Military spending: 20 companies profiting the most from war

Samuel Stebbins and Evan Comen

Source Link

There was a 1.1 percent increase in global military spending in 2017, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The global rise was driven partially by a $9.6 billion hike in U.S. arms expenditure – the United States is the world’s largest defense spender by a wide margin. Though it is yet unclear what the growing arms investments will mean for international relations, major defense contractors around the world stand to benefit.

Total arms sales among the world’s 100 largest defense contractors topped $398 billion in 2017 after climbing for the third consecutive year. Notably, Russia, one of the countries with the fastest growing militaries over the last decade, became the second largest arms-producing country, overtaking the United Kingdom for the first time since 2002. The United States’ position as the top arms-producing nation in the world remains unchanged, and for now unchallenged.

The United States is home to five of the world’s 10 largest defense contractors, and American companies account for 57 percent of total arms sales by the world’s 100 largest defense contractors, based on SIPRI data.

We Should Have Seen This India-Pakistan Crisis Coming

BY MICHAEL KUGELMAN

Source Link

It has been more than a week since a young militant in the district of Pulwama in the India-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir drove a car packed with 750 pounds of explosives into a convoy of Indian paramilitary forces, killing at least 49 of them.

Indian and Pakistani reactions to the tragedy have been predictable. New Delhi blames Pakistan, accusing Islamabad of assisting the Pakistan-based terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), which claimed responsibility for the attack. Islamabad denies any complicity, noting that the attacker and his explosives were local products and excoriating heavy-handed Indian security forces for stoking the repressive environment that radicalizes young Kashmiris.

Terrorist Attack In Kashmir And China’s Aggression In Tibet Not Different In Motive And Character – OpEd

By N. S. Venkataraman

Source Link

One more terrorist attack has now taken place in Kashmir on February 14, 2019, when around 40 Indian soldiers lost their lives and several others have been injured. This is one of the biggest and serious attacks in recent times.

This terrorist attack has raised considerable anger and sadness amongst the Indian citizens living in India and abroad. Many Indians wonder how to deal with this situation due to the acts of some extremist groups who seem to be crude and ruthless.

One cannot see any difference in motive and character between the terrorist attacks in Kashmir and several other places in the world in recent time and China’s aggression in Tibet around six decades back.

Trade War Paves Way For Closer Ties Between China, Japan And India: A Third Force To Mitigate Rivalry – Analysis

By Subrata Majumder

Source Link

While trade war deepens the global growth, it cools Japan – China and India – China relations, the two nations with which China has age-long political rivalry. In both cases, China has always been accused as aggressor and both India and Japan were persuasive. In a paradox, trade war reverses the situations. China vies for better of economic relation with both countries to counterbalance the deterrents of trade war. In semblance, both Japan and India reciprocated to China’s offer for congenial relation.

The volta-face of Japan was epitomized by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Beijing in October 2018. He pitched for China cooperation to jointly operate infrastructure projects in third countries. Further, this visit attached more significance since it was after seven years of stand-off due to Chinese claim in Senkakus Island and Diaoyo in East China sea in 2012.

Afghan Taliban Says New Political Chief Won’t Attend Talks With U.S. Envoys

Source Link

Afghan Taliban leaders said on February 21 that their new political chief will not attend peace talks with U.S. envoys that are due to place in Qatar next week.

U.S. officials want to meet with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, hoping the Taliban's co-founder and military veteran will add momentum and have the clout to discuss issues that have made it difficult to broker a peace deal with Afghanistan’s government.

But senior Taliban leaders said Baradar would not be travelling to Qatar because he has had difficulties obtaining travel documents.

Breakdown of the Long Peace and Taliban’s Bloody Nose Strategy

Source Link

Tamim Asey

With each passing day attaining a sustainable, inclusive and broad-based peace seems distant and farther away in Afghanistan primarily because of a divided political elite in Kabul, a deceptive Pakistan, an emboldened Taliban playing the long game and an impatient America in a hurry to declare victory and bring US service members back home. Nobody underestimated that the Afghan peace process will be a straight line and if history is any guide it shows that almost all of the Afghan peace negotiations have failed in the process whether it was the Geneva accords in the 1980s or the Jeddah peace deal between the warring mujahidin factions during the civil war in the 1990s.

President Trump’s patience is running thin towards the Afghan war - his State Department Special Envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, is under pressure to deliver a peace deal in months rather than years whereas the Taliban and their sponsors in Pakistan and the wider region are playing the long game. This has made the Afghan public wary to say the least and the Afghan elite to shift their loyalties to the powerbrokers in the region. Meanwhile, there seems to be a growing frustration on the part of US special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, over the Afghan government’s inability to present a broad based nationwide inclusive negotiation team with a peace plan in hand coupled with a divided Afghan elite over peace. Ambassador Khalilzad, in a recent interview with ToloNews, termed division and lack of a united front on peace in Kabul as the “biggest enemy of peace” and “major obstacle” on the way of the Afghan peace process. Furthermore, the United States is in a hurry to get Taliban to agree on a ceasefire before the next fighting season in summer in order to de-escalate the Afghan war and provide the enabling environment for further peace building measures in the country. In fact – the Afghan peace process is coming to its difficult phase. This phase will require patience, sacrifices and prudence from all sides.

Contractors in Afghanistan are Fleecing the American Taxpayer

Source Link

Kyle T. Gaines

“Mercenary armies afford only slow, laborious, and insubstantial victories, while the losses they bring are sudden and spectacular”- Niccolo Machiavelli

It was an otherwise uneventful day in a year-long advisory tour in Kabul. I was the lead intelligence trainer helping to teach an advanced training class for Afghan helicopter pilots, aircrewmen, intelligence analysts, and medics. The instructors were a mix of NATO uniformed military advisors and defense contractors. At one point between classes, some of the other instructors and I began discussing the state of NATO’s mission in the country and the role defense contracting plays in the effort. “This whole arrangement is a fleecing of the American taxpayer” one of the contractor instructors observed. “If the American people had any idea that this is how contracts work in Afghanistan, they would shut the whole thing down immediately.”

Afghan Loya Jirga To Convene Next Month To Discuss Peace Talks

Source Link

KABUL -- Afghan politicians and tribal, ethnic, and religious leaders are set to meet for at least four days next month to discuss negotiations with the Taliban, President Ashraf Ghani's special peace envoy has said.

Omar Daudzai said on February 20 that the gathering, known as a Loya Jirga, will be held from March 17-20, adding: “If the discussions continue, it will be extended.”

Daudzai said that the consultative Loya Jirga will discuss the government's "values and red lines" and will aim to come up with a framework for the Western-backed government in Kabul to engage in peace negotiations with the militant group.

The Taliban, which now reportedly controls nearly half of Afghanistan, has so far refused to hold direct negotiations with the Afghan government, calling it a Western puppet.

However, it has held a series of direct talks with U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in recent months to put an end to the 17-year war in Afghanistan.

What Is Wrong With Afghanistan’s Peace Process

Source Link

By Mariam Safi and Muqaddesa Yourish

Ms. Safi is the director of the Organization for Policy Research and Development Studies in Kabul. Ms. Yourish is a commissioner on Afghanistan’s Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission.

President Trump’s announcement of an impending withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad’s declaration that the Americans and the Taliban have “in principle” agreed to a framework for a deal have been described by both sides as a leap toward ending the war in Afghanistan.

But a hasty American withdrawal will jeopardize for Afghans the future of hard-won gains such as constitutional rights, freedoms of citizens and democratic institutions. The United States must recognize that the absence of war — the focus of current talks — alone will not translate to peace in Afghanistan.

US-China 5G War: Southeast Asia Battleground in Focus with Huawei’s First Test Bed Launch

By Prashanth Parameswaran

Source Link

On February 8, the Thai government marked the launch a pre-planned test bed for 5G technology in the country. Though the initiative was unveiled with the collaboration of a range of companies, the inclusion of Huawei Technologies has put the spotlight on Thailand and Southeast Asia more generally as a battleground in the wider U.S.-China spat over the security risks inherent in working with Chinese firms in building next-generation mobile networks.

Amid the Trump administration’s declaration of growing strategic competition between the United States and China, among the areas that have emerged within that competition is 5G. Although the United States and some of its allies and partners share concerns with respect to China on this front, there are still differences among them on the extent of the threat and how to respond to it, whether it be those such as Australia and New Zealand who have imposed restrictions on working with it or the UK which is still weighting its options.

China’s Military Seeks New Islands to Conquer

James Stavridis

Source Link

James Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a retired U.S. Navy admiral and former military commander of NATO, and dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is also an operating executive consultant at the Carlyle Group and chairs the board of counselors at McLarty Associates.

A Defense Department report warns that China’s military buildup is reaching the point where it can attempt to “impose its will on the region and beyond.” Visiting recently with senior officials from two U.S. allies in the region, Japan and Singapore, gave me a visceral feeling of how things look on the ground (and at sea). “We are deeply concerned about the US long-term commitment in the region, starting with troops in South Korea – especially in the face of China and their determined military expansion,” a senior Japanese official told me. 

After the Trade War, a Real War With China?

Source Link

by Chas W. Freeman, Jr.

I’m here at your kind invitation to discuss China, how bad our relations with it may get, and how the contest we’ve initiated with China is likely to play out. Let me take a minute or two to set the context for this discussion.

Five hundred years ago this month, Hernán Cortés began the European annihilation of the Mayan, Aztec, and other indigenous civilizations in the Western Hemisphere. Six months later, in August 1519, Magellan [Fernão de Magalhães] launched his circumnavigation of the globe. For five centuries thereafter, a series of Western powers – Portugal, Spain, Holland, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and, finally, the United States – overturned preexisting regional orders as they imposed their own on the world. That era has now come to an end.

The Cyber War Against Tibet

Source Link

By Tenzin Dalha

Cisco Talos, a group of world-class researchers, analysts, and engineers, recently uncovered a new cyberespionage campaign delivering a malicious Microsoft PowerPoint document using a mailing list run by the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). The document is a copy of a legitimate PDF file titled “Tibet was never a part of China,” which is available for download from the CTA’s website tibet.net. The malicious version, however, contains a Remote Access Trojan (RAT). The email is targeted at pro-Tibet groups and individuals in order to distribute what has been dubbed ExileRAT. The attack delivers an Android- and Window-based Trojan capable of stealing system and personal information, terminating or launching process, or carrying out surveillance and the theft of data.

As the volume and sophistication of cyberattacks grow worldwide, it is essential for the CTA and Tibetan nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to take necessary precautions to protect their sensitive data and personal information of employees.

Huawei Founder Slams US Arrest Of His Daughter

Source Link

Tom Jowitt

The founder and president of Shenzhen-based Huawei, Ren Zhengfei, has criticised the behaviour of the United States in his first international interview following the arrest of his daughter, Meng Wanzhou.

The reclusive founder of Huawei claimed the arrest of CFO Wanzhou in December was a politically motivated act, and he vowed that the US campaign against the firm he had created would not crush it.

Last month Zhengfei had said that the Chinese government had never asked the company to spy. He had been speaking after the arrest of a Huawei employee in Poland last month on espionage charges.

South Asian Geopolitics: Saudi Arabia: 1 Iran: 0? – Analysis

By James M. Dorsey

Source Link

It may be reading tea leaves but analysis of the walk-up to Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit and his sojourn in Islamabad suggests that Pakistan may be about to fight battles on two fronts rather than just the Indian one in the wake of this month’s attacks in Kashmir.

Prince Mohammed’s expressions of unconditional support for Pakistan coupled with his promise of US$20 billion in investments in addition to US$6 billion in desperately needed financial aid raise the spectre of a shiftin Pakistani efforts in recent years to walk a fine line in the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

That fine line included a 2015 Pakistani refusal to send troops to the kingdom in support of the Saudi military intervention in Yemen.

Speaking to the Arab News this week, Major General Asif Ghafoor, head of the Pakistan army’s media wing, suggested that Pakistan’s commitment to Saudi Arabia was equally unconditional. “Pakistan is committed to standing by its Saudi brethren,” Maj. Gen. Ghafoor said.

Russian Military Says Nyet to the Internet

Source Link

By Elias Groll, Amy Mackinnon

In early 2015, Ukraine’s pro-Russian separatists defeated government forces in the city of Debaltseve in a major battle that seemed to prove something about the balance of forces in the conflict: The ragtag insurgents could face the country’s conventional military on their own and win.

But it later became clear that Russian troops deployed in the area helped the separatists defeat the Ukrainian forces—a fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin had tried to hide. How was the secret revealed? Russian soldiers involved in the fighting posted details of the battle on social media.

Now, four years later, Russia has passed a law that forbids military personnel from posting photographs, video, and geolocation data on the internet. As Russian forces are increasingly involved in secretive campaigns far from home, the idea is to prevent the details of these shadow wars from seeping out.

Venezuela 2019 - A Cautionary Tale

Source Link

Max G. Manwaring

Caudillos (strong men)—including “The Liberator,” Simon Bolivar, dominated Venezuela in a succession of military and civilian governments from independence in 1821 to the election of Lt. Colonel Hugo Chavez as President of the Republic in 1998. During that period, more than 20 constitutions were drafted, promulgated, and ignored. At the same time, more than 50 armed revolts took their toll on life and property. Political parties meant little and political principles even less. The modern political forces set in motion by a robust oil economy produced experiments in governance in which every enterprise in Venezuela fed off what has been called the piñata (a suspended breakable pot filled with candies for children’s parties) of the state treasury. In these conditions governments stagnated. They remained as closed as ever. Meaningful socio-economic development failed to take place. Political turmoil and violence prevailed, and the military tended to arbitrate or resolve serious disputes. 

How Israel's Elections Will Shape Its Regional Strategy

Source Link

Israel's April 9 general elections could potentially end the Benjamin Netanyahu era, ushering in new dynamics for the U.S.-Israeli relationship, the Israel-Gulf rapprochement and Israel's relationship with the Palestinians. But whoever leads the next Israeli government will still face rising tensions in Gaza, the West Bank and Syria that threaten to escalate into large-scale violence or even conflict between Israel and Iran. The next Israeli government will also have to contend with a less-friendly United States due to rising bipartisan concerns about Chinese-Israeli ties, as well as increasing skepticism of Israeli strategies among some Democrats in Congress.

Editor's Note: This assessment is part of a series of analyses supporting Stratfor's upcoming 2019 Second-Quarter Forecast. These assessments are designed to provide more context and in-depth analysis on key developments over the next quarter.

Northern Syria administration says U.S. troop decision will protect area

Source Link

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Kurdish-led administration that runs much of northern Syria welcomed a U.S. decision to keep 200 American troops in the country after a pullout, saying it would protect their region and may encourage European states to keep forces there too.

“We evaluate the White House decision ... positively,” Abdulkarim Omar, co-chair of foreign relations in the region held by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, told Reuters.

The White House announced the plans on Thursday to keep “a small peacekeeping force” in Syria, partly reversing a decision by President Donald Trump in December to pull out the entire 2,000-strong force.

Trump’s abrupt announcement of the pullout had been opposed by senior aides including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis who quit in response, and stunned allies including the Kurdish-led SDF, which fought against Islamic State with U.S. backing for years.

“This decision may encourage other European states, particularly our partners in the international coalition against terrorism, to keep forces in the region,” Omar added.

The Green New Deal And The War On Commercial Aviation – Analysis

By Alessandro Bruno

Source Link

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has recently presented Congress and American voters her first draft of the ‘Green New Deal.’ It’s a plan to challenge, or eliminate, social, economic and environmental imbalances in the United States. Apart from a number of social initiatives (some of which are interesting), the Democrats’ new firebrand wants to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions such as to achieve complete ‘de-carbonization’ by 2050. This, she suggests, will be achieved by producing all of America’s energy needs from renewable sources.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, appears to have revitalized the Democratic party, capturing the imagination of the younger and ‘politically-correct’ and CO2 indoctrinated generations, so-called millennials. However, the green new deal would eliminate an activity that millennials have enjoyed and exploited more than any other generation: air travel.

War Weary: Why Washington Needs to Bring Its Troops Home

by Doug Bandow

Source Link

“Great countries do not fight endless wars,” intoned President Donald Trump in his State of the Union address, and he is right. Certainly, nations that do fight them don’t stay great, which should serve as a powerful warning for American policymakers.

Alas, the Washington blob, the bipartisan foreign-policy elite that has kept the United States at war for years, appears to have learned nothing. Indeed, members of Congress didn’t greet the president’s pronouncement with much enthusiasm. Legislators had voted against his plan to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria and Afghanistan. Members also had opposed his stated interest in doing the same from South Korea. These are the same congressmen who can’t be bothered to fulfill their constitutional responsibility to approve America’s wars, yet they fear the president might end one.

Why Russia covets hypersonic weapons

BY STEPHEN BLANK

Source Link

Russia’s ongoing development of hypersonic weapons proves nuclear weapons are in fact warfighting weapons — contrary to conventional wisdom in the West.

In December 2018, Moscow successfully tested the Avangard and Tsirkon hypersonic missiles. The former travels at speeds up to 20 times the speed of sound and is supposedly invulnerable to any missile defenses. It can carry a nuclear warhead and allegedly hit any spot on the globe within 30 minutes of launch. Therefore, it can be considered a “strategic” nuclear weapon. 

The Tsirkon, meanwhile, can be deployed on submarines, ships and airplanes, including long-range bombers. It possesses a range of approximately 310 miles and is expected to be a particularly lethal anti-ship weapon. 

Another mature Russian hypersonic missile, the Kinzhal, can travel 1,800 miles at up to 10 times the speed of sound. Russian President Vladimir Putin displayed it in 2018 in a simulation that modeled the destruction of Florida. 

Britannia Helps Rule the Waves

Source Link

By James R. Holmes

The freedom of the seas is facing its greatest threat in decades from authoritarian rulers who flout maritime law and the liberal “rules-based order” of seagoing trade, commerce, and martial endeavors it underwrites. Xi Jinping’s China claims “indisputable sovereignty” over some 80-90 percent of the South China Sea, meaning it intends to make the rules governing maritime activities and amass overpowering armed might to enforce them—including in waters apportioned to its neighbors by treaty. Meanwhile Vladimir Putin’s Russia has mounted a de facto blockade of Ukraine’s southeastern seacoast, seizing Ukrainian vessels and their crews trying to enter the Sea of Azov from the Black Sea.

That’s why it’s time for European leaders to speak up and show up—and perhaps none more so than Britain, once the chief enforcer of the modern law of the sea. Remaining silent about lawlessness is tantamount to consenting to it—and the consent of states is a wellspring of international law.

Can There Be A U.S.-Afghanistan Relation Beyond the Realm of Security?

Source Link

Said Sabir Ibrahimi

Pundits who urge the U.S. to stay in Afghanistan argue national security interests and point out to threats emanating from Afghanistan. Indeed, 17 years ago, it was national security that took the U.S. military to Afghanistan. To date, the presence of more than 20 transnational terrorist groups in the region continues to justify the American military involvement in the country. However, a broader question that is rarely asked is whether counterterrorism is the only issue that brings the two nations together?

The U.S. military has said that there are some 20 transnational terrorist groups operating in and around Afghanistan that can pose a serious threat to the U.S. national security interests. However, less emphasized is the fact that the majority of these terrorist groups are not based in Afghanistan or directed by the Afghans. Data from the U.S. intelligence and other sources show that an overwhelming majority of these jihadi groups, including what is left of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Khorasan (IS-K), have either originated from or have safe havens in Pakistan. Even the Afghan Taliban (and the Haqqani Network), arguably the only Afghan “nationalist” insurgency, is also based in Pakistan. Other insurgent groups from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan (IMU), and East Turkmenistan’s Islamic Movement (ETIM), who are seeking autonomy from China for Xinjiang province, are all also foreign.

What alchemy and astrology can teach artificial intelligence researcher

Ben Shneiderman

Source Link

Artificial intelligence researchers and engineers have spent a lot of effort trying to build machines that look like humans and operate largely independently. Those tempting dreams have distracted many of them from where the real progress is already happening: in systems that enhance – rather than replace – human capabilities. To accelerate the shift to new ways of thinking, AI designers and developers could take some lessons from the missteps of past researchers.

For example, alchemists, like Isaac Newton, pursued ambitious goals such as converting lead to gold, creating a panacea to cure all diseases, and finding potions for immortality. While these goals are alluring, the charlatans pursuing them may have secured princely financial backingthat would have been better used developing modern chemistry.

Equally optimistically, astrologers believed they could understand human personality based on birthdates and predict future events by studying the positions of the stars and planets. These promises over the past thousand years often received kingly endorsement, possibly slowing the work of those who were adopting scientific methods that eventually led to astronomy.

Here’s what the Army is looking for in its new EW program

By: Mark Pomerleau  

Source Link

The Army has briefed industry on its upcoming electronic warfare program and is now asking for feedback.

The Terrestrial Layer System (TLS) is an integrated EW and signals intelligence system for ground use that the Army decided to pursue instead of the old Multi-Functional Electronic Warfare Ground and Dismounted system. The Army asserts that the capabilities the electronic warfare and cyber enterprise were pursuing for MFEW Ground were nearly identical to what the signals intelligence enterprise was pursuing. Thus, they decided to integrate the capabilities.

According to briefing slides presented to industry during a Jan. 23 industry day, made available on the FedBizOpps website, what’s really changed for the Army between previous plans and the new path it is charting is six-fold: urgent requirements from Europe and elsewhere to close capability gaps; three years of rapid prototyping; convergence of EW, signals intelligence, cyber and space; availability of national assets and advanced software capabilities from the intelligence community; a new national defense strategy that prioritizes near-peer competition; and approval for rapid EW force structure growth in the Army.

Formjacking Surpasses Ransomware and Cryptojacking as Top Threat of 2018

By Sergiu Gatlan

Source Link

A new year in review report from Symantec shows that formjacking accompanied by supply chain attacks were the fastest growing threats of 2018, while living-off-the-land (LotL) attacks saw a large boost in adoption from threat actors, with PowerShell scripts usage, for example, seeing a formidable 1000% increase.

Symantec's 2019 Internet Security Threat Report also shows that cryptojacking attacks have increased in number four times but went into a downward spiral with the decreasing value of cryptocurrency, encouraging threat actors to switch to other ways of profiting from compromised targets.

Cryptojacking occurred 4x more than 2017, but trended down at the end of the year coinciding with cryptocurrency values tanking. Other high level stats include 78% increase in supply chain attacks, 100% increase in malicious powershell scripts and almost half of all malicious email attachments are Office files.

Formjacking top threat during 2018

Russian Hackers Go From Foothold/Beachhead — To Full On Breach In 19 Minutes; “We Are On The Verge Of A New Age/Paradigm In Both The Cyber Threat, And Cyber Security — Artificial Intelligence-Enhanced Malware, Machine Learning Changing The Digital Battlespace

Source link

The title above comes from Andy Greenberg’s February 19, 2019 article on the security and technology website, WIRED.com. John Wooden, the legendary men’s basketball coach at UCLA was fond of saying, “Speed it up; but, don’t hurry.” A motto that can also apply to the cyber world. Dmitri Alperovitch, Chief Technology Officer at the cyber security firm, CrowdStrike, “argues that the crucial moment [regarding a breach] isn’t necessarily the initial penetration; but, what happens next — how quickly intruders can move from that [initial] beachhead, to expand their control. And no one, Alperovitch has found, does it faster than the Russians,” Mr. Greenberg wrote.

“In its annual global threat report released this week/Tuesday, CrowdStrike introduced a new metric of hacker sophistication: What the firm calls “breakout” speed,” Mr. Greenberg wrote. “Analyzing more than 30,000 attempted breaches in 2018, the company says it detected across its customer base, CrowdSreike measured the time from hackers’ initial intrusion, to when they began to expand their access, jumping to other machines, or escalating their privileges within a victim network – to gain more visibility and control. The company compared those times among state-sponsored hackers from four different countries, as well as non-state [but sophisticated] cyber criminals. Their results,: Mr. Greenberg noted, “suggests that Russian hackers were far and away the fastest, expanding their access on average, just 18 minutes and 49 seconds – after gaining their initial foothold.”

How Do U.S. Soldiers Prepare For An Unpredictable Future? Army Leaders Have A Plan.

Loren Thompson

Source Link

The U.S. Army today is led by an unusually thoughtful and experienced team of warfighters. The top two civilian leaders, Secretary Mark Esper and Under Secretary Ryan McCarthy, have both served in combat with Army units. The top two uniformed leaders, Chief of Staff Mark Milley and Vice Chief of Staff James McConville, have both attended Ivy League universities. All four have had extensive exposure to the baroque political processes whereby Army programs are funded.

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with all four as part of a small contingent of think-tank types invited to discuss the 2020 budget request to be sent to Congress in March. However, because Army leaders couldn’t discuss what is actually in the request, the meeting became more about how the Army thinks about the future. It was a surprisingly engaging discussion of how the nation’s oldest military service is adapting to an era of nearly unbounded possibilities, both good and bad.

Can the Army’s Strykers be hacked? Cyber vulnerabilities found in upgunned vehicles

By: Todd South  

Source Link

The Army has beefed up the firepower of some of its Stryker fleet in Europe, with 30mm cannons on some and others with remote-firing Javelin missiles, making it better ready to take on light armored and armored threats. But adversaries are finding other ways to attack the platform — with cyber.

The annual report from the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation for the Defense Department provides a detailed overview of Army, Navy and Air Force programs. The Army section contains two dozen systems with reviews and recommendations.

Two of those reports look at the Stryker-Dragoon and the Stryker CROWS-J, or Common Remotely Operated Weapons Station – Javelin and notes that both have “cybersecurity vulnerabilities that can be exploited.”

The vulnerabilities highlighted in the report were not simply revealed in testing.

Clausewitz, Jihad, and Non-Lethal Weapons

Source Link

Gary Anderson

Carl von Clausewitz famously observed that the objective of war is to impose one’s will on the enemy. Earlier military philosophers such as Sun Tzu and Machiavelli would probably not have disagreed, nor would some of history’s great Moslem practitioners of war ranging from Mohammed himself to Saladin and Suliman the Magnificent. This traditional view of war has it that the destruction of an enemy or the imminent fear of death and destruction of his force will cause an opponent to capitulate. Of late, some modern thinkers such as John Boyd and William Lind have postulated that placing the enemy in a psychological position of hopelessness by maneuver or other means is far more efficient than mere attrition in compelling an opponent to do one’s will. None-the-less, the ultimate consequence of final resistance -even in maneuver warfare- is the threat of death.

What none of these military philosophers foresaw was an enemy that actively seeks death, and who may see death in war as end in itself while rejecting war as merely a means to a political end state. To be sure, some military forces in history have fought to the death even when the possibility of victory became hopeless. The defenders of Thermopylae and the Alamo knew they were buying much needed time for Greece and Texas respectfully, and the defenders of Masada knew that surrender at the hands of the Romans would surely be worse than death. However, “death before dishonor” has generally been an exception to the rule.

This Is How the Kashmir Terrorist Attack Could Start a Major War

Source Link

by Mohammed Ayoob

The recent violence in Kashmir has provoked New Delhi.

On February 15, after chairing a top-level meeting of his cabinet’s Security Committee, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi declared, “I want to tell the terrorists and their backers... they have made a big mistake. You will have to pay a very heavy price . . . I assure everyone that the forces behind the attack... we will bring them to justice.” This declaration came after the February 14 suicide bomber attack on a convoy of vehicles carrying 2,500 Indian security personnel on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway in the Pulwama district in southern Kashmir.

The attack resulted in the death of over forty Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel. The Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), which has very close ties with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and often acts as its surrogate in the context of the ongoing unrest and terrorism in Indian-administered Kashmir, immediately claimed responsibility for the terrorist operation.

Are Indian Separatist Rebels in the Myanmar Army’s Crosshairs?

By Rajeev Bhattacharyya

Source Link

A few camps and training facilities belonging to separatist groups from India’s northeast have been evacuated in Myanmar’s Taga region following the deployment of army columns late last month in a development that has taken the rebel groups by surprise.

The Tatmadaw — the Myanmar military — in press releases has said that the operation was carried out between January 29 and February 1 after it was found that “some Assam and Kathe (Manipur) armed insurgent groups deploy their strengths in NSCN(K) Camp near Takar (Taga) Village in Naga Self-Administered Zone of Sagaing Region and its surrounding areas in the disguise of NSCN(K) group and may conduct military training.”

'US does not want India, Pakistan to go to war'

Source Link

'Washington is telegraphing here is its willingness to support a low-grade, limited use of force meant to send a strong message to Pakistan.'

'Perhaps something along the lines of the surgical strikes in 2016, or perhaps something a bit more -- but not much more.'

Michael Kugelman is one of the most astute observers of developments in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and all you need to do is read this interview -- and the next part -- and amaze at his understanding of the complexities of the region in which we live.

In the first part of an e-mail interview with Rediff.com's Nikhil Lakshman, Michael -- Deputy Director and Senior Associate for the South Asia programme at the Wilson Center, the Washington, DC-based think-tank -- looks closely at the fog of war enveloping current strategic conversations in the Indian sub-continent and discusses the events that could emerge from the miasma of anger and loathing.

Moving Beyond Informality? The Process Toward Peace in Afghanistan.

Source Link

Nilofar Sakhi

Peace making through intrastate and interstate diplomacy are central aspects of the process toward peace in Afghanistan. Beginning in early 2010, these dual diplomatic strategies have, however, been confined to discussing the logistical arrangements for various peace talks; initiating intra-Afghan peace initiatives that have included building a constituency for peace, convening a national jirga for peace, and considering how to demobilize and reintegrate insurgents; informal exchanges between various parties to the conflict, particularly the Afghan government, the Taliban, Pakistan and the United States; and preparing a regional consensus for peace that has involved initial engagement with Pakistan.

From the presidential palace in Kabul (the Arg) to foreign embassies, international agencies to local non-governmental organizations, the proverbial march toward ending the Afghan war and ushering in sustainable peace saw each of these entities begin to draft concept papers, proposals, and coordinate efforts to initiate peacebuilding activities. Simultaneously, in 2010, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, former Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, emphasized the need to initiate a targeted and detailed dialogue between Afghan political leaders and a key regional player, Pakistan. Secret talks between specific Afghan leaders and Taliban representative, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour (whose identity and participation in meetings remained unclear for a long time), marked another critical juncture in the process toward discussing peace in Afghanistan.