South China Sea and the US-India-Japan Trilateral Revitalisation

By Dr Subhash Kapila

27-Oct-2014

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The re-vitalisation of the US-India-Japan Trilateral is a contextual response lately to China’s conflict-escalation in the South China Sea primarily followed by military brinkmanship against Japan in the East China Sea region.

Underlying the very creation of the recently crafted US-India Strategic Partnership and the Japan-India Global and Strategic Partnership superimposed over and above the half a century old US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty was the strategic imperative of these three major nations to correct the strategic imbalance creeping in the Asian balance of power.

The South China Sea maritime disputes over sovereignty issues was generated by China decades back with the forcible military occupation of the Paracel and Spratly Islands from Vietnam’s lawful jurisdiction and sovereignty. Later the same brinkmanship strategies stand applied also in the Spratlys against the Philippines.

By China’s conflict escalation in the South China Sea maritime expanse the South China Sea as a whole has emerged as the most potent explosive flashpoint in the Indo-Pacific endangering not only South East Asian and ASEAN regional security but also Asian security.

The South China Sea disputes are no longer confined to bilateral disputes between China and Vietnam or between China and the Philippines or between China and the other ASEAN disputants like Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.

The South China Sea conflict- escalation by China has resulted in its being thrust into the global strategic calculus as a flashpoint endangering global peace and security by virtue of the significant political and strategic stakes that other major non-South East Asian countries which have in the security and safety of the South China Sea maritime expanse.

If countries like the United States, India Japan and Australia and even the European Union countries were muted for varying reasons in their responses till lately on South China Sea conflict-escalation by China, it was so because all of them vainly hoped that China would respond to various conflict de-escalation and conflict resolution attempts by ASEAN and other countries.

On the contrary, China far from conflict de-escalation has till lately as May 2014 went on a further conflict-escalation spree in the South China Sea maritime expanse. Post-May 2014 conflict-escalation, China has given enough notice through its official pronouncements that it has no intention to submit to any multilateral conflict-resolution processes and that it reserves the right to militarise South China Sea islands and land-forms as they constitute Chinese territory.

The revitalisation of the US-India-Japan Trilateral which commenced earlier with the US Bush Administration was a natural contextual strategic response to China’s blatant defiance of international norms especially in relation to freedom of navigation through international maritime expanses and the defence, security and safety of global commons.

The short lull that took place in the reinforcing of the US-India-Japan Trilateral occurred with the advent of the Obama Administration which in its opening years was enamoured by China and could not see through the Chinese smokescreen of strategic duplicity. Subsequent Chinese strategies aimed at strategic devaluation of the United States forced a realisation on President Obama that China was not a benign actor in Asian security and hence the revitalisation process of the Trilateral.

The US-India-Japan Trilateral is a potent strategic coalition if fully and substantively revitalised combining the strategic weights of the United States as the global unipolar power and the power of Asia’s two emerging global powers in the form of India and Japan.

Vietnam alone or Vietnam and Philippines combined together lack the political and strategic weight to withstand China’s further conflict-escalation and military adventurism in the South China Sea region. These two countries need international political and strategic support to withstand China’s aggressive strategies in the South China Sea.

Russia's Great-Power Problem

Dmitri Trenin

October 28, 2014

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Russia has territory, resources and a sizable nuclear arsenal, for all that is worth today, but it lacks real economic strength. Can it correct this deficiency?

Those who may have hoped to hear a conciliatory message from President Putin at the Valdai Club meeting in Sochi last week were disappointed. The speech was almost immediately dubbed Munich II—both in Russia and in the West. Putin appeared a wartime president, defying the U.S.-dominated global system, and supremely self-confident. He did talk about the need to agree on common global rules of the game and the relevant mechanisms for enforcing them, but this part of his remarks sounded like Sunday preaching. Basically, he demanded that the United States learn the art of self-limitation, make room for others in this world and mind its own business.

Emotionally, the centerpiece of Putin’s intervention was the lack of respect in the West for Russia and its interests: a recurrent theme with him for the better half of the decade. Essentially, he told the international audience of scholars and journalists: when Russia called itself the Soviet Union, was arming itself to the teeth with nuclear weapons and had leaders like Nikita Khrushchev, who famously banged his shoe at the UN General Assembly and came close to banging the United States with nuclear-tipped missiles, Moscow was respected, and its interests taken into account—if anything, out of fear. Now that Russia has shed communism, gotten off the backs of a dozen satellites, allowed its own fourteen borderlands to form independent states; embraced capitalism and begun moving toward democracy, its interests are being wholly ignored.

This diagnosis is generally correct, but the analysis needs to go deeper. Putin, a self-avowed student of history and a champion of the Westphalian tradition in international relations, certainly understands that the balance of interests—a phrase he should not have borrowed from Mikhail Gorbachev—rests on the balance of power or equivalent. This, by the way, is well understood in Beijing, where I heard—also last week—that the talk of multipolarity is just talk, for the lack, now or in the foreseeable future, of multiple poles. In reality, the world was moving toward new bipolarity, this time between the United States and China, with all other countries aligning themselves with either of the two poles. Thus, Europe and Japan would side with the United States; and Russia would go to China.

The way the Chinese see it, Russia is not an all-round “major power.” It has territory, resources and a sizable nuclear arsenal, for all that is worth today, but it lacks real economic strength. Unless it deals with this massive deficiency, Russia will not be able to play in the global top league. And, given the present circumstances, it will have nowhere to go other than to China. Exit Greater Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok; enter Greater Asia from Shanghai to St. Petersburg.

For years, Vladimir Putin, a judo player, has been trying—not without success—to compensate for Russia’s deficit of economic strength with his own capacity of punching above his weight. This, however, can only go so far. As an individual statesman, he may well be the most powerful and most experienced leader in the present-day world, but the Russian Federation, which he leads, is way below that. Today, Russia, while a truly independent player (a rare quality, and Putin deserves credit for that), is not an equal of the world’s high and mighty, and thus can only wish for a co-equal relationship with them.

The idea is not to gain quantitative parity—say, in terms of GDP volumes—with America, China or Europe. This, of course, is impossible. Rather, Russia should work to advance in qualitative terms: labor productivity; science and technology power; and the general quality of life of its people. Here, Putin has a chance to elevate Russia and win respect for it, and the sanctions imposed by the West can be a godsend. Or he may blow that chance and let Russia slide even deeper.

‘Russian Distress Call’ Prompting Swedish Sub Hunt Never Existed – SIGINT Source

October 28, 2014 

The Swedish minesweeper HMS Kullen and a guard boat are seen in the search for suspected

The Swedish minesweeper HMS Kullen and a guard boat are seen in the search for suspected “foreign underwater activity” at Namdo Bay, Stockholm (Reuters / Fredrik Sandberg / TT News Agency)

There was no Russian distress call. That’s the opinion of a Swedish signal intelligence (SIGINT) source after a massive $2.8mn military and media sub-hunt consumed the country for a week.

Reports of a Russian distress signal and a grainy-picture were enough to deploy the navy while the media widely concluded the vessel had to be a Russian submarine spooking Stockholm.

The proof of this was an alleged comms intercept, at distress call frequency, between the supposed sub and Kaliningrad base.

But the Dagens Nyheter daily cited a Swedish Intel source who confessed there was no distress call.

Citing freedom of information requests and its own sources, the paper said Sweden’s signal intelligence agency knows nothing about the alleged distress calls, and registered no spikes in communication with Kaliningrad at the time.

“I’d be glad to read about that emergency call myself. But it didn’t happen, this information is incorrect,” the newspaper cites a source as saying.

Swedish corvette HMS Stockholm patrols at Jungfrufjarden in the Stockholm archipelago on October 20, 2014. (AFP Photo / Anders Wiklund / TT News Agency / Sweden out)

The navy operation, which was dubbed ‘Hunt for the Reds in October’ by the Swedish media, was reminiscent of the Cold War era, when Swedish warships patrolled the Baltic Sea looking for Soviet submarines.

READ: Sweden ready to use force to surface foreign sub as search continues

During the search, many recalled the infamous 1981 incident, when a Russian submarine got stranded near Karlskrona, a major naval base. The incident, which caused serious diplomatic waves, was dubbed ‘Whiskey on the Rocks’ because the S-363 sub in question belonged to the Whiskey-class.

Russia has denied sending any subs to spy on Sweden, or having one suffer an emergency in Sweden’s waters. Sources in the Russian military suggested that the fuss was caused by a sighting of a Norwegian U-boat participating in a joint NATO drill in the Baltics.

The Swedish Navy’s efforts to find the elusive foreign activity cost the country 2.2 million euros ($2.8 million), it reported last week. The operation was the biggest in decades in a nation, where military spending accounts for about 1 percent of GDP and has seen steady cuts during the years of the European economic slowdown.

According to the latest draft budget published in the wake of the naval operation, Sweden plans to increase military spending for 2015 by $93.7 million.

Online Security Experts Link More Breaches To Russian Government

By NICOLE PERLROTH

OCT. 28, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/technology/russian-government-linked-to-more-cybersecurity-breaches.html

SAN FRANCISCO — For the second time in four months, researchers at a computer security company are connecting the Russian government to electronic espionage efforts around the world.

In a report released on Tuesday by FireEye, a Silicon Valley firm, researchers say hackers working for the Russian government have for seven years been using sophisticated techniques to break into computer networks, including systems run by the government of Georgia, other Eastern European governments and militaries, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other European security organizations

The report does not cite any direct evidence of Russian government involvement, such as a web server address or the individuals behind the attack, nor does it name the Russian agency responsible. The researchers have made the government connection because the malicious software used in the incidents was written during Moscow and St. Petersburg working hours on computers that use Russian language settings and because the targets closely align with Russian intelligence interests.

“This is state espionage,” Laura Galante, FireEye’s manager of threat intelligence, said in an interview on Tuesday. “This is Russia using its network operations to bolster their key political goals.”

Officials at the Russian Embassy in Washington could not be immediately reached for comment.

Last year, FireEye acquired Mandiant, the security firm that teamed up with The New York Times to identify the unit of China’s People’s Liberation Army responsible for thousands of cyber attacks on United States companies, government agencies and nongovernmental organizations.

FireEye is one of several security firms to tie the Russian government to hacking incidents. In July, three security firms, Symantec, F-Secure and CrowdStrike, also tied a string of coordinated attacks on Western oil and gas companies to Moscow.

United States intelligence analysts have long cited Russia as a major concern. One top-secret 2009 National Security Agency intelligence estimate obtained by The New York Times last year named Russia as the most sophisticated adversary for the United States in cyberspace. But diplomatic efforts have predominantly been aimed at curbing digital threats from China.

Attacks from hackers in China are typically less sophisticated, but far more prolific than those originating in Russia.

The FireEye report notes, however, that it is often difficult to discern between Russian government attacks and attacks conducted by Russian cybercriminals.

“You only exist as a significant Russian cybercriminal if you abide by three rules,” said Tom Kellermann, chief cyber security officer at Trend Micro, a security firm based in Irving, Tex. “You are not allowed to hack anything within the sovereign boundary; if you find anything of interest to the regime you share it; and when called upon for ‘patriotic activities,’ you do so. In exchange you get ‘untouchable status.’ ”

One top-secret 2009 N.S.A. report, for example, named the Russian Nashi, a pro-Kremlin youth group, as the culprit behind the powerful 2007 cyber attacks on Estonia that nearly crippled the Baltic nation.

American officials also said Russian hackers were responsible for a similar attack on Kyrgyzstan in January 2009 that, analysts suspected, was connect to efforts to persuade Kyrgyzstan’s president to evict an American military base there. Shortly after the attacks ceased, Kyrgyzstan announced plans to remove the military base and received $2 billion in aid and loans from Moscow.

‘UNUSUAL’ RUSSIAN FLIGHTS CONCERN NATO

By Jamie Crawford, CNN National Security Producer

October 29, 2014 

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(CNN) – An “unusual” uptick in the size and scale of Russian aircraft flying throughout European airspace in recent days has raised alarm bells for NATO officials that come amid other provocations already rattling the West.

Multiple groups of Russian military bomber and tanker aircraft, flying under the guise of military maneuvers, were detected and monitored over sections of the Baltic Sea, North Sea and Black Sea on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Those flights represented an “unusual level of air activity over European airspace,” according to a press release from NATO.

Adding to the concern — none of the Russian aircraft filed customary flight plans or maintained radio contact with civilian aviation authorities or used any of their onboard transponders.

“This poses a potential risk to civil aviation as civilian air traffic control cannot detect these aircraft or ensure there is no interference with civilian air traffic,” NATO said in its release.

That concern was echoed by a U.S. official speaking with CNN who noted that none of any recent interactions between U.S. and Russian aircraft have proved problematic to this point.

NATO said that in a 24-hour period ending late Wednesday, there were more than 19 instances of Russian aircraft in European airspace.

According to NATO, Norwegian F-16s were scrambled and intercepted eight Russian aircraft flying over the North Sea. While some of the aircraft turned back toward Russia, two Tu-95 Bear H Russian bombers continued their flight, and were identified and intercepted by F-16s from Portugal.

British fighters were also scrambled in response as the two Russian planes continued their flight westward over the Atlantic Ocean.

NATO said the two Russian planes subsequently resumed a flight path back toward Russia but said those two planes were still airborne at the time of the press release.

April: Dutch fighter jets intercept 2 Russian bombers in their airspace

A NATO official tells CNN the alliance believes the recent flights are a possible prelude to unannounced Russian air exercises.

But while officials have noted a near-constant pattern of Russian military flights throughout NATO airspace over the past weeks, officials observed there has been little provocative behavior — like buzzing or rollovers — by Russian pilots in their encounters with NATO aircraft.

The latest incidents also come at a time when international calls for Russia to de-escalate some of its actions beyond its borders do not appear to be taking hold.

September: Russian planes intercepted near U.S., Canadian airspace

Russia’s continued support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, along with plans to recognize a controversial election by the rebels next month are likely to keep the sanctions by the EU and the United States in place against Russia for the time being.

And a reported hack of an unclassified computer network used by the White House and is believed to have originated from Russia according to two U.S. officials with knowledge of the breach.

CNN’s Barbara Starr, Pamela Brown and Jim Sciutto contributed to this report.

Report Offers a Window Into Russian Cyber Espionage Operations

RIA Novosti

October 28, 2014

Russia May Have Hacked US Firm Keeping Classified Military Data: Cybersecurity Company

MOSCOW, October 28 (RIA Novosti) - Skilled Russian hackers, apparently backed by the Russian government, may have been hacking the servers of a US firm keeping classified military data since 2007, cybersecurity company FireEye said Tuesday in a report.

"The activity that we profile in this paper appears to be the work of a skilled team of developers and operators collecting intelligence on defense and geopolitical issues – intelligence that would only be useful to a government," the report says.

"We assess that APT28 [FireEye’s codename for the group] is most likely sponsored by the Russian government," it added.

The paper titled “A Window into Russia’s Cyber Espionage Operations” specified that the principal portion of the hacking activities happens during working hours in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Moreover, the authors of the report claim that part of the malware samples included Russian language settings.

According to the report, the assumed group of hackers had a particular focus on the post-Soviet republic of Georgia and Eastern European nations, as well as European security organizations, including NATO. Thus, FireEye concludes that the nature and scope of hacking activities points to the Russian authorities’ backing of the hacking group.

The United States has repeatedly called China and Russia as the principal cyber threats. China, in turn, has repeatedly denied its involvement in any illegal activities in cyberspace and has complained about US activity on the Chinese Internet.

Washington Post: Obama’s Military Strategy Cannot Defeat ISIS

Mr. Obama’s half-hearted fight against the Islamic State

Washington Post Editorial Board

October 27, 2014

AN UNLIKELY consensus is emerging across the ideological spectrum about the war against the Islamic State: President Obama’s strategy to “degrade and eventually destroy” the terrorist entity is unworkable. It’s not just that, as some administration officials say, more time is needed to accomplish complex tasks such as training Iraqi and Syrian forces. It’s that the military means the president has authorized cannot accomplish his announced aims.

As Islamic State forces continue to advance in Iraq’s Anbar province while besieging the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani, major weaknesses in the U.S.-led campaign have become apparent. One is a relatively modest tempo of airstrikes that in several cases has not been able to turn back advances by enemy forces. Another is the absence of ground trainers, advisers and special forces who could accompany Iraqi and Syrian forces, call in airstrikes and medical assistance, and help formulate tactics. A third is a de facto stance of neutrality toward the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, a stance that has allowed the regime to launch new offensives against the same rebel forces the United States is counting on to fight the Islamic State.

The limitations to the U.S. effort, which were mostly imposed by Mr. Obama, are prompting blunt assessments from senior Pentagon officials. “We need a credible, moderate Syrian force, but we have not been willing to commit what it takes to build that force,” one told The Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Said another officer: “You cannot field an effective force if you’re not on the ground to advise and assist them.”

U.S. allies are also reacting to the holes in the strategy. Turkey has withheld military cooperation because of the absence of a strategy to counter the Assad regime. The new Iraqi government, which Mr. Obama has been pushing to reach out to the country’s Sunni tribes, just appointed a member of a murderous Iranian-sponsored Shiite militia to head the Interior Ministry. Sunni tribesmen, for their part, are choosing to strike deals with the Islamic State rather than support the U.S. coalition. Leaders of the Free Syrian Army are asking why U.S. warplanes are attempting to rescue Kobani while allowing Assad’s forces to encircle and rain barrel bombs on rebel-held positions in Aleppo.

Some on both the left and right in Washington are arguing that the appropriate response to the campaign’s deficiencies is for Mr. Obama to lower his ambitions; he should seek merely to prevent further expansion by the Islamic State or attacks on the homeland. The problem with a policy of containment, however, is that the infection of the Islamic State is spreading. Militant groups around the region are rallying to its cause, volunteers continue to travel to Syria, andpopular support for it is dangerously evident in countries such as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

Mr. Obama has been right to fashion a broad coalition against the Islamic State and to try to build on local forces. But the United States will have to broaden its aims and increase its military commitment if the terrorists are to be defeated. At the least, Syrian rebel forces must be protected from attacks by the Assad regime and both Syrian and Iraqi units provided with U.S. advisers and air controllers. The longer Mr. Obama delays such steps, the greater the risk to vital U.S. interests.

The Secret Life of an ISIS Warlord

10.27.14 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/27/the-secret-life-of-an-isis-warlord.html 

Abu Omar al-Shishani has a fierce, gorgeous Chechen bride. He learned intelligence operations from the U.S. And his older brother may be the real genius of ISIS.

PANKISI GORGE, Georgia—The mother of martyrs, a woman in her fifties, is delicately beautiful and visibly in pain. She covers her hazel eyes and sobs over a photo album as the call to prayer echoes throughout the Georgian village of Jokolo, just south of the Chechen border. 

The mother’s story involves one of the most notorious jihadists in the world, a man who served in intelligence units trained by Americans and the British, a man who is the face of the ISIS conquests, and a man who took her late son’s wife for his own bride. 

The mother, Leila Achishvili, tries hard to maintain her poise, even as she discusses the death of both of her boys, Hamzat and Khalid Borchashvili. She is halfway through a box of tissues. Her story has just begun. 

The eight-mile-long Pankisi Valley is notorious even in the infamous Caucasus as a lawless corridor for smuggling weapons, drugs, and jihadists into Chechnya, just a few miles to the north and the east. It is also one of the few places in Georgia where the sorrowful beauty of the call to prayer still can be heard. These days Pankisi feels closer to Syria than to the nation of Georgia, to which it belongs. 

Among the younger generations, radical versions of Sunni Wahhabism have replaced the traditional moderate Sufi Islam of Pankisi’s Kist majority. There is rampant unemployment, and many of these disillusioned young Georgian jihadists now make their way west to Syria via neighboring Turkey. They are inspired by local legend and ISIS commander Abu Omar al-Shishani, who made the same journey only a few years before. 

Stories and rumors circulate—whispers of his massive villa, his fiefdom and private harem, his 40 personal guards, his armored cavalcade of SUVs, and now his stunning and fierce Chechen warrior wife. For these young men, their Pankisi native son has already become part Josef Stalin (another native son of Georgia) and part rock star of the media-savvy Islamic caliphate. But according to his father, Abu Omar al-Shishani is a mirage: It’s his older brother who is running the ISIS show. 

******** 

The name that Abu Omar al-Shishani grew up with was Tarkhan. And because we are here in his hometown talking to the people who once loved him, and perhaps still do, we’ll use that name, too. Tarkhan’s father, Temur, a grizzled, eccentric, well-read old Christian with a bitter sense of self-irony, tells his sons’ story in an extensive—almost bizarre—interview with The Daily Beast at his small gray house in the village of Birkiani, where his boys grew up. 

“I am like a hobo,” the old man declares. “My son is one of the founders of Islamic caliphate and I’m here, dying in poverty! Look! Look where I live!” According to Temur, his son even invited him to Syria. “He told me, ‘Dad, come with me. You’ll live like you are in paradise.’ I told him, ‘Save your paradise for yourself, I prefer my home here.’” 

Despite Tarkhan’s fame as a holy warrior, the father doesn’t see him as particularly pious, his mother came from a Muslim family, but he didn’t show much interest. The old man claims that, in fact, before Tarkhan went to prison, he wasn’t religious at all. He supposedly warned his older brothers about the dangers of fanatical Islam, especially his brother Tamaz, who was fighting in Chechnya: “‘Be citizens of Georgia,’ Tarkhan would say to Tamaz, ‘You are in a war, you may fight there, but do not pick up their beliefs.’ And now look what happened! Do you see how a man can change?” 

Like so many of the world’s most brutal dictators, military leaders, tyrants, and jihadists, it appears Tarkhan was trained by the very best: the United States government. According to his father and former colleagues, Tarkhan worked for an elite “Spetsnaz” Georgian military-intelligence unit—at least until he caught tuberculosis, lost his job in the intelligence unit, was then framed by that same intelligence unit, and went to jail in 2010 for weapons possession. 

Tarkhan’s father claims that his son worked, specifically, for the ministry of interior’s KUD or “Kudi,” basically the domestic-intelligence and special-operations service in Georgia, officially called the Constitutional Security Department. The agency was notoriously brutal. When asked if it was true that his son Tarkhan was trained by the United States, Temur says, “Of course they did. They trained all of the Georgian army back then… My boy was just 19 when he went to the army… This KUDI, where he was working, it was an intelligence and reconnaissance unit.” 

The United States government has been overtly training and funding Georgian troops for more than a decade. This is no secret. Last month, when U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel visited Georgia, he also visited U.S. Marines at the Krtsanisi National Training Center outside Tbilisi, where the leathernecks continue to train Georgian troops as they have for more than a dozen years. 

The Daily Beast has learned that a young clean-shaven Tarkhan joined the U.S-funded Georgian army in 2006. He rose quickly. He was recruited into a newly created “Spetsnaz” intelligence unit and he carried out reconnaissance on Russian tank brigades during the 2008 Georgia/Russia War. Levan Amiridze, Tarkhan’s friend and military colleague, with whom he would later spend time in prison, confirmed that officers in the “secret services” of the ministry of defense were routinely trained by both U.S. and British instructors. So there is little doubt that the ISIS commander from Pankisi was either trained by the Americans or by the officers whom they had trained. 

The Rise of the Islamic Caliphate: New Threat to Stability in West Asia

Brig Gurmeet Kanwal, Visiting Fellow, VIF

Source Link

New Crisis: Barbarians on the March

After having overrun Mosul and Tikrit in June 2014, the virulently radical Sunni militants of the new "caliphate" headed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the so-called Islamic State, appear to be gradually closing in on Baghdad. The ISIS militia, numbering between 20,000 and 30,000, have seized key border crossings with Syria and Jordan and now control a large area straddling the Syria-Iraq border. After capturing Faluja in January 2014, ISIS fighters made rapid progress in advancing along the Euphrates River in Anbar province of Iraq. And, forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) that had captured oil-rich Kirkuk, regarded as the Kurd capital, have been fighting the ISIS for over a month in the Syrian border town of Kobani.

After vacillating for several months and admitting that he had no strategy, President Obama decided to join the fightagainst ISIS by launching air strikes against the militia. The United States has been joined in this endeavour by Australia, Britain, Canada and France and five Arab countries (Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates). So far the air strikes have been only partially effective in military terms, but have succeeded in buying time for the disorganised Iraqi forces to regroup to offer a more cohesive fight. Between 500,000 to one million refugees have been added to the large number of displaced persons already struggling to stay alive in the steaming hot cauldron that is West Asia today.

The newly proclaimed Islamic State, not recognised by any other state as yet, is also called ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria); ISIL (the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham or Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant); and, Daesh. Its leadership’s ideology. Is so primitive and barbaric that Osama bin Laden is reported to have declined to have anything to do with them when they had approached him. The video-taped beheading of three innocent hostages has exemplified its brutality. Al-Baghdadi has openly proclaimed the intention of ISIS to expand eastwards to establish the Islamic state of Khorasan that will include Afghanistan, the Central Asian Republics, eastern Iran and Pakistan. The final battle, Ghazwa-e-Hind – a term from Islamic mythology – will be fought to extend the caliphate to India. An ISIS branch has already been established in the Indian Sub-continent. It is led by Muhsin al Fadhli and is based somewhere in Pakistan.Some factions of the TTP have already declared their allegiance to al-Baghdadi. Afghanistan's new National Security Adviser, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, has said that the presence of Daesh or the ISIS is growing and that the group poses a threat to Afghan security. And, some ISIS flags have appeared in Srinagar.

Weak Counter Strategy

By all accounts, the ISIS militia is slowly but surely gaining ground. It has proved itself adept at fighting simultaneously on multiple fronts. Not surprisingly, the ISIS has carried the war into cyberspace and is deftly exploiting the Internet as an effective propaganda tool to spread its message. It is using Facebook and bulletin boards to influence the minds of Muslim youth and gain recruits. The international community has not yet found an answer to this potent threat.

The triumphant forward march of ISIS has taken place despite the air strikes being launched by the United States and its allies and the help provided to the Shia-dominated government of Iraq by Iran and Russia. The ISIS has absorbed the air strikes well so far, much like the Vietnamese did half a century ago. A major lesson that has emerged from the recent conflicts, particularly those in Afghanistan and Iraq, is that a guerrilla force that operates from safe havens among the rural population cannot be defeated from the air alone. The US and its allies are unlikely to prevail over the ISIS militia without committing troops on the ground to fight a long-drawn counter-insurgency war against them. Alternatively, the US can prime the Iraqi forces to fight ISIS. This would be a better option.

The ISIS militia faces no serious opposition on the ground except from the Kurdish peshmerga.The Kurds are unlikely to be willing to fight beyond the land for which they seek autonomy. The Obama administration is banking on hope and the passage of time to prevail over the ISIS militia. The President is hopeful that in due course the air campaign will begin to become effective, the Iraqi forces will become a more cohesive fighting force, and the Kurds will exert meaningful pressure on the ISIS militia from the north.The probability of any of this happening is low.

The US has been arming the Syrian opposition led by the Free Syrian Army for several years to fight President Assad. It now hopes the Syrian opposition will join the fight against ISIS.The US President is aware that American troops are not welcome in Iraq and even less so in Syria, besides the lack of support at home for involvement in yet another unwinnable war in West Asia. A pragmatic move would be to support the rise of a militarily strong Kurdistan as a bulwark against further ISIS expansion, but Turkey will have to be convinced that such a course of action is necessary. Jordan needs to be given the support necessary to thwart the growth of ISIS to the west.

Defeating ISIS: With Whose Boots on the Ground?

GRAHAM ALLISON

OCT 27 2014 

Source Link

America is partnering with Iran to fight the Islamic State, whether the U.S. admits it or not.

Damir Sagolj/Reuters

President Obama’s strategy to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS has become the target of heated criticism, not only from partisan opponents but from many of his supporters as well. Categorically ruling out American boots on the ground, while subcontracting the bloody job of house-to-house fighting to the Iraqi military, Free Syrian Army, and Kurdish Peshmerga, can only assure failure, critics argue.

These assessments fall into a familiar trap: assuming that what has been announced is the sum of the matter. Especially for admirers of the diplomatic sleights of hand practiced by Henry Kissinger or Jim Baker, neglecting the obvious when assessing the current strategy is unfair.

Americans know, as the saying goes, that politics makes strange bedfellows. Most forget, however, that wars can produce even more perverse partners. Facing Hitler’s Germany in World War II, what did the U.S. and Britain do? They allied with Stalin’s Communist Soviet Union. As British Prime Minister Winston Churchill explained, against Hitler he would make a pact with the Devil.

Is the U.S. now counting on devils to help defeat ISIS? The answer is unquestionably yes.

The Problem With Bombing ISIS Brute facts are hard to deny. Unstated, and perhaps unstateable, is the expectation among U.S. officials that two of America’s leading adversaries—Bashar al-Assad’s Syria and Iran—will intensify their war against ISIS. Neither Assad nor Iran is fighting as a favor to the United States. Both rightly see ISIS as an imminent or even existential threat to themselves. As uncomfortable as it may be to say, it is Iran-affiliated fighters who are doing the most to kill ISIS militants on the ground in Iraq and Syria at this point.

The Most Powerful Militaries In The Middle East [RANKED]

ARMIN ROSEN,JEREMY BENDER,AMANDA MACIAS

OCT 27, 2014

Turkish soldiers carry Turkish flags during a parade marking the 89th anniversary of Victory Day in Ankara on August 30, 2011.

The balance of power in the Middle East is in disarray: A three-year civil war has torn apart Syria and opened up a vacuum for the rise of ISIS; Sunni powers led by Saudi Arabia continue to face off against Shi'ite powers led by Iran; other countries are reeling from uprisings in the Arab Spring; and foreign powers are all taking sides.

Faced with this tense paradigm, every country in the region is building up its own military.

Indeed, four of the five fastest growing defense markets in 2013 were in the Middle East, led by Oman - up 115% in a year - and Saudi Arabia - up 300% in a decade - according to IHS Jane's.

We've analyzed each country to rank the most powerful militaries in the Middle East. This ranking does not count foreign powers like the US or their support, though we've made note of important alliances. After looking over state militaries, we also profiled (but did not rank) some of the increasingly powerful non-state military groups.

The ranking is based on a holistic assessment of the militaries' operational capabilities and hardware, based on our own research and on interviews withPatrick Megahan, an expert from the Foundation of Defense of Democracies'Military Edge project, and Chris Harmer, senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.

Some countries with large yet incapable militaries rank low on the list; some smaller and technologically advanced militaries from stable states rank fairly high.

Others present analytical challenges that are difficult to get around in a ranking format. For instance, Egypt has an enormous military with little in the way of a recent battlefield record. Syria's military is diminished by three years of war, but it's been able to fulfill the Assad regime's narrow battlefield objectives and field an operational air force.

No ranking will be absolutely exact. But here's our idea of where things stand in one of the world's least-predictable regions.

The Most Powerful Militaries In The Middle East [RANKED]

#15 Yemen

$1.4 billion defense budget

66,700 active frontline personnel

1,260 tanks

181 aircraft

Yemen's military has struggled in the face of an onslaught from the Houthi rebel movement, which captured the Ministry of Defense's headquarters in the capital city of Sa'ana during a September 2014 offensive. Yemen has all sorts of other problems on its hands as well, like the presence of a major Al Qaeda franchise and one of the highest rates of gun ownership on earth.

Like a few other countries in this ranking, Yemen is ruled by a government that doesn't really control its own territory, a fact that negates much of advantage the country might derive from its fairly large conventional military. It's a collapsed state with an outdated arsenal.

The remains of Yemen's hobbled government have also joined up with the Houthi rebels to fight Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. This is actually another sign of the state's weakness. It took a motivated and organized non-state sectarian militant group to confront Yemen's Al Qaeda franchise, something the uniform military hasn't been able or willing to do.

Key allies: Yemen has had a longstanding, if sometimes uneasy, security partnership with the US and allows the US to use armed drones to go after Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula on its territory.

#14 Lebanon

$1.7 billion defense budget

131,100 active frontline personnel

318 tanks

57 aircraft

The Lebanese Armed Forces is an all-volunteer force, having ended compulsory military service as of Feb. 2007. Historically, the Lebanese military was kept small due to internal disagreements amongst the various religious groups within the country. During Lebanon's fifteen-year civil war a national military effectively ceased functioning as the country was divided between Israeli, Syrian, UN, and militia zones of control.

Since the Lebanese civil war, the Lebanese military has focused mainly on anti-terrorist and peacekeeping activities within the country. The military has been unable and unwilling to disarm the militant group Hezbollah, which is an even more capable fighting force than the Lebanese army itself.

In March the International Support Group for Lebanon pledged $17.8 million to help the country modernize its military, while Saudi Arabia gave a $3 billion grant.

Currently, Lebanon's Special Forces is unevenly equipped, and the country lacks any fixed-wing aircraft.

It is an incoherent force in a divided country, without much heavy equipment and with only notional control. "They're really far behind," Megahan, a research associate for military affairs at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and an analyst for itsMilitary Edge project told Business Insider.

Key allies: Saudi Arabia and the US, which also provides military aid.

#13 Iraq

$6 billion defense budget

271,500 active frontline personnel

357 tanks

212 aircraft

The current iteration of the Iraqi military, created after the US invasion of the country in 2003, faces serious problems. Currently locked in battle with the militant group ISIS and its partner organizations, the military has suffered a string of embarrassing retreatsand loses since last June, leading the government effectively to cede large chunks of the country to jihadists. When the Iraqi military has actually fought ISIS, it has hadmoments of alarming incompetence.

Once Mighty Hezbollah Now Under Attack in Syria and At Home in Lebanon

Lebanon’s once-mighty Hezbollah is facing attacks in Syria — and also at home

Hugh Naylor

Washington Post

October 28, 2014

BEIRUT — Hezbollah has won grudging respect, even from some foes, for its tenacious guerrilla campaigns against Israel. But now Lebanon’s most powerful military organization is losing its aura of invincibility.

Tactics that the Shiite group has used against Israeli soldiers are being inflicted on its own forces by militants from Islamic State and the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, who have carved out footholds in Lebanon along the porous Syria border.

The growing number of attacks and kidnappings by the Sunni militants represent the opening of yet another military front for Hezbollah. It already has thousands of troops deployed in Syria to bolster President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, while still more are facing Israel in southern Lebanon.

“Hezbollah is spread thin. They are waging so many battles and are positioned on so many fronts,” said Imad Salamey, associate professor of political science at the Beirut-based Lebanese American University.

Classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union, Hezbollah was created in the turmoil following Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. The militant group forced Israel to end its occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000 and inflicted a heavy blow on Israel during a brutal, 34-day war in 2006. Hezbollah’s forces are better armed than Lebanon’s army, which plays a subordinate role.

Members of the Lebanese Resistance Brigades, a Hezbollah armed and funded militant group, attend a rally commemorating “Liberation Day,” which marks the withdrawal of the Israeli army from southern Lebanon in 2000, in the southern border town of Bint Jbeil, Lebanon. (Hussein Malla/AP)

Hezbollah also developed expansive charitable networks and a political movement that exerts considerable influence over the country’s parliament.

The group owes its power, in part, to an ample supply of weapons from the Iranian and Syrian governments, which form an anti-Western axis that allows Tehran to project power to the Mediterranean and Israel’s borders. The weapons are largely funneled through Syria.

So when Assad’s forces started sustaining serious defeats in the civil war, Hezbollah was compelled to intervene to keep open those supply lines.

As many as 5,000 of its foot soldiers are thought to be in Syria, where they have played a crucial role in reversing gains by Assad’s Sunni-led opposition. But the costs of Hezbollah’s involvement have been mounting.

Although exact figures are not available, hundreds of its fighters have been reported killed in Syria. The demand for replenishing troops has forced the group to lower its recruitment age — funerals for fighters as young as 16 are being held in Shiite communities that dot the Bekaa Valley area of northeastern Lebanon.

Hezbollah wants to extricate its forces from Syria, said Lina Khatib, director of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center, but it knows they have to remain there until “there is a political deal acceptable to Iran.”

Meanwhile, Hezbollah is facing strain from increasing assaults by fighters from the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, who have spilled across the border from Syria.

A Hezbollah militant looks through his binoculars in Umm Khorj in the Lebanese eastern mountain range close to the Syrian border. (Sam Skaine/AFP/Getty Images)

Maintaining its image

"Democracy Is for Infidels!": Interview With an ISIS Recruiter

Interview with an Islamic State Recruiter: ‘Democracy Is For Infidels’

Hasnain Kazim

Der Spiegel

October 28, 2014

How does Islamic State think? How do its followers see the world? SPIEGEL ONLINE met up with an Islamic State recruiter in Turkey to hear about the extremist group’s vision for the future.

The conditions laid out by the Islamist are strict: no photos and no audio recording. He also keeps his real name secret as well as his country of origin, and is only willing to disclose that he is Arab. His English is polished and he speaks with a British accent.

He calls himself Abu Sattar, appears to be around 30 years old and wears a thick, black beard that reaches down to his chest. His top lip is shaved as is his head and he wears a black robe that stretches all the way to the floor. He keeps a copy of the Koran, carefully wrapped in black cloth, in his black leather bag.

Abu Sattar recruits fighters for the terrorist militia Islamic State in Turkey. Radical Islamists travel to Turkey from all over the world to join the “holy war” in Iraq or Syria and Abu Sattar examines their motives and the depth of their religious beliefs. Several Islamic State members independently recommended Abu Sattar as a potential interview partner — as someone who could explain what Islamic State stands for. Many see him as something like an ideological mentor.

He only agreed to an interview following a period of hesitation. But after agreeing to a time and saying he would name a place in due time, he let the appointment fall through. The next day, though, he arranged another meeting time, to take place in a public venue. And this time, he appears: a man with brown eyes behind frameless glasses. He seems self-confident and combative. He orders a tea and, throughout the duration of our meeting, slides his wooden prayer beads through his hands.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: As-salamu alaykum.

Abu Sattar: Are you Muslim?

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why does that matter? Religion is a private matter for me.

Abu Sattar: Then why did you say “as-salamu alaykum”?

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Because it means “peace be with you” and I see it as a friendly greeting.

Abu Sattar: So you’re not a Muslim. I knew it!

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is Islamic State so eager to divide the world into believers and infidels? Why does Islamic State see everything as either black or white, “us against the world”?

Abu Sattar: Who started it? Who conquered the world and sought to subordinate all foreign cultures and religions? The history of colonialism is long and bloody. And it continues today, in the shape of Western arrogance vis-à-vis everyone else. “Us against the rest of the world” is the formula that drives the West. We Muslims are now finally offering successful resistance.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You are spreading fear and horror and are killing innocents, most of them Muslim. You call that successful resistance?

Abu Sattar: We are following Allah’s word. We believe that humanity’s only duty is to honor Allah and his prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. We are implementing what is written in the Koran. If we manage to do so, then of course it will be a success.

For Salafists like Abu Sattar, the Koran is the only valid law. They are literalists and refuse to interpret scripture, much less to abstract from it. Abu Sattar and the Islamic State idealize the Muslim community that existed during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad, believing that it was the epitome of Islamic practice and that the religion was only able to rapidly expand for that reason. Islamic State would like to revive that interpretation and emulate the early Muslims.