Category : Military / Armed Forces

(NYT) A NATO Plane’s Busy Duty: Tracking (and Dodging) Russia in the Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea, with a coastline heavily militarized by Northern European and Russian navies, has become an increasingly tense theater in the conflict between Moscow and the West.

Three times over the past year and a half, commercial ships are suspected of having damaged critical undersea communications cables and a gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. European officials fear that these were acts of sabotage, with the Kremlin viewed as the primary suspect, though finding hard evidence has proved difficult. In response, NATO announced in January the start of a new program called Baltic Sentry, boosting sea and air patrols of the Baltic Sea.

Though mostly reliant on NATO members with Baltic coastlines, like Sweden, Finland and Poland, the French and the British also participate, along with U.S. Marines deployed to Finland.

Read it all.

Posted in Europe, Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Russia

(FT) China launches large-scale military exercises around Taiwan

China has kicked off large-scale military and coastguard exercises around Taiwan, the latest round in Beijing’s escalating campaign to assert its claims of sovereignty and suppress the island nation’s efforts to preserve its de facto independence.

The drills on Tuesday came as Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te seeks to improve military and civilian preparedness for a potential Chinese attack and strengthen society to defend against espionage and other infiltration from China, which last month he called a “hostile foreign force”.

The People’s Liberation Army said naval, air, ground and missile forces were practising “seizing comprehensive control, strikes on sea and land targets and blockade operations”.

The China Coast Guard also announced simultaneous “law enforcement patrols” which it said would exercise inspecting, intercepting and detaining “unwarranted vessels”. The PLA sends aircraft and ships into the airspace and waters close to Taiwan almost daily, and routinely holds what it calls combat readiness patrols.

Read it all.

Posted in China, Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Taiwan

(Telegraph) Ambrose Evans-Pritchard-Revealed: Trump’s plan to force Ukraine to restore Putin’s gas empire

Donald Trump is holding a gun to the head of Volodymyr Zelensky, demanding huge reparations payments and laying claim to half of Ukraine’s oil, gas, and hydrocarbon resources as well as almost all its metals and much of its infrastructure.

The latest version of his “minerals deal”, obtained by The Telegraph, is unprecedented in the history of modern diplomacy and state relations.

“It is an expropriation document,” said Alan Riley, an expert on energy law at the Atlantic Council. “There are no guarantees, no defence clauses, the US puts up nothing.

“The Americans can walk away, the Ukrainians can’t. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

Read it all.

Posted in America/U.S.A., Ethics / Moral Theology, Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Office of the President, President Donald Trump, Russia, Ukraine

(Stratfor) South Sudan Hurtles Toward Another Civil War

Rising political tensions in South Sudan threaten to drag the country into a new civil war, but even if rival factions can safeguard a 2018 peace deal, more fighting is set to occur in the northeastern Upper Nile state, which will likely draw in growing involvement from Sudan’s warring parties. On March 18, the party of South Sudan’s First Vice President Riek Machar, SPLM-IO, announced it was halting its participation in key provisions of a 2018 peace deal, including joint security and ceasefire monitoring committees, until authorities released allies of Machar who are currently being detained. The announcement comes amid rapidly surging tensions between Machar and South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, who in early March ordered the arrest of pro-Machar figures after the White Army, a militia drawing support from Machar’s Nuer ethnic group, captured the town of Nasir in Upper Nile state on March 4….

Read it all.

Posted in --South Sudan, Africa, Military / Armed Forces, Sudan, Violence

(Bloomberg) Trump Talks of Dividing Ukraine ‘Assets’ Before Putin Call

President Trump said the US and Russia are already talking about dividing “assets” as part of a push to end the fighting in Ukraine, the latest sign that he may be preparing to sacrifice Kyiv’s interests when he speaks with Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

One objective of the call is expected to be getting the Russian president to agree to a 30-day ceasefire that Trump proposed this month and Ukraine has agreed to. Putin has been noncommittal so far, saying he accepted the idea in principle but wants certain conditions to be met.

“Tomorrow morning I will be speaking to President Putin concerning the War in Ukraine,” Trump said Monday evening in a social media post. “Many elements of a Final Agreement have been agreed to, but much remains.” Those remarks, along with Trump’s comments to reporters Sunday night that the two sides were already talking about how to divide assets, suggest that many decisions have already been made — with or without Ukraine.

Read it all.

Posted in America/U.S.A., Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Politics in General, President Donald Trump, Russia, Ukraine

(Washington Post) Pentagon says operation targeting Yemen’s Houthis is open-ended

The U.S. military will continue attacks on Houthi militants in Yemen, officials said Monday, as the Trump administration launches a new, open-ended attempt to prevent the group’s assaults on commercial shipping or U.S. and allied targets.

The Pentagon said U.S. forces had struck more than 30 Houthi targets since Saturday, including command-and-control and training sites, drone infrastructure, and weapons production and storage facilities, in what officials have said would be an intensified campaign against the militants.

“Today, the operation continues, and it will continue in the coming days until we achieve the president’s objectives,” Lt. Gen. AlexusGrynkewich, a senior official on the Joint Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon.

Read it all.

Posted in America/U.S.A., Defense, National Security, Military, Military / Armed Forces, Yemen

(WSJ) China Is Waging a ‘Gray Zone’ Campaign to Cement its growing Power. Here’s How It Looks.

From the choppy waters of the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait to the frozen ridges of the Himalayas, China is pursuing a relentless campaign of expansion, operating in the hazy zone between war and peace to extend its power across Asia.

Beijing carefully calibrates each move with the aim of staying below the threshold of action that could trigger outright conflict. But, step by incremental step, it has pushed deeper into contested areas, exhausting opponents and eroding their strength with a thousand cuts.   

Whether it is probes by war planes, maneuvers by coast guard ships or the creeping construction of new civilian settlements, China is constantly pushing boundaries in what security strategists call the “gray zone.” It tests the limits of what its opponents consider tolerable behavior, escalating a bit with every new action.

The Wall Street Journal reviewed years of ship-movement data, satellite images, flight-tracking information and other measures of Chinese activity. Taken together, it shows a clear intensification of tactics meant to intimidate rivals and deepen China’s control.

Read it all.

Posted in Asia, China, Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Science & Technology

Robert Ellis’ OCMS lecture–Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy: The Pastor and the Suffering God

War broke out in August and in September 1914 Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy wrote these words in his parish magazine:

“I cannot say too strongly that I believe every able-bodied man ought to volunteer for service anywhere. Here ought to be no shirking of that duty.”

This from the man who would, before long be writing this, “Waste”:

“Waste of Muscle, waste of Brain,
Waste of Patience, waste of Pain,
Waste of Manhood, waste of Health,
Waste of Beauty, waste of Wealth,
Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears,
Waste of Youth’s most precious years,
Waste of ways the Saints have trod,
Waste of glory, Waste of God–War!”

Read it all.

Posted in Anthropology, Church History, Church of England, England / UK, Ethics / Moral Theology, History, Military / Armed Forces, Ministry of the Ordained, Poetry & Literature, Theology

(NYT) A Thousand Snipers in the Sky: The New War in Ukraine

When a mortar round exploded on top of their American-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, the Ukrainian soldiers inside were shaken but not terribly worried, having been hardened by artillery shelling over three years of war.

But then the small drones started to swarm.

They targeted the weakest points of the armored Bradley with a deadly precision that mortar fire doesn’t possess. One of the explosive drones struck the hatch right above where the commander was sitting.

“It tore my arm off,” recounted Jr. Sgt. Taras, the 31-year-old commander who, like others, used his first name in accordance with Ukrainian military protocols.

Scrambling for a tourniquet, Sergeant Taras saw that the team’s driver had also been hit, his eye blasted from its socket.

Read it all.

Posted in Death / Burial / Funerals, Defense, National Security, Military, Military / Armed Forces, Russia, Science & Technology, Ukraine, Violence

(Economist) Trump’s armed forces won’t look like Biden’s

Donald Trump, seeing “a big, beautiful Ocean” between his country and the world’s problems, wants to curtail America’s responsibilities abroad. His party is also broadly keen on increasing military spending, and the Trump administration, working with Congress, has new priorities for the Pentagon.

In February several media outlets reported that Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, had ordered a $50bn cut to Pentagon spending. Yet the reported memorandum’s vague language and fuzzy maths belied the reality that Mr Hegseth was seeking cuts merely to offset new spending on “America First” programmes. The Pentagon chief vowed that the changes would make the American “military once again into the most lethal, badass force on the planet”.


Defence spending is poised to rise above levels in the Biden era, when the former president consistently requested after-inflation reductions to outlays. On February 21st the Senate approved $150bn in new defence spending, on top of the department’s existing annual budget that approaches $900bn. The following week a House bill approved $100bn. Some Hill appropriators wonder whether these big numbers will survive the give-and-take of complex spending negotiations, but it is clear that if Mr Trump is pulling back from the world, he isn’t yet pulling back on defence spending. 

Read it all.

Posted in * Economics, Politics, America/U.S.A., Defense, National Security, Military, Economy, Military / Armed Forces, Science & Technology

(Church Times) Ukraine’s children suffering ‘psychological torture’ three years after Russian invasion

One in three people displaced by the war in Ukraine remain in urgent need of humanitarian aid, charities have warned on the third anniversary of the Russian invasion, on Monday.

An estimated 3.6 million people have been internally displaced in Ukraine, while 6.5 million people have fled the country to find safety elsewhere: 90 per cent of the refugees are women and children. Vital infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals, has been destroyed in parts of the country. Conditions are worst along the eastern and southern frontlines.

Children are traumatised, and suffering from a lack of food and disrupted education, World Vision reports. An estimated 659 children have been killed in three years, and 1747 injured. “The emotional burden faced by Ukrainian children cannot be overlooked,” its Operations Director, Arman Grigoryan, said.

Read it all.

Posted in Children, Health & Medicine, Military / Armed Forces, Russia, Ukraine

(Telegraph) Ambrose Evans-Pritchard–Revealed: Trump’s confidential plan to put Ukraine in a stranglehold

Donald Trump’s demand for a $500bn (£400bn) “payback” from Ukraine goes far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals. It covers everything from ports and infrastructure to oil and gas, and the larger resource base of the country.

The terms of the contract that landed at Volodymyr Zelensky’s office a week ago amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity. It implies a burden of reparations that cannot possibly be achieved. The document has caused consternation and panic in Kyiv.

The Telegraph has obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract, marked “Privileged & Confidential’ and dated Feb 7 2025. It states that the US and Ukraine should form a joint investment fund to ensure that “hostile parties to the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine”.

Read it all.

Posted in America/U.S.A., Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, President Donald Trump, Russia, Ukraine

(New Yorker) The U.S. Military’s Recruiting Crisis

In 2022 and 2023, the Army missed its recruitment goal by nearly twenty-five per cent—about fifteen thousand troops a year. It hit the mark last year, but only by reducing the target by more than ten thousand. The Navy has also fared badly: it failed to reach its goals in 2023, then met them in 2024 by filling out the ranks with recruits of a lower standard; nearly half measured below average on an aptitude exam. The Army Reserve hasn’t met its benchmark since 2016, and the ranks are so depleted that active-duty officers have been put in charge of reserve units. Some experts worry that, if the country went to war, many reserve units might be unable to deploy. A U.S. official who works on these issues put it simply: “We can’t get enough people.”

At the end of the Second World War, the American military had twelve million active-duty members. It now has 1.3 million—even though the population has more than doubled, and women are now eligible for armed service. “The U.S. military has been shrinking for thirty years,” Lawrence Wilkerson, a former senior State Department official who leads a task force on the challenges facing the armed services, said. “But its global commitments haven’t changed.” The military operates out of bases in more than fifty countries, and routinely deploys Special Operations forces to about eighty. Now, Wilkerson said, “it’s not clear that the military is large enough anymore for America to uphold its promises.”

For decades, the armed forces based their requirements on a defensive doctrine called “win and hold”: the capacity to win one war while fighting a second to a standstill. Today, with the U.S. confronting perhaps its starkest global-security challenges since the Cold War, many analysts fear that even one war would be too taxing. A conflict with China over the disputed island of Taiwan could leave thousands of Americans dead in a matter of weeks—amounting to nearly half the losses the country sustained in twenty years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Read it all.

Posted in America/U.S.A., Defense, National Security, Military, Military / Armed Forces

A Prayer for the Feast Day of the [four] Dorchester chaplains

Holy God, who didst inspire the Dorchester chaplains to be models of steadfast sacrificial love in a tragic and terrifying time: Help us to follow their example, that their courageous ministry may inspire chaplains and all who serve, to recognize thy presence in the midst of peril; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Posted in Church History, Death / Burial / Funerals, Military / Armed Forces, Spirituality/Prayer

(Church Times) Hospitals in Goma are swamped, bishop warns in peace plea as violence escalates

People in the Congolese city of Goma are “terrified in their homes”, the Bishop, the Rt Revd Martin Gordon, has said, as violence escalates and humanitarian conditions worsen.

Operations by the rebel armed group M23, which is backed by Rwanda, and Congolese Army forces have blocked key roads and closed all supply lines to Goma.

Bishop Gordon, who left Goma this week, said on Wednesday that people in the city were without power and in many areas there was no water. “The M23 seems to have control of large parts of the city,” he said. “The Congolese army are resisting in other areas. Civilians are being caught in the crossfire. Bodies are lying in the streets; 4000 prisoners have escaped.”

Camps of internally displaced persons had emptied, he said, as people fled to the city centre; churches were “filling as places of refuge”, and hospitals were “overwhelmed”.

Read it all.

Posted in Anglican Church in Congo/Province de L'Eglise Anglicane Du Congo, Military / Armed Forces, Religion & Culture, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Violence

(FT) China builds huge wartime military command centre in Beijing

 China’s military is building a massive complex in western Beijing that US intelligence believes will serve as a wartime command centre far larger than the Pentagon, according to current and former American officials.

Satellite images obtained by the Financial Times that are being examined by US intelligence show a roughly 1,500-acre construction site 30km south-west of Beijing with deep holes that military experts assess will house large, hardened bunkers to protect Chinese military leaders during any conflict — including potentially a nuclear war.

Several current and former US officials said the intelligence community was closely monitoring the site, which would be the world’s largest military command centre — and at least 10 times the size of the Pentagon.

Read it all.

Posted in * Economics, Politics, America/U.S.A., China, Defense, National Security, Military, Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces

(Telegraph) The Russian spy ship in Britain’s waters preparing ground for war

Sailing off the south coast of England, the Russian trawler known as the Yantar carried its usual array of hi-tech equipment.

In photographs released by the Ministry of Defence, a large radar dome can be seen behind two masts bristling with antennae.

Officially, these allow the 108 metre-long craft to monitor ocean currents, befitting a vessel the Kremlin maintains is part of its oceanographic research fleet.

But it was the ship’s more nefarious purposes that prompted a rare display of British naval power on Jan 20, when the Yantar was confronted by a British warship, HMS Somerset, and patrol vessel HMS Tyne.

Humdrum though it may appear, the Yantar is known to carry two submersibles that can dive down up to 6,000 metres, allowing their crew to map, monitor and potentially sever the undersea cables that transmit data around the world.

Read it all.

Posted in Defense, National Security, Military, England / UK, Ethics / Moral Theology, Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Russia, Science & Technology

Remembering the 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

Posted in Death / Burial / Funerals, Germany, History, Judaism, Military / Armed Forces

(WSJ Houses of Worship) Alex Kershaw-When Gen. George Patton Called on God

Patton instructed his men: “Pray when driving. Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night and pray by day.” He believed the Third Army’s nearly 500 chaplains, representing 32 denominations, were as critical to victory as his tank commanders. “He wanted a chaplain to be above average in courage,” O’Neill recalled. “In time of battle, he wanted the chaplains up front, where the men were dying. And that’s where the Third Army chaplains went—up front. We lost more chaplains, proportionately, than any other group.”

Patton relied on his faith more than most commanders did. Brig. Gen. Harry H. Semmes wrote that Patton “always read the Bible, particularly the life of Christ and the wars of the Old Testament. He knew by heart the order of morning prayer of the Episcopal Church. His thoughts, as demonstrated daily to those close to him, repeatedly indicated that his life was dominated by a feeling of dependence on God.” Semmes added that “Patton was an unusual mixture of a profane and highly religious man.”

Gen. Omar Bradley concurred: “He was profane, but he was also reverent. He strutted imperiously as a commander, but he knelt humbly before his God.” This was certainly the case during Patton’s finest moment in the Ardennes. “Destiny sent for me in a hurry when things got tight,” he wrote at the height of the battle. “Perhaps God saved me for this effort.” He also noted: “We can and will win, God helping. . . . Give us the Victory, Lord.”

Read it all.

Posted in America/U.S.A., Belgium, France, Germany, History, Military / Armed Forces, Spirituality/Prayer

(Washington Post) Mark Thiessen-Does Trump want Putin to get Ukraine’s $26 trillion in gas and minerals?

Ukraine is not only the breadbasket of Europe; it is also a mineral superpower, with some of the largest reserves of 117 of the 120 most widely used minerals in the world.

Of the 50 strategic minerals identified by the United States as critical to its economy and national security, many of which are quite rare yet key to certain high-value applications, Ukraine supplies 22.

Ukraine possesses the largest reserves of uranium in Europe; the second-largest reserves of iron ore, titanium and manganese; and the third-largest reserves of shale gas — as well as large deposits of lithium, graphite and rare earth metals, according to a 2022 report by the Canadian geopolitical risk-analysis firm SecDev. These minerals are essential to the production of vital goods ranging from airplanes, cellphones and electric vehicles to steel and nuclear power.

The question for the president-elect is: Does he want Russia and China to get that treasure trove of natural resources? Or does he want to develop them with Ukraine to the benefit of the American people? One of the main reasons Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine (aside from his delusional historical fantasies about how Ukrainians and Russians are “one people”) was to seize these natural resources, which are valued at an estimated $26 trillion, according to SecDev.

Read it all.

Posted in America/U.S.A., Energy, Natural Resources, Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Russia, Ukraine

(Economist) Ukrainian troops celebrate a grim Christmas in Kursk

The Newspaper round in Velyka Pysarivka can be sketchy. Barely 3km from the Russian border, the village is stalked by death. Oleskiy and Natalia Pasyuga, the husband-and-wife duo behind the Vorskla (the weekly takes its name from the local river) have a survival algorithm. Oleksiy, 56, drives. Natalia, 53, listens out of the passenger window for the drones that grow stealthier with every day. They say they are careful, though they know they are kidding themselves. Delivering the paper to the last remaining residents of the village is not a rational exercise, but a love affair. The tears of subscribers make it worth it, Ms Pasyuga says: “They grab the paper and hold it to their nose to smell the fresh newsprint.”

For its 2,500 readers, the Vorskla is more than a news source; it is a connection to the outside world. Most of Ukraine’s border villages now have no electricity or mobile connection. When televisions work, they pick up Russian channels. The Pasyugas say they feel obliged to stay to debunk the propaganda, though they evacuated their offices from Velyka Pysarivka in March after a glide bomb smashed their car and half the building. Six months later the Russians destroyed the other half, during attacks that coincided with Ukraine’s advance into Russia’s Kursk province just to the north. Now the Vorskla is put together in a library in the nearby town of Okhtyrka. It is printed and hand delivered to front-line villages in a car the couple borrow from their son.

When your correspondent calls, the Pasyugas are preparing a special Christmas issue. They already know what they want: uplifting stories to raise the morale of their weary readers. For once, there will be no obituaries of the local boys lost in battle. The Kursk offensive will be left out too, though that is less unusual. The Pasyugas say they know “too much” to accept the official celebration of the offensive as “Ukraine’s great and only triumph of 2024”. They choose silence instead.

Read it all.

Posted in Media, Military / Armed Forces, Russia, Ukraine

(Economist Cover) How the new Syria might succeed or fail

Now that Mr Assad has fled to Moscow, the question is where will liberation lead. In a part of the world plagued by ethnic violence and religious strife, many fear the worst. The Arab spring in 2010-12 taught that countries which topple their dictators often end up being fought over or dominated by men who are no less despotic. That is all the more reason to wish and work for something better in Syria.

There is no denying that many forces are conspiring to drag the country into further bloodshed. Syria is a mosaic of peoples and faiths carved out of the Ottoman empire. They have never lived side by side in a stable democracy. The Assads belong to the Alawite minority, which makes up about 10-15% of the population. For decades, they imposed a broadly secular settlement on Syrian society using violence.

Syria’s people have many reasons to seek vengeance. After 13 years of civil war in a country crammed with weapons, some factions will want to settle scores; so will some bad and dangerous men just released from prison. Under the Assads’ henchmen, many of them Alawite and Shia, Sunnis suffered acts of heinous cruelty, including being gassed by chlorine and a nerve agent.

Syria’s new powerbrokers are hardly men of peace. Take the dominant faction in the recent advance. Until 2016 Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was known as Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. Its founder, Ahmad al-Sharaa, had fought the Americans as a member of Islamic State (IS) in Iraq under the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Jolani. HTS and Mr Sharaa swear they have left those days behind. If, amid the chaos, such groups set out to impose rigid Islamic rule, foreign countries, possibly including the United Arab Emirates, will bankroll other groups to take up arms against them.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

Posted in Ethics / Moral Theology, Foreign Relations, Middle East, Military / Armed Forces, Politics in General, Syria, Terrorism

A Prayer for the Feast Day for Frederick Howden Jr.

Almighty God, our sure defense: We give thee thanks for thy servant Frederick Howden Jr. and all military chaplains who provided comfort and inspiration in time of battle; and, following the example of Jesus the Good Shepherd, laid down their lives in the service of others. Inspire and strengthen us, also, for the duties of life still before us, that we may be faithful to the end; through the same Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.

Posted in Church History, Military / Armed Forces, Ministry of the Ordained, Spirituality/Prayer

(WSJ) The 11-Day Blitz by Syrian Rebels That Ended 50 Years of Assad Rule

Entering the weekend, Syria President Bashar al-Assad showed no signs of yielding.

As armed rebels closed in Saturday on Damascus, Assad ordered his forces to defend the Syrian capital, seemingly confident the military would come to his rescue, according to Syrian officials familiar with the matter.

By late Saturday, Assad had vanished. He didn’t show up for a prepared address to the nation, and his cabinet had no idea where he was. They learned with the rest of the world that Assad had escaped the country hours ahead of the rebels’ arrival.

The toppling of Assad’s regime, ending 50 years of his family’s rule, revealed how badly Syria’s army had been hollowed out by years of corruption, defections to the rebellion and the country’s economic crisis. Recruitment had declined, and Syrian men dodged conscription.

Read it all.

Posted in Foreign Relations, Middle East, Military / Armed Forces, Syria

(WSJ) Iran Sharply Expands Stockpile of Nuclear Fuel Ahead of Trump’s Return

Iran sharply increased its stockpile of nearly weapons-grade uranium amid its confrontation with Israel, according to the United Nations atomic-energy agency, in a challenge for the incoming Trump administration.

Iran’s decision to expand its stockpile of nuclear fuel and its failure to fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, which monitors Tehran’s work, is set to trigger fresh diplomatic pressure from Europe.

Concerns are growing in Western capitals that Iran could decide to develop a nuclear weapon, after comments by senior Iranian officials that Tehran has mastered most of the techniques for doing so. Israel’s hollowing-out of Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy in the Middle East, has also prompted a public debate in Iran about whether the country’s best form of deterrence lies in having an atomic bomb.

Iran has always claimed that its nuclear work is solely for peaceful civilian purposes.

Both the incoming Trump administration and Tehran have sent mixed messages about whether they will seek confrontation or some kind of diplomatic engagement after President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

Read it all.

Posted in Foreign Relations, Iran, Military / Armed Forces

(ISW) Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment

Ukrainian forces have defended against Russia’s full-scale invasion for 1,000 days and continue to demonstrate incredible resilience against Russian aggression. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022 under the incorrect assumption that Ukraine would fail to defend itself and that Russian forces would be able to seize Kyiv City and install a pro-Russian proxy government in three days. One thousand days later, Ukrainian forces have successfully pushed Russian forces from their most forward points of advance in Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, Poltava, and Mykolaiv oblasts and continue their daily fight to liberate occupied territory in Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, and Kherson oblasts and Crimea. Russian forces are currently advancing throughout eastern Ukraine, and Ukrainian officials have recently warned about the possibility of an imminent Russian offensive operation in Zaporizhia Oblast. Russian President Vladimir Putin is simultaneously waging an informational war against the West, Ukraine, and the Russian population aimed at convincing the world that Russian victory is inevitable, and that Ukraine stands no chance. This informational effort is born out of Putin’s fear and understanding that sustained Western military, economic, and diplomatic support for Ukraine will turn the tide of the war against Russia.

Read it all.

Posted in Military / Armed Forces, Russia, Ukraine

(Economist) Vladimir Putin is in a painful economic bind

Until recently, the Russian government had cushioned the economy from higher borrowing costs. A variety of schemes made it easier for households to suspend debt payments and for firms to borrow at lower subsidised rates, with the government stepping in to compensate banks for lost income. There are signs, though, that such programmes are becoming unaffordable. A mortgage-subsidy scheme, which had allowed borrowing at a cost of just 8% when official rates were much higher, ended on July 1st. Mortgage volumes halved in the following month. Corporate bankruptcies have risen by 20% this year. The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, a trade body, reckons investment plans for next year are being put on hold owing to heavy borrowing costs.

Higher interest rates will crimp spending by both firms and consumers. The IMF expects Russian economic growth to slow sharply to 1.3% next year. Even VEB, the state-run development bank, has cut its growth estimate to 2%. A combination of lower investment and manpower lost to the front is taking a toll. The need to maintain the value of the rouble to pay for crucial imports is a vulnerability for Mr Putin, and one which could soon take a toll on his ability to fight. He may be hoping that Donald Trump keeps his promise to bring the conflict to an end. Waging a 3% war is one thing; a 21% war is quite another. 

Read it all.

Posted in * Economics, Politics, Economy, Military / Armed Forces, Russia, Ukraine

(FA) Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Craig Mundie–War and Peace in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

From the recalibration of military strategy to the reconstitution of diplomacy, artificial intelligence will become a key determinant of order in the world. Immune to fear and favor, AI introduces a new possibility of objectivity in strategic decision-making. But that objectivity, harnessed by both the warfighter and the peacemaker, should preserve human subjectivity, which is essential for the responsible exercise of force. AI in war will illuminate the best and worst expressions of humanity. It will serve as the means both to wage war and to end it.

Humanity’s long-standing struggle to constitute itself in ever-more complex arrangements, so that no state gains absolute mastery over others, has achieved the status of a continuous, uninterrupted law of nature. In a world where the major actors are still human—even if equipped with AI to inform, consult, and advise them—countries should still enjoy a degree of stability based on shared norms of conduct, subject to the tunings and adjustments of time.

But if AI emerges as a practically independent political, diplomatic, and military set of entities, that would force the exchange of the age-old balance of power for a new, uncharted disequilibrium. The international concert of nation-states—a tenuous and shifting equilibrium achieved in the last few centuries—has held in part because of the inherent equality of the players. A world of severe asymmetry—for instance, if some states adopted AI at the highest level more readily than others—would be far less predictable. In cases where some humans might face off militarily or diplomatically against a highly AI-enabled state, or against AI itself, humans could struggle to survive, much less compete. Such an intermediate order could witness an internal implosion of societies and an uncontrollable explosion of external conflicts.

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Posted in Foreign Relations, Military / Armed Forces, Science & Technology

A prayer for Remembrance Sunday from the Church of England

Almighty and eternal God, from whose love in Christ we cannot be parted, either by death or life: hear our prayers and thanksgivings for all whom we remember this day; fulfill in them the purpose of your love; and bring us all, with them, to your eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Posted in History, Military / Armed Forces, Spirituality/Prayer

(WSJ) Iran Tells Region ‘Strong and Complex’ Attack Coming on Israel

Amid U.S. warnings against a counterattack on Israel, Iran is sending a defiant diplomatic message: It is planning a complex response involving even more powerful warheads and other weapons, said Iranian and Arab officials briefed on the plans.

It remains to be seen whether the Iranian threats are real or just tough talk. Israel’s punishing airstrike against Iran on Oct. 26 shredded the country’s strategic air defenses, leaving it badly exposed and sharply raising the risks to Iran if it follows through. 

How the Israeli response plays out will depend on the size, nature and effectiveness of Tehran’s threatened strike. So far, Israel has refrained from hitting Iran’s oil and nuclear facilities, essential to its economy and its security, but that calculus could change, Israeli officials have said.

Iran has told Arab diplomats that its conventional army would be involved because it had lost four soldiers and a civilian in Israel’s attack, the Iranian and Arab officials said. Involving its regular army doesn’t mean its troops would be deployed but that the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that normally deals with Israeli security matters wouldn’t act alone in this case.

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Posted in Defense, National Security, Military, Foreign Relations, Iran, Israel, Middle East, Military / Armed Forces