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Gaza
Nov 12, 2019 Israel’s military killed Ata, a senior leader of the second-largest militant group the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza in a targeted airstrike today, prompting fighters in the Palestinian enclave to fire about 190 rockets into Israel that set off sirens and forced people into bomb shelters across the country. (Source: TheWallStreetJournal)
India
November 12, 2019 The Indian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has inked a $2.8 billion contract signed on November 6 with the state-owned Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) to license-build 464 additional T-90S main battle tanks (MBTs) for service in the Indian Army. (Source: TheDiplomat)
Japan
Nov. 13, 2019 China is a strategic competitor to be sure. The U.S. military capabilities allotted to the region illustrate that the Indo-Pacific is the focus of the U.S. military's main effort. The region is home to the four most populous countries in the world: China, India, the United States and Indonesia, and it has the largest military forces in the world. The return of great power competition as a threat to the United States is played out in the Pacific, with China and Russia both trying to change the rules-based international order that has served the region so well. In the Pacific, the bilateral treaty allies - Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand - are the bedrock for U.S. diplomatic, economic, political and military efforts. With more than 300,000 service members and Defense Department civilians, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command dwarfs Centcom. The U.S. Pacific Air Forces alone is the second largest air force in the world. By itself, the U.S. Pacific Fleet would be the largest Navy in the world. The Army has a division in Hawaii and another in South Korea, as well as a significant presence in Alaska. It's important that the United States, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and other friends and allies in the region remain unified. China is trying to assert sovereignty over the South China Sea. For ships and planes and troops to operate in any region of the world, it very, very much helps to have bases and overflight rights and have friends and allies in the region that can facilitate U.S. military operations. (Source. Defense)
Syria
12 November 2019 Discussions are underway to set up a new Russian airbase, Qamishli Airport in northeastern Syria. Moscow was also considering deploying its defense and missile defense systems in the Qamishli area to “intercept potential American strikes”. Russia currently controls the Hmeimim airbase in Syria and a naval facility in Tartus, which it has rented for 49 years and plans to turn into a bona-fide naval base. The Qamishli airfield is located only 500km from the Hmeimim base. Experts believe that it would be used to control American missiles stationed in the Middle East, the skies above Syria, Turkey and Iraq. (Source: aawsat)
Turkey
November 18, 2019 Senior members of isis are plotting mass prison breaks and a resurgence of terror after taking refuge in Turkey, according to the head of Iraqi Military Intelligence. Lt. Gen. Allaq told that Iraq had handed dossiers on nine alleged terror leaders to Turkey. The subjects included senior isis figures known as "emirs", top financiers with access to "huge" amounts of money to fund operations around the world. They escaped from isis' last stand in Baghouz in eastern Syria earlier this year, bribed their way through SDF lines, secretly crossed, entered to relative safety in Gazientep in southern Turkey and were forming new cells. Recent communications from isis point to plans to try to break prisoners out of camps and jails across Syria and Iraq to get manpower. A new isis mission the terror group codenamed "Break Down the Fences" intended to storm jails where their followers were being held and try to rebuild its structures from there. Turkish authorities recently arrested 42 people allegedly involved in complex money transfers for the terror group. Turkey's state media says millions of dollars of ISIS money has been frozen. (Source: CNN)
11/15/2019 Syrian President Assad about the death of White Helmets founder Le Mesurier, who had been found dead Nov. 11 after an apparent fall from a three story high balcony outside his Istanbul office: Le Mesurier was a former British military intelligence officer, founder of the controversial White Helmets group which Assad has previously dubbed the ‘rescue force for al-Qaeda’. "He had worked his whole life with NATO in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraq and Lebanon", he explained. Assad compared Le Mesurier’s death to the murky circumstances surrounding the deaths of Epstein, bin Laden and isis leader Baghdadi. What connects these men are that they “knew major secrets” and were thus “liquidated” by “intelligence services” - most likely the CIA. They turned into a burden once they had played out their roles. "When we talk about Western secret services in general, about Turkish and some other ones in our region, these are not the secret services of sovereign states, rather these are departments of the main intelligence agency – the CIA.” “It is quite possible that Turkish intelligence agencies did the job upon the instructions of foreign intelligence services,” he qualified. The Syrian president then speculated that, “Possibly, the founder of the White Helmets had been working on his memoirs and on the biography of his life, and this was unacceptable. (Source: ZeroHedge)
November 13, 2019 Erdogan continues to dangle a Patriot purchase over Trump, though it’s far from clear the discussions will go anywhere. Erdogan had many reasons to purchase the S-400, even though the United States has offered the Raytheon-built Patriot missile system as an alternative, Karako said. The primary one is political - buying the S-400 is viewed as a “tribute” to Russian President Putin. Another is technical - the S-400’s radar is 360 degrees,whereas the more expensive Patriot’s is only 180. And finally, Erdogan, who was attacked by his own air force in 2016 using U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets, wants a system that is designed to shoot down Western aircraft. (Source: ForeignPolicy)
November 13, 2019 Do Turkey and America even share any strategic interests? many wonder if the country can remain in a NATO alliance whose preamble states that members “… are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.” Despite being a NATO member, Turkey is now a strategic competitor of the US in the Middle East. Erdogan has helped solidify Russia's influence at the expense of the US and Western allies. Even as Erdogan meets with Trump on Wednesday, the US Congress is pushing forward with more sanctions against Turkey for its invasion of Syria disguised as a military operation - “Operation Peace Spring” - against “Kurdish terrorists.” Recent Turkish policies make the collision with Washington and the Europeans abundantly clear. Turkey helped Iran evade US sanctions for many years, leading to indictments against some of its officials and top bank executives. Last summer, Turkey purchased the S-400 air defense system from Russia, which is not inter-operable with NATO systems and could allow Russian technicians to gain valuable intelligence about American-made fighter aircraft. Throughout most of the civil war in Syria, Turkey backed various extremist groups fighting Assad’s regime. It allowed tens of thousands of militants to transit through its territory en route to Syria, without lifting a finger as they established their “caliphate” right over the border. After also denying the Americans the use of the NATO airbase at Incirlik for anti-Daesh operations, Washington found its Syrian Kurdish allies to help them against Daesh. As soon as the Kurds had liberated the last of Daesh-held territories in Syria, Turkey insisted that it had to move against main Kurdish fighting force. With its “Operation Peace Spring,” Turkey and its Syrian proxies successfully pushed the Americans out of most of Syria and forced the Kurds to turn to Russia and the Assad regime for protection. As European leaders criticized the offensive, which many describe as a program of ethnic cleansing, Turkey threatened to unleash millions of Syrian refugees into Europe. The ongoing fighting, chaos and displacement in northern Syria is also allowing Daesh captives held by the Kurds to escape. Talk of expelling Turkey from NATO is now a mainstay in American and European media. Despite fierce Turkish opposition and lobbying, Congress on Oct. 29 finally passed a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide. The change in Turkey became most apparent by 2011, when the Turkish chief of army staff, the head of the air force, the head of the navy and the head of the land forces all resigned on the same day. Once the Kemalist old guard was purged and the military forced back into its barracks, Erdogan and his inner circle could freely pursue their own foreign policy instincts. These instincts seemed to call for Turkey to become more involved in the Middle East, to aspire towards regaining some of the stature and importance of its Ottoman forebears, to distance itself from American and European policies, and even to lean more towards the East and Russia. When the Arab Spring began in 2011, Erdogan’s new Turkey supported Islamists in every Arab country rocked by protests. Erdogan himself reveled in the prospect of a new Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Middle East, envisioning himself as the neo-Ottoman leader of the new trend. He bought currency for his ambition to lead the Arab and Sunni Islamist world by projecting himself as the Palestinians’ indispensable defender, wrecking Turkey’s delicate relationship with Israel in the process. The mainstays of Islamist discourse include not only exploiting the Palestinian issue but anti-Western (especially anti-American) and anti-Semitic rhetoric. The Turkish minister of defense in October even posted a map online which showed northern Syria, northern Iraq, Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, parts of the Balkans and Greece, and all of Cyprus as part of Turkey - with the message: “We have no eyes on anyone’s soil. We will only take what’s ours.” (Source: ArabNews)
November 12, 2019 Erdogan is stirring up anti-American sentiment to rally a nationalist base, has taken delivery of a Russian air defense system, is seeking to strengthen his ties to Moscow and distance himself from NATO. He is seemingly far more interested in pushing the Kurds away from Turkey's border and ensuring they don't create an autonomous enclave, and dumping refugees in Syria, than going after isis and other jihadis. Trump's business interests in Turkey go back at least a decade. He reaps lucrative profit from a licensing deal from his Trump Tower in Istanbul and much of these dealings are being handled by a channel involving Erdogan's son in law and Trump's son-in-law, Kushner. In this regard, the relationship between Trump and Turkey most closely resembles that between Trump and Saudi Arabia where Kushner also plays a leading role. Trump was determined to prevent Turkey from falling further into Russia's embrace and developed a plan for Syria in which Erdogan didn't have free rein to have his way with the Kurds. He continues to treat it as such by deferring sanctions for buying Russian military equipment and acquiescing in its Syria incursion. There may well be some tough words - even actions - over Turkey's purchase of the Russian air defense system in today's meeting. (Source: CNN)
November 12, 2019 Buying the S-400 amounts to a declaration of independence. Turkey now sees the balance of power shifting away from Europe and the U.S. and envisions itself as a more independent actor in a changing global order. Erdogan has relied on his rapport with Trump to ward off another round of punishing American sanctions since he put Turkey’s NATO obligations to one side and took delivery of a missile-defense system made by the bloc’s top foe, Russia. Turkey plans to deploy the S-400 batteries as early as December, and make them fully operational by April 2020, while both Trump administration officials and Congress remain publicly determined to punish Ankara over the missile purchase. The U.S. has already suspended Turkey from development of the advanced F-35 fighter jet made by Lockheed Martin Corp. over its deal with Russia, and blocked Turkish purchases of the stealthy warplanes. The S-400 was designed to shoot down U.S. and coalition aircraft at greater ranges and altitudes than older systems. U.S. officials are concerned that sensitive F-35 technology designed to evade such a system could be compromised and used to improve the Russian air-defense system if Turkey had both. Tough penalties could destabilize the Turkish economy. Ankara had planned to purchase about 100 F-35s to replace its aging F-16 fleet. (Source: Bloomberg)
November 12, 2019 Turkey, NATO, and a shifting world. NATO has no mechanism for the suspension or expulsion of a member. The United Nations and the European Union do. NATO does not. Such a mechanism was contemplated at the time of the founding - What if a NATO member were to turn Communist, as Italy almost did in 1948? - but it was decided against. Evidently, the founders figured that an incongruous or disaffected member would simply leave - there is a mechanism for that (Article 13). The treaty could be amended, allowing for the suspension or expulsion of a member. But that would require unanimous consent - meaning, Turkey’s, too. Some people hope that, out of pique or cold calculation or whatever, Turkey will just up and leave. They ask some provocative questions, including this: What if a country - Assad’s Syria, say - attacked Turkey? Wouldn’t the 28 other members of NATO be obliged to come to Turkey’s defense, as dictated by Article 5? Formally, yes. (Article 5, which says that an attack on one is an attack on all, was never invoked during the four decades of the Cold War. It has been invoked only once, and that was by the United States after 9/11. What NATO can do, however, is distance itself from Turkey. Freeze it out. Stop sharing intelligence, stop sharing technology. And this, NATO members are already doing. Erdogan is not complaining about it publicly - but he knows he is being marginalized, and he will complain about it publicly before long, almost surely. If you freeze out Turkey, you have to replace it with something. You have to replace what Turkey has brought to the alliance, which is considerable. Where are you going to get another air base, so desirably positioned? Where are you going to store your nukes? What are you going to do for ports? How about reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities? Current discussion revolves around Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Jordan, Iraqi Kurdistan, and still other locales. Erdogan has “de-Atlanticized,” or “de-NATO-ized,” the military, and has indoctrinated a whole generation of Turkish youth. There is no going back. (Source: NationalReview)
11 November 2019 Turkey starts repatriation of captured isis militants. Turkey aims to repatriate around 2,500 militants, the majority of whom will be sent to European Union nations. There were currently 813 extremists at 12 deportation centers in the country. Europeans comprise a fifth of the around 10,000 isis fighters held captive in Syria by Kurdish militias. Denmark, Germany and Britain have so far revoked some citizenships. Last week, Turkish President Erdogan was cited as saying that there are 1,201 isis prisoners in Turkish jails, while Turkey had captured 287 militants in Syria. (Source: elarabiya)
United States
20 Nov 2019 Tisherman, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, is the leader of a team that has successfully put a human being in suspended animation. He removed the patient’s blood and replaced with ice-cold saline solution. The patient, technically dead at this point, was removed from the cooling system and taken to an operating theatre for a two-hour surgical procedure before having their blood restored and being warmed to the normal temperature of 37C. His focus is on pausing life long enough to perform emergency surgery. At the moment, the biggest obstacle to reliable animation of a patient who has been super-cooled in this way is cell damage as they are re-warmed – so-called reperfusion injuries. (Source: DailyStar)
November 11, 2019 Two political supporters of U.S. Energy Secretary Perry secured a potentially lucrative oil and gas exploration deal from the Ukrainian government soon after Perry proposed one of the men as an adviser to the country’s new president. Little more than a month after the U.S. energy secretary attended Zelenskiy’s May inauguration, in a meeting during that trip, he handed the new president a list of people he recommended as energy advisers. One of the four names was his longtime political backer Bleyzer. A week later, Bleyzer and his partner Cranberg submitted a bid to drill for oil and gas at a sprawling government-controlled site called Varvynska. They offered millions of dollars less to the Ukrainian government than their only competitor for the drilling rights. In February, the Ukrainian government opened up bidding for nine oil and gas blocks encompassing 11,469 square kilometers of land. Ukrainian Energy, the joint venture between Bleyzer’s investment firm SigmaBleyzer and Cranberg’s Aspect Energy, submitted a single bid for the largest block, which covers 3,471 square kilometers. The winning bidder is awarded exclusive rights to extract petroleum for up to 50 years. The only competing bidder, UkrGasVydobuvannya, subsidiary of Naftogaz, known by the acronym UGV, offered more than $60 million for the first phase of the project, compared with $53 million from Bleyzer and Cranberg. Of the nine gas deals awarded on July 1, Bleyzer and Cranberg’s bid was the only one of the winners that didn’t include the participation of a Ukrainian company. Perry’s work in Ukraine places him at the center of the House impeachment inquiry into efforts by Trump and his personal lawyer Giuliani to press Zelenskiy to open an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings with Burisma, another Ukrainian gas company. (Source: AP)
11 Nov 2019 Two of President Trump's senior advisers undermined and ignored him in what they claimed was an effort to "save the country," former United Nations ambassador Haley claims in a new memoir. Former Secretary of State Tillerson and former White House Chief of Staff Kelly sought to recruit her to work around and subvert Trump, but she refused, Haley writes in a new book, "With All Due Respect," which also describes Tillerson as "exhausting" and imperious and Kelly as suspicious of her access to Trump. (Source: NZHerald)
NATO
November 13, 2019 A Post-Post-Cold-War NATO. Macron, despite his tenuous position in the polls, the modest benefit of his economic reforms, and his ineffectual response to the yellow-vested malcontents, has an increase in stature due to his fixed five-year term. France will have a great deal more influence in a European Union of 27 than it has had in a Europe of 28 including the United Kingdom. Italy, although the rising political forces are intelligent conservatives who may accomplish something useful (a rare occurrence in Italian politics), is in a state of political disorganization, as it usually is; Spain is in some turmoil because of a prolonged recession and the Catalonian separatism crisis. With the bar lowered, France could become the EU’s leading power. Despite its extraordinary fluctuations of fortune, France has never lost the attitude and vocation of a great power. Russia, if faced down into the arms of China, could agree to rent a chunk of Siberia on a royalty arrangement to China to be exploited by surplus Chinese manpower. The fusion of resource-rich Siberia with Chinese manpower and exploitive skills would make poor and overpopulated China a full-scale rival to the United States. NATO (i.e. the U.S.) should negotiate a non-aggression and partial-cooperation agreement with Russia to keep it out of the embrace of China. The West can certainly be a more attractive dancing partner for Russia than China, and it should reinforce relations with India and subtly encourage the commercial and strategic independence of the Far Eastern, South Asian, and Australasian neighbors of China, all while managing Sino-American relations carefully. NATO should probably be expanded to other regions. But the vote in NATO council meetings should be withdrawn from any country that does not meet three quarters of its contribution target. And something must be done about Turkey. Now that the United States is no longer assigning itself the task of deploying 400 men to prevent Turkey from conducting reprisals against the Kurds (and the widely predicted humanitarian disasters have not occurred), it should be possible to rebuild that relationship, it being understood that Turkish president Erdogan is no more convivial than Russia’s Putin or China’s Xi. It is time for a little creative thinking. The United States can deal from strength, and the Europeans and Canadians will follow. (Source: NatioanalReview)
Nov 12, 2019 Is it simply the French equivalent of an early morning tweet? Europe must think about issues such digital policy, trade, or technology not solely through an economic lens, but also realize that these are increasingly becoming instruments akin to hard power - instruments that Europe, through the European Union, is well placed to wield. What Macron sees is a world that is increasingly dangerous for Europeans. A world in which authoritarian regimes are on the rise, instability and terrorism persists in the vicinity of Europe, and history returns in the form of great power competition. A world in which, regardless of who sits in the White House, the United States’ focus is moving away from Europe. To face that world, he fears Europe is still a house divided, has partly forgotten it is a political project and not a market, and, most of all, shies away from asserting its very real power on the world stage. This should not come as a surprise. This has been his constant worry, from his 2017 Sorbonne speech to his August 2018 proposals about deepening the EU’s solidarity clause, to his calls for a European Army - a call to be understood as powerful image, not read literally of course - to his address this summer at the annual ambassadors meeting, where he laid out his Russia policy. And he offers some solutions. The first is strengthening European military capabilities. As Macron puts it “these days, if you don’t have military credibility, in a world where authoritarian powers are on the rise again” you don’t get to sit at the table. Arguably, progress has been made there, with the launch of the European Intervention Initiative, the European Defense Fund, and the Permanent Structured Cooperation. European defense budgets are on the rise. As the French defense minister Parly explained at the Atlantic Council last March, France is quite clear-eyed about the long-term effort required to address European shortfalls and about the value of US support. The second strand to engage is Russia - because Europeans cannot ignore their large neighbor. This does not mean, of course, being naïve about Russian intentions. The third, and arguably most important piece of the puzzle, is to get Europe to think geopolitically. (Source: AtlanticCouncil): https://tinyurl.com/srffzzt
November 2019 NATO’s Eastern Flank is the most vulnerable sector of the Alliance, one that is increasingly exposed to penetration, subversion, and military probing by a revisionist Russia. This geographic expanse, spanning from the Arctic to the Caucasus, is the primary arena in which tests to the credibility of NATO’s defense posture are greatest. Along this flank, there are three core geographic theaters in which the United States and NATO will need to focus their deterrence strategies in a coherent manner: North (Baltic Sea region), Middle (Suwałki Corridor and Poland), and South (Black Sea region). (Source: CenterforEuropeanPolicyAnalysis): https://tinyurl.com/rrnfv2p
11/16/2019 An asymmetric response to the vast American network of military alliances and partnerships. By controlling foreign ports, Beijing will ultimately control international transport routes – and so the world’s commerce. In case of conflict, Beijing could exploit its control over these ports to hinder trade access to other nations. Chinese investors are modernizing European ports and creating jobs in a depressed economic environment. Faced with a stagnant economy, many European countries are desperate for Chinese investment, but risk becoming tributary vassals of Beijing. China’s investment in the port of Piraeus was the biggest Belt and Road project. The Chinese president consider the Greek facility, which is majority-owned by China’s Cosco Shipping, “the head of the dragon” in the New Silk Roads strategy. The European Investment Bank on November 11 granted a loan of €140 million to help Cosco expand and upgrade Piraeus port. The Chinese control or have stakes in a dozen European ports, including in Greece, Italy, Malta, Spain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. 90% of China’s foreign trade travels by sea, and all these countries want their chunk of the Belt and Road pie. On November 5, Italy’s Trieste Port Authority signed a memorandum of understanding with China Communications Construction Company to create logistics and distribution platforms in the areas of Shanghai, Ningbo e Shenzhen. The West should create a serious alternative to China’s mega-infrastructure project. The possible integration of the EU plan for connecting Europe and Asia with the “Blue Dot Network,” an infrastructure scheme promoted by America, Japan and Australia as an alternative to China’s, could help dissuade them from riding the Chinese dragon. (Source: AsiaNews)
Space
November 21, 2019 Side effects of space travel. A decade ago, scientists started noticing that astronauts who spent months on the International Space Station came home with swollen optic nerves, slightly flattened eyeballs, and changes in vision. NASA started putting glasses on board the station for astronauts who found that their eyesight had worsened. Scientists have suspected that the cause involves an accumulation of the body’s fluids such as blood and water. Free from the steady tug of gravity, the fluids float toward the head and can increase pressure inside the skull. The researchers had discovered a new risk in human spaceflight. Before the astronauts launched, researchers measured blood flow in their jugular vein in seated, supine, and tilted positions. The readings looked normal. The researchers had the astronauts repeat the ultrasounds during their missions on the ISS. Scans showed that blood flow in the vein stalled in five of the 11 astronauts. Stagnant blood, whether it’s in the neck or in the legs, can clot. Blood clots can dissolve on their own or with the help of anticoagulants, but the blockages can also cause serious problems, such as lung damage. In two astronauts, blood in the vessel actually started moving in the opposite direction. The researchers think the blood switched directions because of a blockage somewhere downstream. The phenomenon has been reported in non-astronauts with tumors or masses that forced blood to find a different path to the heart. The researchers had astronauts spend some time inside a special suit that Russian cosmonauts use to prepare for their return to Earth. The suit, which looks like a pair of puffy pants, uses suction to simulate gravity and draw some fluids back toward the lower body. Blood flow improved in some astronauts, but not in others. The researchers attribute the effects they observed to the space environment. All the astronauts were considered to be in good health before they launched. And when they came home, the conditions vanished in nearly all of them. When the researchers analyzed the data, they found that a second astronaut may have developed a blood clot no one had seen while they were in orbit. But no one experienced any health troubles. (Source: TheAtlantic)
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