Nuclear New Math

Reports that the Pentagon is weighing a range of cuts to the nation’s nuclear arsenal – perhaps going as low as 300 deployed strategic weapons, down from the current 1,550 – has nuclear-triggered concern on Capitol Hill. “I have to suggest to you,” Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., told Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday, “I consider that reckless lunacy.”

 

But Stephen I. Schwartz, editor of the The Nonproliferation Review at California’s Monterey Institute of International Studies, has gone to the history books. “Amid all the hyperventilating from congressional Republicans over the Obama administration’s ongoing review of nuclear force levels and postures, it’s worth remembering that when it comes to actual reductions in U.S. nuclear weapons, whether bilateral or unilateral, these have always been deeper and faster under Republicans than under Democrats,” he tells Battleland, flinging recently-declassified charts our way to make his case.

 

“During George H.W. Bush’s four years in office, the total stockpile was reduced by 38%, from 22,217 to 13,708 weapons, thanks in part to his unilateral decision to retire all ground-based nuclear weapons in Europe and South Korea and remove all nuclear weapons from naval surface vessels,” Schwartz says. “George W. Bush went even further, cutting the total stockpile over eight years by 50%, from 10,526 to 5,273 weapons. More

 

Israel vs. Iran: The Truth Slips Out

 Just days after the New York Times Magazine’s lurid cover story, “Israel Vs. Iran,” the Washington Post struck back with a two-fisted effort to win the “most dire prediction” contest. 

The Post’s foreign policy pundit David Ignatius wrote a widely-circulated column claiming inside information: U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June.” The next day thePost’s front page headline warned ominously, “Israel: Iran Must Be Stopped Soon.” Both stories reported that the Obama administration opposes any Israeli action, just like the Bush administration before it. The risks to U.S. interests are incalculable, as the Pentagon and State Department have been telling us for years.

 

 Yet both stories added a new note: Israel might strike without U.S. support or permission. “The administration appears to favor staying out of the conflict unless Iran hits U.S. assets,” Ignatius wrote.

Of course the U.S. is already in the conflict, as the Iranians know perfectly well. Israel’s ability to strike depends largely on its high-tech weaponry, paid for by the $3 billion a year coming from Washington. With that kind of money flowing -- plus U.S. diplomatic support, which many in Israel see as their last barrier against international isolation -- the Obama administration has powerful leverage to stop any Israeli action that threatens U.S. interests.

When the administration tells the Washington Post that the U.S. is unhappy but helpless, it’s obviously looking for deniability if the attack occurs. But it’s also a clear signal to the Israelis: Though we could stop you, so far we have not decided that we will. This is a major shift in the message coming from Washington. More

US State Department considers formal apology for the Pakistan soldiers’ deaths

 WASHINGTON — A senior U.S. military commander will visit Pakistan this month in what could be an important step in healing the rift between the two nations, officials said Tuesday.

 

Gen. James Mattis, commander of U.S. Central Command, will meet with Pakistani Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to talk about the U.S. investigation into airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in a Nov. 26 exchange of fire at the border with Afghanistan. 

Mattis would be the first high-ranking official to visit since the strikes that sent relations between Washington and Islamabad to a new low and prompted Pakistan to close its border to NATO war supplies headed for Afghanistan, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive matter publicly. News of the planned visit came as Pakistan’s defense minister said Tuesday the country should reopen its Afghan border crossings to NATO troop supplies after negotiating a better deal with the coalition.

Without providing details, Pakistan Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar told the private Geo TV that the government should negotiate new “terms and conditions” with NATO, then reopen the border. More

 

Truth, Lies and Afghanistan

 February 06, 2012 "Armed Forces Journal" --  I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. 

 

My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground. Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.

Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.

My arrival in country in late 2010 marked the start of my fourth combat deployment, and my second in Afghanistan. A Regular Army officer in the Armor Branch, I served in Operation Desert Storm, in Afghanistan in 2005-06 and in Iraq in 2008-09. In the middle of my career, I spent eight years in the U.S. Army Reserve and held a number of civilian jobs — among them, legislative correspondent for defense and foreign affairs for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

As a representative for the Rapid Equipping Force, I set out to talk to our troops about their needs and their circumstances. Along the way, I conducted mounted and dismounted combat patrols, spending time with conventional and Special Forces troops. I interviewed or had conversations with more than 250 soldiers in the field, from the lowest-ranking 19-year-old private to division commanders and staff members at every echelon. I spoke at length with Afghan security officials, Afghan civilians and a few village elders.

I saw the incredible difficulties any military force would have to pacify even a single area of any of those provinces; I heard many stories of how insurgents controlled virtually every piece of land beyond eyeshot of a U.S. or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base. More

 

America, Israel, Iran: signals of war

 A range of military and political developments, from the very rare planned deployment of three huge United States armadas in the Persian Gulf to Israeli fears of Barack Obama’s re-election, is evidence of rising danger around Iran.

 

Volusia is a small town in Florida, about sixty kilometres west of the coastal resort of Daytona. This dot on the map [11], straddling the St John River just off the state’s “black bear strategic byway”, seems a very long way from the rising tensions over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In fact, the connection is surprisingly close. For Volusia also sits at the eastern border of the extensive Ocala [12] national forest, which plays host to the United States navy's only[13] firing-range - the “Pinecastle impact range” - capable of dropping live air-to-surface weapons. The town’s residents are used to living with noise, but since mid-January 2012 they have been “hearing booms loud enough to rattle their windows and scare their cats” (see Skyler Swisher, “Naval bomb practice rattles Volusia-Flagler [14]”, Daytona Beach News-Journal, 2 February 2012).

This exceptional level [15] of activity reflects the range’s current intensive use as an aircrew-training site for pilots and weapons officers from the USS Enterprise now cruising offshore.  The plan is that this will be redeployed to the Persian Gulf some time in March 2012 as the leading vessel in a third US carrier battle-group in the region, alongside the groups already there led by the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Carl Vinson. The Enterprise battle-group is normally assigned to the United States navy's sixth fleet in the Mediterranean, though it has also transited the Suez canal into the Red Sea and beyond. This time [16], the Pentagon is making it clear that the Enterprise deployment is intended specifically to send a strong message to Iran.

The carrier message

To get a sense of what is happening, some context is helpful. The Enterprise is as a 1960s-era vessel the oldest [17] nuclear-powered carrier in the United States navy; its current deployment will be the twenty-second and last before it is decommissioned. Until that happens it remains one of eleven potential carrier battle-groups in the US’s inventory, including much more modern Nimitz-class [18]warships such as the Abraham Lincoln and the Carl Vinson.

It is routine for carrier battle-groups (CBG), once assembled and deployed in distant waters, to stay on station for up to six months - though with resupply this can be extended. There is often a short period of overlap between CBGs coming and going, but rarely much more than this. What is most unusual about the two CBGs now in the Persian Gulf - which have been there barely a month - is precisely that there are two rather than one in the same area; which also means that to have three on station, potentially for several months, is very rare indeed. More

 

How to prevent war with Iran

The pace of events in the confrontation between Iran, Israel, and the United States has accelerated rapidly in the last few months. 

The mysterious destruction of an Iranian missilefacility in November was followed by a new wave of US-organized sanctions against Iran's central bank. In early January, Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz and offered a belligerent "recommendation" that a US aircraft carrier avoid returning there. A week later,the assassination of an official from the Natanz enrichment plant triggered Iranian calls for revenge against Israel and the United States. (The United States has categorically denied any involvement.) A war appears likely before the end of 2012 -- in some sense, it may already be underway. Nevertheless, disaster might still be averted.

Starting in late October, Israeli media depicted the country's leadership as consumed with a debate about whether or not to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. The war camp allegedly consists of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. In aninterview broadcast on November 20, Barak told CNN that it was a matter of months -- "not two or three years" -- before Iran's nuclear program would become sufficiently dispersed as to enter a "zone of immunity." On December 1, Barak gave a similar interview to Voice of Israel radio, explaining that allowing too much time to pass would make it impossible to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. He added that the consequences of starting a war, including Iran's retaliatory missile barrages, would be manageable. "We are not looking for a war, but if Israel is pushed into a corner," it must act, he said. "We are not talking about 50,000 or 5,000 or not even 500 dead on the home front, provided everyone enters their shelter." Two days later on Israeli television, Barak said that the decision would come soon, remarking again, "This is not a matter of many years."

Actions have already followed the words. The January 11 killing of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, who was apparently in charge of buying equipment and materials for the Natanz enrichment complex, marks a watershed. Unlike previous targets since 2010, Ahmadi Roshan, a chemical engineer, does not seem to have been suspected of any role in a secret weapon-design effort. Rather, he worked at a safeguarded civilian facility. (The howls for bloody revenge heard from Iran underscore that a new line has been crossed.) Aremarkable article in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz explains that Ahmadi Roshan was killed as part of an effort to complicate the rebuilding of Iran's nuclear infrastructure -- implying that its destruction, by whatever means, is not far off. Barak's more recent assurances that such an event is "really far away" -- certainly no sooner than late March -- do not offer much comfort. More

 

Iran through the looking glass -Satire - Al Jazeera

 Exclusive: New Iranian Commando Team Operating Near US - Satire

(Tehran, FNA) The Fars News Agency has confirmed with the Republican Guard's North American Operations Command that a new elite Iranian commando team is operating in the US-Mexican border region. The primary day-to-day mission of the team, known as the Joint Special Operations Gulf of Mexico Task Force, or JSOG-MTF, is to mentor Mexican military units in the border areas in their war with the deadly drug cartels. The task force provides "highly trained personnel that excel in uncertain environments," Maj. Amir Arastoo, a spokesman for Republican Guard special operations forces in North America, tells Fars, and "seeks to confront irregular threats..."

The unit began its existence in mid-2009 - around the time that Washington rejected the Iranian leadership's wish for a new diplomatic dialogue. But whatever the task force does about the United States - or might do in the future - is a sensitive subject with the Republican Guard. "It would be inappropriate to discuss operational plans regarding any particular nation," Arastoo says about the US.

New York, NY - Okay, so I made all that up. Sue me. But first admit that, a line or two in, you knew it was fiction. After all, despite the talk about US decline, we are still on a one-way imperial planet. Yes, there is a new US special operations team known as Joint Special Operations Task Force-Gulf Co-operation Council, or JSOTF-GCC, at work near Iran and, according to Wired magazine's Danger Room blog, we really don't quite know what it's tasked with doing (other than helping train the forces of such allies as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia).

And yes, the quotes are perfectly real, just out of the mouth of a US "spokesman for special-operations forces in the Mideast", not a representative of Iran's Republican Guard. And yes, most in the US, if they were to read about the existence of the new special ops team, wouldn't think it strange that US forces were edging up to (if not across) the Iranian border, not when our "safety" was at stake.

Reverse the story, though, and it immediately becomes a malign, if unimaginable, fairy tale. Of course, no Iranian elite forces will ever operate along the US border. Not in this world. Washington wouldn't live with it - and it remains the military giant of giants on this planet. By comparison, Iran is, inmilitary terms, a minor power.

Any Iranian forces on the Mexican border would represent a crossing of one of those "red lines" that US officials arealways talking about and such an international abomination that it be dealt with severely. More than that, their presence would undoubtedly be treated as an act of war. It would make screaming headlines here. The Republican candidates for the presidency would go wild. You know the rest. Think about the reaction when Attorney General Eric Holder announced that an Iranian-American used-car salesman from Texas had contacted a Mexican drug cartel as part of a bizarre plot - supposedly hatched by senior members of the elite Iranian Quds Force - to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in a Washington restaurant and possibly bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies as well.

Though doubts were soon raised about the likelihood of such an Iranian plot, the outrage in the US was palpable. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted that it "crosses a line that Iran needs to be held to account for". The Wall Street Journal labelled it "arguably an act of war", as did Congressman Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Speaker of the House John Boehner termed it "a very serious breach of international behaviour", while House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers swore that it crossed "a very dangerous threshold" and called for "unprecedented" action by the Obama administration.

On the other hand, no one here would claim that a US special operations team edging up to the Iranian border was anything out of the ordinary or that it potentially crossed any lines - red or otherwise - or was a step beyond what the international community accepts. In fact, the news, such as it was, caused no headlines in the press, no comments on editorial pages, nothing. After all, everyone knows that Iranians would be the equivalent of fish out of water in Mexico, but that US is at home away from home in the Gulf (as in most other places on Earth). More