Category: 04 Inter-State Conflict

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NIGHTWATCH: Afghanistan – Nothing New Since 2001

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, Peace Intelligence

Afghanistan: Afghanistan will likely plunge into civil and regional war if the United States does not leave a residual force of 20,000 to 30,000 troops in the country after 2014, along with significant economic aid, a senior Afghan opposition figure said Thursday. ‘The state will disintegrate' and Afghan security forces will break into factions, said Mohammad Hanif Atmar, a former minister in the government of President Karzai.

Comment: The above assertion is not true in part. A residual US force would be primarily a target that would be too weak to prevent a return to civil war. As for the prediction of civil war — or more accurately tribal war — there is no power on earth than can stop it, whether the US keeps soldiers in Afghanistan or not. It has never stopped.

Nothing has been settled since 2001, including the terms for the distribution of wealth among the tribes; the role of Islam in government; ethnic relations between North and South; the ultimate form of the state; and finally, security.

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Theophilis Goodyear: Russia’s Chief Military Officer on Nuclear War Soon

04 Inter-State Conflict, 06 Russia, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, IO Deeds of War, Military
Think?

Russian military chief: War risks have grown

Associated Press, 17 November 2011

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's chief military officer says the nation is facing an increased threat of being drawn into conflicts at its borders that may grow into an all-out nuclear war.

Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff, pointed at NATO's expansion eastward and said Thursday that the risks for Russia to be pulled into local conflicts have “risen sharply.” He added, according to Russian news agencies wires, that “under certain conditions local and regional conflicts may develop into a full-scale war involving nuclear weapons.”

Read more.

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NIGHTWATCH: Iran – Turkey – Brazil Nuclear Axis

01 Brazil, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Iran, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Officers Call

Turkey-Iran:  A senior Iranian official recently said Iran is willing to share its nuclear technological capability with neighboring, friendly countries, which could include helping Turkey build an atomic power plant.

For years Turkey has tried to build a nuclear power plant, but no Western country has been willing to help, the official said, adding that this is true for other countries in the region. Iran is also willing to cooperate with Brazil in the nuclear field, he said.

Comment: Energy policy provides a basis for an expansion of Iranian influence and presence in the Middle East and Brazil.

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Phi Beta Iota:  The insanity of US foreign and security policy is breath-taking, and only explainable in the context of an out of control government that is advancing pathological short-term corporate interests.  Brazil does not need Iran's help on nuclear energy.  What is interesting here, in combination with the French-German-Russian Axis [and more distantly, India-Pakistan and China-Asia] is the isolation of the US Government – the world is beginning to isolate the pathogen.

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Winslow Wheeler: Military Spending versus Competence

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Budgets & Funding, Corporations, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests
Winslow Wheeler

Washington Post Joins Hysterical Defense Budget Rhetoric

Center for Defense Information, 7 November 2011

Monday, November 7, the Washington Post editorial board published its take on the extreme rhetoric the country has been hearing on the defense budget since Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta starting talking about the “doomsday mechanism” that would reduce defense spending.  Quoting the newer extreme rhetoric of several members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff defending their budget ambitions to the eager-to-listen House Armed services Committee, the Washington Post positioned itself foursquare in favor of hysterics.  It was with an editorial titled “Defense on the Rocks: Mandated spending cuts could decimate U.S. military might.”  Find it here  (although at the web link they toned down the title with the more sympathetic “US Defense on the defensive.”)
Continue reading “Winslow Wheeler: Military Spending versus Competence”

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DefDog: CIA Decides Who to Blow Up – Without Having Any Idea Who They Are…

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, Articles & Chapters, Corruption, IO Deeds of War, Military
DefDog

Admission of the failure of Intelligence, and yet nobody is asking why?

Does the CIA Even Know Who Its Drones Are Killing?

During the Bush era, the agency helped imprison scores of innocents. In the Obama era, it decides who to blow up.

Conor Friedersdorf

The Atlantic, 7 November 2011

Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once said that the War on Terror detainees who made it to the prison at Guantanamo Bay were “the worst of the worst.” At the time, many Americans believed him. Hadn't the detainees been captured by the military or the CIA, or evaluated by experienced American interrogators before being transferred there? We now know that many of the 779 detainees who wound up at Gitmo were innocent.

“Of the 212 Afghans at the base, almost half were, in the assessments of the US forces, either entirely innocent, mere Taliban conscripts, or had been transferred to Guantánamo with no reason for doing so on file,” The Guardian reported earlier this year. Said the Telegraph, “Guantanamo Bay has been used to incarcerate dozens of terrorists who have admitted plotting terrifying attacks against the West — while imprisoning more than 150 totally innocent people, top-secret files disclose.”

President Obama doesn't send suspected terrorists to Guantanamo Bay. Instead, he kills them with drones.

Read full article, includes video.

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Behavioural Conflict: Why Understanding People and Their Motives Will Prove Decisive in Future Conflict by Andrew Mackay and Steve Tatham ; foreword by Stanley McChrystal.

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime, Cultural Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), Information Operations (IO), Peace Intelligence, Public Intelligence, Uncategorized, Worth A Look

        The Small Wars Journal Blog has a post previewing a new book by Andrew Mackay and Steve Tatham. Behavioural Conflict: Why Understanding People and Their Motives Will Prove Decisive in Future Conflict considers how the West's Post Cold War conflicts have been fought amongst people rather than between armies. From publisher's description:

“These people, amongst others, have been Mendes, Kissis and Konos (and the 13 other tribes of Sierra Leone), they have been Serbo-Croats, Bosnians, Kosovars, Albanians, Unizzahs, al-Ribads, al-Zobaids, Kurds, al-Montifig (and the other tribal groups of the nearly 40 that make up Iraq), Pashtuns, Hazaras, Uzbecks (and the other 6 ethnic groupings that make up Afghanistan's rich tapestry of population), they have been Sunni, Shia, Orthodox, Agnostic, Christian, Catholic; they have been farmers, politicians, police, administrators, businessmen, narco khans, war lords, men, women and children. In fact you can divide them in any one of a hundred or so different ways but the only certainty is that all of these groups and people will exhibit behaviour, that may appear utterly irrational but for better or worse will have profound effects upon the manner in which military missions are conducted.” 

The book is based on a paper written in 2009 for the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. The tale of the lone Afghan farmer sowing seeds in a field near the Kajaki Dam should be a warning to those from the developed world who underestimate the intelligence of people just because they don't speak English or have grown up without electricity and running water.

This book will have utility for anyone working in military, peacekeeping, policing or any other other cross cultural situation.

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NIGHTWATCH: Asian Naval Developments

04 Inter-State Conflict, 10 Security, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, DoD, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Strategy

Japan-India: Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony and Japanese Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa agreed to hold their first bilateral naval exercises in 2012, according to Japanese Defense Ministry officials.

Ichikawa said deepening bilateral defense ties between Tokyo and New Delhi will lead to peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. Antony said India's relations with Japan remain a priority and New Delhi seeks to strengthen those ties. Both ministers discussed the importance of the international community in protecting sea lanes, specifically discussing the South China Sea.

Comment: For India, this is the next step in its “Look East” policy. Similar ties and exercises with the South Korean Navy also are likely. Eventually, the combined fleets of India, South Korea and Japan, supported by Taiwan and the US, will be arrayed against China in future conflicts. The Asian states do not perceive containment of China as primarily a US leadership task. That is an important lesson and manifests the success of a half century of US policy.

The Chinese, on the other hand, are reaping what they have sowed in the past twenty years by their aggressive assertiveness in northeast Asia, the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. Chinese actions have nurtured an extraordinary and unprecedented regional reaction that is moving towards a new regional military cooperative structure, linking the fleets of the Asian democracies.

The most important features of this interlocking set of bilateral ties are that the Asian members are equals and the Asians are taking responsibility for Asian security affairs, without relying on the US Navy. US Navy connections with all the parties constitute a second tier of linkage that resides in background and gives the Asians depth and strength.

A third feature is that for the first time in a millennium and a half, the Asian navies are defying China and are actually much more capable than the Chinese navy, without relying on the forces of nature.

The worst thing that could happen is for the US to try to take charge or steer the development or do anything except enable it, behind the scenes. US estimates of Asian security threats that do not factor Asian capabilities that the US has nurtured are incomplete.

The NightWatch bias is that Asian nations know best how to solve Asian problems, with some US support as requested. The Asians will find a way.

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Phi Beta Iota:  The above good sense is in sharp contrast to the on-going US Navy attempt, aided by a defense policy mafia that blends ignorance and corruption to an astonishing degree, to invest  dollars and capabilities we do not have in making the Pacific the “main front” for the future.  There is nothing intelligent about how the US Navy is planning for the future, in large part because the US Navy, like the US Government generally, lacks integrity at the leadership / gerbil maximus levels.