The Armed Forces Officer

By General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., USMC

In 1950, the great Soldier-Statesman George C. Marshall, then serving as the Secretary of Defense, signed a cover page for a new book titled The Armed Forces Officer. That original version of this book was written by none other than S.L.A. Marshall, who later explained that Secretary Marshall had “inspired the undertaking due to his personal conviction that American military officers, of whatever service, should share common ground ethically and morally.” Written at the dawn of the nuclear age and the emergence of the Cold War, it addressed an officer corps tasked with developing a strategy of nuclear deterrence, facing unprecedented deployments, and adapting to the creation of the Department of Defense and other new organizations necessary to manage the threats of a new global order.

Now, in the second decade of the 21st century, our nation is again confronted with a volatile and complex security environment, and addressing the challenges of our time will place new demands on military leaders at all levels. We in the Profession of Arms will continue to adapt our training and education programs, as we have always done, to provide our officers with the intellectual and practical tools necessary to succeed in this unpredictable and unstable world.

Lessons from Israel’s Response to Terrorism

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Fiamma Nirenstein,

Effective solidarity among states has become a prerequisite for ultimately succeeding in the war of the West against jihadist terrorism. Yet, in the aftermath of the Islamic State’s brutal attacks in Paris during 2015 that left 129 dead, there began a discussion in the international media of whether the terrorist attacks against Israelis could be compared with the newest jihadist assault on European capitals. Recent events have challenged this European distinction. A cohesive military strategy is needed for the West, the Arab states that are threatened, and Israel. It stands to reason that, just as all three face similar threats, the models developed in Israel for dealing with terror merit attention in Europe and beyond.

Fiamma Nirenstein: Resilience, the Israeli People’s Weapon against Terror

An important component of Israel’s struggle against terrorism is its population’s psychology, resilience, and capacity to counter what has unfortunately been one of the characteristics of this state from its very origins: the constant attacks against civilians in the streets, public structures, cafes, and buses. How do the Israeli people overcome being on the front line against terror? The answer lies in Israel’s history, sociology, education, and social values, from which today’s vulnerable Europe can learn much.

Brig-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser: The National Security Aspect of Fighting Terror – The Israeli Experience

Israel’s overall strategy of fighting terror is a comprehensive approach that was developed out of ongoing learning efforts. Understanding the goals and strategy of the enemy and the context in which it operates, and being agile enough to rapidly adopt adequate responses that build on former solutions enabled Israel to become a world leader in the fight against terror.

CO2 Levels And Global Warming

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by Martin Armstrong

Scott Pruitt, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told CNBC that he does not believe that carbon dioxide (CO2) is a primary contributor to climate change, essentially exonerating the influence of human beings on global warming.

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Given that the role of CO2 in the raising of temperatures on earth is by now basic and commonly accepted scientific fact, these comments from a man in such a crucial position in one of the largest CO2 producing countries in the world are alarming to say the least. Our infographic brings together NASA and NOAA data to show how earth's surface temperature has risen since 1880 - and in particular since1960 - and the upward curve of CO2 in the atmosphere since 1958.

Joint Force Quarterly 85 (2nd Quarter, April 2017)

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By William R. Gery, SeYoung Lee, and Jacob Ninas

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Major William R. Gery, USAF, is Program Manager for the U.S. Air Force Weapon System Evaluation Program at Air Combat Command. Major SeYoung Lee, Republic of Korea (ROK) Army, is a Student in the Military History Institution of ROK Army Headquarters. Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Ninas, USA, is a Branch Chief in the 704thMilitary Intelligence Brigade.

In the past week, how many devices have you used that were connected to the Internet or relied on an algorithm to accomplish a task? Likely, the number is upward of 10 to 15, and most of those devices are used daily, if not hourly. Examples may include a Fit-Bit, cell phone, personal computer, work computer, home monitoring system, car, Internet television, printer, scanner, maps, and, if you are really tech savvy, maybe your coffee pot or refrigerator.

The US and Europe Need to Coordinate Their Cyber Weapons

BY JEPPE T. JACOBSEN

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The question isn’t just 'How do we use them together?' but 'Who gets to use them first?'

It is no surprise that the United States and its European allies are looking to integrate offensive cyber capabilities as part of their military operations. Last year, the Pentagon boasted about dropping “cyber bombs” on the self-declared Islamic State group. France and the United Kingdom have built similar capabilities, as have smaller European states, such as Denmark, Sweden, Greece and the Netherlands.

Unfortunately, as NATO members rush to build their capabilities, they will quickly have to confront challenging trade-offs. Cyberweapons—or specifically the vulnerabilities they exploit—tend to be single use weapons: once a defender or vendor identifies a vulnerability being exploited, they can patch it, rendering the attacker’s capability useless as well as the capability of any other potential attacker who built a weapon around the same vulnerability. In other words, one state’s exploitation of a vulnerability will affect its allies’ ability to do the same.

As the United States’ European allies develop their capabilities, Washington will be forced to deconflict their use of cyberweapons with European capitals, especially as they look to fight the same enemies such as the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Similarly, a European country would want to tip off their U.S. counterparts before attempting to dox Vladimir Putin given the fact that rendering compromising information public could tip off Russia of its vulnerabilities in specific Kremlin networks, perhaps the same vulnerabilities the United States exploits for foreign intelligence purposes.

Outgoing CIA lawyer says the top threat facing US is cyber

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By JENNA MCLAUGHLIN 

During her tenure as the CIA's top lawyer, Caroline Krass dealt with investigations into the CIA's enhanced interrogation programs and black sites, unrest in Ukraine and Crimea, the rise of ISIS, normalizing relations with Cuba, the Syrian refugee crisis, and Russian meddling. Now headed out the door, she says the most challenging threat the United States faces comes from cyberspace.

"I think the hardest [legal questions] were those that surrounded cyber," Krass said on Tuesday at an event at Georgetown University Law School. "It's an evolving area of the law, trying to determine answers to questions like what constitutes a use of force…what are the measures to combat such a use of force?"

President Donald Trump is hoping to confirm a new top lawyer for the Central Intelligence Agency this week to replace Krass, who is stepping down after three years. She'd previously worked in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, the National Security Council, the State Department, and the Treasury.

Getting the legal lay of the land correct in cyberspace is still on Washington's to-do list, even though think tanks and experts have spent years arguing about what the rules of the road for cyberspace might look like. Washington, for example, has no formal definitions for cyber warfare or any clear standards for how to retaliate for cyber attacks.

The Countries With The Fastest Internet

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by Martin Armstrong

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With an average connection speed of 26.1 Mbps - 8.9 more than the U.S - in Q4 2016. Despite Norway gaining some ground since Q3, coming within 2.5 Mbps of the top spot, no other country really comes close.

This chart shows the countries with the highest average internet connection speed in Q4 2016.

You will find more statistics at Statista

ICIT Analysis : The Cyber Shield Act

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Industry experts and federal agencies such as NSA, NASA and NIST have repeatedly pushed for the implementation and standardization of the bare essentials of Information Security, such as security-by-design, cyber-hygiene training, and layered defenses, to be recognized as crucial topics on the Hill. The Cyber Shield Act is an excellent idea for improving informed consumer decision making concerning electronic devices and introduces meaningful dialog between industry and Congress in a manner that shifts the conversation away from counterproductive, bureaucratic partisanship. If developed and implemented meaningfully, The Cyber Shield Act would not only empower consumers, but would facilitate a much-needed cultural shift in secure device manufacturing and upkeep.

*** The Naxal attack in Sukma is proof the CRPF has not learnt the lessons of the past

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Ajai Sahni

A candle light vigil to pray for CRPF jawans who lost their lives in a Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district, in Patna. (PTI)

While sufficient details of the April 24 attack in Sukma that has resulted in the loss of the lives of at least 25 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel are not yet available to make any definitive assessment of the circumstances that led to this latest debacle, there is no doubt that a sequence of negligence and neglect of the basic lessons of the past, as well as, possibly, established standard operating procedures (SOPs), will have afflicted the deployment and actions of this unit, as was found to be the case in the March 11 incident in which 12 CRPF jawans were killed in the same district. In both incidents, the target units were deployed to protect road building parties, and were following a predictable routine in an area of significant and enduring vulnerability. 

*** In the Age of Nationalism, the World Takes a Back Seat

By Ambika Vishwanath

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Contributor Perspectives offer insight, analysis and commentary from Stratfor’s Board of Contributors and guest contributors who are distinguished leaders in their fields of expertise.

Editor's Note:

The Global Affairs column is curated by Stratfor's board of contributors, a diverse group of thinkers whose expertise inspires rigorous and innovative thought. Their opinions are their own and serve to complement and even challenge our beliefs. We welcome that challenge, and we hope our readers do too.

Last month, India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, voted the nation's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into power. The party then selected a deeply divisive figure from within its ranks to serve as Uttar Pradesh's chief: Yogi Adityanath, at best a Hindu fundamentalist and at worst a politician capable of splitting his state and country along religious lines. The appointment doesn't bode well for a nation with a long and bloody history of religious violence. But in some ways, it's also hardly surprising.

*** Has AQAP Traded Terrorism for Protection?

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By Scott Stewart

As I've often said before, some of the most interesting stories to come across my desk are those from abroad that the U.S. mainstream media has failed to pick up. A recent article by Norwegian news outlet Verdens Gang (VG) only reminded me of that fact when it reported it had been in contact with an unidentified member of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The piece, written by Erlend Ofte Arntsen, raised some interesting points — not least of which was the suggestion that the Yemeni al Qaeda franchise has set aside its mission of conducting attacks in the West.

** Cyber Warfare Beyond Domains

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JACQUELYN G. SCHNEIDER

In 2010, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn III made a pivotal decision for the future of cyberspace and the U.S. military: He saw to it that the U.S. Department of Defense declared cyberspace a “domain” of warfare.

This decision created the organizational impetus for the DoD to organize and equip forces to defend and attack from cyberspace. Lynn anticipated that the future of warfare would be determined by competitions for information and that without the ability to organize for missions in cyberspace, the DoD would be unable to ensure the digital freedom it needed to win modern wars. Since that time, the DoD has not only developed an overarching Cyber Strategy and stood up an entire Cyber Command with more than 6,000 personnel, and has also brought to initial operating capability 133 teams for its Cyber Mission Force. Under the auspices of the cyberspace domain, the DoD has made huge strides to defeat and deter adversaries in cyberspace.

A First: India Successfully Tests BrahMos Supersonic Land-Attack Cruise Missile

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By Ankit Panda

On Friday, the Indian Navy successfully carried out the first-ever test of a supersonic land-attack cruise missile (LACM). A “land attack version of BrahMos supersonic cruise missile was fired for the first time from an Indian Navy’s stealth frigate, off the eastern coast, at a land target,” an unnamed Indian Ministry of Defense source noted. To date, the only variants of the BrahMos tested by the Indian Navy were the anti-ship variants.

The Indian Navy released a video of the launch that shows the missile’s successful vertical launch ejection from the INS Teg, a Talwar-class stealth frigate, successful directional engine engagement, and, ultimately, successful boost and horizontal flight.

“The land-attack variant of BrahMos provides Indian warships the capability to precisely neutralize selected targets deep inland, far away from the coast, from stand-off ranges at sea,” an Indian Navy source told the Times of India. “The maiden firing significantly enhances the Navy’s prowess and places India in the club of a select few nations to have this capability. Majority of our frontline warships, like the Kolkata-class of destroyers and Teg-class of stealth frigates, are capable of firing this missile,” he added.

Somalia’s Pirates Are Back in Business

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BY JASON PATINKIN

NAIROBI — After being all but stamped out by international naval forces following its late-2000s heyday, piracy has made a sudden return to the Horn of Africa. In the past month, there have been six suspected piracy incidents near Somalia, five of them successful, including three in the last week. That’s compared with zero successful attacks in 2016.

Three more murky maritime incidents off the coast of Somalia’s Galmudug state, where suspected illegal fishing vessels paid “fines” that may in fact have been ransoms, suggest that piracy has rebounded on a scale even larger than previously reported.

Unmasking the Unmaskers

What Susan Rice did used to be unusual, but it was encouraged by years of expanding access to signals intelligence.

“Now it’s in the original home of piracy, in an area they thought they cleaned up,” said John Steed, a senior maritime expert at the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime. “It’s very disappointing.”

The spike in banditry on the high seas off the Horn is a blow to the decades-long battle to stem piracy there, and bad news for the international shipping industry, which transports $700 billion worth of cargo through the dangerous corridor each year. It’s also a stark reminder that one of the main drivers of piracy, rampant illegal fishing that depletes local fish stocks and drives some fishermen to take up arms, remains as big a problem as ever.

Appoint GOC-in-C/Corps Commanders on basis of merit, not ‘residual service’: MoD panel

Written by Man Aman Singh Chhina

The panel observed that litigation is pending before various benches of the Armed Forces Tribunal related to the non-grant of promotion/pay benefits to senior officers of the Army due to lack of residual service as per rules in vogue.

A panel on military reforms has recommended to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to review the current policy of appointing Army Commanders (GOC-in-C) and Corps Commanders on the basis of their ‘residual service’ in the Army which depends more upon the matter of chance and “fortuitous condition of the date of birth” instead of merit and capability.

The panel has asked the government to consider the feasibility of examining the issue in depth where a deserving officer misses the chance to command a Corps or an become the GOC-in-C of a command just because he falls short of the number of years of service that is left with him before retirement.

Is It Time for America and Afghanistan to Part Ways?

Daniel R. DePetris

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It is unlikely that Trump will withdraw troops from Afghanistan, but he should reevaluate America's role in the country.

The war in Afghanistan has been going on for such a long period of time that it’s almost become a ritual for a new administration to take a bottom-up, comprehensive look at America’s war strategy during its first two months on the job. The movie has been repetitively played over the last decade and a half: the generals running the war are ordered by the new president and his national security adviser to assess whether the plan is working; the generals conduct the review, which usually concludes with the commanders requesting more U.S. troops on the ground; and the administration (with varying degrees of resistance) eventually provides the commanders the authority and resources that they have forwarded to the White House. President Obama was a bit of anomaly in this regard. He did, after all, set a timeline for troop withdrawals that the Pentagon wasn’t especially pleased about. But even Obama authorized nearly fifty thousand additional American troops into the conflict during his first year in office.

Pakistan and the Panama Papers Verdict

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The long awaited Panama Papers verdict on 20 April, 2017, by the five-judge bench of Pakistan's Supreme Court has stopped short of disqualifying Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and given him a temporary reprieve by ordering investigation by a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) of officials, including those from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI), within 60 days, under Court supervision.

The 3-2 split verdict suggests that while there may have been enough substance to justify that Sharif may not have been either `sadiq’ (honest) or `ameen’ (trustworthy), thus meriting disqualification under Articles 62 and 63 of their Constitution, this power could not be exercised by the Supreme Court in its `original jurisdiction’ powers under Art 184(3), as it did not relate to a question of public importance related to a Fundamental Right. It purports though, that there were enough grounds to believe that the prime minister and his family members had obfuscated the money trail about the off-shore accounts and especially, the transaction pertaining to purchase of the Mayfair flats in London. 

The JIT has been tasked to work on a `thirteen point’ list of items pertaining to the money trail covering the setting up of the Gulf Steel Mill in Dubai; subsequent sales in Saudi Arabia and Qatar; and details of purchase transactions of the Mayfair flats. The judgment virtually dismisses the veracity of the Qatari Sheikh, Jabbar al Thani’s bailout letters about the money transactions. It also opens up the possibilities of re-opening of the Hudaibiya Paper Mills money laundering investigations of the early 1990s by either the Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) or the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). The role of NAB Chief Qamar Zaman in not challenging the September 2014 Lahore High Court verdict exonerating the Sharifs in the Hudaibiya case has been castigated. The JIT’s would now be `a criminal investigation’, which would have to be placed before a fresh bench of the Supreme Court to finally decide on the matter.

Kabul and the Challenge of Dwindling Foreign Aid

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This report offers a comprehensive look at the capital city of Kabul and its unique role in Afghanistan’s transition away from more than a decade of foreign occupation and violence. Social tensions are simmering just under the surface in the capital, even more so than in other Afghan cities, and have the potential to foment serious unrest. Yet, if there is a place in the country that offers the potential for mobilization, technical and intellectual capacity, communication, and acceptance by the rest of the country, it is Kabul. 

Summary 

Afghanistan’s capital city is a natural focal point for the country’s transition away from more than a decade of foreign occupation. 

Kabul’s economy is foundering. Developing new policies to stimulate investment and reorient production and trade on a more sustainable basis is critical. 

Economic competition over scanty resources has the potential to foment serious unrest in a city already simmering with tensions. Better urban planning and management would help allay tensions. 

Distribution of public services has conspicuous room for improvement. Receipt depends on location but is uncertain: poor households receive the least, health care is inferior, electricity is unreliable, waste collection is a shambles, and water is available but controlled by private parties. 

The Real Risk of US Military Force Against North Korea

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By Daniel Amick

Escalating tension between the United States and North Korea has prompted fevered public focus on the possibility of war — even nuclear war — on the Korean Peninsula. The risk is real, and observers are right to emphasize it. Amid the debate, however, another potential scenario remains underexplored: That American use of military force against North Korea might not change much at all. This troubling possibility is not as unlikely as it may seem and would damage U.S. influence in East Asia and around the world. Washington would find itself back where it started, but with a less credible military threat to drive North Korea and other rogue states to the negotiating table.

Washington’s recent posturing aims to force North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to decide once and for all whether his nuclear and missile programs are worth the mounting cost. It attempts to present Kim with a binary — almost apocalyptic — choice: back down immediately and engage with the United States on Washington’s terms, or risk an all-out war that brings down his regime.

To sharpen the decision point, President Donald Trump has prodded China to increase economic and political pressure on Kim and has signaled that he will address the North Korean threat unilaterally if necessary. Vice President Mike Pence reiterated the toughening U.S. stance this week in Seoul, declaring that the “era of strategic patience” is over. He pointed to U.S. airstrikes earlier this month in Syria and Afghanistan as demonstrations of American “strength and resolve.”

China Is Playing Peacemaker in Myanmar, but with an Ulterior Motive

BY DOUG BOCK CLARK

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KACHIN STATE, Myanmar — In early March, Myanmar’s government sat down with a coalition of ethnic rebel groups, including the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), trying to jump-start peace negotiations that had sputtered out after months of escalating fighting. The meeting had been brokered by China, keen to quell the conflict along its southwestern border.

The Kachin are an ethnic group of about a million people with their own eponymous province, Kachin State, in northern Myanmar. Ever since a coup brought a junta led by the nation’s ethnic majority Burmese to power in 1962, the Kachin have been fighting for independence as part of a constellation of conflicts that observers have called “the world’s longest-running civil war.” The KIA is no paltry guerrilla band — it has about 10,000 men and controls much of the Myanmar-China border — and the fighting has been intense. During the past six years, the conflict has displaced more than 100,000 people, and the military has committed widespread human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, rape, and torture. With refugees spilling across the border, Beijing has repeatedly emphasized the need for peace.

China’s Power Projection in the Western Indian Ocean

By: David Shinn

The People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) recently participated in an operation to free the Tuvalu-flagged OS 35 bulk carrier with help from the Indian Navy in the Gulf of Aden (The Hindu, April 9). The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) 24th task force in the Gulf of Aden anti-piracy operation returned in March to its homeport of Qingdao following port calls in four Persian Gulf states (Chinamil.com, March 9, 2017). Since 2008, China has significantly increased its naval presence in the Indian Ocean, giving rise to Indian concerns of potential military encirclement and raising questions in American strategic thinking about China’s ultimate objectives. Both the United States and India maintain a much stronger naval presence than China in the Indian Ocean, but the balance is beginning to shift. Chinese President Xi Jinping introduced in 2013 the strategic “One Belt, One Road” and “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” that stretches from the South China Sea across the Indian Ocean to the eastern Mediterranean. This initiative guarantees China will increase its economic and military engagement along Indian Ocean maritime routes. [1] The PLAN’s continuing participation in the anti-piracy operation long after most pirate attacks had ended and the construction of a military base at Djibouti are tangible indications of China’s power projection.

How China has become America’s equal, as showcased at a Harvard forum

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Robert Delaney, US correspondent

On the campus of Harvard Business School this past weekend there was little doubt among corporate leaders and investors gathered for an annual conference that China had arrived as an equal to the United States.

Keynote speeches, panel discussions and a business pitch competition at the 20th annual Harvard China Forum convened under the theme “Sharing the Road Ahead” in English

This year’s thematic certitude differs from years past. Consider, for example, “Can China Lead?” in 2014 and “Building Chinese Confidence” in 2008. There were also previous themes suggesting the hopes of a country-in-waiting: “Unfolding the Chinese Dream” in 2015 and “Keeping Up the Momentum” in 2009.

Japan’s Nuclear Moment

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By Liubomir K. Topaloff

Geopolitical trends have combined to open a window of opportunity for Japan to become a nuclear state. 

If Japan wanted to develop nuclear weapons, there would be no better moment than now to start. As the North Korean regime grows desperate to get a more generous ransom against its nuclear program, the threat it poses to Tokyo is multiplying. Last week Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, warned that North Korea is preparing the capability to launch missiles carrying the chemical weapon sarin against Tokyo.

U.S. President Donald Trump further added to the turmoil by declaring last week that an “armada” of American military vessels was heading to the Korean peninsula, only to be contradicted by his own military, which broke the news days later that the “armada” was sailing near Singapore, over 3,000 miles away from the Korean peninsula. At the time Trump boasted of the “armada,” it reportedly was travelling in the opposite direction. So much for the credibility of the American extended deterrence, which should guarantee the security umbrella over Japan, a policy in force since 1975. Now, both South Korea and Japan feel cheated and let down, while the U.S. administration was caught red-handed in a bluff. A truly embarrassing situation, indeed.

Syria Changed the World

By ANNE BARNARD

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ISTANBUL — The world seems awash in chaos and uncertainty, perhaps more so than at any point since the end of the Cold War.

Authoritarian-leaning leaders are on the rise, and liberal democracy itself seems under siege. The post-World War II order is fraying as fighting spills across borders and international institutions — built, at least in theory, to act as brakes on wanton slaughter — fail to provide solutions. Populist movements on both sides of the Atlantic are not just riding anti-establishment anger, but stoking fears of a religious “other,” this time Muslims.

These challenges have been crystallized, propelled and intensified by a conflagration once dismissed in the West as peripheral, to be filed, perhaps, under “Muslims killing Muslims”: the war in Syria.

Now in its seventh year, this war allowed to rage for so long, killing 400,000 Syrians and plunging millions more into misery, has sent shock waves around the world. Millions have fled to neighboring countries, some pushing on to Europe.

A Profound Realignment in the Western World

By Daniel McCarthy

The populist Right that seems to be rising throughout the advanced world has two goals. One, obviously, is to win office. But the second, which can be achieved short of actually taking power, is simply to replace the center-right. Marine Le Pen will almost certainly lose to Emmanuel Macron in a few weeks’ time. She and her supporters can count it as a victory, however, that there will be no center-right candidate in the second round of France’s presidential election for the first time since Charles de Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic.

The Left has been undergoing a shakeup of its own. Macron represents a tendency toward the pro-market center that bears some comparison with the direction in which Bill Clinton and Tony Blair took the Democrats and Labour in the 1990s. But unlike Clinton and Blair, Macron does not lead an established party. He was formerly a finance minister in the Socialist Party government of Prime Minister Manuel Valls. In picking a nominee earlier this year to succeed the disastrous incumbent Socialist president, François Hollande, the party ultimately faced a choice between the center-left Valls and a left-wing candidate, Benoît Hamon. Hamon won, but so deep is the disaffection with the Socialists that another, independent leftist, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, outperformed him in Sunday’s first-round general election.

Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses (CTTA) – Volume 9, Issue 04

Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses (CTTA) – Volume 9, Issue 04 

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Volume 9, Issue 04 (April 2017): ‘Countering Jihadist Ideology: The Crucial Battlefront’ The Islamic State (IS) terrorist group faces setbacks on several fronts as it continues to come under heavy pressure from the US-led coalition forces, the Russians and Syrians. On the military front in Iraq, it is slowly losing western Mosul while in Syria, its de facto capital Raqqa is being surrounded for the inevitable showdown. On the propaganda front, it is experiencing a decline in the output and quality of its media products, such as videos and publications. It fares no better on the religious front where it remains marginalised within the Islamic world and faces continuous denunciations from mainstream religious leaders for its exploitation and misrepresentation of Islam. It has failed to gain legitimacy and has in fact been branded as un-Islamic, deviant, even heretical.

As IS loses its lustre and appeal with the loss of territories and impending collapse of its so-called caliphate, counter-ideology efforts should be intensified to further delegitimise IS’ theology of violence and debunk its misinterpretations of religious texts. IS’ hard-core ideology encompassing violent jihad, suicide bombing, takfirism (excommunication) and hijrah (migration), among others, have to be exposed as unquestionably flawed, transgressing Islamic legal principles and juristic process and methodology. This issue of CTTA features a critical examination of one of the principal tenets of IS’ jihadist ideology – takfirism – by Dr Muhammad Haniff Hassan. His article contrasts IS takfiri doctrine with mainstream Sunni position on the subject, exposing IS’ deceptions and deviations from true Islamic teachings.

Report: Special Operations Forces Want to Do More Than Just Counterterrorism

By Vivienne Machi

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Special operations forces and their capabilities could provide a boost in an expanding global competition between the United States and nations such as Russia and China, according to a recent report. 

Seeing situations play out, such as China's militarization of the South China Sea or Russia's 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, has sparked a "vigorous conversation inside the SOF community" about how they can contribute to those types of national challenges, said Jonathan Schroden, director of the special operations program at CNA, an Arlington, Virginia-based think tank.

"They see that as, one, important to the nation … but they also see this special capability that they have and how that could be useful," he said. "They're frustrated … that SOF has been sort of pigeon-holed into the counterterrorism role, and primarily viewed as a capability to address counterterrorism issues that the nation faces, as opposed to having a broader view that SOF can and should also be playing a role in the nation's efforts to try and counter state actors."

The CNA report, entitled "The Role of Special Operations Forces in Global Competition," which was produced in less than nine months, was motivated by a number of conversations with special operators over several years, he added.

THE SPECIAL TROUBLE WITH SPECIAL OPS

by Mark Moyar.

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In May 1980, British television was interrupted by a live broadcast of balaclava-clad Special Air Service men storming the Iranian Embassy in London to rescue hostages taken by an Iranian separatist group. Such operations were not perhaps a surprise for the baby-boomer generation. After all, we had been brought up with celluloid heroics in which Dirk Bogarde —it was nearly always Dirk Bogarde—snatched German generals from Crete or raided Rommel’s supply lines in North Africa. But for younger generations of Britons, the embassy raid had an enormous impact, spawning a new fascination with special-operations forces. Their growing mystique has led to a stream of often lamentable books with “SAS” on the cover as well as, more seriously, a misleading confidence in their superiority to conventional forces for many missions.

As Mark Moyar’s “Oppose Any Foe: The Rise of America’s Special Operations Forces” demonstrates, there has been a similar trend in the U.S. The various American special forces, which date from the formation of the Army First Ranger Battalion in 1942, now number 70,000 members. They have moved from being a secondary weapon to a primary weapon. Gen. Peter Schoomaker became the first special-forces officer to be Army chief of staff in 2003, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal the first special-forces officer to be given direction of an entire campaign—in Afghanistan—in 2009.

MAKING SENSE OF RUSSIAN HYBRID WARFARE: A BRIEF ASSESSMENT OF THE RUSSO–UKRAINIAN WAR

Maj. Amos C. Fox, Maj. Andrew J. Rossow

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Russian warfare in the 21st century has ushered in a new paradigm—one in which states are in perpetual conflict with one another in a manner that best operates in the shadows. This model, known to Americans and most Westerners as hybrid warfare, is known to Russians as New Generation Warfare. Hybrid warfare, much like any nation’s or polity’s way of warfare, is

explicitly linked to the country from which it derives its power.

In the case of Russia, the hybrid warfare model seeks to operate along a spectrum of conflict that has covert action and overt combat as its bookends, with partisan warfare as the glue that binds the two ends together. This model seeks to capitalize on the weaknesses associated with nascent technology and therefore acts aggressively in new domains of war—such as cyber—while continuing to find innovative ways to conduct effective information warfare.

However, what is often lost in the discussion of the technological innovation of Russian hybrid warfare is that a conventional line of effort resides just below the surface. The Donbas campaign of the Russo–Ukrainian War (2014–present) highlights this idea. The Donbas campaign showcases innovations in Russian land warfare through the actions of Russian land forces—working in conjunction with separatist land forces—throughout the campaign. Most notably, these innovations include the development of the battalion tactical group (BTG)—a formation that possesses the firepower to punch at the operational level of war—coupled with a reconnaissance-strike model not seen on contemporary battlefields. Furthermore, the BTG and reconnaissance-strike model work in tandem to create siege warfare opportunities for the Russian and separatist forces, allowing them to generate high levels of destruction while operating beneath the notice of the international community.

CNA Report: Special Operations Forces Want to Do More Than Just Counterterrorism by National Defense

By Vivienne Machi, 

Special operations forces and their capabilities could provide a boost in an expanding global competition between the United States and nations such as Russia and China, according to a recent report.

Seeing situations play out, such as China's militarization of the South China Sea or Russia's 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, has sparked a "vigorous conversation inside the SOF community" about how they can contribute to those types of national challenges, said Jonathan Schroden, director of the special operations program at CNA, an Arlington, Virginia-based think tank.

"They see that as, one, important to the nation … but they also see this special capability that they have and how that could be useful," he said. "They're frustrated … that SOF has been sort of pigeon-holed into the counterterrorism role, and primarily viewed as a capability to address counterterrorism issues that the nation faces, as opposed to having a broader view that SOF can and should also be playing a role in the nation's efforts to try and counter state actors."