Libya Redux

Pentagon has presented 44 with the most detailed set of military options yet for attacking the growing Islamic State threat in Libya, including a range of potential airstrikes against training camps, command centers, munitions depots and other militant targets.

Airstrikes against as many as 30 to 40 targets in four areas of the country would aim to deal a crippling blow to the Islamic State’s most dangerous affiliate outside of Iraq and Syria, and open the way for Western-backed Libyan militias to battle Islamic State fighters on the ground. Allied bombers would carry out additional airstrikes to support the militias on the ground. The military option was described by five American officials who have been briefed on the plans and spoke about them on the condition of anonymity because of their confidential nature.

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter outlined this option to 44’s top national security advisers at a so-called principals meeting on Feb. 22. But the plan is not being actively considered, at least for now, while the administration presses ahead with a diplomatic initiative to form a unity government from rival factions inside Libya, administration officials said.

Even so, the United States military is poised to carry out limited airstrikes if ordered against terrorists in Libya who threatened Americans or American interests, just as it did against an Islamic State training camp in western Libya last month.

But the broader scale of the airstrikes option prepared by the Pentagon’s Africa Command and the highly secretive Joint Special Operations Command illuminated differences in perspectives and short-term goals within the administration. The scope of the military plan surprised some senior administration officials, and it drew warnings from some State Department officials that such airstrikes, if not coordinated properly, could jeopardize the United Nations-led effort to forge a unity government from Libya’s fractious political actors.

The detailed military planning does expand the choices available to 44 in the coming months as he and his advisers, along with allies like Britain, France and Italy, try to manage a tricky balancing act: nurture a fragile political process to form a unity government in Libya but not wait so long that the Islamic State grows too big for defeat by a limited — and politically acceptable — military action.

Invincible?

Is ISIL invincible?

The territory IS controls has shrunk in the two years since a US-led multinational coalition launched an air campaign on its positions, first in Iraq and then Syria.

The coalition has managed to push IS out of the Iraqi cities of Tikrit and Ramadi, as well as an ever-increasing stretch of Syrian-Turkish borderland.

Enemies of the "caliphate", backed by (mostly) US fighter jets, are now bivouacked 50km (30 miles) from the IS "capital" of Raqqa, in northern Syria.

Yet IS' hold on its most valuable strategic terrain, the areas seized either in or before 2014, is still uncontested.

It is entrenched in Mosul and Raqqa and the Sunni Arab tribal heartland of the Euphrates river valley, which stretches from eastern Syria to western Iraq. While it has lost much of the northern Syrian borderland, IS has also expanded into areas hitherto resistant to it, such as the Damascus suburbs and parts of the Aleppo countryside.

The group's ability to acquire war spoils in the form of Russian and American tanks, recoilless rifles, rocket-launchers, light arms and ammunition was seriously diminished after it became harder to swiftly seize new territory.

When the campaign started in 2014, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said IS could muster between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters, up from an initial estimate of 10,000. Despite over a year of air strikes, in February this year the White House said IS still had up to an estimated 25,000 fighters, mainly foreigners, from more than 90 countries.

Despite its fearsome reputation and initial shock grab of territory, IS is not invincible on the battlefield.

The bulk of its rank-and-file infantry, particularly foreign, do not fight well and are often dispatched by their native commanders as cannon fodder. IS' most capable soldiers, its "special forces", have typically been Iraqi and Syrian militants with long experience of fighting in those countries, and graduates of other insurgencies, notably the Libyan-heavy al-Battar Brigade or the various units of militants from Chechnya or elsewhere in the Caucasus.

The ex-Baathists shape the group's jihadist ideology, handle its security (weeding out infiltrators or possible putschists) and military operations, and ensure its resilience. They represent a battle-hardened and state-educated core that would likely endure (as they have done through US occupation and a decade of war) even if the organisation's middle and lower cadres are decimated.

All Americans

The 82nd Airborne Division - the "All Americans" is something of an American treasure. Their very first combat drop was Sciliy - followed by a desperate do or die effort to save the beach heads at Salerno.

GsGf's vertical envelopement advisor makes the case America's airborne division is needed now and into the future...

Once again, Army Times, in an apparent desperate bid for clicks, dragged up and flogged a dead horse — this time, questioning whether the Army still need its airborne forces, including the 82nd Airborne Division, the 173rd Airborne Brigade and a brigade of the 25th Infantry Division.

The paratroop-skepticism joins other tired questions that have inspired many a monograph at the various war colleges, including “Is the Aircraft Carrier Obsolete?” (since the 1950s), and “Does the United States Still Need a Marine Corps?” (since before World War II). 

ADVERTISING

Yet whenever pundits claim airborne forces are obsolete on the modern battlefield, a modern battlefield finds airborne forces — most recently in 2013, when French paratroopers jumped into Mali.

Though helicopters have largely replaced parachute assaults for what military experts term “vertical envelopment,” paratroopers still have their place in the Pentagon’s arsenal.

Don’t forget — paratroopers travel farther, faster and in greater numbers than helicopter-borne troops can do.

Helicopters may give troops tactical mobility, but paratroopers have strategic mobility thanks to the Air Force. While the Army’s standard heavylift helicopter, the Chinook, can carry 30 troops 200 miles or so, with aerial refueling a C-17 cargo plane can drop more than a hundred paratroopers thousands of miles from their home station.

Parachute assaults have another advantage over traditional airplane landings. Airplanes can drop troops and equipment by parachute much more quickly than by landing and unloading on the ground. That was the case during the 1983 invasion of Grenada, when U.S. forces spent days unloading one aircraft at a time on the island’s tiny runway.

In some cases, ports and runways may not even be available, as in the much-maligned parachute drop into northern Iraq in 2003. Critics scoffed at the op, noting the drop zone had already been secured by Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

Was it bravado, then, which caused the men of the Italy-based 173rd Airborne Brigade to jump into battle? Hardly. As Emma Sky, a trusted adviser to several military officials, recounts in her memoir The Unraveling. “[Col. William Mayville, the commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade] took me to the side of the airstrip, showing me that it was not built to withstand the weight of heavy aircraft. There was evidence everywhere of the ground subsiding.”

Indeed, despite the snickering and cynicism, airborne forces had once again proved their worth

Airborne troops are often the first U.S. “boots on the ground” in any crisis — be it major combat or humanitarian relief. Lightly-equipped and rapidly-deployable, a brigade of paratroopers can deploy into anywhere in the world in as little as 18 hours as part of the Pentagon’s Global Response Force.

And while paratroopers can easily fight as regular infantry, regular infantry cannot fight as paratroopers.

Throughout the history of the 82nd Airborne Division, America’s main airborne force, parachute assaults have been the exception, rather than the rule. Paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne gradually picked up armored vehicles following World War II’s Battle of the Bulge, with the division bordering on a mechanized infantry division by war’s end.

The 82nd fought as “leg” infantry during Vietnam and Desert Storm. Over the past 10 years, paratroopers traded their parachutes for behemoth-size armored vehicles, patrolling the streets of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan.

Standard infantry units, however, cannot be re-trained for airborne operations. Not only are parachute operations highly specialized, requiring years of training, they’re also completely voluntary.

Now it’s true that paratroopers have long had their critics. Even Gen. “Jumpin’ Jim” Gavin, the 82nd Airborne’s most legendary commander, questioned the airborne concept as far back as 1945, according to his biography.

But take note. Throughout history, many a tactic has been prematurely declared dead. Pundits dismissed tanks after many fell prey to anti-tank missiles during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Ditto for balloons, now a staple over most Forward Operating Bases in Afghanistan. Even horses were thought long obsolete until U.S. Special Forces rode on horseback into battle in the opening days of the first war of the 21st Century.

Does the airborne capability come at a cost? Sure, but critics even admit it’s not much of a cost. Aside from parachutes, airborne forces require little specialized equipment. Indeed, operations and maintenance costs for an airborne brigade is only 10 percent higher than for a standard infantry brigade, and only one-third that of an armored brigade.

Airborne forces are useful for the messy wars we’re likely to fight, not the ones we want to fight.

There’s an old adage inside the Beltway. “Amateurs talk tactics.” Just witness critics question the viability of a parachute assault into a nation with a sophisticated air defense, like China’s.

Fortunately, professionals talk, well, political realism — and question why the Pentagon would parachute 15,000 troops into a nation of one billion people.

Not every nation has an integrated air defense system like China’s or Iran’s. Failed states — like Mali was in 2012 — may lack not only air defense systems, but also the trained operators to man them. Even nations with air defenses can find their networks neutralized within a few days. Witness the barrage of Tomahawk missiles which opened the U.S.-led intervention in Libya in 2011.

Will a division of paratroopers hold off a near-peer adversary? Probably not. Is our next war likely to be against a near-peer?

Major Crispin Burke is an Army cat at Fort Bragg, N.C. and appears courtesy of the US Army. His views are his own and not those of the Department of Defense. Follow him on Twitter at @CrispinBurke.

Ssang Yong 16

An offshore contingent of American Marines is a significant threat to tons of unfree, unfun regimes and despots.

Particularly North Korea is wary at seeing Marines on the Korean peninsula.

In September 1950, Marines and soldiers launched an amphibious landing at Inchon that stopped the North Korean advance south and led to UN forces crossing the 38th parallel into North Korea.

About 2,100 Marines and sailors along with the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard and the amphibious dock landing ships Ashland and Germantown recently arrived in South Korea for exercise Ssang Yong 16, which began on March 2 and lasts until March 20

Held every two years, the exercise involves U.S. and South Korean troops conducting amphibious operations for possible disaster relief or wartime missions

Meanwhile, North Korea has recently tested a nuclear weapon and fired six projectiles into the sea, just as it did in 2013 plus North Korean military is about to finish its winter training cycle, when it will be at its highest state of readiness

That’s important because this month and next month are the optimal times for the invasion of the South, where the ground is still hard and the rice paddies have not been flooded. That makes the best time for maneuver on the peninsula

The current exercise, however, was scheduled long before the most recent tensions on the Korean peninsula. For decades, the U.S. has held combined military exercises with South Korea during this time of year to send a message to North Korea.

North Koreans know the history of the Marine Corps, so they would see a large presence of Marines on the peninsula as possibly a prelude to an attack or an invasion — especially when it’s coupled with the presence of B-52s and nuke-capable submarines.

By bringing U.S. and South Korean forces to a high state of readiness, the alliance is letting North Korea know that it would be unwise to attack

WoW!!

WoW - the Watchers Council- it's the oldest, longest running cyber comte d'guere ensembe in existence - started online in 1912 by Sirs Jacky Fisher and Winston Churchill themselves - an eclective collective of cats both cruel and benign with their ability to put steel on target (figuratively - natch) on a wide variety of topictry across American, Allied, Frenemy and Enemy concerns, memes, delights and discourse.

Every week these cats hook up each other with hot hits and big phazed cookies to peruse and then vote on their individual fancy catchers.

Thusly sans further adieu (or a don"t)

Council Winners

• *First place with 3 2/3 votes!–Bookworm Room – Self-reliance — the all-American virtue
• Second place with 2 2/3 votes – Joshuapundit–Is Donald Trump Really Neutral On Israel??
• Third place *t* with 1 vote –The Razor – Trump or Trompe-l’œil?
• Third place *t* with 1 vote –Stately McDaniel Manor – Coleen Ritzer: A Legacy To Leave Behind 5
• Third place *t* with 1 vote –Nice Deb – America 2016: Ben Shapiro and Friends vs The Left-Wing Mob at CSU-LA
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –The Right Planet – That’s Just Super(delegate) — Does Hillary Win Even If She Loses?
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –VA Right! – Cruz Supporters are Heaven’s Gate Cult 2.0
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –Fausta’s Blog – Donald Trump, Agent Orange
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –The Glittering Eye –The Fair Model Looks at 2016
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –The Daley Gator – Social Justice Is Not Just Or Fair, It Is Evil

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 2 votes!–Laura Ingraham –The Suicide of the GOP Establishment submitted by The Razor
• Second place *t* with 1 2/3 votes –Bearing Arms –We Are NOT All The Parents Of Thugssubmitted by The Daley Gator
• Second place *t* with 1 2/3 votes –Conrad Black –Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are signs of hope for fresh thinking in the U.S. and the U.K. submitted by The Watcher
• Third place with 1 1/3 votes –Jonah Goldberg/National Review–Does anyone actually believe Trump is being audited because he’s a strong Christian?submitted by Bookworm Room
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote –Daniel Larison/The American Conservative – Clinton’s Libyan War and the Delusions of Interventionists submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote –Ben Domenach/The Federalist – Thunderdome: Gone Savage For Trump submitted by The Watcher
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes – The People’s Cube – The Hillary Coronation Chronicles: Origin of the Yellow Suit submitted by The Right Planet
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes–Rush Limbaugh – The Elites Won’t Figure Out the Trump Phenomenon Until They’re Honest with Themselves About What They’ve Done submitted by Joshuapundit
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes – Victor Davis Hanson –Obama: The Lamest Duck submitted by Stately McDaniel Manor
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes – Kyle Jahner/Army Times – Key Moments in Army Airborne History submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 votes –Daniel Greenfield/FrontPage –How Americans Used Pig’s Blood And Corpses To Fight Muslim Terrorism submitted by The Noisy Room

See you next week!

Middle East's Precision Weaponry Race

 



Precision guided munitions (PGMs) encompass a growing range of bombs and missiles designed to destroy targets on land, at sea, or in the air. While platforms like fighters, armored vehicles, and warships often receive more attention, their lethality is almost negligible if not bolstered by advanced munitions. With minor updates, today’s PGMs allow even older platforms, such as the 60-year-old B-52 bomber, to remain relevant on the modern battlefield.

Such weapons are now beginning to proliferate in the Middle East.

Some PGMs – mainly anti-ship and anti-tank missiles – have been in the region for decades, but they are increasingly used by non-state actors like Hezbollah, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the Islamic State. Their growing availability is altering regional dynamics, as relatively lightly armed militant groups are challenging, and at times defeating national armies.

Prior to 2016, for example, Syrian rebel groups were making major headway against pro-regime forces after their acquisition of anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), including the TOW system from the U.S. and Sunni Arab states. That success was a major reason for Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war in September 2015, as Moscow sought to provide heavy air and artillery bombardment to suppress rebel anti-tank positions.

Meanwhile, the decision by Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies to intervene in Yemen’s civil war was likely prompted by ballistic and anti-ship missiles falling into the hands of Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The rebels even managed to strike Arab warships patrolling the Red Sea, bolstering fears that Iran could, through its proxies, block the vital Bab el-Mandab Strait. Additionally, like the rebels in Syria, Houthi fighters conducted devastating ATGMs attacks on Saudi forces stationed along the border. Battering the kingdom’s forces (including destroying U.S.-made M1 Abrams tanks) may have even deterred an Arab assault into the Houthi heartland from the north.

But it is the addition of new air-launched PGMs that could have far greater strategic consequences for the region. As the U.S. proved against Saddam Hussein in 1991 and 2003, and as the Russians are currently demonstrating now in Syria, airpower can be the decisive factor on the modern battlefield. It was only in the last decade that a number of Middle Eastern air forces acquired the full spectrum of PGMs. Propelled by a surge of new fighter purchases, large quantities of advanced air-launched PGMs – including long-range standoff weaponry – are filling regional arsenals for the first time.

Most recently, Qatar and Egypt signed multi-billion dollar deals for new French-built Rafale fighters – with Cairo’s first six already delivered. Included in these deals are several European-made PGMs, such as AASM Hammer bombs, MICA air-to-air missiles, Exocet anti-ship missiles, and SCALP air-launched cruise missiles. This is a significant upgrade for both forces, giving them capability in all aspects of modern aerial warfare – from air superiority to long-range precision strikes.

Egypt and Qatar are not the first in the region to enjoy this expansive capability. Israel has for decades maintained an edge in precision-guided weapons, benefiting from access to the latest U.S. smart munitions and its own domestic development. With this edge, Israel has maintained deterrence against rival states and has been able to conduct quick, pinpoint strikes on terrorist weapon shipments as far afield as Syria or Sudan. PGM development has also allowed the IDF to strike Hamas and Hezbollah targets in dense urban environments with minimal collateral damage – operations that would otherwise require risky troop deployments and draw global condemnation.

Since the mid-2000s, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have poured billions into defense deals to gain similar capabilities. The two Gulf powers are acquiring a growing list of PGMs for their modern American- and European-made fighters. Israel is aware of this, and has increasingly expressed concerns over its Qualitative Military Edge (QME). The Gulf monarchies’ expanding list of standoff munitions such as SCALP and SLAM-ER cruise missiles, HARM anti-radiation missiles, and JSOW glide weapons are especially worrying, as they would allow Arab states’ planes to target Israeli air defenses at a distance. Jerusalem can take comfort, however, in the fact that the Gulf states’ purchases are intended primarily to counter enemies they share with Israel – Iran and the Islamic State. And while those shared interests could certainly change, US technology has made it difficult for these Gulf states to use these platforms against Israel for any meaningful period of time.

Tehran, for its part, is lagging far behind its regional rivals.

Decades of embargos have left its air force depleted and obsolete. Like Israel, Iran once benefited from a strong defense relationship with the West, which provided it with advanced weapons of the day like the Maverick air-to-surface missile, TOW anti-tank missile, Harpoon anti-ship missile, and Phoenix air-to-air missile. However, after Iran’s 1979 revolution, and particularly after the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, the country struggled to rearm.

Over the years, Russia and China have provided some guided weapons (such as C-802 anti-ship missiles, R-27 air-to-air missiles, Kornet anti-tank missiles, and Kh-29 air-to-surface missiles), but Iran’s air-launched capability remains extremely limited. This limitation has recently spurred Tehran to domestically produce ballistic and surface-to-air missiles to fulfill its long-range strike and air-defense needs.

Thanks to last summer’s nuclear deal, Iran may soon make a substantial leap in PGM capability.

Last month, Tehran’s defense minister announced that his country intended to purchase Russian-made Su-30 fighters. It remains unclear which weapons could accompany these new jets, but the aircraft are capable of carrying a variety of advanced munitions, including the Kh-59M air-launched cruise missile and Kh-31P anti-radiation missile – which Moscow also provided to Algeria for their Su-30s between 2007 and 2009. Additionally, the Iranians could enlist Russian help in upgrading some of their older fighters to carry newer guided munitions, as the Saudis have done with their British-made Tornado fighters, and the Israelis with their aging American-made F-16s and F-15s.

Much has been made of Iran’s potential acquisition of Su-30s. However, these aircraft alone will not be the game changer that gives Iran an advantage over its foes. Instead, it would be the guided weapons that Russia might sell Tehran to arm these planes which will define much of their capability. Iran knows this.

And so do her many regional foes. This explains the recent demand to purchase these weapons, which can very easily tip the regional balance of power, one way or the other.



ISIL Versus ISIL

As ISIS is well aware, a contemporary war is not a war just won on the battlefield. These wars take place in part in the media, fought for the hearts and minds of impressionable cannon fodder from around the world.

And hearts and minds are suceptible to a Night of the Long Knives purge type action

Eight Dutch jihadists with the so-called Islamic State are said to have been executed in Syria last Thursday. They were supposed members of a group of 70 Dutch ISIS recruits imprisoned by the fanatics there on accusations of  dissension, according to the anti-ISIS activist group Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered.

RBSS, which is based near the Syrian town of Ma’dan, the area of the reported killings, claims the arrests and subsequent executions are the result of infighting between the Dutch ISIS members and the local ISIS command, which is mostly made up of Iraqis.

According to the RBSS account, the trouble started when a member of an exclusively Dutch and Dutch-Moroccan ISIS battalion tried to leave and to convince his fellow jihadists from the Netherlands to go with him. The incident triggered an outbreak of internecine violence, according to Abu Mohammed of RBSS, quoted by the Dutch news site The Post Online.

RBSS says that the ISIS local leadership arrested two of the Dutch jihadists on charges of instigating dissent. One of the men subsequently died during interrogation, prompting a revenge killing by the Dutch group.
 

When Abu Labib, a representative of the local ISIS leader Abu Ahmed Al-Iraqi, was sent to negotiate with the Dutch jihadists, they killed him, forcing the high command to strike back.

The clash between the provincial leadership of ISIS and the Dutch muhajireen escalated further when the high command in Iraq decided to send troops to arrest the whole battalion in order to find out who killed Abu Labib.
 

Vehicles reportedly were sent to cordon off the area and a shoot-out ensued. Some were killed, others wounded and finally the Dutch jihadists were captured.
 

Last Thursday, Feb. 26, eight members of the group were executed, RBSS claims. The rest are still held captive in Raqqa and Ma’dan.

If the infighting is confirmed, it heralds a new stage in the development of the Islamic dictatorship’s state, a phase in which fighters form splinter groups and infighting could become a serious factor further destabilizing the ISIS “caliphate.”  

No real confirmation of this hap hap happy tale - yet.

If immigrant fighters and local ISIS command are on good terms, the story will have no effect at all. But if there is something brewing, this could help tip the scale toward a major split.