Iran's Drones Loom Over the World's Oil Tankers

By Adam Rawnsley

March 12, 2015

Though Iran’s Great Prophet-9 military exercise ended last month, you can count on Tehran’s military to wring every last drop of bellicosity from the event—such as showing off an apparently armed drone taking a bead on a ship crossing the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran conducted the exercise during the last week of February, and centered it around the theatrical, Michael Bay-esque destruction of a stationary wooden aircraft carrier prop floating off Iran’s Larak Island.

The fake Nimitz-like mockup, which Tehran reportedly used as a set for an upcoming film, served as an effigy of the U.S. Navy’s most iconic warship. American carriers are a constant irritant to Iran as they loom off its coast.

But the exercise contained another threat to a different U.S. strategic interest—shipping.

It was a subtle threat, and to figure it out takes some sleuthing. Helpfully, Iran recently broadcasted the drone’s surveillance footage and its coordinates on state television.

$62 Million: The Cost to Operate a Single US E-4 in 2014

By David Axe

March 12, 2015

Official cost tables for the U.S. Air Force’s roughly 5,000 warplanes tell a sobering tale.

The tables, which Inside the Air Force first obtained, break down costs for most of the flying branch’s plane types, and include dollar figures for flying, repairs, modifications and upgrades.

Bottom line—planes are expensive. Just how expensive varies widely—and depends in part on how much time a particular plane actually spends in the air.

The B-2 stealth bomber ain’t cheap, but in 2014 it wasn’t the most expensive plane to operate in the Air Force’s inventory. Not even nearly.

That dubious distinction belongs to the E-4, a 747 that the flying branch packed with computers, radios and other special gear so it can function as a flying command post during a nuclear war.

The Air Force possesses four E-4s. In 2014 they spent a combined 1,577 hours in the air. Each hour of flight set taxpayers back $154,717 for fuel, parts and repairs. Add in modifications and R&D for upgrades and each E-4 cost a staggering $62,878,208 to operate last year, roughly as much as the African country of Malawi spent on its entire military.

Pentagon To Launch Hacker Proof Helicopter Drone By 2018

BY ALIYA STERNSTEIN

MARCH 12, 2015

Boeing is set to replace 100,000 lines of code on its Little Bird drone before a test flight this summer.  

An unhackable Boeing Little Bird unmanned aircraft should be in flight around the end of 2017, Defense Department and company officials say.

Aliya Sternstein reports on cybersecurity and homeland security systems. She’s covered technology for more than a decade at such publications as National Journal's Technology Daily, Federal Computer Week and Forbes. Before joining Government Executive, Sternstein covered agriculture and derivatives ... Full Bio

Right now, defense industry programmers are rewriting software on the helicopter drone to encapsulate its communications computer. That way, no outsiders can steer the unmanned aerial vehicle to strike, say, civilians, or tamper with surveillance video to mask adversary targets.

An impermeable commercial quadcopter drone was successfully flown last May using the same type of technology.

“The intent is to conduct an experiment to prove that these new coding techniques can create secure code at full scale,” said John Launchbury, who leads the program for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Brunei Mulls New Drone Regulations

By Prashanth Parameswaran

March 13, 2015

The government says it is developing a new framework for drone use. 

Brunei is mulling new regulations on the use of drones, local media sources reported March 13.

According to The Brunei Times, the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) of the Ministry of Communications indicated in a statement that it recognizes the innovative potential of drones and was in consultations with stakeholders in developing and reviewing a regulatory framework their use.

“This regulatory framework will address the safety and security concerns and risks associated with the use of UAs [unmanned aircraft],” the department said in a statement.

However, the bulk of the statement was intended to remind the public that as of now, the launching of any drones – unmanned aircraft (UA), unmanned aerial vehicles, and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) – is strictly prohibited.

“Nevertheless, the DCA would like to seek the cooperation from the public to adhere to the existing Civil Aviation Order for the safety and security of the air navigation,” the statement said.

According to the statement, flying drones is a prohibited activity under Section 21 of Civil Aviation Order 2006. The DCA stressed that drones can pose a number of safety and security risks to air navigation, controlled airspace and densely-populated areas. It also added that anyone failing to comply with any provision of the Order would be subject to a fine not exceeding $50,000 and imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or both, in accordance with Section 51. Exemptions, however, are granted by the DCA on a case-by-case basis.

Cyber Subs: A Decisive Edge For High-Tech War?

By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR

March 10, 2015

http://breakingdefense.com/2015/03/cyber-subs-a-decisive-edge-for-high-tech-war/

A US Navy attack submarine enters Apra Harbor in Guam.

THE FUTURE: Imagine you’re a Chinese high commander, taking stock at the outbreak ofthe next great war. All your aides and computer displays tell you the same thing: For hundreds of miles out into the Western Pacific, the sea and sky are yours. They are covered by the overlapping threat zones of your long-range land-based missiles, your Russian-madeSukhoi aircraft, your home-grown stealth fighters, and your ultra-quiet diesel submarines, all cued by your surveillance network of sensors on land, sea, air, and space.

The net effect is what the West calls Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) and you call counter-intervention. Now you can deal with the Japanese imperialists and Taiwanese separatistswithout American interference. As Mao’s followers once sang, the East is Red.

Then it all starts rotting from the inside out.

Here and there, in patches, your sensor coverage goes fuzzy, communications become erratic: American jamming. But the interference isn’t at the periphery of the defense zone, where US sea, land, and air forces are slamming away from the outside. It’s emerging close to the Chinese coast. The source can only be American submarines.

Chinese aircraft scrambled to stop the jamming find antennas on buoys, unmanned boats, or small drones. Each one is easily destroyed, but there are a lot of them. For each one you wipe from your screens, another two pop up. Meanwhile the American submarines themselves remain elusive, silently dropping expendable, unmanned jammers that wait for the sub to get well away before they go active. When your sub-hunters do find something underwater, it’s usually an unmanned submersible or a weapons pod lying on the seafloor.

At least part of the problem is inside your network, too. Radars and radios are failing in places out of range of any jammer. Some submarine-launched system must have hacked into your wireless transmissions and injected a virus.

Here is how cyber warfare began — 50 years ago

BY CNN WIRE

MARCH 12, 2015

http://wtvr.com/2015/03/12/here-is-how-cyber-warfare-began-50-years-ago/ 

(CNN) — Computer hacking was once the realm of curious teenagers. It’s now the arena of government spies, professional thieves and soldiers of fortune.

Today, it’s all about the money. That’s why Chinese hackers broke into Lockheed Martin and stole the blueprints to the trillion-dollar F-35 fighter jet. It’s also why Russian hackers have sneaked into Western oil and gas companies for years.

The stakes are higher, too. In 2010, hackers slipped a “digital bomb” into the Nasdaq that nearly sabotaged the stock market. In 2012, Iran ruined 30,000 computers at Saudi oil producer Aramco.

And think of the immense (and yet undisclosed) damage from North Korea’s cyberattack on Sony Pictures last year. Computers were destroyed, executives’ embarrassing emails were exposed, and the entire movie studio was thrown into chaos.

It wasn’t always this way. Hacking actually has some pretty innocent and harmless beginnings.

Curiosity created the hacker

The whole concept of “hacking” sprouted from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology nearly 50 years ago. Computer science students there borrowed the term from a group of model train enthusiasts who “hacked” electric train tracks and switches in 1969 to improve performance.

These new hackers were already figuring out how to alter computer software and hardware to speed it up, even as the scientists at AT&T Bell Labs were developing UNIX, one of the world’s first major operating systems.

Latest Snowden Docs Reveal U.S. Govt. Obsession With Breaking Encryption

BY ELIAS GROLL

MARCH 10, 2015

It is common knowledge that the U.S. intelligence community is terrified of commercial encryption systems. FBI Director James Comey has repeatedly and publicly speculated on the consequences of being “left in the dark” as a result of encryption. What has been less known are the creative methods the intelligence community has considered using to circumvent encryption.

In a fascinating, if unsatisfying, story posted Tuesday on the Intercept, new documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden reveal that the CIA has developed the means to undermine the software used to build applications for Apple devices in order to install backdoors in iPhones, iPads, and computers manufactured by the California company.

Here’s the unsatisfying part: It’s impossible to know whether U.S. spies actually carried out that plan or used any of the technology described in this article.

But as a concept, the exploit is revealing in how the U.S. intelligence community is thinking about what it clearly considers a huge challenge moving forward. (By the same measure, the government’s attention on getting around commercial encryption is also indicative of the fact that properly implemented encryption systems can be quite effective in protecting an individual user from government surveillance.)

CIA Needs to Become Cyber Literate Before It Can Operate On the Global Cyber Battlefield

Jane Harman

March 13, 2015

Op-Ed: How the CIA can get from spy to cyberspy

Agility and digital savvy traditionally haven’t been the strong suits of government agencies, so it’s encouraging that CIA Director John O. Brennan wants a big investment in cyberespionage and a new Directorate of Digital Innovation as part of what he calls a “bold” reorganization of the CIA. Brennan’s overhaul is commendable, but it’s urgent to do more to make his agency cyber literate.

Cyber competence isn’t just a set of technical skills; it’s a state of mind. Digital thinking must be baked into the CIA’s whole intelligence mission and its covert operations. No agency employee should be able to say “cyber” isn’t in their job description. As Brennan brings more hackers to Langley, Va., he should be careful not to let new walls rise between the new digital spies and those undercover. There’s precedent for this: The agency’s counter-terrorism center successfully dismantled silos between analysts and operators to track militants around the globe.

Next, the Directorate of Digital Innovation should think critically about what it means to conduct clandestine operations in the digital realm. Unlike drone specs or bomb schematics, code is very difficult to keep classified. Think of the Stuxnet virus. Even though it was written to attack a closed computer network, the code escaped onto the broader Web, where it was publicly dissected by digital security firms such as Symantec. Since then, more cyberespionage tools have been uncovered “in the wild,” meaning some are suddenly available to rogue nations and terrorists. As the CIA gets into this game, it should keep in mind the old admonition not to write down anything you wouldn’t want to see on the front page. In this case, be wary of writing code you wouldn’t want thrown back against your own networks.

Cyber competence isn’t just a set of technical skills; it’s a state of mind. - 

Cybersecurity Industry Fracturing Along National Lines As Companies Work With Spy Agencies and Pursue Government Contracts

March 12, 2015

INSIGHT-Politics intrude as cybersecurity firms hunt foreign spies

(Reuters) - The $71 billioncybersecurity industry is fragmenting along geopolitical lines as firms chase after government contracts, share information with spy agencies, and market themselves as protectors against attacks by other nations.

Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab has become a leading authority on American computer espionage campaigns, but sources within the company say it has hesitated at least twice before exposing hacking activities attributed to mother Russia.

Meanwhile, U.S. cybersecurity firms CrowdStrike Inc and FireEye Inc have won fame by uncovering sophisticated spying by Russia and China - but have yet to point a finger at any American espionage.

The balkanization of the security industry reflects broader rifts in the technology markets that have been exacerbated by disclosures about government-sponsored cyberattacks and surveillance programs, especially those leaked by former U.S. intelligence agency contractor Edward Snowden.

"Some companies think we should be stopping all hackers. Others think we should stop only the other guy’s hackers - they think we can win the war," said Dan Kaminsky, chief scientist at security firm White Ops Inc, putting himself in the former camp.

Kaspersky Lab has faced questions about its connections to Russian intelligence before: Chief Executive Eugene Kaspersky had attended a KGB school, Chief Operating Officer Andrey Tikhonov was a lieutenant colonel in the military, and Chief Legal Officer Igor Chekunov had served in the KGB’s border service.

Eugene Kaspersky said the firm has never been asked by a government agency to back away from investigating a cyberattack, and said that its international team of researchers would not be swayed by any one country’s national interests.

Still, several current and former Kaspersky Lab employees said the firm has dithered over whether to publish research on at least two Russian hacking strikes.

The New Space Race

By Julie Johnsson  

Mar 11, 2015 

The first space race was a sprint between the U.S. and Soviet Union competing for prizes of pride and military advantage. The new space race is more like a fun run, with nations and companies working together to reach asteroids, Mars and the great beyond. The lure of space remains the same as it was for the Sputnik and Apollo pioneers two generations ago: Humans have always longed to explore the unknown. The earthly concerns are also the same: Are the benefits worth the costs?

The Situation 

The U.S. is developing the first craft to fly humans to Mars, the Orionspaceship made by Lockheed Martin. The unmanned capsule soared 3,600 miles into space during its Dec. 5, 2014, maiden voyage, lapping Earth twice before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. This was the longest flight a spaceship designed to carry people had flown since 1972, though it covered only 2 percent of the distance to the moon. On its next flight, slated for 2018, Orion will travel 435,000 miles beyond the moon. It’s in this translunar region that NASA hopes to eventually harvest asteroid samples to study. A base there could also serve as a way station to deploy ships to Mars that aren’t weighed down with heavy parachutes and heat shields needed to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. The space agency’s plans beyond the initial Orion flights remain sketchy; a similar lack of purpose proved fatal to earlier proposals for Martian forays. This time, though, there is an arresting vision — and it’s coming from billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. He sees colonizing Earth’s closest planetary neighbor as insurance against the day humans render their home planet uninhabitable. His company,SpaceX, hopes to supply the fleet of rockets needed to sustain humans on Mars. The red planet remains a “fixer-upper,” Musk concedes, as its atmosphere is too thin to allow water to flow. 

The Background 

The space age began Oct. 4, 1957, when the Soviets launched Earth’s first manmade satellite, Sputnik I, and beat the U.S. again in 1961, whenYuri Gagarin became the first man in space. U.S. President John F. Kennedy aimed higher, calling on the U.S. to land a man on the moon. Once NASA met that goal in 1969, interest faded in the Apollo lunar forays. So NASA shifted focus to sending astronauts a few hundred miles into orbit in the first re-usable spacecraft, the shuttle, while sending unmanned craft to Mars. Musk started Space Exploration Technologies in 2002 with a goal of enabling people to live on other planets. The Obama administration adopted similar ideas after scrapping a planned return to the moon in 2010, steering the Orion capsule developed for it to a deep-space mission. CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE; BLOOMBERG REPORTING

The Argument 

An Independent Air Force: Problem Solver or Problem?

By Robert Farley

March 10, 2015

Source Link

(Editor’s Note: The below is a lightly edited excerpt from the book Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force which has just been released in paperback.) 

Bureaucracy may be boring, but it matters for policy. The modern state has grown into a vast collection of bureaucratic institutions, each tasked with certain critical jobs. Inside and outside the state, individuals, interest groups, and bureaucratic organizations strive against one another for influence and resources. In the United States, Congress, the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon, the various organs of the intelligence community, and each of the military services contributes to national security policy. The arrangement of these organizations matters for how the policymaking process plays out.

While the fundamental purpose of foreign policy and military organizations is to disarm enemies, deter aggressors, safeguard commerce, pierce the fog of war, and defend whatever other interests are deemed crucial to national survival and prosperity, each organization sees the world in a particular way, and each tends to seek to maximize its own influence and autonomy. The importance of specific organizations for policy often depends on the personality and background of the executive as well as the relationships between major policymakers. However, the simple fact of an organization’s existence can grant it a “seat at the table,” through which it can have an impact on policy. Institutional design thus privileges certain foreign policies and forms of war at the expense of others. Organizations working together suffer from what Clausewitz terms “friction,” the inability of the component parts to function together seamlessly.

Hybrid war: old wine in a new bottle?

Harlan Ullman

March 12, 2015 

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/12-Mar-2015/hybrid-war-old-wine-in-a-new-bottle

Because the world and people are so dependent on cyber communications from smart phones to providing basic goods and services such as electricity and water, cyber attacks can impose real damage through interruption or disruption

It is seductive to conclude that ‘hybrid war’ is a creature of the 21st century in which technology now offers an alternative and indeed reinforcement to the blunter use of military force. Based on successful Russian encroachment into Ukraine and occupation of Crimea with hybrid war tactics, it is fair to ask if that could happen to the Baltic States. Consider Estonia as a candidate target for Moscow. Suppose Estonia is subjected to attempts at subversion by its giant neighbour to the east. Russian propaganda accuses the Estonian government of repressing the Russian-speaking minorities legitimising an incursion under the right to protect. Russian soldiers in mufti flow across the border. Tallinn’s telecommunications centre is target number one. Control communications and control the country. All this can be called hybrid war.

But the year is not 2015. It is 1924. Lenin had his sights set on swallowing the Soviet Union’s tiny neighbour. In those days, cyber warfare meant occupying and controlling the telephone exchange. And the so-called “little green men” who swarmed into eastern Ukraine and Crimea were the great grandchildren of those Lenin ordered into Estonia. Fortunately, Lenin failed.

Indeed, going back a decade earlier to World War I, hybrid war was very much in evidence. The cyber portion was waged in code breaking and either tapping into or disrupting the undersea telegraph cables that linked London, Paris and Berlin with their overseas bases and colonies. Economic sanctions were imposed by unrestricted submarine warfare and blockade. Propaganda labelled the enemy as barbarians committing countless atrocities against innocent civilians. And Zeppelins and Gotha bombers panicked Londoners with nighttime terror bombings. Thus, hybrid war is as old as war in many ways. Yet, technology and globalisation have transformed parts of hybrid war in the 21st century. First, in the past, military force was often the ultimate arbiter of victory or defeat. But when the enemy today lacks an army, navy or air force, even the most powerful militaries in the world are limited in what can be achieved.

Bullseye: The 5 Most Deadly Anti-Ship Missiles of All Time

Kyle Mizokami

March 13, 2015 

Source Link

These missiles will sink any battleship.

After decades of rapid innovation, the end of the Cold War and the subsequent Global War on Terror all but halted anti-ship missile development in the West. A focus on land operations in the Middle East and Central Asia sent Western navies struggling for relevance.

As a result, navies adopted an emphasis towards supporting land forces and operating in the littoral zone. For the most part, ship to ship warfare was reduced to a 9,000-ton destroyer confronting a 2-ton pirate skiff.

As rising tensions with China and Russia make clear: ship-to-ship naval warfare is back. And with it, the need to reach out and sink enemy ships.

A new generation of anti-ship missiles (ASMs) are on the horizon. Stealthy, supersonic and autonomous, these missiles are adept at evading defenses and hunting individual ships. Let’s look at some of the more interesting ASMs, both deployed and in development.

Brahmos

Named after the Brahmaputra and Moscow Rivers, the Brahmos anti-ship missile is a joint Indian-Russian program. Developed through the 1990s and early 2000s, Brahmos is one of the few anti-ship missiles built during this time. It is currently in service with the Indian Armed Forces.

Is America Still a Military Superpower?

Harry J. Kazianis

March 12, 2015 

http://www.nationalinterest.org/feature/america-still-military-superpower-12405?page=show

As other nations gain some important military advantages, Washington must deal with sequestration.

No doubt talk around those always busy coffee nooks and hallways in DC think tanks these past few weeks centered around the question of America’s defense budget. And with various proposals floating around the corridors of power,great conservative think tank studies breaking down U.S. defense needs alongwith a spirited debate concerning the size of various armed forces like the navy, the conversation has certainly been flowing. And so it should,considering the times we live in.

America, in many respects, is a tired and weary superpower. Having fought two long and draining wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11, many assumed that the nation rightly deserved some sort of “peace dividend.” And there is no doubt this makes sense—heck, it was done after the Cold War, why not now? 

After spending trillions of dollars in the Middle East in wars that certainly warranted spirited debate throughout America many assumed that Washington would stay engaged in the world but scale back its military might to something more affordable but still worthy of the title of “superpower.” With superpower interests— the world’s largest economy, treaty allies around the world we have sworn to protect and easy to see global interests like protecting things like the global commons—a superpower military is a must. 

South Asia's Hinge Moment

Robert M. Hathaway

March 13, 2015

Don't look now, but South Asia is getting its act together.

Nightmares of despair and disaster are an occupational hazard for those who follow developments in South Asia. But for once, the news from the region is not uniformly grim. Washington should take note.

National elections throughout the region have produced victors who, compared to their predecessors, appear to be agents of change. Elections last year in India and Afghanistan fit this pattern. But the starkest example is also the most recent: Sri Lankan voters, in an outcome anticipated by almost no one, summarily dispatched an autocratic ruler who had appeared entrenched for the long run this January. 

The encouraging signs go beyond elections. By some measures, India has surpassed China to boast the fastest growing economy in the world. The new prime minister, Narendra Modi, has taken a meat cleaver to bureaucracy and venality. In Pakistan, the army’s offensive against extremists in North Waziristan has proved far more sustained than most observers had expected. The December 16 massacre of 150 people in Peshawar, most of them young schoolchildren, seems to have reinforced Pakistan’s commitment to combating terrorist violence.

Internationally, the region is experiencing a remarkable degree of change. The Modi government has demonstrated vitality and a capacity for surprise—Modi’s invitation to Pakistan’s prime minister to attend his inauguration, for instance. India-Pakistan relations remain glacial, but India’s top diplomat visited Pakistan last week. An early sign of thawing relations between the two states would be progress on long-stalled plans for cross-border trade liberalization.

Narendra Modi's Grand Plan for Kashmir

By Jhinuk Chowdhury

March 12, 2015

Contrary to former BJP Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s approach, Modi has his own plans for Kashmir. 

Months after calling off scheduled bilateral talks following a Pakistani representative’s talks with India-based Kashmiri separatists, diplomatic interactions between New Delhi and Islamabad resumed with Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s trip across the border to meet his counterpart, Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry. Jaishankar’s trip comes as part of a broader push for increased diplomatic interactions with countries in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

The circumstances under which the talks were called off and their subsequent resumption raises a key question about the Kashmir issue and the role it continues to play in India-Pakistan bilateral relations: to what extent should separatist factions play a role in this relationship?

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly has been trying to align New Delhi more closely with all Indian regions bordering Pakistan, notably Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) along the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan. That area has received special attention from Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party, with frequent visits, political rallies, and, ultimately, the formation of a coalition government in the state along with the regional People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

However, the BJP has a longer history in the region. During BJP’s previous term in power, former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Kashmir policy was hailed as an effective approach toward dealing with the problems of the region.

Vajpayee approached the Kashmir issue from multiple dimensions, seeking to engage both Pakistan as well as with Kashmiri separatists simultaneously. His approach was guided by the three principles of Insaaniyat (humanism), Jamhooriyat (democracy), and Kashmiriyat (Kashmir’s age-old legacy of amity).

Can Modi follow in the footprints of his BJP predecessor?

India Objects to Their Diplomats Based in Pakistan Being Tailed 24/7 by Pakistani Spies

March 12, 2015

Indian diplomatic staff in Pakistan ‘tailed’ by intelligence agencies: Sushma Swaraj

Indian High Commission staff in Pakistan are being subjected to “intrusive surveillance” and “tailing” by intelligence personnel of that country, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said today.

“The matter has been taken up strongly with the Government of Pakistan at various levels,” she told the Lok Sabha during Question Hour.

“Members of the High Commission of India have been subjected to intrusive surveillance, including tailing by the intelligence and security personnel of the Pakistan government,” the Minister said.

Replying to a question on “ill treatment of Indian diplomats”, she referred to several incidents in Pakistan and other countries in the past few years and said after the issues were raised with the respective governments, such actions have not been repeated in these countries “except Pakistan”.

She also said the government was making all efforts to ensure that the United States drops all charges against IFS officer Devyani Khobragade, whose arrest in New York two years ago had led to a diplomatic standoff between the two nations.

“India and the US have initiated an official dialogue to comprehensively address all aspects related to the case against hobragade and all issues arising from differing perspectives on diplomatic privileges and immunities.

“Our government is making all attempts so that all charges levelled against her are dropped,” Swaraj said, adding

that the US government has expressed regret over the incident. The former Indian diplomat, then serving in the US, was

arrested in New York on December 12, 2013 on charges of “visa fraud” and “false statement” and released on bail the same

Does Pakistan Have a Sea-Based Second-Strike Capability?

By Franz-Stefan Gady

March 13, 2015

The Daphne class submarine Ghazi (S-134) decommissioned in 2006.

Much about Islamabad’s sea-based nuclear deterrent remains a mystery, including its future submarine force. 

Back in 2012, Pakistan announced the creation of a Naval Strategic Force Command and hinted that the country now possessed a sea-based second nuclear strike capability.

Today, almost three years later, Pakistan’s alleged maritime deterrent continues to puzzle analysts. The overall consensus of opinion is that the country has not acquired a sea-based second nuclear strike capability just yet. Another thing that most experts agree is that the delivery vehicle of an ocean-launched Pakistani nuclear warhead would be a submarine-launched variant of the Hatf-7 (Babur) cruise missile.

According to a 2013 policy brief on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, Pakistan already indicated in 2005, when the missile was first tested, that the system was designed to deploy in submarines. The Hatf-7 is a medium-range subsonic cruise missile with a reported range of 700km (430mi).

Yet, the Washington Post notes, that Western experts, “are divided over whether Pakistan has the ability to shrink warheads enough for use with tactical or sea-launched weapons.” Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear and nonproliferation scholar is a skeptical: “They may have done so, but I can’t imagine it’s very reliable,” he states.

Shireen M. Mazari, a nuclear expert and the former director of the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad, a Pakistani-government-funded think tank, acknowledged that the 2012 announcement may have been too premature: ”We are on our way, and my own hunch is within a year or so, we should be developing our second-strike capability,” he said in an interview with the Washington Post in September 2014.

One expert notes that in order to achieve a sea-based second-strike capability, “Pakistan will require a significant expansion of its submarine fleet [surface vessels would be too easy to detect], which will impose an enormous burden on the struggling Pakistan economy.” In 2013, the Pakistani government had to agree to a $ 6.6 million IMF bailout with various strings attached to what the country is allowed to spend money on.

When Will the Afghan Air Force Be Ready to Fight the Taliban?

By Franz-Stefan Gady

March 12, 2015

Afghan Air Force newly graduated pilots at Shindand Air Base, Afghanistan.

It will take another year for Afghan ground forces to be able to call in indigenous close air support on a grand scale. 

The Afghan National Security Forces will be without its own fixed-wing close air support this fighting season, according to the commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John F. Campbell, who testified last week in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee on the current situation in Afghanistan.

Gen. Campbell noted that the first out of 20 Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucanos, aka A-29s, will be delivered by the end of 2015. The Brazilian-made A-29 Super Tucano is a turboprop aircraft specifically designed for counter-insurgency operations and can be equipped with a wide array of bombs (including precision guided munitions) and machine guns. One hour of flying time usually only costs $1,000, a big cost advantage for the cash-strapped Afghan Air Force.

The United States Air Force, responsible for the training of Afghan pilots, allocated $427 million for the A-29 Super Tucano planes. Only a handful of aircraft will arrive in 2016, with the majority being delivered in 2017 and 2018, according to Campbell. “In hindsight, I wish we would’ve started that years ago,” he said, yet “we are where we are.” “Quite frankly, we can’t get it out there quick enough for them,” he stated when talking about the controversial aircraft procurement process.

Afghan forces will still have some indigenous close air support during this year’s battle with insurgent forces. “We’re working MD530s, which is a ‘Little Bird’ that has two .50-caliber machine guns on the sides,” Campbelltold the Armed Services Committee. The ANSF are also using Mi-24/35 attack helicopters but they are rarely operational.

In his testimony Gen. Campbell emphasized that aviation is one of the most critical capability gaps of the Afghan National Security Forces during this year’s fighting season, set to begin in a few weeks. During the hearing Campbell noted the overreliance of Afghan forces on U.S. close air support.

The most often heard request from Afghan commanders is “I need close air support, I need close air support,” he noted, according to military.com.

Why Saudi Arabia Needs Pakistan

By Akhilesh Pillalamarri

March 12, 2015

Pakistan may be Saudi Arabia’s best bet for a strong long-term security guarantee. 

As the likelihood of a rapprochement between Iran and the West grows, Saudi Arabia is quietly shoring up its relationship with Pakistan.

According to various reports in the Pakistani media, Saudi Arabia requested an infusion of Pakistani soldiers following Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Riyadh last week. Despite enormous defense spending, the Saudi military is unlikely to see sustained battle or gain combat experience anytime soon. As former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gatesquipped, the Saudis are only willing to “fight the Iranians to the last American.” In other words, the Saudis are notoriously unwilling, or unable perhaps, due to poor training and morale, to solely use their own forces to protect their country.

This is where Pakistan, with its relatively well-trained and professional military, comes in. Pakistan has long had a close relationship with Saudi Arabia and has been involved in protecting that country and the House of Saud. Pakistan has much friendlier relations with Iran than Saudi Arabia does, but ultimately it is more dependent on Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, for example, gave oil to Pakistan in 1998 to help Pakistan weather international sanctions against it for conducting a nuclear test. The Saudis also saved Nawaz Sharif after he was overthrown in a coup in 1999, and he is thus beholden to them.

There are already Pakistani troops deployed in Saudi Arabia, though the number is said to be modest. These facts are generally kept quiet to avoid undue attention, but many scholars agree that there is definitely some sort of security commitment from Pakistan toward Saudi Arabia. After all, Pakistani soldiers have previously deployed in Saudi Arabia: in 1979, after the Iranian Revolution, and to help out during the Grand Mosque siegein Mecca. The security commitment may include a “nuclear dimension.”

It is clear that Saudi Arabia is getting increasingly jittery, but cannot go public about this to avoid the impression that it is siding with Israel or sowing dissension in the Islamic world. Counting on Pakistan is one way it can shore up its own security while keeping a low profile. Saudi economic and educational strategy certainly seems to be aimed at increasing its leverage in Pakistan. There is no doubt that Pakistan will assist Saudi Arabia on security issues that are relatively minor, like preventing a militant seizure of Mecca. But it remains to be seen if Pakistan will get involved in a bigger way, other than to guarantee the continued existence of the Saudi state. Pakistanis most definitely do not want to get caught up in a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, especially when they have their own pressing regional and domestic issues to worry about.

Remembering CIA Officer Jacqueline K. Van Landingham, Killed by Terrorists in Karachi, Pakistan in March 1995

March 12, 2015

Remembering CIA’s Heroes: Jacqueline K. Van Landingham

This is part of our series about CIA employees who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Here we will look at the lives of the men and women who have died while serving their country.

Currently, there are 111 stars carved into the marble of the CIA Memorial Wall. The wall stands as a silent, simple memorial to those employees “who gave their lives in the service of their country.” The CIA has released the names of 83 employees; the names of the remaining 28 officers must remain secret, even in death.

On an early March morning in 1995, two terrorist gunmen attacked a van transporting US Government workers to their jobs at an American Consulate in South-East Asia. The most severely wounded passenger, Jacqueline K. Van Landingham, died shortly afterward at a local hospital.

Jackie’s smile, sense of humor, and unyielding devotion inspired not only her family, friends and colleagues, but also a new generations of officers who followed in her footsteps. She was one of the first African Americans at the CIA to lose her life in service to her country, and her memory will never be forgotten. Here is her story.

Early Years

Jackie grew up in Kershaw County in Camden, South Carolina. She graduated from Camden High School in 1979 and attended Virginia State University (VSU) in Petersburg, where she majored in food marketing and management. She graduated from VSU with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1984.

In college, Jackie worked part-time every semester—full-time during summer breaks—at the VSU bookstore. She handled a wide range of clerical and some managerial responsibilities, including cashiering, ordering merchandise, handling customer complaints, training new employees, and preparing employee payrolls. Jackie also played intramural softball—a sport she loved—and excelled at. Before graduating in 1984, she took advantage of a student internship opportunity and worked in an advertising and marketing agency in Richmond, Virginia.

Life at the CIA:

How Can the Chinese Reform Their Intelligence System When They Won’t Even Admit It Exists?

Yang Hengjun 

March 11, 2015 

Fixing China’s Intelligence System 

This text is a forward written to accompany a proposal for the National People’s Congress from a group of netizens. The original proposal read, “In order to face complex situations at home and abroad, China’s intelligence agency is badly in need reforms aimed at transparency and a supervision mechanism.” In this piece, I’ve swapped “intelligence agency” for “secret service” – not to make a sensational headline, but to make the authorities aware that, under the current situation, we cannot allow such as indispensable thing as an intelligence agency become a “secret service” hated by the people. 

In every organization within the Party, the government, and the military, there’s already a quiet prelude to adjustments and functional reforms. Recently, we also saw reforms aimed at the public security system. But one organization, so mysterious that it officially doesn’t even exist, often attracts my attention. Intelligence work is particularly important for China’s rise. Even after “reform and opening up” began (and let’s not mention the period between then and 1949), obvious gaps in intelligence or mistaken intelligence repeatedly caused the authorities to make wrong decisions. Because an intelligence agency wasn’t even allowed to officially exist, there was naturally no way for the public and even relevant government agencies to hold such an agency responsible – much less reform it. 

Most countries with a population exceeding 5 million worldwide have set up intelligence agencies. Even Hong Kong, before it was returned to Chinese control, had a “political department” responsible for collecting intelligence. These intelligence agencies secretly collect information relating to politics, economics, and military affairs at home and abroad; information that serves as the basis for leaders’ decisions. In various languages around the world, “intelligence agency” has become a neutral and often-heard term, not that different from the terms “tax bureau” or “foreign ministry.” But in China, a major country with a population of 1.3 billion, this organization seems to be a taboo topic, whether in official documents or in the mass media – it’s as if there’s no such organization at all. The authorities are pretending that they are above such affairs, that they don’t take part in the shady affairs of espionage work at all. But in reality, it gives people the impression of a cover-up, actually drawing attention to what the authorities intend to hide. The situation has also lead people to talk about the intelligence agency using openly derogatory terms like “secret service.” 

China-Japan-South Korea Relations Inching Forward

By Shannon Tiezzi

March 13, 2015

A trilateral foreign ministers’ meeting, the first in nearly three years, is scheduled for this March. 

Yesterday, China, Japan, and South Korea held discussions at the deputy foreign minister-level in Seoul, setting the stage for a full-fledged ministerial meeting later. The talks apparently went well — afterward, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson confirmed that a trilateral foreign ministers’ meeting is scheduled for “late March.” Japanese media gave a more exact date: March 20-21.

China, Japan, and South Korea used to hold regular trilateral discussions, including an annual summit between their top leaders. The trilateral platforms were effectively abandoned beginning in 2012, when China-Japan relations took a sharp nosedive after the Japanese government nationalized the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Trilateral discussions at the deputy-minister level resumed in September 2014, when Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin met in Seoul with South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Lee Kyung-soo and Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama.

Those three gathered again in Seoul on Wednesday for the grandly named “10th Trilateral Senior Foreign Affairs Officials Consultation among China, Japan and the ROK.” The major purpose of the talk was to pave the way for a meeting among foreign ministers, the first since May 2012. “If the trilateral foreign ministers’ meeting is held soon, it will undoubtedly give us the opportunity to re-establish the groundwork for trust-building and common prosperity,” Deputy Foreign Minister Lee said after Wednesday’s talks.

According to Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei, Vice Foreign Minister Liu said the upcoming ministerial meeting is “a hard-won result that should be cherished by all.” China “sets great store by this foreign ministers’ meeting,” Hong said, “and hopes that the three countries can hold this meeting in the spirit of actively pushing forward cooperation and not shying away from problems.”

However, Hong declined to comment on the possibility of a summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and South Korean President Park Geun-hye. Abe met briefly with both Xiand Park on the sidelines of last year’s APEC summit in Beijing, but has not had a formal bilateral summit with either.

China and Pakistan’s All-Weather Friendship

By Huma Sattar

March 12, 2015

Much to the befuddlement of the rest of the world – and as ironic as it is – Communist China and Islamic Pakistan are fast friends. It’s all hail to China in Pakistan and as other partnerships wither and die, these two countries continue to devote energy to strengthening their relationship. China has historically come to Pakistan’s rescue with economic, political, military and nuclear assistance and perhaps what was once a relationship founded on a mutual disillusionment with India has moved toward one with more aspirational intentions on both sides.

It would appear that Pakistan has been the greater beneficiary of this friendship – from military to economic assistance, China has stood by Pakistan, but is the friendship really that sustainable? Andrew Small from the German Marshall Fund certainly seems to think so. An Asia expert, Small recently published a book examining what he calls the unusual nature of the secretive relationship between China and Pakistan and argues that it is much more promising than Pakistan’s erratic ties with the U.S. And indeed, history supports this. On a visit to Pakistan earlier this year, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi assured Islamabad that China and Pakistan were in sync on all matters and have an “iron-clad” understanding between them, one that has taken years to hone and fortify.

Wang also announced at a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart that Chinese President Xi Jinping would be visiting Pakistan soon to discuss economic cooperation and support. Indeed, Beijing’s ambitious Silk Road initiative – in which the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a part – running from China across South and Central Asia, makes a strong case for Chinese involvement and interest in Pakistan. The CPEC involves a major overhaul of infrastructure, with rail, roads, pipelines and ports in a bid to ease the energy crisis and increase investment in Pakistan. This is in addition to the China-Pakistan agreement on fiber optic cable that would connect Pakistan’s capital with Chinese borders, along with a $6.5 billion commitment to build a new nuclear power plant in Karachi. In fact, economic opportunities for Pakistan look endless, but given the increasingly serious state of terrorism in Pakistan, some find Beijing’s confidence in its “all-weather” friend a tad perplexing.

In fact, China and Pakistan function in a partnership carefully conditioned on their usefulness for each other. Beijing is mindful that Pakistan can play a significant role in China’s quest to establish itself as a strategic global power. An economic corridor in Pakistan would not only allow it to connect with South and East Asia, it would also serve as an alternative transportation network for Chinese energy into the Western world. Pakistan is not the only one to benefit.

A little known but important example is the Pakistan China Free Trade Agreement signed in 2006. Trade between Pakistan and China rose quickly, and China had become Pakistan’s top source of imports by 2009. China’s relative importance in Pakistan’s global trade has only increased, with total bilateral trade growing eight-fold in the past decade, whereas Pakistan’s total trade with the world only tripled in this time period. However, trade patterns paint a troubling picture for Pakistan: While China utilized 57 percent of the tariff concessions offered by Pakistan, Pakistan’s use of Chinese reductions was just 5 percent. This trickled down to local industries complaining that cheaper Chinese products were hurting high-cost local products. A second-phase China-Pakistan FTA is being negotiated, with Pakistan hoping for larger coverage and more immediate concessions. What Pakistan does not realize, however, and perhaps what Chinese negotiators use to their advantage, is that it is not such much the number of concessions, but their target.