After decades of stalling, a day of reckoning for France

By Jonathan Fenby

August 25, 2014

Hollande’s actions will have ramifications at home and in the rest of Europe, writes Jonathan Fenby

After two years of compromise, France’s President Normal has met his moment of truth. The stand-off betweenFrançois Hollande, the Socialist head of state, and the leftwing of his own party that erupted at the weekend, resulting in the purging of anti-austerity leftwingers from the government, has ramifications stretching far beyond the immediate confrontation. These will have significant implications both for the way France is run and for Europe. There is a distinct possibility of a period of chaos, reflecting the deep concerns at the root of themorositéunder which the EU’s second state is labouring.

The catalyst was in itself no great surprise.Arnaud Montebourg, the outspoken leftwing economy minister, said in a speech and newspaper interview that conformism was an enemy and “my enemy is governing”. He added: “France is a free country which shouldn’t be aligning itself with the obsessions of the German right,” and called for “just and sane resistance”. He has followed an anti-German, anti-austerity line since the 2012 presidential election. As Mr Hollande has moderated the reflationary, high-tax measures on which he was elected, his minister has looked increasingly out of step. But when Mr Hollande appointed centre-left Manuel Valls as his prime minister in March after catastrophic local elections, Mr Montebourg was promoted along with his ally, Benoît Hamon, the education minister.

This was typical of Mr Hollande, who spent much of his career as a backroom party manager. For all the institutional power of his office, he is weaker than predecessors because, unlike them, he is a creature of his party rather than having moulded it to do what he wants. He is an accidental president who got where he is because of the scandal that enveloped Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who would otherwise have been the natural Socialist candidate in 2012.

Mr Valls was popular in the country – though less so now – and a president with an approval rating below 20 per cent needs all the help he can get. But the Socialist ranks see him as dangerously social democratic and an advocate of tough law and order of a piece with the left’s bête noire, former president Nicolas Sarkozy. Mr Montebourg’s anti-capitalist, anti-German rhetoric, meanwhile, goes down well with party members and backbenchers in the National Assembly.

Now, Mr Montebourg has thrown down the gauntlet and his ally, Mr Hamon, announced his departure on television news. The former economy minister said that France has to stop the economy being sunk by austerity, and he and Mr Hamon claim there is a majority in the EU opposed to the policies of German chancellor Angela Merkel. Mr Hollande has to react if he is not to lose all credibility. He has told Mr Valls to form a government “consistent with the direction set for the country”. That means cutting the budget deficit and easing taxes on business to injectsome life into the flatlining economy, cutting double-digit unemployment and getting to grips with structural factors that make France uncompetitive.

It is an agenda administrations of left and right have put off since the collapse of the race for growth under François Mitterrand in the 1980s, when Mr Hollande was a government adviser. The stakes are heightened by the political environment that has deteriorated to the point where some ask whether the Fifth Republic founded in 1958 can still function.

Mr Valls will form a cabinet of like-minded politicians, possibly reaching beyond Socialist ranks. That, and a rebellion by Mr Montebourg and ministers of his stripe claiming to represent true socialism, could split the party, costing it its parliamentary majority. A general election would be, primarily, a referendum on Mr Hollande, who pledged to be a “normal president” but has put in an abnormally ineffective performance. Unless he could stage a miraculous revival, he would inflict defeat on his supporters. The mainstream right UMP party would form a government in a period ofcohabitationbetween a president and his opponents.

A grand coalition might be the only way to achieve structural reform but would face serious practical problems in governing

Such a grand coalition might be the only way to achieve structural reform but would face serious practical problems in governing. The mainstream right is divided between Mr Sarkozy on the comeback trail and former premier Alain Juppé, who this month threw his hat into the 2017 presidential ring. Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, enjoys the highest personal approval ratings; because of the electoral system, the party would probably win few seats but that would enable it to step up its assault on the system. Meanwhile, Socialist rebels would form an opposition bloc on the other side, with vocal support from the hardline Left party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

This would bode ill for the euro, and for EU co-operation. The tendency to blame outsiders – primarily Ms Merkel – for France’s woes would flourish amid the rising concern about national identity that lies at the root of the nation’s “morosité”.

Iran Sending Weapons and Ammunition to Kurdish Forces in Northern Iraq

August 27, 2014

Iran provided weapons to Iraqi Kurds; Baghdad bomb kills 12

1 of 9. Iraqi Kurdish regional President Masoud Barzani (R) shakes hands with Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Arbil, north of Baghdad, August 26, 2014.

(Reuters) - Iran has supplied weapons and ammunition to Iraqi Kurdish forces, Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani said on Tuesday at a joint press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Arbil, capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region.

The direct arming of Kurdish forces is a contentious issue because some Iraqi politicians suspect Kurdish leaders have aspirations to break away from the central government completely. The move could also be seen by some as a prelude to Iran’s taking a more direct role in a broader Iraqi conflict.

"We asked for weapons and Iran was the first country to provide us with weapons and ammunition,” Barzani said.

Militants from the Islamic State have clashed with Kurdish peshmerga fighters in recent weeks and taken control of some areas on the periphery of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Earlier in the day, a car bomb was detonated in a mainly Shi’ite district of eastern Baghdad, killing 12 people and wounding 28, police and medical sources said. The bombing in the New Baghdad neighbourhood followed a series of blasts in the Iraqi capital on Monday that killed more than 20 people.

The Islamic State, which controls large swathes of northern and western Iraq, claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in the New Baghdad neighbourhood on Monday. It said in a statement the bombing was carried out as revenge for an attack against a Sunni mosque in Diyala on Friday, which killed 68 and wounded dozens.

Don't Cooperate with Assad

26 August 2014

The US is considering air strikes against the Islamic State in Syria as well as Iraq and the Syrian government says any unilateral action that isn’t coordinated with Damascus will be seen as an act of aggression.

President Bashar al-Assad would be perfectly content, however, to have the United States fighting on its side. That’s what he wanted from the very beginning. He hoped Americans would forget or simply not care that he is the Arab world’s largest state sponsor of international terrorism and has even cooperated with ISIS under its previous name to kill Americans in Iraq.

He might pull it off. Nicholas Blanford, a brilliant analyst of Levantine politics,explains why that would be dangerous in the Christian Science Monitor.

One of the grim ironies of the Syrian civil war is that IS has flourished in Syria in part due to the manipulations of the Assad regime itself. As initially peaceful protests turned into sectarian war in the latter half of 2011, Assad appears to have understood that secular moderate rebel factions posed a greater long-term threat to his survival than bands of wild-eyed Islamist extremists. Moderate rebel groups were more likely to win the logistical backing of the US and other Western countries that could provide sufficient leverage to oust Assad.

On the other hand, if the rebel ranks were dominated by Al Qaeda-style Islamist groups, the West would balk at providing support and could eventually even side with Damascus.

In a cynical but skillfully exploited strategy, hundreds of Islamic militants were released from Syrian prisons in the first few months of the then generally peaceful uprising.

WAR AND THE ISLAMIC STATE

by Fortuna's Corner 

August 25, 2014 ·

http://20committee.com/2014/ 08/24/war-and-the-islamic- state/

The barbaric murder this week of the American journalist James Foley by a British jihadist has served as a tragic reminder of the gravity of the global threat posed by the Salafi jihad movement. For the first time in years, the Western public, seeing the horrific images of Foley’s butchering, has been confronted with the reality of our enemy. Those who thought the death of Osama bin Laden three years ago signaled the beginning of the end of his vile cause, a view championed by the Obama administration, were naively mistaken. Bin Laden’s demise was, as Churchill said of British victory at El Alamein, “the end of the beginning” of the struggle against the Salafi jihad movement.

And a movement it is, rather than an organization; those who apply Western, military-style organizational charts to it, in the manner beloved by intelligence analysts everywhere, are and have always been wrong. It shares an ideology but operates differently depending where it goes: there is tactical flexibility nested in severe ideological rigidity. Al-Qa’ida (AQ) never had a monopoly on the global jihad movement, and its slow, predictable decline under the uninspired leadership of Ayman al-Zawahiri has opened the door to the even more extreme jihadists of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS). While AQ is far from dead – its Yemen-based franchise in particular, AQ in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), remains very dangerous – it’s evident that the center of gravity in the global jihad movement has shifted to the fanatics of the Islamic State and their self-proclaimed Caliphate.

The struggle between AQ and the group now calling itself IS goes back a decade in Iraq, beginning with Sunni resistance to the U.S. invasion in 2003, and, given the gradual decline of bin Laden’s faction, it was perhaps inevitable that the even more murderous IS would win out. Its message of uncompromising holy war against all enemies, from “infidels” outside the Muslim world to the many “apostates” within it, appeals to the basest human instincts and is intoxicating to angry young men who pine for murder, martyrdom, and glory. IS embraces the extreme Salafi vision – they are takfiris to use the proper term – of jihad for jihad’s sake, a fanatical fantasy of “pure” Islam that invariably kills more Muslims than “infidels.” The takfiri tendency lies in the DNA of the Salafi jihad movement, and has burst forth murderously on many occasions, most horrifically in Algeria in the 1990s, where the local AQ affiliate, the Armed islamic Group (GIA), was expelled from the “official” movement for its indiscriminate killing, just as IS was recently. The only difference now is that the world has noticed, with horror, the mass killings of innocents perpetrated by IS murderers in Iraq. True “shock and awe” in Iraq has been delivered by masked fanatics rallied around a black flag, not the U.S. military.

I’ve watched the global jihad movement closely for years, both as a security practitioner and a scholar, and I’ve analyzed its metastasis as it’s moved from region to region. I’ve written books about its strategy and operations as well asits growth in the 1990s into a worldwide phenomenon. Since 9/11, I’ve witnessed two American presidents wage war against the global jihad movement in a rather similar manner, contrary to much public fuss about the differences between Bush and Obama-style counterterrorism, and from the outset I’ve maintained that the U.S. approach is deeply flawed and doomed to fail. My sharper critiques of American counterterrorism strategy have been largely confined to secret and off-record discussions inside the government, within the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Intelligence Community (IC), as well as with key Allies. As I am now leaving government employ, I am free to speak my mind. This is a start.

Let me state unambiguously that this is a war that the West must win. Our Salafi jihadist enemy is a threat to virtually every country on earth, including Western ones. Their vision is fanatical and uncompromising. They are a foe who must be killed off through attrition. There is no room for negotiation or dialogue. We must face the reality that our struggle against these fanatics will last decades, not years; everybody currently waging this war will retire before the job is done.

U.S. and Iran Hit ISIS, Ignore Each Other

Eli Lake

08.26.14

With ISIS over-running Syrian bases, the time might seem right for a grand alliance against the Islamic State. But so far, the U.S. isn’t talking to Iran or Syria’s armies.

U.S. warplanes striking targets in Iraq. Iranian tanks are reportedly moving into the northern part of the country. But the two foreign militaries fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) are not talking to one another. 

U.S. and Iraqi officials tell The Daily Beast that, for now, there is no direct channel to coordinate military activities inside Iraq. Instead messages are occasionally passed by senior Iraqi officials who have for years served as interlocutors between Iran and the United States.

“Our channels are no different than they were a year ago,” said one senior U.S. official. “There is a lot of activity, but we have not opened a new channel.”

Last week, some foreign policy analysts in Washington publicly argued that the ISIS threat ought to spur a grand alliance with Iran, Syria, Russia, and the United States fighting on the same side against the terrorist group that has morphed into an army and (at least according to their own propaganda) a caliphate.

But so far, that has yet to happen. On Monday, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said any U.S. activity inside Syria against ISIS would be seen as an “act of aggression.” Despite that warning, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon is preparing to send surveillance planes into Syrian airspace.

While Russia has provided military aircraft to Iraq to fight ISIS, tension between the White House and the Kremlin continues to build. The Obama administration put the Putin regime on notice this week for sending advanced weapons into Ukraine in what Russia said was a humanitarian aid mission.

US rules out coordination with Syria as it spies on jihadists

Aug 27, 2014

It comes after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime said on Monday it was willing to work with the international community, including Washington, to tackle extremist fighters.

DAMASCUS: The United States has begun reconnaissance flights over Syria to track Islamic State jihadists but insisted on Tuesday it has "no plans" to coordinate with Syria on targeting the militants.

Numerous sources said foreign drones have been seen over Syria, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reporting that "non-Syrian spy planes" had on Monday carried out surveillance of IS positions in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.

The surveillance is seen as a precursor to possible US air strikes on positions of the jihadists, similar to those being carried out in neighbouring Iraq.

It comes after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime said on Monday it was willing to work with the international community, including Washington, to tackle extremist fighters.

But American officials said they did not plan to coordinate with Damascus on targeting IS militants in Syria, despite Syrian insistence that any military action on its soil must be coordinated in advance.

"There are no plans to coordinate with the Assad regime as we consider this terror threat," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in Washington on Tuesday.

International concern about IS has been rising after a lightning offensive by the group through parts of Iraq and a string of brutal abuses, including the murder of US journalist James Foley.

The United Nations has accused IS and affiliated groups in Iraq of acts that could amount to crimes against humanity.

On Monday, Damascus said for the first time that it was willing to work with the international community, including the United States and Britain, to tackle IS and Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

ISIS Reportedly Executes Syrian Soldiers After Capturing Tabqa Air Base in Syria

August 27, 2014 

Islamic State executes soldiers, takes hostages at Syria base: social media 

1 of 2. An Islamic State militant uses a loud-hailer to announce to residents of Taqba city that Tabqa air base has fallen to Islamic State militants, in nearby Raqqa city August 24, 2014.

(Reuters) - Islamic State militants have executed Syrian army soldiers and are holding a group of them hostage after capturing an air base in northeast Syria at the weekend, pictures posted on the Internet and on Twitter by supporters showed on Wednesday. 

Islamic State, an offshoot of al Qaeda, stormed Tabqa air base near Raqqa city on Sunday after days of fighting with the army that cost more than 500 lives, according to monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. 

Tabqa was the army’s last foothold in an area otherwise controlled by the militants, who have seized large areas of Syria and Iraq. The United States has carried out air strikes on the group in Iraq and is studying its options in Syria. 

American Militant Dies Fighting With ISIS Near Aleppo, Syria

August 27, 2014

This March 23, 2008 photo provided by the Hennepin County, Minn. Sheriff’s Office shows Douglas McAuthur McCain. On Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014, a U.S. official said McCain, a U.S. citizen, is believed to have been killed in Syria and was there to fight alongside a terrorist group, most likely the Islamic State group. (AP Photo/Hennepin County, Minn. Sheriff’s Office)

NEW HOPE, Minn. (AP) — An American man believed to have been killed in Syria was there to fight alongside an extremist militant group, most likely the Islamic State, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

Investigators were aware that Douglas McAuthur McCain was in the country to fight with the militant group, but they did not yet have his body and were still trying to verify information about his death, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss by name an ongoing investigation and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

A relative, Kenneth McCain, told The Associated Press that the State Department had called to tell his family that Douglas McCain had been killed in Syria. “We do not know if he was fighting anyone,” he said.

U.S. officials, concerned about what they say is the growing threat posed by the extremist Islamic State group, say surveillance flights and spy planes have begun over Syria on the orders of President Barack Obama. The move could pave the way for airstrikes against the group, which controls a large part of eastern Syria and crossed into Iraq earlier this year. The militant group also killed an American, journalist James Foley, and is holding an American woman hostage.

What the Islamic State learned from the U.S. about fighting a war

By Brian Castner August 26 

Source Link

Brian Castner is the author of “The Long Walk.” He is currently writing a new book, “All the Ways We Kill and Die,” about the individualization of modern war and the search for the bomb-makers of Iraq and Afghanistan.

A Iraqi Turkmen Shiite fighter, who volunteered to join the government forces, holds a position in Amerli, 100 miles north of Baghdad, as the city has been completely surrounded by Islamic State Sunni militants for more than six weeks. (Ali Al-Bayatiali/AFPGetty Images) 

We’re caught in a revenge cycle with a death cult, and it’s redefining modern warfare. 

The horrific murder of journalist James Foley is case in point. Once, hitting targets of opportunity or instituting a propaganda campaign were peripheral to massed armies killing each other in trenches and cities and jungles. To win, one country crushed another’s will to fight by destroying the widest possible number of targets: fleets, soldiers, cities. 

No more. After a century and a half of industrial anonymous bloodshed, the individual is key. The Islamic State attacked America when it killed Foley, without a bomb or mass slaughter. 

Since Sept. 11, we’ve been at war not with Pakistan or Afghanistan, but with specific terrorist leaders and materiel experts. They have reciprocated, attacking either symbolic targets or those soldiers that pose the greatest threat. 

That the United States has adopted this strategy is not news. Long campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan taught us that detaining or killing every bottom-rung trigger-puller just made the insurgency worse. Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was caught in such a round-up in 2004. 

We now use drones or small special operations teams to hit financiers or suppliers or bomb-makers. President Obama expanded the use of Predator strikes in Yemen and Pakistan. He authorized SEAL and Delta Force raids in Libya and Somalia. The hunt for Osama bin Laden was prominent but not unusual; similar smaller operations are undertaken daily. If the strike is successful, it makes the news for one cycle. If not, we hear little. In either case, the resources expended are minimized, but so is the public’s knowledge of the actions taken on our behalf. 

Here’s what’s new. The enemies we’re fighting – al-Qaeda affiliates, the Taliban, the Islamic State – have learned to be equally selective in reverse. In 2007, at the height of the surge in Iraq, IED-disarming bomb technicians were seven times more likely to be killed in combat than average soldiers. As the surge progressed, and even as the death rate stabilized or even decreased overall, it doubled for bomb techs. Similar ratios played out during the surge in Afghanistan. 

Today Isis is attacking the Middle East. Tomorrow it’ll be the West

JAMES BLOODWORTH

Wednesday 20 August 2014

Those who have spent the past 10 years warning against intervention need to wake up 

The reported murder of the American journalist James Foley is further proof that Western countries must not be squeamish when it comes to helping the Iraqis and the Kurds to defeat Isis. 

Liberals are very good at calling for the bombs to stop, but now is the time for anyone of a remotely progressive temperament to call for an intensification of the military campaign against Isis. Indeed, let more bombs fall on those who behead journalists and enslave Kurdish and Iraqi women.

The latest atrocity by Isis ought to drive home the point that those committing such crimes are not misunderstood men who have been "radicalised" by Western imperialism, but rather are attempting to use our concern for human suffering against us by proudly brandishing their own disregard for it — all to create a hellish and totalitarian Caliphate that would make death feel like a deliverance.

Indeed it bears repeating: the existence of Isis (as opposed to the group’s growth) is in no sense "our" fault. The old communist turned anti-communist Arthur Koestler once said that the difference between a person of a liberal and absolutist mentality was that the absolutist viewed wrong ideas as crimes committed against future generations.

It followed that wrong ideas must be punished in a similar way to other crimes. In the case of Isis this involves taking women and girls as slaves and murdering men who fail to convert to their particular noxious strand of Islam. If you believe that you are creating heaven on earth then anything and anyone that stands in your way must be squashed underfoot like a rotten apple.

Those who have spent the past 10 years trying to neuter Britain and the United States into international passivity need now to wake up. It seems clear that if the gung-ho 2000s showed the consequences of Western military adventurism, then recent events have demonstrated the limits of trying to stop the world on its axis and climb off.

Isis have germinated so rapidly not because of George Bush and Tony Blair, but because Western governments decided at some point that it would be acceptable for Bashar al-Assad to drop explosives on the Syrian people in order to keep power. It may come as a surprise to those MPs who whooped and hollered when the Commons voted against military intervention in Syria last year to learn that they did not "stop the war".

Backgrounder: Day-by-Day Record of US Airstrikes in Iraq

August 27, 2014

US president Obama authorised targeted air strikes against Islamist militants in Iraq. Photograph: Yin Bogu/Xinhua Press/Corbis

On August 8, US president Barack Obama announced that he had authorised targeted air strikes against Islamist militants in Iraq.

United States Central Command publishes daily releases which provide information on the US military’s airs trikes against the Islamic State (aka Isis or Isil). We’ve been monitoring the updates and have gathered the main details in to the table that you can see them below.

According to the releases to date (27 August 2014), US Central Command have conducted 98 air strikes across Iraq, with 62 in support of Iraqi forces near the Mosul Dam. The map below shows the areas of Isis influence in Iraq.

Although the releases tell us where the strikes took place and when, the total number of air strikes on each day is stated clearly in some of the notes but not others. Of the 98 air strikes conducted so far, we have been able to locate the dates of 94 of them.

NB: locations are approximate

As you can see from the data, air strikes are occurring in and around three main locations; near the Mosul dam, Sinjar and Irbil. As Dan Roberts and Spencer Ackerman explain:

Obama’s orders to his military commanders were widely drafted and included permission to take action against Isis forces threatening either the thousands of Yazidi refugees trapped on Mount Sinjar, or the cities of Irbil and Baghdad, where US “military advisers” are based.

The full spreadsheet has additional information such as what has been damaged or destroyed in the air strikes.

Is NATO Back? That Depends on Germany

The trans-Atlantic alliance has helped keep the peace in Europe since World War II. But Russia is testing whether NATO can still be the force it once was.

With Vladimir Putin thumbing his nose at the West amid accusations of fresh Russian incursions into Ukraine, the summit next week of European and North American leaders in Wales has taken on new urgency.

They’re converging on the Welsh seaside town of Newport for a biannual summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an alliance of 28 countries dedicated to defending their collective territory — if one is attacked, then, apologies to the Three Musketeers, it’s all for one and one for all. Ukraine is not a member, but plenty of its neighbors are. That’s why Putin’s ambitions for a Novorossiya, or Russian empire, have sharply raised the meeting’s stakes.

Germany, more than the U.S., may hold the key to NATO’s effectiveness.

The last few months have made clear that NATO’s core mutual-defense mission is more intensely relevant than at any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union 23 years ago. And it’s unclear if the alliance still has the credibility to deter Russia.

But there’s one more crucial change for NATO: For the first time, Germany, more than the U.S., may hold the key to NATO’s effectiveness.

With the largest population and economy in Europe, Germany has the heft to drive the alliance’s security agenda. NATO’s European members stretch from Iceland to Romania, and the U.S. has shouldered the bulk of security responsibilities since NATO’s 1949 founding. But amid budget cuts at home and an increasingly isolationist public, the U.S. is winding down its European footprint. The only other NATO country with the military size, industrial might and economic wherewithal to fill the gap is Germany.

Indeed, when reports surfaced Aug. 22 of Russians firing artillery at Ukrainian forces, the foreign leader President Barack Obama called first was German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“The French are overstretched contributing to security missions in Mali and CAR,” observes Jorge Benitez, senior fellow for trans-Atlantic security at the Atlantic Council think tank, referring to the Central African Republic. “The Brits are overstretched.”

So how much are the Germans willing to flex?

Here’s one big indicator: Despite talk of increasing the defense budget in the wake of Russia’s takeover of Crimea, Berlin ultimately cut its military spending for the coming year by €800 million (about $1 billion) — from €33.3 billion to €32.4 billion. The government argued it had to close the budget gap, but Benitez says it’s a bad sign that “they’re cutting the defense budget at a time when their economy is doing so much better than the other allies.”

Dempsey’s Clarity and Obama’s Confusion

By Tom Rogan

Aug 26, 2014 

The Joint Chiefs chairman knows the threat the Islamic State presents. Let’s hope Obama listens. 

Join Chiefs chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

“This is an organization that has an apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision and which will eventually have to be defeated . . . can they be defeated without addressing that part of their organization which resides in Syria? The answer is no. That will have to be addressed on both sides of what is essentially at this point a nonexistent border.”

— Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, 08/21/14

Military strategy demands the disruption of an enemy’s “center of gravity.” The Islamic State’s center of gravity is in Syria, and General Dempsey’s comments last Thursday reflected that truth.

On Sunday, however, the general’s language changed. Absent evidence of “active plotting against the homeland,” Dempsey suggested that the Islamic State poses a lesser threat than al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. At present, he said, striking the former group inside Syria is unnecessary.

But Dempsey added a caveat. “I can tell you with great clarity and certainty that if that threat existed inside of Syria that it would certainly be my strong recommendation that we would deal with it, I have every confidence that the president of the United States would deal with it.”

U.S. and France Sending 2 Warships to the Black Sea to Watch Russian Activites

RIA Novosti

August 27, 2014

Two NATO Ships to Return to Black Sea

MOSCOW, August 26 (RIA Novosti) - An American destroyer and a French frigate will enter the Black Sea on September 3, an international military source told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.

“Two NATO vessels will arrive in the Black Sea on September 3: the USS Ross destroyer and France’s Commandant Birot frigate,” the source said.

Only one NATO ship is currently stationed in the Black Sea, the Dupuy de Lome, a French intelligence vessel. Recently, the USS Vella Gulf (CG-72) cruiser, operating in the Black Sea since August 7, was restationed.

As soon as the vessels reach the Black Sea, scheduled for September 5, the Dupuy de Lome is to return to regular station, the source said.

The source also noted that the rotational presence of NATO ships in the sea does not help maintain stability in the area.

According to the Montreux Convention, naval vessels of non-Black Sea nations can stay in the Black Sea no longer than 21 days. Earlier this year, the USS Taylor (FFG-50) violated the convention, exceeding the time limit by 11 days, Turkey’s DHA news agency said in May.

The group of NATO ships in the Black Sea reached a record number of nine vessels in July, the most significant presence in recent decades. The group included the USS Vella Gulf (CG-72) cruiser, France’s Surcouf frigate, Greece’s Macitis corvette and Italy’s Elettra intelligence vessel, among others. Additionally, in July Bulgaria held the Breeze 2014 naval drills, involving the ships of the Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group 2.

CASUALTIES OF CYBER WARFARE: U.S., CHINESE COMPANIES GETTING CAUGHT IN CROSSFIRE OF BREWING CYBER WAR

by Fortuna's Corner 

August 25, 2014  

Casualties of Cyber Warfare

American and Chinese Companies Are Getting Caught in the Crossfire of The Brewing Cyber War.

That the United States and China have engaged in skirmishes in the cyber domain is no secret. Since the beginning of the 21st century, targeted cyber attacks, often with signs of Chinese origin, have attempted to penetrate the computer networks of U.S. corporations and government agencies in search of potentially valuable information. In response to this new strategic threat, the U.S. Military’s Strategic Command commissioned the creation of a sub-unified Cyber Command in 2009, with one of its stated objectives being the “defense of specified Department of Defense information networks.”

U.S. President Barack Obama very clearly defined the threat that cyber attacks pose to the economy, in both the public and private sectors, when he said that the “cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation.” Indeed, conflict in the cyber domain is still having some serious repercussions for the business world.

Civilian Involvement in Cyber Warfare

The characteristic of cyber warfare that makes it so uniquely dangerous to the corporate sector is that military power in the cyber domain must be extended through computer networks provided and maintained by non-governmental bodies. The use of these networks for cyber attacks or defense requires the conscription or cooperation of civilian resources. This creates extreme liabilities for the corporations that provide these networks, as they will quickly become the targets of suspicion and possible retaliation from the enemy state. In recent years, both Chinese and American companies have been caught in just this situation.

On October 8, 2012, the U.S. House of Representatives’ intelligence committee released a report that warned of potential national security threats posed by Chinese telecommunication giants Huawei and ZTE. After conducting a year-long investigation of the suspect companies, the intelligence committee found serious vulnerabilities caused by hidden “backdoors” worked into the companies’ technologies that would allow access to U.S. government and business networks. The report advised against the purchase of products manufactured by Huawei or ZTE, and suggested that policymakers block any mergers between either of the two companies and U.S. telecommunication corporations. These accusations have seriously hurt consumer confidence in the two companies, to the extent that in December of 2013, Huawei’s executive vice president dramatically declared “we are not interested in the U.S. market anymore.” While Huawei has managed to hold on to a small market share in America, the company’s association with Chinese state-sponsored cyber attacks has devastated its ability to operate in the United States.

It became clear last year, though, that the United States was a perpetrator of cyber attacks as well as a victim. In June 2013, former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden provided the world with a look into the intelligence apparatus of the NSA, releasing thousands of classified documents to the media. The released documents revealed that the U.S., like China, was using domestic tech firms (in many cases without their knowledge or consent) as conduits for intelligence gathering cyber attacks. In May 2014, the Chinese government announced that it would no longer purchase or use two of Microsoft’s main products, the Windows 8 operating system and the Microsoft Office 365 Suite. Then, in late July and early August, Chinese officials from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) raided multiple offices owned by Microsoft and its contractors in China. While vague statements about an anti-monopoly probe were made, the company’s decision to end support for the Windows XP operating system – a move that would expose the many Chinese computers that use the operating system to security risks – was also cited as a factor in the raids. While it is likely that the ban and subsequent raids were also intended to pave the way for new operating system technologies created in China, the Snowden revelations allowed potential U.S. espionage activities to be cited as a justification. Just as Huawei and ZTE suffered for their association with espionage activities of the Chinese government, Microsoft took a major hit because of the provocative actions of its government.

An Undefined Battlefield

Ebola scare: 116 people arrive from worst-affected Liberia in Delhi and Mumbai

Durgesh Nandan Jha

Aug 27, 2014

NEW DELHI: The enormity of the Ebola outbreak hit home on Tuesday as 112 Indians and four Nepalese arrived in the country on different flights from Liberia. This West African country has seen over 600 deaths so far and is the worst affected. Till late in the night, 88 people had arrived — 71 in Mumbai and 17 in Delhi. More were on their way on different commercial flights. 

Health ministry sources said of the 17 passengers who arrived at the Delhi airport, one person has been found to have fever and sore throat which is associated with Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) besides other diseases. "The passenger suspected for EVD has been quarantined at the Airport Health Organisation (APHO), a specialized health centre run by the health ministry to screen international passengers for deadly diseases. We have sent the passenger's blood sample for test," said a ministry official.

At least six others, including two women and a child, were taken to APHO for detailed health screening and officials later claimed they did not have any symptoms of the disease. In addition, five passengers from routine flights from the affected countries — Sierra Leone, Republic of Guinea and Nigeria — with symptoms of fever have been quarantined at the isolation facility at Delhi airport, said health ministry sources. 

Health ministry officials said even after being discharged from the quarantine units, passengers travelling from affected countries will be tracked for at least a month using the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP). "State governments have been requested to ensure tracking and monitoring of these passengers. These passengers will be attached to the local health facility and the local authorities will ensure that they follow up with these persons on a day-to-day basis for a month," said an official. He said that 44 passengers were enrolled for follow-up in their respective states through the state IDSP units. "As on date, 773 passengers are being tracked. Most of them are in Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu," the official added.

A traveller, who was not cleared after being screened for the Ebola virus on his arrival in India, walks towards an ambulance at the international airport in New Delhi 

Great Ambitions: Canada’s SIGINT Agency Tries to Cover the Globe

Colin Freeze

August 26, 2014

The Landmark file: Inside Canadian cyber-security agency’s ‘target the world’ strategy

When Canadian intelligence officials speak about today’s spying, they can reveal great ambition.

Sometimes they speak of wanting to “master the Internet” or even “target the world” before switching to less evocative terms, such as “computer network operations” or CNO.

When pressed whether this is tantamount to “hacking,” they avoid that word.

“We’ve got some bright young kids,” retired spymaster John Adams once told The Globe in an interview. “Virtually everything – 90 per cent of what they do – is CNO now. It opens it up to where they can literally go out and target the world.”

These previously unpublished remarks from Mr. Adams, chief of Communications Security Establishment Canada from 2005 to 2011, seemed cryptic at the time they were spoken late last year.

Yet they are a little less so now.

Recently released material suggest just how very good CSEC may be getting at its job –– avoiding the capture of Canadian communications even as it steps up its capacity to spy on countries around the world.

The German computer magazine c’t has published what appears to be leaked details about a CSEC endeavour called Landmark. The slides, if genuine, showing how Canadian government “network exploitation analysts” actually do their jobs. The article suggests these details show how the Canadians seek to impose the will of their agency – and allied agencies – on thousands, potentially millions, of computers in “as many non 5-Eyes countries as possible.”

The “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance – the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand – is the club of English-speaking nations whose electronic-eavesdropping agencies agree not spy on each other, while working together to keep tabs on the rest of the world.

CSEC does not comment on reports of leaked documents, nor will it indicate whether or not an apparent leak is authentic.

CSEC “only collects foreign intelligence according to the intelligence priorities set regularly by the Government of Canada. This information is critical to protecting Canadians and Canadian interests against serious threats, such as terrorism, foreign espionage, and cyber threats,” said spokesman Ryan Foreman in an e-mail.

‘An additional level of non-attribution’

California Senate Bans Warrantless Drone Surveillance

August 27, 2014 

California Senate approves measure banning warrantless drone surveillance 

1 of 2. A camera drone flown by Brian Wilson flies near the scene where two buildings were destroyed in an explosion, in the East Harlem section in New York City, March 12, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Mike Segar 

(Reuters) - The California State Senate passed legislation on Tuesday imposing strict regulations on how law enforcement and other government agencies can use drones, a move supporters said will protect privacy and prevent warrantless surveillance. 

The bill attracted bipartisan support in the Senate, passing 25-8 during the evening vote in Sacramento. 

The legislation would require law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before using an unmanned aircraft, or drone, except in emergencies such as a fire or a hostage-taking. 

Other public agencies would be able to use drones, or contract for their use, to achieve their “core mission,” so long as that mission is not to gather criminal intelligence. 

"The potential for abuse of drones is high and we need to be vigilant to ensure our Constitutional rights are protected," said the bill’s co-author, Democratic Senator Ted Lieu. 

PLUCKING AND PROMOTION: MILITARY TALENT MANAGEMENT LESSONS FROM THE PAST

B.J. Armstrong

August 26, 2014 

In the past few months the challenges of talent management and the prospect of reforming the promotion and personnel systems of the U.S. armed forces have begun to percolate to the top tier of defense discussion. This has been sparked by a number of developments. In the Army, the separation boards and the anxiety surrounding them have driven suggestions to shake up the decades-old methodology of selection and promotion. In the Navy, recent concerns over the results of a lieutenant commander selection board and the prospect of the voluntary departure of talented officers have contributed toproposals for changes to the system. Defense analysts outside the uniformed ranks have also made a compelling case for reform in order to ensure that the future force has the right people.

There is a tendency in our modern military to consider the challenges we face as unique to our time. However, the American military has a long history of disaffected junior officers, concerns over the quality of our forces, and bureaucratic struggle over personnel management. As we address the complexity of bringing an industrial age personnel policy into the twenty-first century, the experience of the U.S. Navy in the nineteenth century might guide how we approach the issues.

Dead Men’s Shoes

For the first half of the U.S. Navy’s history, promotion was based on simple seniority. The date that you entered service dictated your rank. Promotion opportunity occurred each time an officer retired, a slot opened, and everyone moved up one place on the seniority list. Sometimes this hapened when an officer died, since there was no mandatory retirement and some senior officers hung on well after their operational or administrative usefulness. It was all about timing. The only way for an officer to be promoted outside of waiting for his turn was direct Congressional action, as when Lieutenant Stephen Decatur was promoted to Captain after his raid on Tripoli Harbor during the Barbary War.

Junior officers thought this system was a mess. As the Navy grew in size, the maintenance of the seniority list became an administrative burden, and more and more talented officers felt like they were slipping through the cracks. In some cases, lieutenants weren’t promoted out of the junior ranks until they were in their fifties, and some officers didn’t become captains until their seventies. This remained the foundation of the personnel system that was in place through the dawn of the twentieth century. For more than 100 years seniority and timing were the only things that mattered.

In the 1840s and 1850s a political awakening sprang up across America known as the “Young America” movement. Rolled up with the ideals of manifest destiny, accelerating technological change, and growing calls for social reform, it was stoked by the rise of the post-revolutionary generation in American politics. Writing at the start of the movement, the editor and political writer John L. O’Sullivan said that, “all history is to be re-written…all old subjects of thought and all new questions arising, connected more or less directly with human existence, have to be taken up again and re-examined.” Political leaders like future Presidents James Polk and Franklin Pierce embraced the movement and used it to reform parts of the Democratic Party.

Throughout the U.S. Navy’s first century there were a number of attempts to change how the promotion system worked. They all failed, until the burgeoning Young America movement sailed up alongside a group of naval reformers in the 1850s. Commander Samuel Du Pont became a central figure. Although he would become one of the Navy’s first admirals and a Civil War squadron commander, he was frustrated by the system. He had demonstrated his combat skill and leadership during the Mexican War, but despite his obvious fitness for senior command, he could not be promoted to captain simply because of timing.

Reform from the Inside

Obama seeks allies for action in Syria as first American Jihadi reported dead

Chidanand Rajghatta

Aug 28, 2014

'Rooting out a cancer like ISIL won’t be easy, and it won't be quick," Obama said.

WASHINGTON: President Obama has begun to seek and mobilize allies for possible US action in Syria and Northern Iraq even as reports emerged of an American jihadi dying in Syria fighting for extremists, coincidentally at the same time an Indian jihadi was also reported killed in the region. 

The American, Douglas McCain, was an African-American malcontent from Minneapolis who had converted to Islam and signed up with extremist forces in Syria. He is one of scores of American who have done so over the past year, terrifying Washington that they may return to the US mainland to launch attacks at home. 

McCain was reportedly killed in an internecine militants' fight near Aleppo, but the incident has galvanized the Obama administration into reminding Americans that the country cannot afford to take a hands off approach to the messy quagmire many are reluctant to return to. To make it more palatable domestically, Washington is returning to the old formula of seeking allies. 

President Obama indicated as much on Tuesday when he told a meeting of the American Legion that the US was building a coalition to "take the fight to these barbaric terrorists," and that the militants would be no match for a united international community. ''Rooting out a cancer like ISIL won't be easy, and it won't be quick," Obama said, preparing Americans for a possible incremental involvement that is expected to begin with airstrikes. 

Separately, administration officials are telling the media in background briefings that Washington is reaching out Australia, Britain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to provide support for potential US operations.

Douglas McAuthur McCain, 33, of New Hope, Minnesota died in a battle between rival extremist groups in the suburbs of Aleppo. (Reuters Photo)