Israeli Military Releases Data on IRON DOME Air Defense System Missile Intercept Performance

Jeremy Binnie

July 21, 2014

IDF releases Iron Dome interception rate

IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly

The IDF released this image on 9 July, showing a rocket that it said had fallen in an open area after being intercepted by Iron Dome. Its warhead has clearly detonated, but it is unclear whether this happened during an intercept or when it hit the ground. Source: IDF

Israel’s Iron Dome system has successfully intercepted 86% of the Palestinian rockets that it has engaged during Operation ‘Protective Edge’, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

"Since the beginning of the operation, more than 1,260 rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israel," the IDF said in a statement released early on 16 July to wrap up the first nine days of the operation. "Approximately 985 rockets hit Israeli territory and 225 rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defence system with an overall success rate of 86%."

Iron Dome is capable of rapidly determining the trajectory of incoming rockets and will only engage those that are assessed to be heading towards population centres under its protection, not ones heading towards unpopulated areas.

The Israeli press reported earlier in the operation that the Iron Dome batteries were achieving a higher interception rate than they did during the Operation ‘Pillar of Defence’ in November 2012, which the IDF said was 84%, although higher figures have often been reported.

The total number of intercepts achieved during the first nine days of ‘Protective Edge’ is substantially lower than the one achieved during the eight-day ‘Pillar of Defence’, during which it hit 421 of the 1,506 rockets that were launched from the Gaza Strip, according to the IDF.

This higher figure was achieved even though there were only four Iron Dome batteries deployed at the beginning of ‘Pillar of Defence’, with a fifth being rushed into service to protect Tel Aviv from new, longer-range rockets.

The IDF had seven batteries at the beginning of ‘Protective Edge’ and another three were rushed into service thanks to the efforts of defence companies Rafael and Elta.

Iron Dome still has its critics, who say the fragmentation warheads on its Tamir missiles often fail to detonate the warheads of the rockets they intercept, which then fall to the ground, potentially endangering lives.

The IDF released this image on 9 July, showing a rocket that it said had fallen in an open area after being intercepted by Iron Dome. Its warhead has clearly detonated, but it is unclear whether this happened during an intercept or when it hit the ground. (IDF)

This claim is based on the apparent absence of secondary explosions in many amateur videos of interceptions and the assertion that a Tamir can only detonate a rocket’s warhead if it hits it head on.

Israel: The Hamas Plan For Winning This War

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July 20, 2014: The third war with Hamas continues. The first war was in 2009 and lasted three weeks. The one in 2012 went on for eight days and did not involve the use of ground troops. Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007, two years after Israel relinquished control of Gaza as a good will gesture. Hamas defines itself as existing mainly to destroy Israel and drive all Jews out of the Middle East. Hamas began as a branch of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood and the continued presence of any Egyptian Islamic terrorists in Gaza has made Egypt increasingly hostile to Hamas. In fact, for the first time, most Egyptians are backing Israel in their fight with Hamas and Egyptian media openly encourage Israel to destroy Hamas completely. Egypt cooperates by sharing intelligence and sealing the Egyptian border with Gaza. But up until 2013 Egyptian officials tended to ignore the smuggling of weapons (especially rockets from Iran) into Gaza. This enabled Hamas to stockpile thousands of rockets, all in preparation for the final battle with Israel that will make Hamas the ruler of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. At least that’s the plan. For the current war Hamas is trying to keep the Israeli air attacks going for as long as possible. Hamas believes that the new Palestinian civilian deaths each day will increase world media and diplomatic pressure on Israel to make peace on Hamas terms and allow Hamas to declare victory (at least in Arab and Moslem eyes). Israel is determined to avoid this. Hamas is also hostile to any peace efforts put forward by Egypt, which Hamas considers an ally of Israel.

Day 12 of the war with Hamas sees Israeli ground troops advancing into northern Gaza. So far over 350 Palestinians have died in Gaza, most of them Hamas members and the rest civilians. Five Israelis have died, two of them soldiers operating inside Gaza. Heeding Israeli warnings over 100,000 Gaza residents have fled their homes, mostly to stay with friends and family in southern Gaza. At least 50,000 Gazans are in UN run shelters. The UN has been as diligent as they are allowed to be in keeping Hamas gunmen and rockets out of these shelters. Israel earlier caught Hamas hiding rockets in an unoccupied UN building and the UN warned Hamas that actions like that incidents like that make relations between Hamas and the UN more difficult. As a result of incidents like that the UN is less frequently taking the side of Hamas in the conflict. Meanwhile the Gazan population is becoming more open about their anger at Hamas. It’s not just the continued Hamas calls for civilians to voluntarily risk death by remaining in areas Israel has warned they will bomb. Gazans are also angry at how poorly Hamas has run Gaza. This is quite obvious in how badly the Hamas run medical facilities in Gaza are handling the nearly 3,000 people wounded by the Israeli bombing. Hamas leaders and gunmen are given priority and that means many women and children are hardly treated at all. There have been some public and very physical protests by Gazan civilians against Hamas over this.

So far Israeli warplanes have hit over 2,500 targets in Gaza and 44 percent of these strikes were against rocket launchers. Hamas has fired over 1,400 rockets at Israel so far, and would have fired more if Israeli bombing and artillery had not destroyed over a thousand rockets on the ground. Over 60,000 reservists have been mobilized and thousands of these are now operating inside Gaza.

Over a thousand air strikes were aborted because too many civilians were in the area. Israel would warn civilians with leaflets or even automated phone calls, to clear out to avoid a bomb strike. This was often to destroy rockets that were stored in residential areas. It was also common to find Hamas rockets stored in schools and mosques. These were attacked as well, especially when Hamas efforts to persuade civilians to serve as visible (from the air) human shields failed.

Hamas has long been a big believer in using civilians as human shields (often against their will). Israeli soldiers are not allowed to use civilians as human shields, even to protect Israeli soldiers from attacks by Palestinians. Hamas, on the other hand, encourages the use of human shields, and describes, in their training manuals, how best to do it. Lots of dead civilians are essential to Hamas success (in getting enough Western countries threatening Israel and forcing ceasefires and concessions). Much of what Hamas knows about using human shields it learned from Hezbollah up in Lebanon. There, Hezbollah has been using human shields for decades. Back in 2006 Israel released video, and other evidence, showing how Hezbollah used civilians as human shields during rocket attacks on Israel. Hezbollah's attitude in response to this was largely one of, "so what?"

Neglect of IDF Ground Forces: A Risk to Israel’s Security

By Dr. Eitan Shamir and Dr. Eado Hecht

December 4, 2013

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 225

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: 

Dramatic cuts to the IDF budget have forced the army to reduce its ground forces capabilities. This is a mistake, as the IDF still must rely on a capable and credible ground force to deal with its strategic threats, specifically the rocket-launching capabilities of Hamas and Hizballah.

According to media reports and official statements, the dramatic cuts to the IDF budget have forced the army to choose one of two options: either strengthen the IDF’s relative weaknesses – its maneuver-oriented ground forces – or, conversely, strengthen its relative strengths – stand-off fire, intelligence, cyber, and special forces. Apparently, the IDF has chosen the second course of action. The consequences for its standing and reserves ground forces are significant: closing the Namer APC and delaying the Merkava 5 tank projects; closing armor, artillery, and aircraft units; and a dramatic reduction in training. The ground forces could find themselves in dire straits, as it did prior to the Second Lebanon War.

The assumption behind this decision is that the ground forces’ unique capabilities are less relevant to defeating future threats, and are therefore no longer necessary in large numbers. Instead, accurate long-range fire and special forces raids aimed by precise intelligence will rapidly destroy the enemy’s capabilities.

However, this assumes a capability to predict the nature of these threats, especially the prediction that the IDF will not face a symmetrical enemy (a rival large-scale regular army). Rival armies do exist, but the IDF planners assume they will not be used. Forecasting the future is difficult in any case; predicting the constant and erratic shifts in the Middle-East is doubly difficult. Just as no one could have foreseen the turmoil in the Arab world, no one can tell where the upheaval will end. These events have indeed reduced the probability of a high-intensity war between Israel and its neighbors in the immediate future, but no one can predict the situation in five or ten years.

The Ground Forces and Gaza

Deterrence is a central pillar in Israel’s national security concept. He who wants to avoid a full-scale ground war should exhibit his readiness to conduct one successfully. Over the past twenty years Israel has conducted a number of operations based exclusively on fire power; the last one, Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012, achieved its political goals. However, part of that success was due to the visible preparation of a ground invasion. Furthermore, the airstrike portion of that operation was not entirely successful; it destroyed almost all of the long-range rocket launchers, but Hamas still fired 1,500 rockets into Israel. Without the Iron Dome’s spectacular success only a ground offensive or political surrender would have stopped the rockets. The existence of a strong high-quality ground force deters the enemy from posing threats that would trigger its use, and the lack of one will reduce deterrence.

Mowing the Grass in Gaza

By Prof. Efraim Inbar and Dr. Eitan Shamir

July 20, 2014

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 255

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Israeli military offensive in Gaza reflects the assumption that Israel is in a protracted intractable conflict. It is unlikely that Israel can purge Hamas from Palestinian society, nor is a political solution likely to be achieved. Instead, Israel is acting in accordance with a “mowing the grass” strategy. After a period of military restraint, Israel is acting to severely punish Hamas for its aggressive behavior, and degrading its military capabilities – aiming at achieving a period of quiet.

Hamas left Israel’s government no choice but to order the Israel Defense Force (IDF) to start a land incursion. Hamas refused to accept Israel’s government offer of “calm for calm,” rejected the Egyptian cease fire proposal and violated the humanitarian cease fire initiated by the UN. It continuously fired over 10 days more than 1,500 missiles towards towns and cities of Israel, hoping to kill as many civilians as possible. Moreover, it uses tunnels in the attempt to kill Israeli civilians and/or kidnap them.

Israel’s goal continues to be the establishment of a reality in which Israeli residents can live in safety without constant indiscriminate terror, while striking a significant blow to Hamas’ terror infrastructure. The Israeli government wisely has defined limited political and military goals for this offensive, in accordance with what we call a “mowing the grass” strategy.

Israel’s strategy in the twenty-first century against hostile non-state groups, such as Hamas, reflects the assumption that Israel finds itself in a protracted intractable conflict. The use of force in such a conflict is not intended to attain impossible political goals, but rather is a long-term strategy of attrition designed primarily to debilitate the enemy capabilities. Only after showing much restraint in its military responses, does Israel act forcefully to destroy the capabilities of its foes as much as possible, hoping that occasional large-scale operations also have a temporary deterrent effect in order to create periods of quiet along Israel’s borders.

As the ground phase of “Operation Protective Edge” progresses, Israel must be realistic about what can be achieved. Destroying the terror tunnels along the fence around Gaza is an attainable military goal. In the process terrorists can be killed and a part of the terrorist infrastructure demolished. The Israeli ground advance might create unrest within the Hamas organization, causing some of its military leadership to move around and make mistakes that could result in better intelligence and opportunities for targeted killings from the air.

An expansion of the ground operation might exact an even higher price from Hamas. Continuous shelling of Israel by Hamas may inevitably lead to Israel’s conquest of all of Gaza. Yet, the strategic calculus should always focus on cost-effectiveness.

India-Israel Defense Cooperation

By Alvite Singh Ningthoujam

January 27, 2014

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 236

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Defense relations between India and Israel are flourishing. 2013 saw a few minor setbacks, but overall the bilateral arms trade between New Delhi and Jerusalem will continue to be strong.

Defense relations between India and Israel have come a long way, against all odds. Israel has emerged as India’s second-largest arms supplier, behind only Russia, with bilateral arms trade over the last decade estimated at $10 billion. 2013 witnessed major developments in India-Israel defense cooperation, most of which involved enhancing arms trade and furthering joint projects. There were certain constraints as well, none of which curbed ties.

Security Developments in 2013

Israel has carved its niche in India by supplying some of the most sought-after weapons systems, with the exception of bigger platforms, such as aircraft. The January 2013 visit to Israel by India’s former air force commander, Air Marshal N. A. K. Browne, further bolstered ties. Military officials from both countries discussed upgrading cooperation, specifically in the area of drones. Browne also expressed India’s desire to acquire Israeli-made air-to-air missiles, along with other precision-guided munitions. India also pushed for additional joint missile projects, despite Israel’s delay in the development of its own joint medium-range surface-to-air missile project.

In mid-2013, India considered buying Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defense systems. While at first Indian officials were hesitant to commit to Iron Dome, on the grounds that it would be ineffective for India’s long borders and congested air space, it has since been believed that Israel’s willingness to share the sophisticated technology behind the system may alter India’s decision. If these deals go through, they will not only benefit Israel, whose military industries and defense R&D largely depend upon arms sales, but will also enhance India’s air defense capabilities against her adversaries.

Constraints on the Defense Relationship

The US as a competitor in India-Israel arms trade surfaced in 2013. The US has long tried tapping into the Indian defense market, but its reservations over technology transfers remain a roadblock. However, efforts for such agreements are underway. The latest example is the US proposal to forge a joint venture partnership with India for the development of next-generation Javelin anti-tank missiles. This deal almost caused India to reverse its decision to purchase Israeli-made Spike anti-tank guided missiles. However, no major breakthrough has yet been reported, and the Spike was back on the Indian Army’s acquisition agenda in November 2013.

Inside the Battle to Crush Ukraine’s Rebel Capital as Dutch Search for MH17 Clues

Anna Nemtsova

07.21.14

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Fighting raged in the center of Donetsk on Monday as Dutch investigators examined the MH17 bodies.

DONETSK, Ukraine — Heavy fighting broke out in downtown Donetsk, the industrial capital of eastern Ukraine, at about 10:00 this morning. Much of the combat centered on the Zapadnaya railway and bus stations. Rebels blocked the roads. Constant artillery blasts could be heard in the residential area around the station.

At almost the same moment, Dutch experts arrived in war-torn eastern Ukraine to investigate the MH17 catastrophe, but managed to make their way towards the crash scene to examine the victims' bodies.

Clearly, all of the statements from Moscow and Kiev about a cease-fire for the period of the investigation have been forgotten. Rebels reinforced their positions in Donetsk, bringing tanks and armored personnel carriers closer to the railway station on Panfilova Avenue. Glass was blown out of the windows of five-story buildings on Slavatskaya Street. Local radio reported that the Ukrainian military blew up railroad tracks and blocked approaches to the city.

Once again civilians paid the price of this ferocious war. Shells killed pedestrians running to try to escape into basements. A young woman's body was lying on the dusty road by a row of garages: her head was destroyed, both of her shoes had been thrown in the air by the shock wave of the explosion and had landed a few steps away from her motionless body.

A lost-looking young man waved to us from under the trees in the next courtyard. He pointed at two more bodies: dead civilian men. "What to do with them?” he shouted. “Flies will cover the bodies. It is very hot."

The young man said his name was Yuriy Malkov, and he was trying to get back to his wife, who was alone and terrified. “I could hear the sound of five mortar shots in the direction of my apartment building and could not wait to see how she was,” he said. “I called her on the phone—she was safe, but she is hiding in the basement of our burning building right now."

We ran together across the deserted streets and yards.

The city’s basements were full of people. About 70 civilians, little children as well as adults, were hiding in a deep cellar of Public School No. 51. Some women cried out in shock, growing hysterical. "Bombing is fine—let the Ukrainian army cleanse this city, like they cleansed Sloviansk, where peaceful life immediately returned, " said a suntanned woman in a black T-shirt who was screaming at the top of her lungs.

Not everybody agreed with her. In Donbass, it’s not only bombs but opinions that tear people apart.

“The Ukrainian army will just murder us, they are murderers!” shouted a young woman in a colorful summer dress said. “Kiev never bothered to respect us, to ask us about what life we really wanted." Her features betrayed her terror.

Only by sticking to an international framework of agreed rules can we ensure peace among today’s great powers

Philip Bobbitt: This crisis is the crucial test of the new world order

PHILIP BOBBITT 

 21 July 2014

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Lawless defiance: armed rebel soldiers block access yesterday to the main crash site of MH17

The terrible events in Ukraine, electrified by the interception and destruction of a Malaysian passenger plane, should be a thunderclap, shaking us from our torpor and confusion.

We cannot begin the 21st century in the way we began the 20th, with powerful states determined to overthrow the international system, tossing away the rulebook for international behaviour that states of the previous century had used to maintain peace. Now, as then, there are claims of justice and ambition, fired by nationalism and envy, by a sense of historical grievance and by contemporary domestic political manoeuvring, that intermingle to animate and justify the destabilising violence of an insurgent power. Now, as then, the states that need to be united in opposing that violence are divided among themselves.

What does the current rulebook, written with such pain and suffering, provide? First, it requires that no territorial aggrandisement can be achieved by invasion and conquest. As much as Europe’s present borders result from accidents of history, so much more are they ratified by that history, so that while we can accept the creation of new states, such as those that emerged from the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union, we cannot begin the process of reconquest without unravelling the European state system with the kinds of consequences we saw in the 20th century.

Second, the rulebook provides for various oversight mechanisms to monitor elections, investigate atrocities and prosecute war crimes. Third, these rules prescribe the autonomy of states in their interstate relations, what groups they may join and what alliances they may maintain.

US HYPOCRISY ON UKRAINE – OPED

By Ivan Eland

JULY 22, 2014

A makeshift memorial at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, Netherlands for victims of flight MH17. Photo by Roman Boed, Wikipedia Commons

Much finger-point1, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UNITED STATESing has occurred on the downing of Malaysia flight MH-17 over separatist-held territory in Ukraine. The American media—still reflexively anti-Russian even though the Cold War has been over for almost a quarter-century and heaping blame on Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, since even before his annexation of Crimea—have gone hog wild with recrimination after the downing of the aircraft.

And Russia and Putin are easy targets. In America, our story line goes much like this: After the Cold War ended, the United States benevolently showered Russia with assistance, acceptance into the G-8 talkshop of industrial democracies, and “experts” on creating a democracy (I was on one of those trips), but the Russian people let the dour Vladimir Putin ruin our efforts to export democracy there by re-instituting autocratic rule. Americans feel rejected, because the Russians just didn’t want to be like us. And with our usual assumed benevolence, we just don’t understand why Russia is behaving in a “20th century manner,” by annexing Crimea and funneling training and weapons to Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, when the rest of the world, including America, has moved on to a new era in the next millennium. Americans—always very ahistorical, even more so with the advent of 24-7-365 cable “news”—have amnesia about any role the United States might have had in bringing U.S.-Russian relations to their current sad state of affairs.

After the Cold War ended, the then-democratizing Russia, still inducing suspicions in the West, was excluded from the expanding NATO and European Union. After the Berlin wall fell, in a verbal promise to then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to coax him to agree to the reunification of Germany, then-President George H. W. Bush pledged to Gorbachev that NATO, a military alliance hostile to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, would not expand into the territory of the now defunct Soviet-led Warsaw Pact (that is, Eastern Europe). In violation of that promise, the outdated NATO alliance, instead of going the way of the Cold War, repeatedly expanded and is now on Russia’s borders. In fact, during the latest crisis over Ukraine, the United States has reinforced forces near Russia and increased their “training” activity. In addition, since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been trying to win increased influence in the oil and gas-rich former Soviet Central Asian states on Russia’s borders. The Cold War ended but the U.S. containment noose around Russia just moved eastward and northward toward a weaker Russia.

This U.S. tack was very unwise. After the Napoleonic Wars, at the Congress of Vienna, European nations welcomed France back into the community of European nations; a century with no European-wide war ensued. Yet the triumphalist behavior of the United States and NATO after the Cold War more resembled what the allies did to a defeated Germany after World War I; Germany was unfairly blamed for starting the war and required to pay reparations, thus leading to the rise of Adolf Hitler and World War II. The United States keeping post-Cold War Russia out of Europe and humiliating it, instead of being more inclusive, has made Putin’s nationalism resonate in Russia.

So Russia has experienced a shrinking protective buffer in surrounding areas. But isn’t such a protective buffer so last century? To the Russians, who know history all too well, not in the least. In the past, for example, Russia has been invaded by Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany, and it lost a staggering 25 million people in World War II—with total dead a quantum leap above that of any other country. The Russians see their critical buffer zone eroding and are trying to salvage what they can of it. For Russia, Ukraine has always been the crown jewel of Eastern Europe and is very important economically for Russia. Prior to a coup induced by street protests (not the way a democracy is supposed to work), a Russian-friendly government existed in Ukraine. Now that that is gone, Russia’s unacceptable annexation of Crimea and military aid to the Russian separatists in the eastern part of the country should at least be put in perspective. Furthermore, U.S. hypocrisy in criticizing Russia for such assistance to shore up its withering buffer zone is nothing short of amazing.

RUSSIAN-GRADE CYBER WEAPONS CROSS-POLLINATING WITH COMMERCIAL MALWARE SAYS FINNISH CYBER SECURITY FIRM

July 21, 2014 

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John Dunn, writing in today’s (July 21, 2014) online edition of Techworld.com, notes that “sophisticated code of the sort used in the Russian Government cyber-weapons could be seeping into the commercial malware wielded by criminals in that country,” according to the cyber security start-up firm, Sentinel Labs. The firm based this analysis on the fact that they recently observed the malware ‘Gyges,” in the wild and discovered that it had cross-pollinated with other malicious bugs — including industrial-grade stealth malware.

Mr. Dunn adds that ‘Gyges’ “is certainly an oddity, showing a gap between the sophisticated code that allows it to bypass defenses — the bit Sentinel Labs ascribes to a possible government program; — and, the more quick and dirty executable that directs the payload.” “The clue,” Mr. Dunn writes, “is in the relatively complex and arcane techniques used by Gyges to be the sandboxing and security products that run or ‘emulate’ suspected malware to see what it does. It also includes code that makes it harder to reverse engineer, or debug some of the inner workings.”

“Other parts of the ‘government code’ carry out data theft, screen capturing, credential keylogging and eavesdropping on network traffic — while the commercial element of the program executes ransomware, botnetting, and online banking fraud,” notes Mr. Dunn.

“How does the firm know the evasion code was used in government cyber weapons?,” Mr. Dunn asks. “The firm doesn’t go into much detail,” he says, “but, claims it detected it [Gyges] in previous targeted attacks, — code for small-scale attacks carried out against specific organizations. or individuals. It is also [constitutes] interference; as no commercial malware would have access to such sophisticated mechanisms; or, would go to such lengths to use obscure, almost experimental techniques. Gyges further uses what Sentinel Labs calls a “hooking bypass ‘logic bug,’ in Windows 7 and 8, the sort of unusual exploit normally jealously guarded by the need-to-knows who write government malware.”

“If the analysis stands up,” Mr. Dunn contends, “and the evidence presented by Sentinel Labs is still a bit thin — Russian government malware has somehow escaped to be used by commercial malware writers, a slightly worrying trend — although one that has long been predicted by [cyber] security experts. The implication is that the Russians out-source at least part of their cyber weapons development to commercial malware writers. If so, it’s hard to believe they would be pleased that some of it has now turned up in a criminal campaign — because government malware needs absolute secrecy to do its job.”

“it comes as no surprise to us that this type of intelligence agency-grade malware would eventually fall into cyber criminals’ hands,” wrote Sentinel Labs Research Director, Udi Shamir. “Gyges is an early example of how advanced techniques and code developed by governments for espionage are effectively repurposed, modularized and coupled with other malware to commit cyber crime.” he added.

WHY PUTIN IS WILLING TO TAKE BIG RISKS IN UKRAINE

By GERALD F. SEIB CONNECT

July 21, 2014

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A Look at Differing Fates of Poland, Ukraine Gives Clues

Russian President Vladimir Putin Associated Press

To understand what Vladimir Putin is really up to in Ukraine—why he is willing to take the kinds of risks that produced the destruction of a civilian airliner, and why the U.S. and its allies should see his power play as an effort to alter not just the arc of Ukraine but all of Europe—it’s necessary to look at the tale of two countries.

The first is Poland, a country of 38 million. After the end of the Cold War, this former Warsaw Pact nation turned westward. It almost immediately sought membership in the European Union and joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999. After modernizing its economy, it officially became part of the EU in 2004.

Next door to Poland lies Ukraine, a country of 44 million. After the end of the Cold War, this former Soviet satellite didn’t turn west but rather stayed focused on its traditional relationship with Russia to the east.

President Obama speaks on the situation in Ukraine, urging Russia to compel separatists to cooperate. WSJ’s Tim Hanrahan and the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute deputy director William Pomeranz join Lunch Break with Tanya Rivero to discuss. Photo: Getty

What has happened to these two neighbors in the quarter-century since the Berlin Wall fell? In a nutshell, they have moved in opposite directions.

Poland, the country that integrated itself into the Western economy, has grown almost twice as fast as Ukraine. Last year, its growth rate was three times larger. Though it’s the slightly smaller of the two neighbors, Poland now has a gross domestic product more than twice the size of Ukraine’s. It has only half the share of its population living under the poverty line as does Ukraine.

This is the contrast that must scare Mr. Putin. It also is the one that set off alarm bells when Ukraine, emulating neighboring Poland, began to pivot westward earlier this year. To allow that turn to happen, in the most important of Russian satellites, would have been the end of any near-term dreams of rebuilding a Russian empire.

In short, the goal of re-creating a Russian sphere of influence was colliding head-on with the spread of a Westernized, EU model for Europe, which was seeping toward Russia’s doorstep. Mr. Putin faced a historic choice: swim with the tide or try to turn it. He chose the latter.

“I think [Russia's] goal is a weak and divided Ukraine, and a bigger goal is a weak and divided Europe—a weak and divided EU,” says Robert Hormats, under secretary of state in the first Obama term. Moreover, to the extent a country such as Poland prospers, he adds, “it creates a very, very stark contrast to the troubled economic prospects in Russia” itself.

Mr. Putin had to move quickly to reverse those trends, for he is at a moment of relative but passing strength. Today, Western Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas gives him some economic leverage. As Europe has gobbled up more of Mr. Putin’s gas, EU trade with Russia has tripled in value over the last decade.

This Russian economic advantage doesn’t figure to last; eventually, Europe will wean itself away from its dependence on Russian carbon fuels. But for now, Mr. Putin must have calculated, he could make his play in Ukraine and face a muted Western response.

Ukrainian Army Launches Attack on Rebel Stronghold of Donetsk

Reuters

July 21, 2014

Fighting erupts in Ukraine as crash investigators arrive

DONETSK, Ukraine, July 21 (Reuters) - Ukrainian army tanks were reported to be launching an assault to break pro-Russian rebels’ hold on the eastern city of Donetsk on Monday in the first major outbreak of hostilities in the area since Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down last week.

A separatist leader said Ukrainian government forces were trying to break into Donetsk and fighting was under way near the railway station.

Sergei Kavtaradze, of the rebels’ self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said at least four tanks and armoured vehicles were trying to break through into the city.

A Ukrainian military spokesman said the operation was in progress but would not comment on reports of troops entering Donetsk. “The active phase of the anti-terrorist operation is continuing. We are not about to announce any troop movements,” Vladyslav Seleznyov said.

Reuters journalists also saw two rebel tanks heading towards Donetsk railway station.

As international horror deepened over the fate of the remains of the 298 victims of the air disaster, the first international investigators reached rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine on Monday.

Three members of a Dutch disaster victims identification team arrived in Donetsk and were expected to visit a railway station near the crash site where nearly 200 bodies have been stored in refrigerated wagons.

Rescuers said they had found a total of 251 bodies and 86 body fragments at the crash site and a second refrigerated train had arrived.

The shooting down of the airliner on Thursday has sharply deepened the Ukrainian crisis, in which separatists in the Russian-speaking east have been fighting government forces since protesters in Kiev forced out a pro-Moscow president and Russia annexed Crimea in March.

The United States and its allies have pointed the finger at the pro-Russian rebels and at Moscow itself over the downing of the plane although Russia has denied involvement.

SHOCK TURNS TO ANGER

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry laid out what he called overwhelming evidence of Russian complicity in the shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines plane.

Kerry demanded that Moscow take responsibility for actions of pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine whom Washington suspects of downing the jet with a missile, and expressed disgust at their “grotesque” mishandling of the bodies.

Television images of the rebel-controlled crash sites, where the remains of victims had lain decomposing in fields among their personal belongings, have turned initial shock and sorrow after Thursday’s disaster into anger.

Emotions ran high in the Netherlands, the home country of about two thirds of the 298 people who died in the Boeing 777. The Dutch foreign minister has said the nation is “furious” to hear bodies were being “dragged around”, while relatives and church leaders demanded they be rapidly returned home.

But the departure of dozens of corpses loaded into the refrigerated railway wagons was delayed on Sunday as Ukrainian officials and rebels traded blame over why the train had not yet left the war zone, and where or when international investigators would be able to check it.

The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to vote on Monday on a resolution that would condemn the downing of the plane, and demands that those responsible be held accountable and that armed groups not compromise the integrity of the crash site.

Surviving on a Diet of Poisoned Fruit: Reducing the National Security Risks of America’s Cyber Dependencies

JULY 21, 2014 

Richard Danzig 

Reports

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"Surviving on a Diet of Poisoned Fruit: Reducing the National Security Risks of America’s Cyber Dependencies" by the Honorable Richard Danzig offers key insights about how to improve U.S. national security policymaking to address cyber insecurity. In the report, the author examines existing information technology security weaknesses and provides nine specific recommendations for the U.S. government and others to cope with these insecurities.

20 Years of Global Migration—in One Chart

NICK STOCKTON

MAR 28 2014

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Geographers have used census data from 150 countries to map human traffic over time.

These flows represent 75 percent of human migration from 2005-2010. (Circos/Krzywinski, via Quartz)

It’s no secret that the world’s population is on the move, but it’s rare to get a glimpse of where that flow is happening. In a study released Friday in Science, a team of geographers used data snapshots to create a broad analysis of global migrations over 20 years.

The study was conducted by three geographic researchers from the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital in Vienna. The researchers presented their data in five-year increments, from 1990 to 2010. Their research is unique, because it turned static census counts from over 150 countries into a dynamic flow of human traffic.

Migration data is counted in two ways: Stock and flow. “The stocks are the number of migrants living in a country,” says Nikola Sander, one of the study’s authors. Stock is relatively easy to get—you just count who is in the country at a given point of time. Flow is trickier. It’s the rate of human traffic over time.

Keeping accurate account of where people are moving has stymied the UN, and researchers and policymakers in general, for a while. The European Union keeps good track of migrant flows, but elsewhere the data are sparse. Static measurements are plentiful, but it is hard to use them to get a picture of how people are moving on a broad scale, because each country has its own methodology for collecting census data.

Last year, however, the UN brought stock data from nearly 200 countries into harmony by erasing the methodological seams between them. To turn this stock data into five-year flow estimates, the researchers used statistical interpolations from stock data from the UN, taken mostly from 10-year country censuses, but supplemented with population registers and other national surveys.

While the results of the migration study aren’t particularly groundbreaking, there are two interesting insights:

Times Change—Warriors Should, Too

David Axe 

21 Jul 2014

Arguments for and against a new warrior code

A few years ago, novelist, screenwriter and amateur historian Steven Pressfield wrote a book all about what it means to be a warrior. According to Pressfield, that is.

U.S. Marine Corps commandant Gen. James Amos liked Pressfield’s The Warrior Ethos so much that he put it on his official reading list, in essence asking a couple hundred thousand Marines to internalize the book.

But there’s a problem. The Warrior Ethos is an awful book chock full of awful ideas. And now one Marine has written a short, incisive rebuttal—even rebuke.

Maj. Edward Carpenter’s The Warrior Ethos: One Marine Officer’s Critique & Counterpoint not only quickly demolishes Pressfield’s sloppy, silly tome—it succeeds in neatly proposing a definition of a warrior that’s far wiser than Pressfield’s.

Want to meditate on today’s warrior code? Toss Pressfield’s book in the recycling bin and read Carpenter’s slim volume, instead.

Pressfield tries to define a modern warrior’s philosophy by exploring one of his favorite historical epochs—ancient Greece. Specifically, Sparta. But Pressfield’s knowledge of history is cursory, at best. And the lessons he gleans from the Spartans are wrong-headed in the extreme.

God help us if Marines act on Pressfield’s ideas. For starters, the novelist “writes almost exclusively on the basis on Caucasian men of antiquity,” Carpenter notes. There’s no place for non-whites and women in this warrior code.

That assertion alone should render moot Pressfield’s entire book, as American society—and the U.S. military—is ethnically diverse and increasingly sexually egalitarian.

Carpenter helpfully summarizes Pressfield’s argument. “The warrior ethos, according to Pressfield, consists of courage, selflessness, love and loyalty to one’s comrades, patience, self-command [and] the will to endure adversity.”

All well and good. But the point of these attributes is to help a combatant resist his natural instinct to preserve his own life, and instead risk his life in order to kill his enemy.

Pressfield asks how a society inculcates the warrior ethos in its soldiers … and concludes that there are three forces at work. Shame, honor and love.

“In a shame-based culture, ‘face’ is everything,” Pressfield writes. “All that matters is what the community believes of us.” And that’s supposed to motivate the warrior to offer up his life, lest his community deem him a coward and reject him.

Time to Rethink NASA

By Rand Simberg

JULY 21, 2014 

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Leave human spaceflight largely to the private sector, and create a quasi-military Space Guard.

Sunday is the 45th anniversary of the first Apollo landing. A little less than three and a half years later, the last men left the moon. As I noted Friday at USA Today: “For over four decades now, no one has gone further than a couple of hundred miles or so, a thousand times less distant, from our home planet.” The question we must ask is why we spent so much to go elsewhere in the solar system and then almost completely abandoned the effort. I pointed out in the column that the Apollo moon program was not so much about exploring space for the good of humanity as about beating the Soviets in the race to land on the moon. Paradoxically, our victory in the space race has led to what I call the Apollo Cargo Cult, similar to the cargo cults that arose among the Melanesians in their effort to lure back the Westerners who had once arrived bearing riches — and then left:

Many in the space community, remembering the glory of Apollo, repeatedly attempt to recreate it, not understanding the historical contingencies that improbably allowed it. They recall the goal, the date, and the ridiculously expensive large rocket, and hope that if only they can somehow repeat those things, we will once again send men (and this time women) out beyond low earth orbit. They lack the vision to conceive any other way of opening the solar system, though what has actually trapped us circling the earth for over 40 years is not the lack of a giant rocket, but the false belief that such a rocket is either necessary or sufficient to go beyond.

And it’s not just the space community: Congress too continues to insist on building the Space Launch System, a giant rocket planned to fly only once every couple of years — with each flight costing in the billions. What justifies this cost? As it turns out, there are no plans or funds for any sort of payload, such as a lander (which would be needed to actually go back to the moon). But the project will provide jobs in the states and districts of those who serve on the space committees on the Hill. Or at least it will provide jobs until, as with the Constellation program four years ago, it is canceled as an out-of-control and unaffordable boondoggle.

Everyone recognizes that our space policy is rudderless, but few seem to understand the root cause. In an attempt to get the nation’s human-spaceflight program on course again, funded by NASA, the National Research Council (NRC) issued a report a few weeks ago on the future of human spaceflight. Unfortunately, it was hobbled by the flawed assumptions forced upon it by its congressional charter. Among these assumptions are that a) NASA will continue to lead the effort and b) the purpose of human spaceflight is “exploration.” The report also shares the premise that the unaffordable Space Launch System will be the primary tool for such exploration. Of course, while the NRC sought public input, it sought no independent technical or cost input from any agency other than NASA, so it was not exposed to any alternatives.

But almost five years ago, while few paid attention, the Human Spaceflight Plans Committee (known as the Augustine panel, for its chairman, Norman Augustine) produced a review noting that exploration was a means, not an end, and that human spaceflight is a waste of time and money if the purpose isn’t space settlement. The recent NRC report, on the other hand, refuses to identify settlement as a goal, because its authors are skeptical that settlement is even possible; instead, it cobbles together a hodge-podge of other rationales for human spaceflight.

New Military Gear Doesn’t Have to Cost a Fortune

War is Boring on Jul 21

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There’s a better way to develop high-tech systems

I didn’t ask to be put in charge of the BRITE project. In fact, given a choice I almost certainly would have declined. The odd little system looked distinctly underwhelming—and promised to be a blip on my radar, a forgettable job to be passed off to someone else as soon as possible.

Boy was I wrong. My work on the Broadcast-Request Imagery Technology Environment—a system for sending satellite imagery to troops on the ground—changed my thinking about how we develop military gear.

Bottom line, new weaponry doesn’t have to be expensive. It doesn’t have to involve thousands of people and take years or decades to design.

It was 2002. The war in Afghanistan was new, the invasion of Iraq was still in the future and I was a young Air Force captain assigned to the National Imagery and Mapping Agency.

I already had a day job developing a large communication system, but when BRITE’s previous program manager moved on, somebody had to pick up the baton. I was that somebody … and BRITE became the latest additional duty on my growing list.

I’m embarrassed to say it felt mildly insulting to be handed this task, maybe even a bit of a demotion, because the project seemed so minor and unimportant. The foolishness of that initial reaction dissipated quickly as BRITE saved lives and changed my life.

What was BRITE? The 2004 National Defense Authorization Act described it as “a unique capability to disseminate timely, tailored imagery products … to forward deployed tactical military forces.” The authorization went on to note “Special Operations Forces and others” used the system in Iraq and Afghanistan.

My annual performance report provides more detail, including the fact that we delivered “quality imagery in three minutes versus hours [or] days.” Back then, computers were slower and bandwidth harder to come by, so delivering a large file in a few minutes was considered quite speedy, particularly if the guy on the other end was a special ops troop in an austere location and not some analyst sitting in an air-conditioned building.

I fell in love with BRITE almost immediately. As a military technologist, most of my career to that point had been oriented towards developing tools for a distant future, so it was exciting to have a project that provided an immediate impact.

The fact that BRITE directly supported actual operations overseas was awesome. I also enjoyed the experience of being in charge. As the lead government guy, I called the shots, made the decisions and worked directly with both the developer and the troops.

This was a rare opportunity for a junior acquisitions officer.

All the same, it’s a bit of a stretch to say I was “in charge” of the project—because I had no budget to speak of and no staff whatsoever. I was really only in charge of myself.

Fortunately, I was not alone in my aloneness—the small defense contractor that built BRITE had assigned one guy to work it, also part-time. John had as many other duties as I did, but like me, this was his favorite.

Our main customer in those early days was special operator who went by the call sign “Scrounger.” He was an inventive and enthusiastic guy who made BRITE do things John and I never imagined.

Several of the innovations we delivered were a direct result of his feedback from the front lines. My performance report for 2003 notes that BRITE “was critical in prisoner recovery operations” and quotes an unnamed special ops soldier—spoiler alert, it was Scrounger—as saying “it’s like magic.”

The kind words about BRITE’s magical performance may have shown up on my record, but Scrounger waved the wand and deserves most of the credit.

Not everyone loved our program the way John, Scrounger and I did. Specifically, the budgeteers had a tendency to leave it out of their accounting spreadsheets. In fact, the aforementioned authorization act complains that “despite the urging of the Congress, NIMA failed to include funding for BRITE” in its proposed budget three years in a row.

Fifth Generation Fighters and the IAF

ByGp Capt Joseph Noronha

21 Jul , 2014

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SU-30 MK-1 Formation

The capability of any modern fighter is usually way ahead of its predecessors, especially so if it is replacing decades-old planes such as the MiG-21 and the MiG-27. This is even more applicable to the leader of the pack of six of the world’s best fighter jets. Other air forces in the neighbourhood are also acquiring combat aircraft of similar capability, thus nullifying the IAF’s advantage. But the true game changer for the IAF, something that may give its potential adversaries many sleepless nights in the years ahead, is the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA).

These are exciting times for the Indian Air Force (IAF). After years of helplessly watching its combat assets dwindle or fade into obsolescence, the service is finally shifting into top gear and inducting an impressive range of modern equipment that should enable its transformation into a potent strategic force. Combat aircraft constitute the sharp end of air power, so the procurement of large numbers of Su-30 MKI air dominance fighters and the impending final operational clearance of the indigenous Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, possibly by the end of the year, are reason enough for cheer. And no other recent item has captured the public imagination like the high-stakes contest for the IAF’s Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) that recently threw up the Dassault Rafale as the winner. Yet these aircraft, important as they are, will not make a dramatic difference.

All fifth generation fighters use a high percentage of composite materials in airframe construction.

The capability of any modern fighter is usually way ahead of its predecessors, especially so if it is replacing decades-old planes such as the MiG-21 and the MiG-27. This is even more applicable to the leader of the pack of six of the world’s best fighter jets. Other air forces in the neighbourhood are also acquiring combat aircraft of similar capability, thus nullifying the IAF’s advantage. But the true game changer for the IAF, something that may give its potential adversaries many sleepless nights in the years ahead, is the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA).

The US Lead

The term “Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft” has been around for decades, especially in the United States. It is more marketing hype than a precise definition. In the early 1970s, American researchers identified stealth, speed and manoeuvrability as key ingredients of a next-generation air superiority fighter. The US Advanced Tactical Fighter project of May 1981 ultimately resulted in the production of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor. Designed mainly for dogfights against rival jets, the F-22, that became operational with the US Air Force in December 2005, features full stealth, an advanced Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar and huge computing power that creates a single “sensor fusion” picture using data from an array of embedded sensors and data links.

Dassault Rafale B

It also has super-manoeuvrability and the ability to super-cruise i.e. fly at supersonic speeds without the use of afterburner rather than just making short fuel-guzzling supersonic sprints with afterburner engaged. That is not all. Some F-22 Raptors were recently upgraded with enhanced air-to-ground strike capability that makes it even more lethal and survivable in combat, a true multi-role combat aircraft. The USAF recently received the last of its tally of 187 of these prized jets at a cost of nearly $150 million apiece, a far cry from its original plan to acquire 750 aircraft.

Intelligence Challenges in Urban Operations

by James Howcroft

July 20, 2014

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Intelligence Challenges in Urban Operations

Military operations in an urban area are not normally thought of as a “Small Wars” concern, yet they are an important capability that will remain relevant as we address the issue of security in the 21st century. From my experience, we avoid them like the plague, for good reasons, until we have no option but to commit resources and go in. Our foes see great value in operating in urban areas. Urban operations are a form of asymmetric warfare, which degrades a number of advantages possessed by well-equipped and well-trained militaries. (David Kilcullen’s recent book Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla addresses these aspects in great depth). The population of our world is increasingly urbanized. Both the World Bank and CIA agree that more than half the world’s population now lives in urban areas. There are the mega cities of Africa and Asia to consider, but the issue is equally important in the hundreds of thousands of smaller cities and towns throughout the world. The Ukrainian military is dealing with this issue in the summer of 2014 in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. The Nigerian military will have tough decisions to make to in its fight against Boko Haram. Eventually, the Iraqi military will need to retake the towns and cities of central and northern Iraq lost to ISIS and its allies in June 2014.

As a Defense Attaché assigned to Moscow in the 1990s, I observed and reported on Russian combat operations in Grozny during the two Chechen Wars (1995-2000). I served in the Second Marine Division during Desert Storm in 1991 as part of the operation to liberate Kuwait City. I was the G2 of First Marine Division for the capture of Baghdad in 2003 and G2 of First Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) during the unsuccessful assault on Fallujah in 2004. I observed firsthand a number of important conditions for success throughout these urban operations that remain relevant for any fighting force. There are many doctrinal publications, lessons-learned handbooks, and first person accounts that are certainly worth reading. My modest list is not meant to replace these resources nor is my list exhaustive. These seven are merely challenges in urban operations I personally encountered over the past 20 years that have constrained the ability to provide intelligence to those organizations and commanders I supported. 

1. Plan Ahead for the Challenges and Opportunities of the Cordon

One of the initial tasks will be to establish a cordon to isolate the urban area of concern. This is an extremely resource-intensive job that will immediately draw upon the troops and tools you are assembling to use once you move into the city. One of the most important initial intel tasks will be to determine how the local population moves in and out of the city, to help the commander focus his limited forces on disrupting the flow. You will never have enough assets to be able to completely stop the traffic. The intelligence officer, based on his assessment of the environment and foe’s capability and intent, has to help the commander decide not only where to focus, but also how much movement to try to block and who in particular you will use your finite resources to screen and search. You need to keep hostile forces out of the city obviously; but who do you let out? Everyone, so there are fewer noncombatants in the line of fire? Families only? Do you want to leave a way out for your foe so you can then engage them outside the cover and concealment of the city? In April 2003, after fighting 600 kilometers from Kuwait to the Diyala River outside Baghdad, orders to my Division from higher headquarters were merely to “put a cordon around Baghdad,”… a city of 5 million people. Our request for clarification and guidance regarding rules of engagement, endstate, etc. was met by silence. Fortunately for us, by mid-April there was little movement by the population out of the city and little regime capability remained to reinforce Baghdad, so the cordon didn’t turn out to be quite the problem I had feared.