Trick Or Treat

Boo!

It's time!

If caught out of time and ill prepped for a T or T costume, here are a few last minute, fast minute ideas:

Zombie tyrants - get your Walking Dead on with a risen Khadaffy maybe?

Mookie al Sadr - Iran's boy Elroy in Iraq til he split the scene pre Surge (lucky for him!) All you really need is a white sheet for a robe, several pillows belted (or bungee corded to make you really girthy) fake beard, fake teeth unibrow and a black Turbin thingy. Of course with spectacles - you may get mistaken for Hiz'B'Allah's freak in chief - the body part collector general - Nasrallah (just play it off).

Iranian nuclear diplomat - fake beard (drawn on with crayon is best), suit jacket with NO tie (wouldn't want anyone to make the Crusader connection to X) and that creepy beastly little spot betwixt the eyes (alledgedly from headbanging during prayers). With specs on - you could get mistaken for HAMAS death cult fanboy Khalid Meshal - again, go with it!

Fidel Castro is prett easy too - old fake Santa beard, od fatigue shirt and a fake (or real) blunt.

Gotta beret? Then it could be Che!

And perhaps the ultimate fright sight for Great Satan's enemies - if you have the gear - deck out as a Marine, or American GI.

Either way - travel in packs and deploy a royal taster.

Pic - "Theories of International Politics and Zombies"

China's Failed Taiwan Strategy

Dong Feng!

Money, persuasion and coercion have all failed.

Simply put Collectivist China has nothing left to force the Reunification of Taiwan with the Motherland. Nothing left of course other than raw force.

For all the talk about the inevitability of the eventual “reunification” of Taiwan and China and bluster about China’s determination to accomplish the “China dream,” ongoing trends in the Taiwan Strait have made it clear that Beijing’s approach to Taiwan is failing. Short of military conquest, there is very little in the current set of options available to Beijing suggesting that “peaceful unification” is even remotely possible.

After years of sticks and a misguided military show of force in the mid-1990s, Beijing’s carrots suddenly appeared to be working, winning hearts and minds and creating dependencies that, it hoped, would draw Taiwan closely enough to China’s center of gravity that it would become impossible for the democratic island nation to escape.

All that détente, however, was illusory. Although a pragmatic Taiwanese polity was amenable to liberalized ties with China, desire for a political union with the People’s Republic of China—especially among Taiwan’s youth—was next to nil.

Paradoxically, closer relations with China only exacerbated the sense of a distinct identity in Taiwan, resulting in the complete rejection of what from the very beginning had always been China’s strategy: eventual unification.

Beijing’s hopes of a resolution on its terms came crashing down during the Sunflower Movement in March and April 2014, whose actions neutralized the Ma administration and opened the doors for a transition of power two years later, with the election of Tsai Ing-wen of the Taiwan-centric Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The forces unleashed by the Sunflower Movement continue to reverberate today, deepening the desire across society to maintain the liberal democratic way of life that defines Taiwan today regardless of their voting preferences.

The reaction in China was one of confusion and, in certain circles, a sense of betrayal. The strategy had failed. Not only was Taiwan not returning China’s “goodwill,” years of ostensible rapprochement had in fact propelled the two in opposite directions. Officials in charge of cross-Strait affairs under presidents Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping were accused of bungling the strategy, and some were targeted by Xi’s anti-corruption drive. But many knew that the problem was much more fundamental than a few incompetent officials failing to properly distribute China’s economic largesse across Taiwan.

Money had failed. Persuasion, often through propaganda and political warfare operations that intensified even as ties seemed to be improving, has failed. And now it is becoming clear that coercion—seemingly Beijing’s only strategy since Ms. Tsai’s election in January—is also failing. Isolating Taiwan by blocking its participation at international forums, kidnapping its nationals in third countries, publicly attacking “pro-independence” artists and punishing it economically pretty much sums up what is left of Beijing’s Taiwan strategy. Rather than break Taiwan’s will, however, all of this has only fueled the will of the Taiwanese to resist by rallying around the flag, as is typical whenever a nation faces an external threat.

The ensuing frustration has resulted in a marked hardening in the rhetoric. Analysts such as Gen. Wang Hongguang, a former deputy commander of the Nanjing military area command, now often appear in the pages of the hawkish Global Times calling for PLA exercises targeting Taiwan and outright preparation for war. Meanwhile, the more moderate commentators across China, those who know that more of the same will only continue to fail, have fallen silent.

While nuclear-armed China could undoubtedly annihilate Taiwan by force if it chooses to do so, as General Wang himself argued a few years ago in an indignant response to an article in this publication, and notwithstanding the fact that on a quantitative basis the PLA has a clear advantage over its much smaller opponent, the power ratio only tells part of the story.

It might make sense as an intellectual exercise for war strategists, but in reality, here too Beijing’s coercive options targeting Taiwan are limited.

Rogue Allies

Another longtime US ally just went off the reservation, in what’s become a depressing trend of 44's  years.

 Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is a nightmare. His promotion of vigilante justice against drug dealers has already cost thousands of lives — some of them surely innocent.

But now he’s gone to China — announcing this week that he would formally align his nation with Beijing. Only time will tell if he’s truly breaking a decades-long alliance with Washington, which would upend the entire US position in the Pacific.

Beijing certainly won’t care about his human-rights violations — or any move he makes to undermine Filipino democracy.

This follows a growing break with Turkey, thanks to another peach of a world leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In the wake of the recent failed coup attempt, the Turkish president is crushing his nation’s last vestiges of a free press and purging the courts, police and pretty much everything else of anyone who might challenge his Islamist clique for power.

He’s also gone to war against the Syrian Kurds who’ve been the leaders of the fight against ISIS in that country — Kurds who have had the support of Washington and other NATO allies.

Yet he’s also insisting on fighting ISIS on another front, with Turkish troops in Iraq that he demands play a role in the battle to free Mosul from ISIS.

Few other US allies have gone as rogue as Duterte or Erdogan. But many — especially the Saudis and other Gulf monarchs — are increasingly going their own way.

Even Israel has found it necessary to maintain good-as-possible relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

It’s all the predictable result of 44’s penchant for “leading from behind”: Allies who can’t be sure America will stay loyal to them don’t stay loyal to America. And US rivals and enemies feel emboldened.

As John Podhoretz back in 2011, 44’s approach has invited “military, strategic and economic challenges” all around the globe.

The next president will inherit the mess.

Downfall

Over the last few years, one aspect of the Islamic State (ISIS) has loomed large in the public’s imagination: the group’s ability to attract foreign fighters.

 The attention makes sense; there is something particularly terrifying about the idea of merciless terrorists mobilizing from all corners of the world to decimate civilian populations in Iraq and Syria to help ISIS rapidly gain territory. 

Foreign fighters also preoccupied Western governments, which were faced with the prospect of battle-hardened jihadists returning home. But now, three years into ISIS’ war, its once mighty weapon is now threatening to cut off the hand that feeds it; foreign fighters are quickly becoming one of ISIS’ biggest liabilities.

It should have been obvious from the start that local and foreign fighters would have different goals. ISIS’ official position has been that all fighters are equal, but tensions among groups did not go unnoticed. 

Still, the group’s internal dynamics remained relatively stable because it was successful on the battlefield and in oil production. But now that ISIS is not as rich and powerful as it once was, it can no longer afford to buy everyone’s loyalty. 

Already, a major internal split is hurting the group’s combat performance. In Iraq alone, since last month, ISIS lost all three battles it fought along with control of two towns and more than 30 villages.

According to local ISIS fighters, foreign fighters are more trouble than they’re in fact worth. Foreign fighters’ inability or unwillingness to cooperate with local fighters has culminated in deadly races for money and power. In July 2015, for example, Albanian and Russian ISIS militants killed three local fighters and wounded several others in the Alace Oil fields south of Kirkuk, a transit-point for ISIS’ oil smuggling operations. Local ISIS militants reported that the groups fought over differences in proposed military strategies on the frontline near Alam and that local fighters refused to follow a foreign officer’s orders. But the civilian population of the area doesn’t buy this characterization. Most locals believe that the conflict was over oil money.

 In another instance, when a dispute between foreign and local fighters actually reached the Islamic State’s courts, foreign fighters pressured judges to decree harsh sentences (like a death penalty) for local fighters they disagree with.

It’s also no secret that ISIS has long employed deep institutional discrimination in its military orders: a fighter’s relative position in the hierarchy was based on his nationality. Americans, Europeans, and Eastern Europeans (including Russians and Chechens) occupied middle-rank administrative positions in IED factories and training camps and on frontline military bases; “Chines” (Central Asian) ISIS militants were primarily used as suicide bombers. Native Arabs were divided into two groups—those in top-level leadership positions and those in the lowest possible positions.

This hierarchy lasted for nearly two years, but two recent battles have dramatically changed the pecking order. In battles at Sinjar and Bashir, foreign soldiers persuaded ISIS leadership that they were qualified to organize and command the fight. (They surely realized that doing so would help them gain military status and war spoils—including women, cars, houses, and food.) ISIS leadership agreed to let the foreign soldiers run the battles, but both were disasters.

On April 10, 2016, foreign fighters (Russian, Caucasus, Chines, and Chechens) who were supposed to lead the fight in Bashir fled four hours before Peshmerga forces and Hashd al-Shabi (Shia militias) had even entered the village. These foreign fighters left local fighters with no ammunition, no supplies, and no advanced weapons to face the ground offensive. The battle was a complete failure—dozens of ISIS militants were killed, and ISIS lost more than four strategic villages near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

The battle in Sinjar, led by French, Russian, and American ISIS fighters, was even worse. Several days before the battle began, one European ISIS militant stole $70,000 and disappeared, leaving the rest of the militia with little ammunition, food, or backup forces. The fighters didn’t last a day.

Such cowardly combat behavior reinforces deep suspicions among local fighters and civilians, and the conspiracy theories abound. Local militants once believed that Western foreign fighters were true believers, highly professional, and educated to boot. Now local people see these foreign fighters as thugs; the only “rational” explanation is that the foreign fighters are really working for their own governments. 

 In the end, the battles of Bashir and Sinjar were a perfect excuse for local fighters to start taking back vital administrative and military positions in frontlines in Ninawa Province (including Mosul). But the foreign fighters have not been willing to give up those positions. In August, a dispute between groups of local and French ISIS fighters, both of which wanted to manage an administrative office in the Bab al-Tub area, led to a firefight in a crowded Mosul market.

ISIS leaders have stabilized the situation in Iraq by completely removing foreign fighters from administrative and political positions and relegating these fighters to IT-related intelligence work, IED factories, and technical tasks. In some areas, foreign fighters are even housed in rural villages to keep their interactions with locals to a minimum. In response, disenfranchised foreign fighters have resorted to small acts of sabotage. In September, a Saudi ISIS member dismantled a major tunnel that had connected the Al-Shirqat town center with the Shakra Area. It was an escape route for ISIS militants, but he destroyed it after passing through it himself, making the chasm between foreigners and locals even wider.

Competition between natives and migrants for power is nothing new in the Middle East. When the PBUH cat died in 632 CE, Muslim warriors from Makka and the local people of Medina began struggling for leadership of the newly formed Islamic State. Eventually, the foreign fighters from Makka imposed their will and appointed Abubakr Sdiq as the successor.

Although such history might serve to inspire foreign fighters, it looks like this conflict will play out much differently. Most likely, foreign fighters will continue to lose power and, as they go down fighting, will take the Islamic State with them

After Mosul

With the Mosul offensive underway, discussion has largely focused on the eventual fate of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), once it is ousted from the city. Yet the most significant barometer of this offensive remains unanswered: what happens if a military victory is not followed by a political accord among Iraq’s competing players? 

The signs are not encouraging.

The realities of victory differ when viewed from military and political perspectives. In the build up to the offensive, most of the focus has been on how to achieve a military victory. Here, much debate has centred on the makeup of the force. It is clear that the Iraqi army, under Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s command, will lead the liberation and the operations inside the city. 

Yet the supporting cast remains a shaky coalition of Shia paramilitaries under the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU), the Kurdistan Region’s Peshmerga forces, and Sunni tribal units from the area. Iranian, American and Turkish troops will also provide support from the air and the ground. The division of labour among the coalition remains somewhat unclear.

Although the liberation for Mosul represents the biggest deployment of Iraqi forces since 2003, it appears set to be a gruelling and protracted fight. The campaign remains in its infancy with troops clearing uninhabited villages on the outskirts. Moving into the city represents a greater challenge. 

ISIS militants, who have been preparing for the battle for over two years, will want to exploit the complexities of urban warfare among civilian populations because they know that the Iraqi army and police are seeking to avoid civilian casualties that can be (mis)interpreted as sectarian killing, as what are perceived to be Shia-led forces enter Sunni-majority lands.

Such considerations present a major challenge to the state-led forces, and have complicated the planning process. Nonetheless, the urban warfare that is set to ensue is likely to bring extensive damage to the city, beyond even the levels of destruction wrought in the battles for Fallujah and Ramadi.

While command and control of the city is likely to be achieved following the battle, it is unlikely that ISIS supporters will be totally removed from the city. Their operations will go underground and transform into more of an insurgency movement—just as Al-Qaeda in Iraq did when it was defeated by Iraqi and American forces in 2008. 

A military victory, then, will uproot the ISIS leadership from the city and revive state services. It will also ensure a return to civilian Moslawi rule of the governorate and municipalities, but the violence may not come to an immediate end.

Most critically, these various parties fighting ISIS have yet to come together to define what victory in a political sense would like. Which actors should take over in the interim? What system of government should be implemented? How can the city’s population, one that has been distant from the politics of the central government prior to 2014, be reconciled with Baghdad? This means that once again, in Iraq, coalition forces are going into battle without a clearly defined 'day after' strategy.

But it is not that there is no plan. It is that there are too many. This is because of the competing political interests of the stakeholders involved. Brett McGurk, the US Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, outlined in his State Department briefing on 7 October that there are clearly many competing visions for the future of Mosul among stakeholders, but the priority is to defeat ISIS in the city first before settling those political divisions. Is this short-termism the right approach?

The political strategies and anxieties of the many groups partaking in the liberation will affect their tactics in the fight as well as after it. Each side will attempt to secure as much as possible in anticipation of the post-ISIS power vacuum.

Much of Mosul’s population is multi-ethnic and multi-sect—unlike the populations of the previously recovered cities of Fallujah, Ramadi and Tikrit. This means that post-conflict reconciliation of communities in the aftermath of ethnic warfare will only complicate a political solution.

With a number of political issues remaining unresolved both in regards to Mosul and the wider province of Nineveh, there is likely to be a long and protracted mediation process between competing parties currently united against ISIS. Without a comprehensive political deal being agreed and implemented, the military victory will only be a short-term solution, unable to address the deep-rooted political issues that have produced a back-and-forth since 2003. 

It could prove nothing more than a band aid, eventually allowing the re-emergence of ISIS, or a reincarnation of it, in the future. Iraqi leaders must prioritize securing the future of Mosul and its population over their own political positioning.

Baltic Blitz

Russia's recent aggression against Ukraine has disrupted nearly a generation of relative peace and stability between Moscow and its Western neighbors and raised concerns about its larger intentions. 

From the perspective of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the threat to the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — former Soviet republics, now member states that border Russian territory — may be the most problematic of these. 

In a series of war games, RAND Arroyo Center examined the shape and probable outcome of a near-term Russian invasion of the Baltic states.

 The games' findings are unambiguous: 

 The longest it has taken Russian forces to reach the outskirts of the Estonian and/or Latvian capitals of Tallinn and Riga, respectively, is 60 hours.

 As presently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members. 

Fortunately, it will not require Herculean effort to avoid such a failure.

 Further gaming indicates that a force of about seven brigades, including three heavy armored brigades — adequately supported by airpower, land-based fires, and other enablers on the ground and ready to fight at the onset of hostilities — could suffice to prevent the rapid overrun of the Baltic states.

To The Last Drop Of Yemeni Blood

Iran will happily fight to the last drop of Yemeni blood in the southern horn of that Shi ite Crescent...

The war in Yemen is escalating and becoming more dangerous. The Yemeni people are facing a humanitarian catastrophe. Unlike in Syria, the United States has significant leverage to halt the war and the suffering. Unfortunately, the frivolous override by Congress of 44's veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act has made using American leverage harder at this critical juncture. 

Yet 44 needs to act.

The Saudi-led coalition bombing of a funeral in Sanaa last weekend that killed over 140 mourners and wounded hundreds more has set off a wave of retaliation by the Yemeni rebels who control most of northern Yemen. The rebel alliance of Zaydi Shiite Houthis and followers of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh fired missiles at an American destroyer in the Red Sea. 

The rebels have long argued that American military, logistical and intelligence support for the Saudi coalition makes Washington a co-belligerent. The Oct. 13 cruise missile strikes against rebel radar sites — absolutely necessary to protect our ships in the strategic waters — will only add to the anti-American narrative.

The rebels have also fired at least one surface-to-surface missile at Taif, a Saudi city near Mecca. They have fired dozens of other missiles and rockets at Saudi border towns and at coalition garrisons in southern and eastern Yemen. They appear to have an unlimited supply of munitions and missiles. Sooner or later, one missile will cause a disaster.

The big beneficiary of the war is Iran. It provides the rebels diplomatic support and limited military assistance. In return, it bogs down the Saudis, Emiratis and its other Gulf enemies in a quagmire in Yemen that is expensive in lives and treasure, when oil prices are depressing their economies at home. Tehran is all too happy to fight to the last Yemeni.

The New York Times this week rightly suggested that 44 use American diplomacy to secure an immediate cease-fire. The United States and the United Kingdom are the Saudis' major arms providers. On 44's watch, over $111 billion in US arms have been sold to the kingdom. American and British maintenance is crucial to keeping the coalition aircraft in the air. That also makes the countries culpable in war crimes.

The Times editorial reflects growing unease in Washington with Riyadh's war. Although the American media is preoccupied with the drama of our election, the mood on the Hill is increasingly skeptical about arms sales to the Gulf. Despite enormous lobbying efforts, the Saudis face increasing hostility.

The override of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act passed the Senate 97-1, a massive bipartisan message to the kingdom. Despite an expensive public relations effort, the kingdom was all but declared guilty of conspiracy with al-Qaeda in the worst terrorist attack in American history by both chambers of the Congress.

 Congress has tasked two bipartisan independent investigations to ascertain who was responsible for 9/11. In 2004 and 2015, the studies absolved the government of Saudi Arabia and its officials of any role in the plot and its execution. The kingdom is a vital ally against al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. But both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump backed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. Few, if any, on the Hill read the reports they commissioned.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies have rightly responded with astonishment at this frivolous act. Despite many calls for retaliation, so far they have kept their powder dry. When legal proceedings begin, as they will, the Gulf states will be hard pressed to show restraint. 45 will inherit a damaged relationship in January.

The damage of the override will also impact Yemeni diplomacy, unfortunately, because it poisons the atmosphere. Nonetheless, Washington needs to use all its leverage now before the conflict escalates further. The Iranians would be delighted to see America get even more bogged down in another war in the Middle East.

The international community is rightly concerned with the horrific tragedy in Aleppo. But it needs to be equally gripped by the tragedy unfolding in Sanaa, Taiz and Saada. The poorest Arabs are being blockaded by air and sea by the richest with our help. The coalition should unilaterally impose a open-ended cease-fire, allow an international investigation of the funeral bombing and lift the blockade. 

The United States should insist on no less.