should be viewed with the utmost caution. Indeed, the reports themselves are a bit inaccurate, in that most simplify a very complex situation.

    For instance, both The New York Times and The Washington Post frequently label the Taliban-Karzai discussions as peace talks, which imply that both factions are hammering out details for what a postwar Afghanistan will look like. Throughout the history of warfare, the term “peace talks” is generally invoked when all major sides of the conflict have come to a mutual understanding that the continuation of the war is detrimental to everyone’s interests. In Vietnam, this meant a peace agreement between the United States, South Vietnam, and the North Vietnamese government — one that unfortunately collapsed within two years. In the Gulf War, the end of hostilities culminated in the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait in exchange for an end to coalition operations. In other words, peace talks lead to peace agreements, which end fighting and establish a postwar order that aims to ensure stability in the future.

    The ongoing talks with the Taliban should not be considered in the same light. For one, there is no evidence that the Taliban leaders that are participating in the discussions represent the entire Quetta Shura organization. Mullah Omar, the top official in the Quetta Shura, continues to deny that his group is engaging with Hamid Karzai’s administration. The Haqqani network, perhaps the most dangerous segment of the insurgency in Afghanistan today, virtually remains irreconcilable. And the Pakistani intelligence service has yet to endorse Taliban talks with the Afghan government.

    If anything, the discussions in Kabul should be seen more as efforts toward reconciliation, not a outreach to establish peace. Taliban fighters, at least in the mid to upper ranks of the organization, are clearly hedging their bets and trying to solidify their position once the United States get out of the country completely. The problem is that those Taliban who are talking may not be representing the entire organization. Rather, these Taliban “negotiators” may be trying to ensure that they personally gain some sort of powerful position once NATO soldiers depart. There is a huge difference between negotiating for personal survival and negotiating for an end to the war.

    As long as Pakistani intelligence holds the reigns of the Quetta Shura and dictates what they can and cannot do, we should all question whether current exchange between Taliban and Afghan government officials is truly the beginning of a comprehensive US-NATO-Afghan-Taliban peace accord.

    Clearly, any insurgent who wishes to switch sides and join the Afghan government is a welcoming development. And if the Times and Washington Post reports are to be believed, both low and high level Taliban commanders are exploring the option. But a few fighters that are willing to ditch the Quetta Shura cannot, and should not, be interpreted as a peace negotiation.

    I’m sure General David Petraeus recognizes this crucial difference. But it certainly isn’t being portrayed that way in the media.

  • The Future of British Armed Forces

    This is the second part in a series of reports on the effects of Britain’s latest Strategic Defense and Security Review. The first entry focused on the announced changes in strategy. This article discusses the consequences for procurement.

    The cuts on equipment and manpower outlined in the Strategic Defense and Security Review are now clear and months of speculation and worry have been replaced by mixed emotions amongst senior servicemen and their juniors. Depending on one’s position and service, or what one might think of as the key elements of British defense, the news is relieving, bad or terrible.

    Cynics like myself didn’t foresee the RAF losing out so badly, and the Royal Navy still afloat. As mentioned, the Royal Navy will lose 5,000 personnel, according to the SDSR. Each service has taken a serious cut, with an overall defense budget reduction of 8 percent. The aims of the review seem to be at least somewhat in line with the last SDR, as far reshaping of services is concerned. Further steps have been taken to shed the Cold War role, although this is undoubtedly a Treasury, not strategy led review. The future, according to the document, will be a mixed bag of threats from cyber attack, terrorists and failed states.

    The language of the review lacks the optimism of its predecessor, the 1997/1998 SDR. It is also more defensive and yet it maintains some of the ambitions of a global role and the desire to maintain applicable forces capable of international action. The cuts in capability, i.e., materiel of specific kinds for specific duties, may suggest otherwise however. There’s also a designed ruthlessness and relationship to efficiency in the words of the review which, although appealing to the pragmatist, may remain unfulfilled. Promises are made of rigorous tests within procurement and prioritization of what is needed and what is not and value for money in line with high standards and “best equipment for our troops.”

    Much was made in the run-up to the review of a streamlining and modernization process, much in keeping with the kind of ideas expressed by General Sir David Richards. A move away from the “Cold War role” was desired and to some extent, one supposes, achieved. Armored vehicles and self propelled guns — the weapons of a conventional military — have been cut by 40 percent in the new review. This will see a reduction in the number of new, highly effective Challenger II Main Battle Tanks. A lighter role for the Army is predicted and prescribed, with a loss of 7-8,000 personnel. New Chinook helicopters (or perhaps the ones which are on the ground doing nothing) will be brought to play.

    In keeping with the shift from a “Cold War” conventional role and the personnel reductions, the British Army will be withdrawn from Germany in entirety. The SDSR maintains that, in the future Britain will be able to perform one stabilizing mission of brigade level (up to 6,500 men) with maritime and air support as required. This is much smaller than the current commitment to Afghanistan (by approximately 3,000), a commitment which is comparatively minute compared to the American and even former British deployments. General Richards will certainly be pleased with the emphasis on rapidly reacting, lighter forces geared toward interventionist, dare one say, and counterinsurgency roles. Though, too, understandably bitter about the reduction in personnel his service has endured. Longer terms of service in operations, maybe even on the American style one year deployment, are a possibility.

    Better protected land vehicles will replace the present soft skin fleet, presumably due to lessons learned in Afghanistan concerning IEDs. The Future Rapid Effect System (FRES) fleet of armored vehicles will, it seems, come online in the form of the “Scout” ASCOD AFV, Terrier engineer vehicle, and a utility vehicle.

    Unmanned munitions delivery vehicles have been mentioned, along with precision missiles, as alternatives to the destructive capability of heavy armor. Within the Army, it is organization and doctrine which looks to get the best facelift. A restructuring into multirole brigades should increase the ability to act with the right forces, but, with the loss of a whole brigade, will reduce the manpower brought to bear. The likelihood is a slimmer force divided into more capable blocks instead of different brigades being better at different operations. It may not change Army organization as seen in the public eye; regiments and corps being split up or amalgamated is not the necessary repercussion, although never off the cards.

    The review also mentions the repeated mantra of better C3 (command, communication, control ) and ISTAR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance) but this has been an Army focus for years now.

    The Royal Air Force is to lose the Harrier jump jet, a reliable if old airframe famed for its vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities. It is this which allowed the design of the small “scoop deck” carriers which formed the backbone of the fleet dispatched to the Falklands in the 1982 war. This is a loss of highly versatile air-to-ground capability in favor of keeping the ageing but not-so-versatile Tornado ground attack aircraft and the expansive fleet (300) of Eurofighter Typhoons. The latter aircraft, serving no other use than as an air-to-air interceptor fighter to protect the United Kingdom mainland, has been one of the great tragedies of British defense procurement.

    It is worth noting that the RAF has not shot down an enemy aircraft in combat since the Second World War and, with the situation as it is, is perhaps unlikely to do so again. The “logic” of the review, although renewing emphasis on interventionist low intensity operations does make strides to keep an all round defense; perhaps why these late, overpriced, single role pariahs are to be kept. The RAF stands to lose 5,000 personnel and the costly, outmoded Nimrod reconnaissance craft are to be scrapped. Their maritime role seemingly to be transferred to a derivative of the Lynx helicopter known as Wildcat.

    Some endurances put upon the Royal Navy seem the most unusual. The nuclear deterrent, based on the Trident system, launched from Vanguard class submarines was included in the defense review, although only in by saying that real decisions about it will be delayed for six years. The class, however, will be reduced from four to three boats, with economies of service to be imposed. Deployed missiles and warheads are also to decrease.

    Maritime reconnaissance, as mentioned, will move from fixed-wing to small rotor-wing, carrier-based aircraft and not the American Hawkeye like some of us dared to dream. Also in this department we come across some of the more unusual decisions within the SDSR.

    The Royal Navy fleet is to be reduced by four frigates. Nineteen destroyers and frigates will remain consisting of the Type 45 Anti-Air Destroyer and the Type 23 Frigate, the latter to be replaced eventually by the Type 26, the design of which is still a mystery, although increasingly a smaller, T-45 looking modular vessel is likely. This all leaves a relatively small fleet for global operations which should still provide enough to support a small, relatively weak carrier battle group based on the new CVF Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier.

    For many months, nay, years, the carrier project seemed to be under the sword of Damocles, and yet the SDSR has confirmed it will progress and that both vessels will launch. This fits the kind of strategy the SDSR paints as the future, and follows the facts that modern conflicts have relied on carriers (including Sierra Leone, the Falklands War, and Afghanistan, where over 90 percent of all airstrikes have been carrier-based). It is, however, still likely that the second carrier will be sold.

    One carrier shall be kept in “extended readiness” however which means in store for emergency and not otherwise deployed. The issue of the carriers’ aircraft complement has been solved with robust efficiency. The F-35C, the STOVL version, has been dropped as the frame of choice in favor of the F-35B; the same model to be used by the US Navy. Given the advantages the F-35B has over the other craft, and the problems which have dogged the progress of the STOVL version, this can only be a sensible option. This had meant, however, a reconfiguration of the carrier’s deck to allow catapults and arrestor wires. Again, not a bad thing.

    The only issue here lies in timing. With Harrier, the current at-sea aircraft of the British forces, to be immediately scrapped, there will be no British fast jets at sea until the F-35B enters service as the Joint Strike Fighter at some vague point in the near future. The carriers themselves will enter service in 2020 instead of 2016. The loss of Harrier is coupled with the loss of HMS Ark Royal, to be retired immediately, and the potential loss of HMS Illustrious to leave no power projection capability till 2020 at the earliest. The reconfiguration of the deck will also, it is specifically mentioned, allow interoperability with American and French navies, who will be the only allied people with fast jets anyway. Unmanned vehicles and helicopters are also mentioned as viable alternatives, to be based on Illustrious or Ocean and Invincible.

    Amphibiosity is to be maintained minus one Bay class landing dock. Pending a review of efficiency, HMS Ocean might also be axed. She competes with HMS Illustrious for the role of helicopter carrier, which presumably will also be the fate of HMS Invincible due to the retirement of Harrier.

    The upshot of all this is a general reduction in numbers while attempting to maintain capability (which will perhaps be the epitaph of the British armed forces), particularly the Army and Air Force. On the other hand the Navy has lost most of its capability almost overnight and this is an unusual thing for British defense reviews, which have followed the do the same with less policy since the withdrawal from east of Suez. For many years the Royal Navy, and thus Britain will lack any real ability to project power, even on the feeble basis they had in the post-Falklands navy. This has dire implications for British interests abroad which are usually protected by the Navy’s strike ability. The downscaling of the Army in favor of C3 ISTAR and a greater reliance on technology suggests an acceptance of fourth-generation warfare while still forgetting the necessity of troop numbers in counterinsurgency campaigns. That could be part of the plan though, with politicos and public alike unwilling to venture on such conflicts again.