War Is Boring

F-15SE sensors. Photo via Pakistan Defense and Asia Security Watch.

By CRAIG SCANLAN

Writing about the Republic of Korea’s rapid advancement in military prowess generally points towards the positive, the country having accomplished great leaps in a short span of time, but when this topic veers to that of ROK Air superiority, the current South Korean state of affairs can be lumped in with what has become the norm for pro-western Asian countries in the region.

While the ROK remains superior in the air to that of their North Korean brother, their air force currently lags woefully behind that of their naval and army superiority and advances.

The South Korean military had hoped to rely on the U.S. for procuring fighters under their FX-III plan, needing a modern semi-stealth fighter to keep their forces battle-ready in this millennium. Boeing’s proposed F-15 Silent Eagle (F-15 SE) was meant to fill that void with modern sensor arrays, canted tails, and internal weapons bays.

Read the rest at Asia Security Watch.

Jack Idema. Photo via Penny Alise.

This is the end for Jonathan Keith “Jack” Idema. The vigilante adventurer and terrorist hunter once jailed in Afghanistan for running a private prison and torture shop has reportedly died in Mexico.

According to local press reports first spotted by Robert Young Pelton, an emergency call placed Saturday led to the discovery of Idema’s body at his home in Bacalar, a small town in southeastern Mexico where Idema was reported to have operated a tour boat business. Bacalar’s police chief reportedly said Idema was suffering from AIDS.

The State Department has not confirmed Idema’s death, but Penny Alise, Idema’s ex-partner, tells Danger Room: “Yes, he’s dead.”

Idema has popped up in the Mexican media before. More than two years ago, Idema had holed up in the town, wanted for questioning regarding allegations he raped and forcibly detained his then-partner over several days. He then later apparently skipped a court summons and (temporarily) fled across the nearby border to Belize.

Read the rest at Danger Room.

Coming off last year’s Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the special operations community has rarely ridden higher. But the resonance of the Somalia raid is, perhaps, singular. Somalia has a totemic significance for many in the special-operations community, thanks to the 1993 debacle — even as they’ve slowly grown more comfortable quietly operating in the country. The hostage rescue can’t avenge Black Hawk Down, of course. But it does help turn the page on that ugly chapter.

[Pentagon spokesman George] Little demurred on making any historical comparisons. “The bottom line is this was a hostage rescue mission that was ordered after an added sense of urgency and after the time was determined to be right,” Little said. “It was accomplished after careful planning by the United States military and it was executed very well.”

Type 290 hospital ship. Wikimedia photo.

In October, China ordered the deployment of a 25,000-ton, 300-bed hospital ship dubbed the “Peace Ark” into the Caribbean Sea. The goal: provide humanitarian aid and put on a friendly face for China’s growing international ambitions. This “soft power” mission was similar to related and ongoing U.S. humanitarian missions conducted in the region led by the USNS Comfort hospital ship, the USS Iwo Jima and USS Kearsarge amphibious assault ships and the HSV-2 Swift catamaran.

China’s military ambitions more broadly have pushed some analysts to see a looming threat: at sea, in the air and in space; and now also in the U.S.’s own “backyard.” But how much of China’s growing military capabilities are a credible challenge to the U.S. — or are just a lot of hype — is an open subject. The same is true for military-to-military relations between China and friendly nations, and it’s true in Latin America.

Likewise, China has contributed to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti, and boosted arms sales and donations via countries ranging from Venezuela to Peru.

But while few observers will embrace China’s defense sales to Venezuela, some welcome China’s soft power efforts abroad as a means to integrate China’s military into a broader coalition of shared interests, and as a means to respond to humanitarian crises like the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped reports from circulating about a rising and threatening Chinese dragon south of the border.

In a preview for an upcoming piece in Americas Quarterly, U.S. Army War College adjunct professor Gabriel Marcella writes:

The truth, though, doesn’t look anything like the headlines. Although military diplomacy and arms sales and transfers to some countries of the region have increased in the past decade, the quantity and type of equipment involved hardly represents the strategic threat suggested by the headline writers. Moreover, much of the equipment is logistical in nature; little of it is for combat or power projection.

Latin America as a whole also spends comparatively little on defense — although increasing at a brisk pace, the South American continent combined spends slightly more than the United Kingdom does alone, according to Swedish arms monitor SIPRI. That’s not a whole lot.

And training? The U.S. has the edge. U.S. officers are regularly trained in Latin American military academies and in reverse, but there are no Chinese officers studying in Latin American schools, Marcella says.

He adds:

The alarmist reporting, much of it from U.S. sources, also ignores the Latin American perspective. Latin Americans are not simple bystanders. They seek to engage China in order to understand the nature and extent of China’s power and influence—and its effect on their national interests and foreign policies. They also want to keep their options open for acquiring military equipment at an affordable price and technology transfers for coproduction or independent production. They are also aware of the risks of acquiring a motley mix of systems from various nations, a prospect that makes maintenance expensive and readiness problematic.

However, Marcella points out a key difference between the U.S. and China’s Caribbean cruises. “Unlike the Chinese program,” he writes, “the USNS Comfort does not attend to armed forces personnel and administrative personnel of the countries it visits.”

Yemeni counter-terrorism unit. Flickr user Ammar Abd Rabbo.

By DANIEL R. DePETRIS

Al Qaeda’s core organizational leadership may be at its weakest point in over a decade but the group’s regional franchises are certainly making up for their losses.

Nowhere in the world is this more obvious than in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, with a government fractured internally and system of political parties fighting among itself. Add acute child undernourishment, widespread illiteracy, inaccessible health care services and a country awash in weapons to the picture, and it is a wonder why terrorists did not try to expand their territorial reach in Yemen sooner.

Yemen was in horrible shape to begin with, even before millions of Yemeni demonstrators took to the streets in strong opposition to their president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. But with eleven months of turmoil pitting security forces against demonstrators and armed tribes, in multiple cities, Al Qaeda’s wing in this Arabian Peninsula state has been given a gift from the ruling regime.

With Yemen’s elite counterterrorism units diverted to the capital and its army picked apart, AQAP is on the ascendancy, grabbing territory in the south and attempting to do what they miserably failed to do in Iraq years earlier — establish an Islamic emirate in an Arab state.

Read the rest at Atlantic Sentinel.

Hayabusa 2. JAXA illustration.

By KYLE MIZOKAMI

Japan’s answer to NASA — JAXA — is slated to add defense and intelligence tasks to its traditionally civilian role. Kyodo explains:

A government panel on space program strategy plans to revise a law to allow the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to step outside its current commitment to peaceful projects and become involved in the use of space for national security.

Following the panel’s decision Friday, JAXA would be allowed to cooperate in developing spy and early warning satellites if the amendment bill is approved during the ordinary Diet session that convenes later this month.

The controversial move, however, is likely to provoke opposition to the military use of space.

The nation’s space program was based on a 1969 Diet resolution limiting it to nonmilitary fields in principle.

But a basic space program act enacted in 2008 stipulates that the program should contribute to security, permitting the use of space for defense purposes. (Link)

Japan maintains five spy satellites: three optical satellites and, as of December 12th, two radar satellites. In the United States, civilian and military space are both large enough to warrant separate programs. In Japan however, it just makes sense to have one agency control both areas. One possible concern with the merger is that military space in general is notoriously secretive and thus a spinner of red tape, which could slow down JAXA’s other civilian-oriented programs.

Along with the recent arms ban export relaxation, the decision to fold military missions into JAXA is part of a broad push towards mainstreaming defense and security in Japan.

Photo via General Dynamics.

After 9/11, three federal law enforcement agencies planned a massive project to replace a mishmash of aging and obsolete radios used by thousands of federal agents. A decade and $356 million later, the program has made “minimal progress” and the Department of Homeland Security, one of the project’s key partners, wants little to do with it.

That’s all according to an audit by the Justice Department’s inspector general, following interviews with officials from the FBI to DHS and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, among others. The DOJ’s investigators found the project — dubbed the Integrated Wireless Network — to be at “high risk for failure” because of shifting priorities, costly delays and frequent changes in leadership at top DOJ posts. Likewise, federal budget cuts could put the program on the chopping block.

The audit warns: “As a result, law enforcement and emergency personnel will continue to use inadequate, incompatible, and outdated equipment, resulting in slower operation response times and potentially jeopardizing the lives of law enforcement and emergency personnel and the people they have sworn to protect.”

Read the rest at Danger Room.

Flickr/EduardoHildt photo.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has seen more lucrative days. The-guerrilla-army-turned-drug-cartel has seen its homelands, its outposts and — most importantly — its cocaine revenue chipped away in recent years by record seizures of the drug and a military campaign backed by billions in American aid.

The guerrillas’ solution? Cattle rustling and hustling. Call it narcollaneros, or Colombian cocaine cowboys.

The FARC is suffering from a “lack of financing…. due to the blows to their funding sources, especially drug trafficking,” Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said Monday. “One of the orders was to sell cattle to get more resources.”

Read the rest at Danger Room.

AN/TPY-2. Wikimedia photo.

United States & Europe
The United States unveiled a major refocus in defense policy last week: a shift away from Europe via a major withdrawal of personnel and material from the continent as the U.S. redirects toward Asia.

The shift had been trailed for as long as a year with U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq peaking or ending, and policy makers looking to gradually scale back the country’s European defense commitments. And as the U.S. withdraws, many European nations remain vulnerable from a lack basic air-to-air refueling, intelligence gathering and support capabilities. Recently, far from taking a strictly back seat role, the U.S. had to provide the backbone of the NATO effort over Libya.

The problem in Europe lies not in funding (defense spending within the European Union is at least over $250 billion, second only to the United States) but in how it is spent. Some countries such as the United Kingdom and France focus on preserving nuclear deterrents and true blue water navies, while others such as Germany and Poland focus more on land forces geared toward Cold War scenarios. What’s lacking is a decent coordinated strategy to gel any one nation’s strengths with its allies.

NATO
A major piece in NATO’s anti-ballistic missile defense shield fell in to place this week with the opening of a new early warning radar in the Turkish province of Malatya. As Turkey lacks qualified operators of the American AN/TPY-2 system, the facility will be staffed by NATO technicians and commanded by an officer from the Turkish army.

The system’s location is strongly opposed by Iran, which itself is under intense pressure by the international community over its controversial nuclear program.

Pakistan
If your government is under pressure from a restive military and has burnt its bridges with a now semi-hostile American government, who do you call? Probably not the United Kingdom. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Reza Gilani allegedly found this out in discussions claimed to have taken place between him and the British High Commission in Islamabad.

The “panicky” call was made after the “memogate” scandal in which a figure within the current Pakistani government allegedly asked for assistance from former U.S. Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Mike Mullen. The request in turn angered the Pakistani military. British Foreign Secretary William Hague called for calm but refused to comment on what allegedly took place.

Iran
As tensions rise over Iran’s nuclear program and its threat to close the Persian Gulf, Russia has made it clear that it would consider any attack on Iran a threat to its own national security. Russia, which already opposes any oil embargo against Iran, seems to have calculated the move to discourage any potential military action.

The United States, the European Union and Japan are co-operating to block Iranian oil imports while Israel is suspected of a string of bomb attacks assassinating key figures of Iran’s nuclear program.

Ahmadinejad in Ecuador. Ecuador state photo.

Iran
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited four countries in Latin America last week. The five-day trip — postponed from September because of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s cancer therapy — brought Ahmadinejad through Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador.  Although the trip was overshadowed by the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist last week in Tehran, Ahmadinejad’s visit provoked a round of discussion in the United States about Iranian intentions in the region. The leaders of each country visited by the Iranian president pledged to support Iran’s nuclear program.

According to Eric Farnsworth of the Council of the Americas, the relationship between Iran and its Latin American allies constitutes a “marriage of political convenience,” he said. “In other words, they need each other.” In Latin America, an anti-imperialist bloc led by Chavez sees Iran as a partner in a common front against the United States. For Ahmadinejad, Latin American nations are partners to help Iran break out of restrictive international sanctions.

What’s not known, however, are the terms and extent of Iranian involvement in the hemisphere. Announcements regarding military and economic deals are common, but it’s difficult to ascertain how much cooperation is substantial or just talk. Also notable: Ahmadinejad skipped Brazil. Analysts have interpreted this as a sign Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has downgraded Brazil’s relationship vis-a-vis Iran in contrast to former President Lula da Silva.

Venezuela
In related news, the United States expelled the Venezuelan Consul General to Miami, Livia Acosta Noguera, after allegations the diplomat planned a cyber attack with help from the Venezuelan, Cuban and Iranian governments. The alleged attack would have targeted computer infrastructure belonging to the FBI, CIA and the White House.

The allegations are difficult to prove, however, and analysts have interpreted the expulsion as a means for the Obama administration to signal disapproval with Ahmadinejad’s visit to Venezuela. Caracas has since withdrawn its remaining Miami consular staff.

Finally, Chavez reshuffled his cabinet, “choosing military men with business ties over Socialist Party loyalists,” reports Americas Quarterly. Former top spy Henry Rangel Silva, who has been accused of cocaine smuggling by the U.S. Treasury Department, was picked to head the defense ministry.

Colombia
Colombia has begun implementing its land restitution program. Under the plan, which became law last summer, farmers and families displaced by drug traffickers and paramilitary groups will now resettle in subsidized areas seized back by the government from militants. The first plot: “Las Catas,” an estate in Cordoba department once controlled by traffickers associated with Pablo Escobar. More than 300 families have reportedly been resettled.

The government is targeting areas formerly controlled by the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a right-wing paramilitary group which demobilized in 2006 (although many AUC militants continued working in the drug trade), and BACRIMs, a term used for the autonomous criminal groups which were spawned in the wake of the AUC’s departure.

“However, it is likely that in these areas [Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos] will face his biggest challenges both politically and logistically, especially in former paramilitary-controlled areas that have large, legitimate business interests,” writes Edward Fox. “There — as well as displacing alleged ‘guerrillas’ from their land, securing drug trafficking routes and extorting local industry — the AUC introduced a form of pseudo-legitimacy to the displacement of small land owners by in some cases working in conjunction with these big businesses.