World War Three Thread....

[BRVoice]

http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNe...0035&Type=aTOD


Talk of the Day - Taiwan deploys supersonic anti-ship missile
2011/05/09 23:04:34

A local newspaper reported Monday that Taiwan's military has begun deploying locally developed Hsiung Feng (Brave Wind) III anti-ship missiles on its warships in anticipation of the imminent launch of China's first aircraft carrier early next year.

In the first stage, the supersonic ship-to-ship missile will be deployed on 15 naval warships, and in the future will be installed in mobile launchers along Taiwan's coast.

The following is an excerpt of the United Daily News report on the issue:

Military analysts said the Hsiung Feng III is the world's only supersonic anti-ship missile other than Russian-developed systems. Its speed is three times that of conventional anti-ship missiles.

According to the analysts, it is difficult to counter the Hsiung Feng III missile, which has a maximum speed of mach 2.0, or twice the speed of sound, and a range of up to 130 kilometers.

The missile is capable of attacking fuel tanks and ammunition depots on ships, and can be used against China's aircraft carrier battle groups, military sources said.

Ruling Kuomintang Legislator Lin Yu-fang said the deployment of the Hsiung Feng III missile and the Hsiung Feng II-E cruiser missile capable of hitting China's eastern coast will enhance Taiwan's ability to deter a Chinese invasion.

Lin said he has asked the Navy to evaluate the feasibility of deploying the missile on Kidd-class destroyers.

Hsiung Feng III was first unveiled during the 2007 Double Ten National Day military parade.

In the first stage, the Navy's eight 4,000-ton Chengkung-class frigates and seven 500-ton Chinchiang missile boats will be outfitted with the Hsiung Feng III missile, with each warship being equipped with four supersonic missiles, military sources said.

As China will soon commission its first aircraft carrier battle group, Legislator Lin said Taiwan should also overcome its difficulties in acquiring diesel electric submarines, which he said are the most powerful and effective weapons to deter an enemy invasion.

According to Taiwan's intelligence authorities, China has almost completed renovating its first aircraft carrier -- the Varyag -- and the vessel is scheduled to set sail early next year.

The Varyag -- the Russian name of the carrier -- was purchased from Ukraine and its launch would mark the completion of its first aircraft carrier battle group, military experts said.

Intelligence sources said the Varyag is still docked at Dalian Shipyard and will begin a trial voyage in the next few months.

The aircraft carrier may be formally commissioned late this year or early next year. Although the date may be close to Taiwan's legislative and presidential elections, intelligence sources said it should be just a coincidence rather than a deliberate arrangement.

The carrier will be able to accommodate about 20 jet fighters and helicopters. Intelligence units said China will take delivery of Ka-28 and Ka-31 helicopters from Russia this year for deployment on the Varyag, but it will not be able to complete production of all J-15 jet fighters, patterned after Russia's Su-33, until 2015.

In the initial stage, the aircraft carrier will mainly carry out training missions, but will be assigned to China's South China Fleet after the battle group acquires combat capabilities, military sources said. (May 9, 2011).

(By Sofia Wu)

[BRVoice]

From a couple days ago...

http://www.businessinsider.com/aircr...ii-pace-2011-5


The World Is Cranking Out Aircraft Carriers At WWII Pace
Robert Johnson | May 9, 2011, 9:11 AM | 8,059 | comment 35

At several billion dollars apiece they're expensive, and in response to today's conflicts they're often seen as obsolete, but aircraft carriers are being produced today at numbers not seen since World War II.

The latest generation of carriers in the United States Navy is called the Nimitz Class, after the five-star naval admiral Chester Nimitz, and is powered by a small nuclear reactor allowing it to go 20 years without re-fueling. The ship has a service life of about 50 years, carries a crew of over 5,000, and is incredibly expensive to maintain.

Nuclear powered carriers have long been the domain of the United States Navy, which has 11 in its fleet, but according to a report on Fox, countries around the world are adding carriers to their fleet in unprecedented numbers.

Britain, France and Russia, as well as, Brazil, India and China are all increasing their fleets carrier presence. The French carrier Charles de Gaulle has been elemental in France's recent Libyan campaign:

The whole idea is about being able to project power," said Rear Adm. Philippe Coindreau, commander of the French navy task force that has led the air strikes on Libya since March 22.

An aircraft carrier is perfectly suited to these kinds of conflicts, and this ship demonstrates it every day," he said in an interview aboard the French carrier Charles de Gaulle, which has been launching daily raids against Moammar Gaddafi's forces since the international intervention in the Libyan conflict began.

These new carriers will help countries not looking to become superpowers, project their power within their own regions.

The number of carriers worldwide is impossible to establish as ships of various sizes perform various capabilities similar to a full-size carrier.

The United States continues to set the bar for fully capable carriers, however, and will induct the Gerald R. Ford, the lead ship in a new class of supercarriers in 2015.

The cost is expected to reach about $9 billion.

These new carrier contracts go to to established shipbuilders in their home countries. In the U.S. Newport News Shipbuilding Company (NNS), a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman (NOC), produces the ships and Westinghouse the nuclear reactors; in Britain, Babcock’s Appledore shipyard is one of five yards tapped for production of the hulls. The design and build in the UK is overseen by Aircraft Carrier Alliance (AKA).

These contracts then filter down to thousands of subcontractors.

[BRVoice]

http://southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpape...paper4485.html

Paper no. 4485
13-May-2011


China's Surface Warships Expansion Plans
by B. Raman

Xia Ping, head of the Personnel Department of the People's Liberation Army (Navy), is reported to have told a military conference at Beijing on May 9, 2011, that the PLA (N) would be recruiting more than 2000 PhDs in the next five years. This statement, coming in the wake of earlier reports of plans to step up the recruitment of technology-savvy cadres and officers to the PLA (N), has given rise to speculation that in addition to inducting an aircraft-carrier, the PLA (N) has embarked on a plan to expand its surface fleet to give it a greater power projection capability. Annexed is a commentary on the subject carried by the Party- controlled “Global Times” on May 11, 2011.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)


ANNEXURE


Navy talent drive fuels carrier buzz
Source: Global Times
May 11, 2011
By Zhu Shanshan

A recent pledge by the navy to find top talents to upgrade its weaponry has led to new speculation that China plans to build its first aircraft carrier, a key move that would pave the way for a blue-water maritime force.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy is seeking to recruit more than 2,000 PhD degree holders in the next five years, Xia Ping, head of the Navy Personnel Department, said Monday at a military conference.

The military already cultivated more than 1,000 commanders and technical personnel to develop and operate new batches of marine weaponry, including "large surface combat ships," nuclear submarines and new warplanes, between 2005 and 2010, Xia said, without identifying the weapons.

Such plans to build a talent pool for large surface combat ships have served to reinforce widespread assumptions of the launch of an aircraft carrier later in the year, analysts suggested.

Indications of the carrier's development were believed to have begun in 2009 when Navy Commander Admiral Wu Shengli announced a development plan for large surface warships.

In an interview with the Xinhua News Agency that year ahead of the Chinese Navy's 60th founding anniversary, Wu revealed the army's ambition to accelerate its development of advanced weapons, including large surface warships.

But Wu did not specify if the plan included the development of an aircraft carrier, with media reports only citing him as defining large surface combat ships as those with a displacement of more than 10,000 tons.

Zhang Zhaozhong, a professor at the PLA National Defense University, told China Central Television that a large-scale destroyer already in service definitely falls into such a category, and an aircraft carrier with a displacement ranging from 60,000 tons to 100,000 tons based on US standards could also be included.

No further information was available on Tuesday when the Global Times contacted the Navy to ask if the training of talents has anything to do with the potential development of China's first aircraft carrier.

Li Jie, a researcher at the Chinese Naval Research Institute, told the Global Times on Tuesday that a large-scale naval surface force mainly refers to heavy-tonnage vessels including cruisers, amphibious assault ships, destroyers and aircraft carriers.

"Dock landing ships are the most common ones in the current navy's fleet," Li said.

"China's future development of an aircraft carrier can't be ruled out," he said.

Liu Yong, from the China Security magazine, told the Global Times that the enhancing of human resources is aimed at paving the way for the future development of an aircraft carrier as part of a systematic project, which requires experienced pilots and commanders.

Chinese military officials have kept a tight lid on information related to the development of an aircraft carrier.

Geng Yansheng, a spokesman of the Ministry of National Defense, told reporters in March while unveiling China's military white paper that no relevant information was available on the subject.

In January 2010, the ministry dismissed rumors China was building a carrier.

But reports alleging that China's first aircraft carrier would take to the ocean for its initial sea trial in July have continued to circulate.

Li said the Chinese military is being cautious in revealing information, and recent announcements of a personnel training plan seemed to be another sign that authorities were releasing information updates at a carefully designed pace.

Liu said it is understandable for China to keep cautious on revealing information on its first aircraft carrier.

"An open and explicit timetable for the development of a carrier would put China in a passive position. There has to be some level of flexibility for a huge project involving an aircraft carrier, especially its construction, which if confirmed, would mainly depend on home-grown technology," Liu said.

Citing an anonymous US naval officer, Tokyo-based magazine The Diplomat said on Monday that China's first carrier could become a major symbol of the second phase of the development of China's navy.

The two-step process would see the "PLA Navy evolve from its current, mostly coast-bound status to a true 'blue-water' force capable of controlling distant waters and influencing events in adjacent lands," the magazine said.

The idea was echoed by Li, who said with the country's growing global clout came an urgent need for the navy to protect Chinese offshore interests with activities such as anti-terrorism drills.

However, Li warned that the Chinese navy is still under-staffed as it accounts for less than 10 percent of the military, totaling over 200,000 personnel, which is far less than the average proportion of one-third of other major forces in the world.

Huang Jingjing and Xinhua contributed to this story

[BRVoice]

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htt.../20110515.aspx


China Expands Into The Wild West

May 15, 2011: On May 6th, the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) held another counter-terrorism exercise. This one was in northwest China, where commandos from China, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan held drills that showed off specialized skills needed to deal with heavily armed terrorists. What was also demonstrated was the emergence of China as a major Central Asian power.

Although Russia dominated Central Asia for centuries, China, and the booming Chinese economy, is now moving in. Chinese traders and businessmen are all over the place. The traders offer the best prices and the widest variety of goods. The Chinese businessmen offer the most attractive deals, although Kazakhstan turned down a Chinese proposal to rent a million hectares (2.5 million acres) of unused farmland, and allow Chinese farmers in to work it. This sort of thing scares Central Asians, who have a population of less than 65 million, compared to 1,400 million Chinese. But the Chinese are being allowed to build highways and railways that will connect all of Eurasia, as well as oil and gas pipelines carrying energy to China.

This is all good, as long as the Chinese don't try to export a lot of people. This is a real fear, because Russia conquered Central Asia in the 19th century, and held on to it until the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, in part to prevent any large scale Chinese migration. But now China is in the process of replacing Russian influence, and there isn't a lot the people of Central Asia can do about it. Despite that, the Central Asian states believe that the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) may help keep the Chinese under control. The SCO consists of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with Mongolia, Pakistan, India and Iran as associate members, or "observers". Russia, and the Central Asian states, are trying to get India made a member, as a counterbalance to China.

SCO, unofficially, exists to keep the peace between China and Russia over economic activities in Central Asia. At the moment, China is winning the race to develop large oil and gas fields in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. China needs the energy, and is willing to pay whatever it takes. Since the Central Asian nations are run by corrupt leaders, often dictators, the Chinese have an easy, if expensive, way to gaining control of natural resources. At the moment, Russia is more concerned with halting, or much reducing, the flow of opium, hashish and heroin from Afghanistan to Russia. These drugs have created millions of addicts and major social problems. Russia has supplied the United States with extensive information on the drug gangs in Afghanistan, and throughout Central Asia, and how the smuggling networks operate. Russia is also trying to get more cooperation from Central Asian governments as well. But in many of these countries, senior officials are on the drug gang payrolls.

[BRVoice]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/ME10Ag01.html


Russia and China challenge NATO
By M K Bhadrakumar
AsiaTimesOnline - Central Asia
May 10, 2011

Consultations by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Moscow at the weekend were expected to prepare the ground for the visit by President Hu Jintao to Russia next month. In the event, however, they assumed a character of immense significance to international security.

Sustained Russian-Chinese efforts to "coordinate" their stance on regional and international issues have been taken to a qualitatively new level with regard to the developing Middle East situation.

The official Russian news agency used an unusual expression - "tight cooperation" - to characterize the new template to which their coordination of regional policies had been taken. This is bound to pose a big challenge to the West to pursue its unilateralist agenda in the Middle East.

Hu's visit to Russia is notionally to attend the showcase event in St Petersburg on June 16-18, which the Kremlin has been carefully choreographing as an annual event in the nature of "Russia's Davos" - titled the International Economic Forum. Much excitement is evident in both countries that Hu's visit will be a turning point in China-Russia energy cooperation.

Russia's energy giant Gazprom hopes to pump 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually to China by 2015 and the negotiations over the pricing are at an advanced stage. Chinese officials maintain that the stalled negotiations are finally going to be wrapped up with an agreement by the time Hu arrives in Russia.

Indeed, when the world's fastest-growing major economy and the world's biggest energy exporter come to an agreement, it goes far beyond a matter of bilateral cooperation. There will be uneasiness in Europe, which has been historically Russia's principal market for energy exports, that a "competitor" is appearing in the East and the West's energy business with Russia would have China as a "sleeping partner". This paradigm shift provides a backdrop to the East-West tensions over the Middle East.


Identical position

The Middle East and North Africa turned out to be the leitmotif of Yang's talks in Moscow with his host Sergei Lavrov. Russia and China decided to work together in addressing the issues arising out of the upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa. Lavrov said: "We have agreed to coordinate our actions using the abilities of both states in order to assist the earliest stabilization and prevention of the further negative unpredictable consequences there."

Lavrov said Russia and China had the "identical position" that "every nation should determine its future independently without outside interference". Presumably, the two countries are now agreed on a common position to oppose any move by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to conduct a ground operation in Libya.

So far, the Russian position had been that Moscow wouldn't accept any UN Security Council mandate being given to NATO for a ground operation without a "clearly expressed position" approving it on the part of the Arab League and the African Union (of which Libya is a member).

Evidently, there is a "trust deficit" here, which is becoming unbridgeable by the day unless NATO decides on an immediate ceasefire in Libya. Put simply, Russia no longer trusts the United States or its NATO allies to be transparent about their intentions with regard to Libya and the Middle East. A few days ago, Lavrov spoke at length on Libya in an interview with Russian television channel Tsentr. He expressed great frustration over the West's doublespeak and subterfuges in unilaterally interpreting UN Resolution 1973 to do just about what it pleased.

Lavrov revealed in that interview, "Reports of a ground operation [in Libya] being prepared are coming in and suggest that the appropriate plans are being developed in NATO and the European Union." And he publicly hinted at Moscow's suspicion that the US ploy would be to circumvent the need to approach the Security Council for a proper mandate for NATO ground operations in Libya and to instead arm-twist United secretary general Ban Ki-Moon's secretariat to extract a "request" to the Western alliance to provide escorts to the UN's humanitarian mission and use that as a fig leaf to commence ground operations.

The public stance taken by Russia and China would pre-empt officials in Ban's secretariat from surreptitiously facilitating a NATO ground operation through the back door. Ban visited Moscow recently and Russian reports suggested that he "got an earful" about the fashion in which he headed the world body. A seasoned Moscow commentator Dmirty Kosyrev wrote with biting sarcasm:

There are many ways of politically telling a guest on one's own behalf and on behalf of one's international partners: "We are not very happy with your performance, esteemed Mr Ban." Often words are not even necessary in these cases. It's clear that the secretary general has a thing for the revolutionary romanticism of civil wars and supports freedom fighters in general. As a result, he often sides with arch-liberals from Europe or America.

However, the secretary general of the UN should not take extreme political positions, let alone side with the minority of UN member states on an issue, as he has in the case of Libya and the Ivory Coast. This is not what he was elected for. The point is not to compel Mr. Ban to change his convictions or position, but rather to adjust his vision slightly in favor of greater neutrality.


Moscow and Beijing seem to view the so-called Libya Contact Group (comprising 22 countries and six international organizations) with a high degree of suspicion. Referring to the group's decision at its meeting in Rome last Thursday to make available a temporary fund of US$250 million immediately as assistance to the Libyan rebels, Lavrov said caustically that the group was "increasing its efforts to take on the lead role in determining the policy of the international community in relation to Libya" and warned that it should not "seek to replace the United Nations Security Council, and it should not take sides".

It has become a matter of disquiet for both Moscow and Beijing that the contact group is gradually evolving into a veritable regional process sidestepping the UN for modulating the Arab upheaval to suit Western strategies. The clutch of Gulf Cooperation Council states (and Arab League) that are present in the contact group enables the West to proclaim that the process is a collective voice of regional opinion. (Ironically, France has invited Russia to join the contact group.)


Tip of the iceberg

At the joint press conference with Yang in Moscow on Friday, Lavrov came straight to the point: "The contact group has established itself. And now it is trying to take responsibility on to itself about the policy of the international community toward Libya. And not only Libya, we're hearing voices that are calling for this group to decide what to do in other states in the region." What worries Russia in immediate terms would be that the contact group might be slouching toward Syria to effect a regime change in that country, too.

China has been very diplomatic on the Libya issue so far and has left it to Russia to bell the Western cat, but it is now becoming more and more vocal. Yang was quite forthright at the Moscow press conference in criticizing Western intervention in Libya. Hardly three weeks ago, the People's Daily commented that the war in Libya was at a stalemate; the Muammar Gaddafi regime had proved resilient; and the Libyan opposition was overrated by the West. The daily commented:

Libyan war has become a "hot potato" for the West. First, the West cannot afford the war economically and strategically ... The war is too heavy to afford for the European countries and the United States, which have not completely emerged out of the economic crisis. The longer the war, the more countries in the West will find themselves at a disadvantage.

"Second, the West will encounter many military and legal troubles ... If the West continues to get involved, they will be considered as being partial to one side ... In regards to military actions, Western countries will have to dispatch ground forces in order to depose Gaddafi ... This is totally beyond the scope of the United Nation's authority, and is likely to repeat the mistakes of the Iraq War ... In a word, the military solution to the problem in Libya has come to an end and the political solution has been put on the agenda."


Yang's talks in Moscow signify that Beijing senses by now that the West is determined to hold the "hot potato" no matter what it takes, make it "cool down" by hook or by crook and then consume it without sharing with anyone else. Accordingly, a recalibration of the Chinese position and taking it much closer to the Russian stance (which has been far more openly critical of the Western intervention in Libya) is becoming apparent.

Moscow would have encouraged Beijing to see the writing on the wall. But the clincher seems to be their growing sense of unease that Western intervention in Libya is only the tip of the iceberg and what is unfolding could be a geostrategy aimed at the perpetuation of the West's historic dominance of the new Middle East in the post-Cold War era. Woven into it is the extremely worrying precedent of NATO acting militarily without a specific UN mandate.

Lavrov and Yang have since proceeded to Astana for a foreign ministers conference of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that will negotiate the agenda for a summit meeting of the regional body taking place in the Kazakh capital on June 15. The big question is whether the Russian-Chinese agreement on "tight cooperation" in the Middle Eastern and North African issues will become the common SCO position. The probability seems high.


Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

[Phil Fiord]

It was a few years ago now that Ryan had posted a thread about that Russian sale of the Carrier to China. It was heavily cloaked as to be used as something else, as I recall, but we knew better. There is the proof above. Thx BRVoice.

[BRVoice]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...=all#pagebreak


China aiding N. Korea and Iran with nuke advances
U.N. report presents U.S. with a dilemma
By Shaun Waterman
The Washington Times
5:28 p.m., Tuesday, May 17, 2011

A U.N. report that says China is allowing Iran and North Korea to collaborate on banned nuclear missile technology highlights the weakness of international efforts to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction and presents U.S. officials with a dilemma.

Lawmakers, congressional staffers and former officials told The Washington Times there has been clear evidence for more than a decade of China’s role assisting North Korea, Iran and Pakistan spread the know-how and technology needed to make nuclear-armed ballistic missiles that can strike cities a continent away.

“China has been helping … rogue states avoid the sting of sanctions,” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee told The Times, referring to U.N. sanctions imposed since 2006.

China Tuesday effectively blocked the release of the U.N. report, produced by a panel of experts monitoring the arms embargo against North Korea. The incident “proves that international sanctions … are full of holes,” the Florida Republican added.

Successive U.S. administrations have relied on China as a partner in efforts to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. As a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, China is also one of the five global powers that ultimately decide how international sanctions against Iran and North Korea are enforced.

But critics charge that the Chinese have been playing a double game, winking at violations of the sanctions even as they signed up for them.

“It’s been so blatant that even the United Nations, which is typically very cautious in its assessments, has now come out and said it,” said one senior House staffer who has long followed the issue.

Now that China’s double-dealing has been exposed at the U.N., U.S. officials must decide how to proceed.

“China’s evident failure [to abide by its obligations under U.N. sanctions] should be a matter of great concern to U.S. officials,” a Senate staffer said.

He said he hoped the issue would be raised during the talks between Chinese and U.S. military leaders under way this week in Washington.

The spokesman for the Chinese mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.

“There are smart people who say that China was responsible for making Pakistan a nuclear power in the first place,” Sen. James Webb, Virginia Democrat, said Tuesday at a Senate hearing.

U.S. officials have long believed Pakistan got nuclear warhead designs from Beijing in the 1980s and then traded them to North Korea in the 1990’s in exchange for North Korean-built ballistic missiles.

“The North Koreans were Chinese proxies in proliferating ballistic designs, components and missiles to Pakistan,” said John Tkacik, a former head of China analysis at the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

Since 2006, both North Korea and Iran have been subject to multiple rounds of U.N. sanctions, which means any trade with them in nuclear weapons or missiles is illegal under international law.

A panel of experts submits regular independent reports on the sanctions.

At a closed-door session of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, Chinese Ambassador Li Baodong asked for more time to consult with Beijing about the release of the report, he said after the meeting. A Security Council diplomat told The Times that the request effectively delays any consideration or publication of the document for the time being.

The report does not accuse Beijing by name, but the diplomat confirmed to The Times that China was the “neighboring third country”cited in the report that had allowed “trans-shipment” of illicit weapons technology between Iran and North Korea.

“Iran, North Korea, and Syria have not only been helping augment each other’s nuclear- and missile-capabilities, but they have been learning from each other how to circumvent U.S. and international efforts to stop them,” said Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen.

“The question now is, what will the administration do when presented with clear and compelling proof [in an international forum]?” asked Mr. Tkacik.


© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

[BRVoice]

http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/05/18/50465097.html


Russia will boost nukes if there is no accord on ABM - Medvedev
May 18, 2011 14:01 Moscow Time

Russia will accelerate the development of its nuclear strike potential if it cannot agree with the West on anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defense, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday.

“I hope that the questions we put before my friend, US President Barack Obama, will be answered and we can continue to build a model for ABM cooperation. If we don’t work this out, then we’ll have to respond with appropriate measures, which we would not like to do. In this case, we would talk about boosting the strike potential of our nuclear weapons, which would be a deplorable scenario that would take us back to the Cold War era,” – Medvedev said.

[BRVoice]

http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5C...paper4495.html


Paper no. 4495
17-May-2011

AFGHANISTAN 2011: IMPERATIVES FOR UNITED STATES TO RECAST STRATEGIC BLUEPRINT
By Dr Subhash Kapila


Introductory Observations

The United States in 2001 had codenamed its military intervention in Afghanistan as Op-INFINITE JUSTICE and that seems to have been achieved with the US targeted killing of Osama bin Laden by US Special Forces deep within Pakistan, his fortified hideout nestling in the midst of Pakistan Army major garrison town of Abbottabad. The United States later under Islamic pressure codenamed its military operations in Afghanistan as Op-ENDURING FREEDOM. With Osama liquidated and Pakistan Army’s perfidy now staring the United States, which was in a state of denial on the issue, the international community sincerely hopes that the United States revises its strategic blueprint on Afghanistan to ensure that ‘ENDURING FREEDOM’ in Afghanistan is crafted by the United States, insulated and ensured by United States military might.

Afghanistan finds itself in 2011 at strategic cross-roads, not of its own making but caught in a cleft-stick created by United States acts of commission and omission in American policy formulations on Afghanistan and Pakistan’s obdurate strategic obsession that Afghanistan rightly falls in Pakistan’s sphere of influence and that Afghanistan must serve Pakistani strategic interests.

Both the United States and Pakistan seem to be oblivious to the fact that Afghanistan is not the colonial preserve of either the United States or Pakistan. Afghanistan however politically and militarily turbulent today is an independent nation and deserves the right and respects due to a sovereign nation.

Afghanistan’s future cannot be decided in Washington or Islamabad. At best, Afghanistan’s future need to be decided in an equitable dialogue between Kabul and Washington since the United States has been in direct control of Afghanistan since 2001.

Ten years after the United States military intervention in end-2001 with the avowed aim of stabilization of Afghanistan by rescuing it from the clutches of Pakistan’s colonization through its proxy Taliban regime and the destruction of the global Islamic Jihadi terrorism infrastructure of Osama bi Laden and the Al Qaeda in Pakistan-Occupied Afghanistan the hapless nation of Afghanistan finds itself at square one.

The United States would not have been mired in a strategic quagmire in Afghanistan for the last ten years had it pursued relentlessly the US aims of military intervention spelt out in a Joint Session of the US Congress 0n September 21, 2001 by President Bush. Regrettably former President Bush himself reversed gears from his stated aims.

Pakistan traditionally and historically has been the Achilles Heel of United States policy formulations in the South Asian region. The international community and countries of South Asia were aghast when the United States co-opted Pakistan in its Afghanistan strategic blueprint to stabilize Afghanistan after nearly a decade of medieval Islamic brutalization by Pakistan ISI controlled Taliban regime that was placed in Kabul. Strategic amnesia seems to have colored United States thinking forgetting that Pakistan was complicit in the Taliban and Al Qaeda’s emergence and in the perpetration of 9/11.

Be as it may and there is no point in berating American follies in Afghanistan during the period 2001-2011 resulting from United States over-reliance on a duplicitous Pakistan Army/ISI and successive US Administration’s fawning of Pakistan Army Chiefs, namely, General Musharraf and General Kayani now.

What is at stake now is that with the targeted liquidation of Al Qaeda supremo last week by US Special Forces in a fortified hideout deep within Pakistan in a Pakistan Army major garrison town, how does the United States review and redefine its future strategic blueprint on Afghanistan?

Would the United States learn the correct lessons from the decade-long strategic follies of not surgically disconnecting Pakistan from its Afghanistan strategic blueprint or still persist in being adhesively stuck to its traditional mode of pandering to Pakistan Army sensitivities on Afghanistan?

Before examination of the imperatives of review of US strategic blueprint on Afghanistan post-Osama liquidation, one would like to recall two major US strategic aims spelt out by President Bush in his address to the Joint Session of the US Congress on September 21, 2001 and these were:

· United States global war on terrorism will target all countries that aid, abet or provide havens for terrorist organizations

· United States war on global terrorism will not end with the destruction of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda

The United States singularly failed on the first named strategic aim in relation to Pakistan and one cynically views the likelihood of United States achieving the second strategic aim as even with destruction of Osama the United States may hesitate/falter as it would again entail military operations within Pakistan if terrorist entities like Mullah Omar and the Lashkar-e-Toiba have to be neutralized.

United States imperatives for recasting its strategic blueprint on Afghanistan are examined under the following heads, briefly:

* Afghanistan 2011: The Contextual Security Setting
* Pakistan Army Stances on Afghanistan in End-2001
* Pakistan Army Likely Stances on Afghanistan in Post- Osama Liquidation Period
* Pakistan Prime Minister’s Harsh Attacks on the United States and Defending the Pakistan Army and its ISI
* Pakistan Prime Minister Plays the “China Card” Openly
* United States Imperatives for Recasting its Existing Strategic Blueprint on Afghanistan


Afghanistan 2011: The Contextual Security Setting

Security- wise, Afghanistan presents the following contextual security setting;

* Southern Afghanistan provinces bordering Pakistan continue to be under varying Taliban control and Taliban attacks on US &NATO Forces continue.
* Taliban is also attempting a presence in Northern Afghanistan
* Pakistan despite its repeated assertions that it has 80,000 troops deployed on the Afghan frontier is complicit or incompetent in preventing Taliban cadres to ingress into Afghanistan for attacks on US Forces
* Pakistan continues to provide havens for Mullah Omar and the Afghan Taliban in Quetta
* Pakistan despite forceful assertions that Osama bin Laden was not in Pakistan, was ultimately traced by US to a fortified hideout in the heart of Pakistan Army’s major garrison town deep within Pakistan where he was killed by US Special Forces last week
* Pakistan Army refuses to proceed against Mullah Omar and the ISI terrorist outfits affiliates in North Waziristan

Belatedly realizing after ten years Pakistan Army’s duplicity, Pakistan –United relations went into a denouement phase from last year. Rupture between the CIA and ISI is visible. The United States in the face of Pak Army Chief’s refusal to mount military operations in North Waziristan has resorted to intensification of drone strikes in that region despite warnings by Pak Army Chief.

The United States assertion to continue its military presence in Afghanistan till 2014 and even beyond has upset Pakistan Army strategic calculations on Afghanistan Pakistan Army has realized that despite somber media reports, US Forces are making appreciable headway against Taliban forces in Southern Afghanistan after the recent troop surges. This is again not good news for the Pak Army coupled with US drones-targeting of Pakistan Army affiliated terrorist strategic assets in North Waziristan.

In brief what continues to hold the United States and Pakistan in such a security setting is Pakistan Army’s desire not to disrupt the inflow of massive amounts of US aid and military hardware. For the United States the single military consideration is the reliance on Pakistan for its logistic lifelines to Afghanistan and the nuclear blackmail by Pakistan Army of the United States.

Politically, the United States is loathed to forsake Pakistan on over-exaggerated grounds of Pakistan’s state-failure and dangers of Pakistan nuclear weapons falling into hands of Jihadi organizations. This leads to strategic myopia in US strategic formulations not only in relation to Afghanistan, but South Asia as a whole.

Any worthwhile strategic review of United States policies on Afghanistan in the coming months would entail the United States disabusing the above perceptions from its strategic planning.


Pakistan Army Stances on Afghanistan in End-2001

A brief recapitulation is required to connect the dots of Pakistan Army stances which have a recurring repetitiveness all along in relation to its so-called support to the United States on Afghanistan as a designated Major Non-NATO Ally.

The following observations made by me in my Paper in September 2001 entitled “United States Blueprint for Operation INFINITE JUSTICE’ (SAAG Paper No 328 dt 24.9.2001 have held good in the follow-up period:

· Pakistan Army’s intelligence on Taliban and Al Qaeda would be deliberately inaccurate and misleading

· Pakistan would not rein-in inflow of Islamic Jihadists into Afghanistan

· Pakistan would surreptiously act as conduit for fuel and supplies for Taliban forces in Afghanistan

· Pakistan and its frontier areas could logically emerge as refuge for Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda and Taliban cadres

Nothing more need to be stated on the sordid record of United States double-crossing by Pakistan Army Chiefs, namely General Musharraf and General Kayani thereafter.


Pakistan Army Likely Stances on Afghanistan in Post-Osama Liquidation Period

The Pakistan Army, the ISI and the Pakistan Army Chief were silent for the first 48 hours of the liquidation of Osama bin Laden by the United States in the cradle of Pakistan Army’s prestigious Pakistan Military Academy and three infantry regimental centers in Abbottabad.

Pakistan Army’s likely stances in the following period can be best assessed from answers to the following questions:

* Will the Pakistan Army discard its strategic obsession that Afghanistan needs to be under control of a Pakistan Army-friendly regime, preferably the Taliban to ensure ‘strategic depth’?
* Will the Pakistan Army dispense with the use of Islamic Jihadi terrorist organizations like the Taliban, the Lashkar-e-Toiba etc as instruments of state policy?
* Will the Pakistan Army be reckless enough to forego billions of US military aid and economic aid which sustains Pakistan? Or will it be able to persuade Saudi Arabia and China to offset US aid discontinuance?

The Pakistan Army on no account is likely to give up its obsession and strategy of viewing control over Afghanistan as a strategic imperative. Moreso sensing that US domestic political compulsions in the run-up to the next Presidential election would weaken US resolve to stay embedded in Afghanistan.

Tightening of screws by United States in the Post-Osama phase will not deter the Pakistan Army from its disruptive activities against the United States. On the contrary as Pakistan comes under increasing US pressures, the Pakistan Army and its ISI can be expected to ratchet-up the use for asymmetric warfare by the Afghan Taliban, the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the other Jihadi outfits in North Waziristan.

Logically, Pakistan Army cannot be expected to forego billions of dollars of US aid but recklessness is the hallmark of Pakistani Generals. Pakistan seems to have done some contingency planning to offset US aid by similar aid from China and Saudi Arabia..

Additionally, the follow-up stances of the Pakistan Army will also be shaped by its readings and perceptions of United States intentions, especially the “strategic indispensability of Pakistan” in American policy formulations. This time around Pakistan Army may be overcalculating United States intentions on this count.

Pakistan Army’s follow-up stances are also going to be determined by the domestic political dynamics arising from a visible dent in Pakistan Army’s domestic image arising from the Osama liquidation and the Army’s ability to rebuild the scare of Talibanization of Pakistan for scaring the United States.

The Pakistan Army has harnessed the Prime Minister to defend on the floor of the National Assembly the services of the Pakistan Army and the ISI. In an unprecedented move the three Chiefs of the Pakistan Armed Forces along with other top brass have got themselves invited to give an in-camera briefing to the Parliamentarians on the Osama issue and the American operations deep within Pakistan last week.


Pakistan Prime Minister’s Harsh Attacks on the United States and Defending the Pakistan Army and the ISI

The Pakistani Prime Minister’s statement in the National Assembly on May 09 2011 to explain to his countrymen as to how the United States Special Forces could enter deep within Pakistani territory, carry out liquidation of Osama bin Laden in the midst of Pakistan Army’s major garrison cantonment of Abbottabad in an operation lasting forty minutes and then leave with Osama’s dead body for Afghanistan, was full of holes which defied all logical analysis.

Either the Pakistan Army hierarchy, notably the Pakistan Army Chief and his DG ISI were complicit in the US daring military operation deep within Pakistani territory to execute Osama bin Laden or the Pakistan Army is downright incompetent professionally to have been caught unawares with its pants down by the US execution operations. The latter is difficult to believe. It seems that the Pakistan Army Chief was complicit with the United States.

Pakistani Prime Minister’s statements with all its threats and dire warnings to the United States not to repeat such operations seemed to be a smokescreen to deflect Pakistani public’s criticisms on Pakistan Army’s incompetence and its ability to secure Pakistan’s frontiers.

International observers opine that the civilian political leadership in Pakistan failed to exploit the window of opportunity to tame the Pakistani Army Generals when they were reeling under Pakistani public criticism.

Contrarily, the Pakistani Prime Minister issued commendation certificates in the National Assembly defending the competence of the Pakistan Army and declaring the notorious ISI as a “National Asset”.

This indicates two things. First, that the Civilian government is still held hostage by the Pakistan Army and secondly defending the Pakistan Army and the ISI by the Prime Minister, which are under severe criticism and scrutiny by US lawmakers indicates that something is terribly amiss in Pakistan –United States relations.

Significantly, of greater import than the dire warnings and threats to the United States was that without any context the Pakistani Prime Minister played the “China Card” while contextually issuing threats to the United States. In other words the Pakistan Army through the Prime Minister was making it known on the floor of Pakistan’s Parliament that China could act as a countervailing power against any United States severe actions against Pakistan in the future.

China’s call on Pakistan’s assertions would be shortly known when the Pakistani Prime Minister visits Beijing on May 17 2011


United States Imperatives for Recasting its Strategic Blueprint on Afghanistan

The United States strategic blueprints on Afghanistan have repeatedly stood flawed in the last one decade of US involvement in Afghanistan. No efforts to set mid-course corrections were ever applied. Even the Af-Pak Strategy applied in 2009 was flawed and suffered from earlier infirmities.

Repeatedly asserted in my Papers on Afghanistan in the last ten years was the notable fact that United States Armed Forces and US Generals commanding the forces in Afghanistan were professionally competent and had the aggressive spirit not to allow Afghanistan to turn into another Vietnam for the United States.

The strategic imbroglio in Afghanistan in which the United States finds itself after a decade is the making of US Presidents and their policy establishments who “politicized” US Afghanistan military strategies to suit the sensitivities of the Pakistan Army, thereby impeding the military effectiveness of United States Forces in achieving decisive results in Afghanistan.

Should or would the United States policy establishment recast its strategic blueprint on Afghanistan after belatedly recognizing the duplicitous role the Pakistan Army has played against the United States and also taking into account the changed contextual security environment which dictate US imperatives to stay embedded in Afghanistan even beyond 2014?

Recasting a strategic blueprint on Afghanistan would need to address the following issues by the United States: (1) United States long term strategic interests in Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Gulf Region (2) United States imperatives to “insulate” its recasted Afghanistan strategic blueprint from the next Presidential Election political expediencies. (3) Pakistan’s future role in the United States strategic calculus in the region ( 4 ) China-Pakistan Army military nexus and its impact on vital US strategic interests in the region.

United States long term strategic interests in Afghanistan need to be determined by US national security interests in Central Asia and the Gulf Region. A stable and secure Afghanistan in which US Forces stay embedded in Afghanistan under a Mutual Security Treaty like the ones with Japan and South Korea would ensure that the United States is not displaced strategically from the heartland of Asia. United States future strategic blueprints on Afghanistan cannot be premised on transactional relationships or spasmodic engagements.

Afghanistan requires a long term strategic commitment by the United States and any such long term strategic commitment cannot be politicized in Presidential Election year political expediencies to make political gains. The United States never allowed this in the case of Japan and South Korea, though at times the nuances may have changed. Yet the value of the strategic relationship and mutual security benefits were never devalued. The same approach needs to be adopted by the United States in relation to Afghanistan.

The United States policy establishment has a propensity born out of Cold War mindsets to accord over-exaggerated strategic importance to Pakistan in the US strategic calculus. The results have always been disastrous for the United States strategically. Thepost-2001 United States-Pakistan relationship and its sordid outcome should prompt the US policy establishment ad its strategic planners to take their blinkers off and have a renewed appraisal of Pakistan’s strategic utility in the overall US strategic calculus for the future.

It dents the power-image of the United States globally when the perception is gaining ground that Pakistan as a failing state and a rogue state has been able to “blackmail” a Superpower like the United States on the strength of its nuclear arsenal and its nuclear waywardness.

The United States has yet not become strategically aware of the intensified strategic and military nexus of China with the Pakistan Army and its impact on vital US strategic interests in the region. The public articulation of playing the ‘China Card” by the Pakistani Prime Minister in the National Assembly implicitly against the United States should be an eye-opener for the United States policy establishment and strategic planners.

The United States needs to recognize that a possible outcome of the intensified China-Pakistan strategic nexus could be in the long run prompting the displacement or exit of the United States from Central Asia and the Gulf. It would also focus on filling the strategic void in Afghanistan in the event of a US exit by a joint China-Pakistan condominium in Kabul.

Both are ominous for the United States and any future US strategic blueprint on Afghanistan has to incorporate the above named factors as “Term of Reference”. Without these, the United States is condemned to repeat history in Afghanistan and especially so if the US still persists in keeping Pakistan connected to its Afghanistan strategic blueprint.


Concluding Observations

Many in the United States strategic community today baulk from a long-term and enduring commitment by the United States in Afghanistan. They cite that hundreds of billions of dollars would be required for such a commitment. The same set however argue concurrently to give over-riding priority to retrieval of Pakistan from state failure in which the United States has sunk hundreds of billions dollars without any tangible strategic gains.

The strategic community in the United States always conveniently forgets that it were the Afghan people who spearheaded the US strategy for exit of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan and it were the Afghan people again and especially the Northern Alliance who spearheaded the US military drive to reclaim Kabul from the clutches of the Pakistan Army Occupation via its proxy Taliban regime and their Al Qaeda affiliates.

On both occasions the much US-vaunted Pakistan Army played duplicitous roles against the United States in Afghanistan. Surely in terms of relative and comparative strategic analysis, Afghanistan deserves an over-riding priority in the US strategic calculus.

The United States therefore needs to incorporate in its recasted strategic blueprint on Afghanistan the imperatives of “Enduring Freedom” for Afghanistan and ensuring that deterrence is built-in to insulate Afghanistan from Pakistan’s aggressive meddling.

As for Pakistan, would the United States have the conviction and courage to ensure that “Infinite Justice” is made to prevail and that the Pakistan Army is called to task and account for its military adventurism on both its flanks and against the United States?


(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email: drsubhashkapila.007@gmail.com)

[BRVoice]

I don't know if this article was posted here before. It's from two years ago but undoubtedly deserves a good look.

http://financialsense.com/node/884


The Sequence
By JR Nyquist 08/28/2009

The military power with the best tanks, aircraft and ships doesn't always win a battle. Wars may be decided by many factors, including non-military factors. For example, a military confrontation may be decided beforehand when a society gradually turns to recreational drug use; or when the work ethic collapses; or a significant segment of the society unwittingly adopts the enemy's ideology; or the political elite of the country shows itself to be corrupt and contemptuous of the public.

The United States has been a great and stable power for many decades. One should never, on that account, assume the invincibility of the U.S. The American superpower has been strategically mismanaged for half a century. During the Cold War the U.S. suffered outright defeats in Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. With the end of the Cold War came major Communist advances in South Africa (1994), Congo (1997), Angola (2002), Venezuela (1999), Brazil (2002), Bolivia (2006), and Nicaragua (2006).

What is not understood, is that the Communist movement in general, being a fifth column instrument of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, became even more effective after the fall of the Soviet Union. As it happens, people react to words like "Communism" in a negative way. Therefore, from the point of view of strategy, it is better to dispense with the word "Communist" and use another word.

The battle for what used to be called "Communism" is today a battle for so-called "social justice." The advocates in this battle are "caring individuals," who claim to represent the poor and the working class. Theirs is an ongoing struggle, and is fought on many fronts, especially inside the United States. The reason for accelerating their campaign within America is important to understand: The United States is the only military power, and the only economic power, strong enough to block the advance of Moscow and Beijing. During the Cold War, the Americans blocked these countries from advancing in many areas, including Africa, Southeast Asia, Korea, Taiwan, Iran, Germany, and Central America. Even the Communist victories in Southeast Asia and Africa were hardfought, and largely won through psychological warfare and propaganda. On the battlefield, America remained dominant.

Given the obstacle presented, how could the Communist Bloc overcome America's military power?

Very simply, when one side in a global contest appears to give up, the psychological impact is enormous. Organize the collapse of Communism from the Kremlin itself and nobody in the West will question it. If the Communists are giving up power, it is all good. But look at Russia and Eastern Europe today. By giving up untenable positions in Germany and the Baltic States, the remainder is yet dominated by agent networks and mafias aligned with Moscow. In Ukraine, for example, there is a pro-NATO president whose power has been undermined by a prime minister who works for Moscow. In Georgia, the Russian troops press in while operations continue to unseat the pro-American president. In Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania old Communist structures dominate business and government. Despite their entry into NATO, some of these countries may be described as nests of spies and infiltrators whose mission has been to sabotage NATO from within. This is not simply conjecture, but the conclusion drawn by the best-informed political activists and researchers in Eastern Europe.

The supposed Cold War victory of the West opened Europe to infection by Moscow's clandestine armies. Already the Left formed a fifth column in Western Europe. But these political forces were to be augmented by economic interpenetration, energy dependence, and more.

Because of its advanced weaponry, the United States cannot be easily defeated in a war. But wars are won or lost before they reach the point of outright military clashes. The order of battle in the next world war is not merely a list of divisions or nuclear rocket regiments. This order of battle chiefly consists in assets that include banks, major corporations, non-government organizations (NGOs), environmentalists, peace activists, drug cartels, organized crime syndicates, and the left wing of the Democratic Party, which the Communists targeted for infiltration more than 30 years ago.

In advance of any military campaign relying on tank divisions and nuclear rocket regiments, it is necessary to soften the United States through a series of clandestine and subversive moves: first, there was the use of narcotics trafficking as a weapon, which began in 1960. Prior to that, there was the infiltration of organized crime, the penetration of U.S. banks, and the introduction of the Peaceful Coexistence Struggle by Nikita Khrushchev. For those interested in the details of this, please refer to a book titled Red Cocaine, by Joseph D. Douglass. (It is based on the testimony of one of the highest-level Communsit defectors of all time, Jan Sejna.)

The campaign involves the use of economic weapons, as well as educational weapons. Every civilization nourishes within itself various cults opposed to its values. That is basically what "Communism" represents. The specifics of ideology are unimportant, for what is represented is essentially anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, anti-Western civilization. It can change its name, it rhetoric, its tactics, but the movement in opposition to civilization remains essentially the same in its determination to destroy what presently exists. Taking this into account, take a good look around and re-examine the former Cold War battlefield. Note the changes around the globe, and the changes in Washington.

What do you think has been happening over the last 20 years?

Robert Chandler has written a book titled Shadow World: Resurgent Russia, the Global New Left, and Radical Islam. What is valuable in Chandler's work relates to his firsthand interactions with Leftist organizers in the United States. According to Chandler, there is a vast network in America that aims to bring down the capitalist system, destroy the U.S. Constitution, and break up the federal system by getting control of the government.

"The driving forces in this top network," wrote Chandler, "are the 'thought leaders' and other individuals in non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including anarcho-communists and anarcho-syndacalists." He noted that "leadingmembers are the Washington, D.C.-based revolutionary centers -- the institute for Policy Studies ... as well as the coopted mainstream media and politicians making up the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the 'Shadow Party' hiding inside the Democratic Party...."

According to Chandler, "The radical Left" is engaging in a new form of political warfare in which the Left targeted "open spaces" in the American social structure; namely, schools and universities, government, churches and community organizations. The idea was, wrote Chandler, "to transform society and replace traditional American values and institutions with neo-Marxist values." At a Marxist conference that Chandler attended, one of the agenda items was openly listed as, "The Strange Pleasures of Destruction in Capitalist America." He relates that most of the participants "were university professors." In the course of this conference, purely by accident, he ran into Zapatista Subcommandante Marcos in an underground parking garage. According to Chandler, "Orthodox communsits warned conference participants about the dangers of wandering away from the basics of Marx and Lenin...." He further explained that everyone present at the conference agreed it was necessary to "destroy the state as a part of the coming socialist revolution. There simply was no other way to achieve socialist governance in the United States than to crush the existing capitalist system."

Now the sequence should be clear. If the United States is bankrupt, politically divided and internally sabotaged by the radicals of the Left who have everywhere infiltrated the system, will there be a logistical support network for maintaining our tanks, bombers and ICBMS?

What seems fantastic on first-hearing is actually everyday life for those who are paying attention. Look at the world around you. There are those who have been enriching themselves as they sabotage the economy and poison the culture. They pretend to care about the poor and downtrodden. But they live in mansions, collect enormous sums from government and business, advancing the foreign policy goals of enemy dictators. The organized Left is a business with access to billions of dollars. Its tendency is to serve as a fifth column.

Now imagine the collapse of the dollar. Imagine the collapse of the U.S. federal system, the Constitution, and America's domestic tranquility. How will the country defend itself from Russian missiles when our missiles no longer work because they have fallen into disrepair after an economic collapse? Here is asymetrical warfare at its best. Here is the beginning of what I call "the sequence."

[American Patriot]

Dunno if it was posted, but I've read it somewhere.

[MinutemanCO]

According to Chandler, there is a vast network in America that aims to bring down the capitalist system, destroy the U.S. Constitution, and break up the federal system by getting control of the government.

This I would gather is the very network that bred (and I do mean "bred") Barack Hussein Obama. It's not that difficult to follow their strategy play by play. It concerns me that the establishment is reticent or even unwilling to label the revolutionary movement for what it is: a threat to the sovereignty of the United States, its people and its governmental system. Could it be that most of our leaders are ignorant of these developments beyond words?

[American Patriot]

This I would gather is the very network that bred (and I do mean "bred") Barack Hussein Obama. It's not that difficult to follow their strategy play by play. It concerns me that the establishment is reticent or even unwilling to label the revolutionary movement for what it is: a threat to the sovereignty of the United States, its people and its governmental system. Could it be that most of our leaders are ignorant of these developments beyond words?

I don't believe most of our leaders are ignorant of these developments. I believe they naively assume that those of us who point out the facts are uneducated idiots, incapable of examining the source information and coming to an intelligent conclusion along these lines. Therefore, we are simply kooks who are "trying to start something".

Some of this stuff is simply beyond words or explanation.

The fact is there IS network of socialists and related communists living in this country who are more and more apt to admit themselves as being what they are, anti-capitalism and anti-American.

We have been warning about this a long time on this site and no one wants to take us seriously. Until there are those who are serious about changing the government back to the way it should be, limited and with less power over people than it has now, the trend - and ultimate take over will continue unabated.

The Left is rolling over the country. Look at the articles posted in the past few days about trying to bring gun control about by doing less than proper things like executive orders, and hidden amendments to other bills, like the Patriot Act for instance.

[American Patriot]

http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-World-R...owViewpoints=1

Kindle version for those with a Kindle.

[American Patriot]

http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Party-H..._bxgy_b_text_b

Probably want this one too.

[vector7]

Is Obama Planning to Lose World War III?

May. 24 2011 - 11:41 pm | 7,716 views | 0 recommendations | 4 comments
By BILL DAVIDOW



In a cyberwar fought in an Internet-driven, overconnected world, things get turned upside down. The best offense is a defense. If a cyber-attacker disables your military command and control system, shuts down and catastrophically damages your power grid, makes your telecommunication system non-functional, and cripples your financial system, there isn’t much left to fight with.

Think of what the state of the country would be without these systems. Without power and telecommunications, there would be no logistic systems, supermarket shelves would be empty, credit cards wouldn’t work and money would be unavailable from ATM’s. Water would stop flowing to your home, and since gasoline would be unavailable from electric powered pumps, your car would not work. Among the other systems subject to attack: pipelines, sewage, and water supply. You get the idea.

If President Obama and the rest of our nation’s leaders aren’t actively implementing our cyber-defenses, they are implicitly planning to lose World War III.

For a long time I thought the idea of software designed to cause great physical damage to systems was fanciful. Then I came across a story in Thomas C. Reed’s 2004 book, At the Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold War. Reed was a former Secretary of the Air Force and told a story about a massive, three-kiloton explosion of a Soviet pipeline–the most massive non-nuclear explosion ever observed from outer space.

According to Reed, Russian agents stole software used to control the pipeline. As it happened, the CIA had anticipated the theft and deliberately programmed the software to go haywire. Sure enough, in 1982, when the Soviets deployed the stolen software, the pumps kepts pumping while valves were shut, producing pressure in excess of those the pipeline joints and welds could stand. The massive explosion soon followed.

I certainly hope there will never be a third world war, but I know there will be an increase in cyber-warfare, cyber-terrorism, cyber-crime, and cyber–vandalism. One only has to read the newspapers to be convinced that such incidents are on the rise.

In early 2007, Estonia came under cyber-assault. Estonia is one of the most Internet-dependent countries in the world. Ninety-six percent of its banking transactions are online. Citizens pay for parking using their cell phones. The attacks first targeted government sites and then were used to knock news sites offline. They culminated on May 10 when Hansabanka, the country’s largest bank, was forced to shut down its online operations shutting down ATM’s and severing the bank’s connections to the rest of the world.

South Korea has been attacked on numerous occasions. In 2009 a series of DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks were launched against government, news media, and financial web sites. More attacks occurred early this year. The April 12 attack paralyzed the Nonghyup Bank network for a week. The attacks were believed to have been originated by the North Koreans.

On April 19, 2011, Sony began investigating a cyber-attack that was a “very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber-attack designed to steal personal and credit card information for illegal purposes.” Sony discovered that credit card data and email addresses had been stolen from 77 million user accounts. Further investigation revealed that information was stolen from another 24.6 million online gambling accounts.

These assaults take two general forms. The first are attacks from the outside and usually take the form of DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. In these attacks, an unauthorized remote user seizes control of thousands of computers and orders these “zombies” to flood websites with millions of messages. The overloaded systems become saturated and can no longer carry out routine operations. This type of attack brought down the Hansabanka and Nonghyup Banks.

The second form of attack is far more dangerous. The attacker gets inside the system and seizes control of the system operation or disables the system. The attacker may plant a “logic bomb” that will wake up on command or at some time in the future and might erase the system or perform some function that will injure the system under its control.

Stuxnet is a worm that was introduced into the Siemens programmed logic controllers at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in Iran. It is believed the worm rapidly cycled the centrifuges to 1410 cycles per second and then slammed on the brakes, slowing them to 2 cycles. The rapid deceleration tore centrifuges apart. The same type of logic controller is used in numerous SANDA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems in nuclear power and chemical plants. In a nuclear plant, such a logic bomb could cause a meltdown.

It is also possible for an attacker to use software trap doors to seize control of a command and control system and cause it to issue orders. In this scenario, troops might be ordered to attack the wrong target.
We are planning to lose World War III because we are unwilling to aggressively confront the cyber-defense issue. Confronting it is inconvenient, costly, involves regulation, and gives the government a potential window into our private lives.

But in an overconnected Internet-driven world, we must think about our current systems differently.

Here’s the problem we face: The Internet was never designed to be secure. It was designed by academics to serve the needs of trusted colleagues. While it will be impossible to make any system no matter how carefully conceived entirely secure, it is inconceivable that the existing Internet and systems based on it can be made more than marginally secure. This is not to say that the security of these systems cannot be improved.

The current activity of cyber-criminals offers convincing evidence that existing systems can be easily penetrated, and many of those systems have already been compromised. Infected computers and portable memory devices may have already introduced malware to numerous existing systems. The structure of the Internet makes it virtually impossible to identify the source of a well-executed attack.

My guess is that we can improve existing systems enough so they can continue to serve the Public and Private system users but that the current system can never be made secure enough to protect Secure and Mission Critical systems.

It is critical that we protect to the highest degree possible our Mission Critical systems. Among them are military command and control systems, systems controlling financial networks and the transfer on money within the network, networks that control our electric power. And, to a lesser extent, we need to protect other systems as well.

A few suggestions: We should consider physically disconnecting our Mission Critical systems from external networks. We should consider requiring all major ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) to install the capability to do deep packet inspection. In the case of a DDOS attack, these systems could quarantine the packets used to barrage and choke Internet systems. And we should give regulatory agencies the power to impose certain standards for cyber-security on businesses.

Doing these things will be expensive and create many inefficiencies. Many businesses will oppose these actions.

Liberals and conservatives alike will worry about the potential loss of privacy and government intrusion into our lives that could result from the abuse of information collected with deep packet inspection. But realistically, it is hard to see many businesses and utilities going to the trouble and inconvenience of taking these types of actions unless they are forced to do so.

In an Internet-driven, overconnected world, power has become asymmetric. Small groups can do immeasurable amounts of damage with relatively small efforts.

Right now our country is the most vulnerable and most tempting target for cyber-terrorists and criminals. We have a highly developed physical and commercial infrastructure that is heavily dependent on the Internet. We cannot function if the Internet is shut down.

North Korea is possibly the country best positioned to attack us. They can launch cyber-attacks but their national infrastructure is so primitive that there is nothing for a cyber-warrior to attack. Cyber-terrorist are in a similar position. They have no banks or power stations for us to disable.

Our Defense Department is probably in a position to launch the most devastating and comprehensive cyber-attacks of any nation.

Unfortunately, those attacks will not do much to defend many of our important systems. Probably all of them are not secure enough to withstand a sophisticated assault.

So let’s get on with building the type of offense an Internet-driven, overconnected world requires. The new rule for that environment is “The best offense is a superior defense.” Relying as we currently do on having the best offense is a plan for losing World War III. Let’s start playing defense.

[BRVoice]

http://www.interfax.com.ua/eng/main/77628/


Ukraine to take part in Russia-Belarus joint maneuvers
26.08.2011
11:43

Russian Armed Forces General Staff Chief Gen. Nikolai Makarov has said that this year Ukraine will for the first time participate in the Russian-Belarusian military exercises Union Shield-2011.

"With great pleasure I want to announce that for the first time in the post-Soviet time, a unit (an airmobile unit) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will take part in the joint maneuvers," Makarov told journalists on Friday.

He noted that Russia and Ukraine participate in the annual joint naval exercise Farvater Mira (Fairway of Peace). "I think it's time to go to a new level of cooperation," he added.

The Russian-Belarusian military drills, known as Union Shield-2011, will take place from September 16 until September 22, and will involve some 12,000 servicemen, among them 7,000 from Russia and 5,000 from Belarus, as well as up to 50 airplanes and helicopters and 200 units of military hardware, including 100 tanks, Makarov said.

The joint exercises will be conducted at the Gorokhovetsky training ground in Nizhny Novgorod region and the Ashuluk training ground in Astrakhan region.

The program of the maneuvers was prepared by the General Staffs of Belarus and Russia together with the Staff of the Western Military District, he said.

[BRVoice]

http://www.debka.com/article/21292/


Up to 89 US special troops injured in Taliban suicide attack in Afghanistan
DEBKAfile Special Report September 11, 2011, 1:33 PM (GMT+02:00)

A suicide bomber blew up a truck packed with 9,000 kilograms of explosives at the entrance to a NATO Combat Outpost Sayed Abad base in central Afghanistan's Wardak province Saturday, Sept. 10. The attack took place as America marked the 10th anniversary of 9/11and New York and Washington DC were on terror alert for a vehicle-borne strike.

The base targeted serves US Special Forces in Afghanistan. The ISAF (NATO) communiqué reported that at least 77 servicemen were injured in the attack at the compound entrance without explaining the almost 24-hour delay in its publication. The US Army spokesman Maj. David Eastburn later reported "89 wounded in action." There were no details of the injuries excepting that "all are being treated and none is immediately life threatening."

US sources said the injury toll was one of the worst for foreign forces in a single incident in the decade-long war.

The statement added: "The impact to the compound is readily repairable and operations are continuing."

An Afghan police officer and four civilians were killed, including a girl in a village half a mile away from the blast, and two Afghan police officers and an intelligence officer wounded.

The Taliban statement said the attack was carried out by a Paktia resident from east Afghanistan who "blew up his truck stuffed with some 9,000 kilos of explosives" and that at least 50 US soldiers were killed or seriously injured. Local witnesses were quoted as seeing helicopters landing at the blast scene and taking off more than 16 times airlifting corpses and casualties.

DEBKAfile's military sources add: The Sayed Abad region is the scene of the Talban missile ambush which downed a US Chinook on Aug. 6 causing the deaths of 30 Americans, 6 of whom were members of the Seals unit which killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan on May 2. Seven Afghan army commandos and a local translator died in the helicopter crash.

The US reported at the time that the Seals aboard the Ch-47 were not necessarily members of Bin Laden hit team.

DEBKAfile's military sources: Talban has focused its most recent campaign on US special operations forces who are bearing the brunt of the Afghanistan war.

At a conference on terrorism in Washington, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to the US and the US, said the Obama administration should have used the bin Laden killing to declare victory and quickly withdraw from Afghanistan. Today, it faces an increasingly nationalist uprising.

The conference was held last week by the Center for Strategic and International Studies for the 9/11 commemoration.

The Saudi prince said: "The killing of bin Laden has not gotten the accolades it deserves... It would have been the perfect moment when your president can say we've done it... this is the timetable that we've set for withdrawal of troops... But it hasn’t happened that way."

He went on to say: "I don't mean withdrawing your embassy, your economic aid or your other support, but having troops on the ground in Afghanistan has never succeeded."

He warned that the Afghan people will not accept foreign troops... It's not just the Pashtuns who are fighting back against the Americans, now it is gaining a nationwide complexion."

Asked if US efforts toward talks with Taliban leader Mullah Omar would bear fruit, the Saudi prince replied: "I think now frankly Mullah Omar is extraneous... He is probably somewhere in Pakistan, not even in Afghanistan and it is becoming more of a national resistance movement to the presence of foreign troops. So Mullah Omar will be one of many... conducting the resistance."

[BRVoice]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...78A11U20110911


Truck bomb wounds 77 foreign troops in Afghanistan
By Emma Graham-Harrison
KABUL | Sun Sep 11, 2011 8:19am EDT

(Reuters) - A suicide bomber driving a truck of firewood attacked a NATO base in central Afghanistan, killing four civilians and injuring 77 foreign troops a day ahead of the tenth anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks, NATO and Afghan officials said on Sunday.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for Saturday's bombing, which came hours after the insurgent group slammed the United States for dragging Afghanistan into war following the attacks in the United States.

An 8-year-old boy was among those killed in the bombing at a NATO combat outpost in Wardak province, about 50 km (31 miles) south of the capital Kabul, the governor's office said in a statement. Fourteen civilians were also wounded.

None of the injuries to Afghans or foreigners were life-threatening, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said in a separate statement about the attack in Sayed Abad district of Wardak.

"The majority of injured ISAF personnel will likely return to duties shortly," ISAF said in a statement, adding that although the entrance and perimeter wall of the base had been damaged, the barriers had now been repaired.

In a statement emailed to media, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the truck used in the attack was packed with 9 tonnes of explosives and more than 100 foreign troops were killed or wounded.

Doctor Muslim, the governor of Sayed Abad district, said the blast had also badly damaged the buildings that house the district government, and his cook was among the dead.

"The blast was so powerful that it knocked me down from my bike," said Khan Mohammad, a farmer who was passing by at the time of the attack.

The windows and doors of more than 100 shops and houses were damaged in the explosion, the governor's office said.

"A big cloud of smoke rose to the sky and foreign troops' helicopters were landing and taking off in the base for more than five hours after the blast," said Abdul Karim, a shopkeeper.


WARDAK

Last month, militants shot down a helicopter in Wardak province, killing 30 U.S. troops, most of them elite Navy SEALs, in the deadliest attack on U.S. troops since the war began ten years ago.

Violence has escalated across the country, including in provinces surrounding the capital such as Wardak, raising concerns about security in Kabul.

While foreign military casualties hit record levels last year -- and 2011 has been almost as bloody -- civilians continue to bear the brunt of the costly and increasingly unpopular war.

A roadside bomb in the northern Kunduz province killed five civilians on Sunday, including three children. On Saturday another bomb killed six civilians including two women, underscoring the risk to civilians.

But the Taliban in a statement issued hours before the truck bombing blamed the United States for causing bloodshed in Afghanistan.

"Each year, the 9/11 reminds the Afghans of an event in which they had no role whatsoever, but, using this as a pretext and a clout, the American colonialism shed blood of tens of thousands of miserable and innocent Afghans," Mujahid said.

Afghans have an "endless stamina for a long war," he warned and asked foreign nations to press the United States to stop attacking the country.

But U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker at a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the attacks in New York and Washington said the United States will remain engaged in Afghanistan.

"We are and will remain committed to Afghanistan and the region. We are in this for the long haul. We are transitioning security responsibility to Afghan forces, but transition does not mean disengagement," Crocker said.

In July, foreign troops began the first phase of a gradual process to hand security control to Afghan soldiers and police. The handover is due to be completed by the end of 2014.

NATO troops remain in Wardak, the scene of the latest attack, which is not among the areas earmarked for transition in the initial stage.


(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi in Kabul and Obaid Ormur in Logar province, writing by Sanjeev Miglani)

[BRVoice]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...78B61S20110913


Taliban attack Afghan capital's embassy district
By Mirwais Harooni and Hamid Shalizi
KABUL | Tue Sep 13, 2011 7:36am EDT




Afghan policemen arrive at the site of a rocket-propelled attack in Kabul September 13, 2011. REUTERS-Omar Sobhani



A damaged vehicle is seen after a rocket-propelled attack in Kabul September 13, 2011.


(Reuters) - Taliban suicide fighters launched an attack on central Kabul on Tuesday, taking over a multi-storey building under construction near the diplomatic district in the Afghan capital and firing rockets in the direction of several embassy and NATO compounds.

The assault was the second major Taliban attack in the city in under a month after suicide bombers targeted the British Council headquarters in mid-August, killing nine.

Loud explosions were interspersed with gunfire through the early afternoon, and at least two rockets landed in the upmarket Wazir Akbar Khan district, home to the U.S., British and many other embassies.

One hit a school bus, but it appeared to have been empty at the time of impact. Four wounded civilians had been taken to hospitals, a deputy health minister said.

Two NATO helicopters circled the building in central Abdul Haq square, which the attackers had taken over. The Taliban said the group was armed with rocket propelled grenades, suicide vests and AK-47s.

"The primary targets of the attackers are the intelligence agency building and a ministry," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters by phone from an undisclosed location. He later said they were also attacking the U.S. embassy and the headquarters of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Shafiullah, an agent from the National Directorate of Security who was working near the scene of the attack, said the attackers were firing rockets toward the U.S. embassy and other targets.

A U.S. embassy spokesmen said all staff had taken shelter.

"Right now the embassy is in duck and cover," U.S. embassy spokesman Gavin Sundwall said. "We're still assessing the situation." Sundwall said he was not able to confirm witness reports that a sniper was firing into the embassy.

Police and other security officials blocked roads around the U.S. embassy and other diplomatic missions, and said there were five attackers.

"There are five attackers involved but I can not give you more details because the operation is ongoing," said Mohammad Zahir, head of Kabul's Criminal Investigation Unit.

Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001, with high levels of foreign troop deaths and record civilian casualties.

Taliban attackers laid siege to a British cultural center in the Afghan capital in mid-August, killing at least nine people during an hours-long assault on the 92nd anniversary of Afghanistan's independence from British rule.

In late June, insurgents launched an assault on a hotel in the capital frequented by Westerners, killing at least 10.



(Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Nick Macfie)