International Crisis Group
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Did the Game Just Change in the South China Sea? (And What Should the U.S. Do About It?) | Yanmei Xie & Andrew S. Erickson
The game has changed. By sending a military aircraft to take a close-up view of the outposts China is constructing and stating it “will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows,” the U.S. appears to have drawn a red line for Beijing.
Washington demonstrated its substantive investment in freedom of navigation and open access to Asia’s maritime commons and displayed resolve to counter threats to them. The message, delivered via the navy, will discredit a calculation by some Chinese and regional actors that the U.S. is unwilling or incapable of delivering more than verbal protests, because it is distracted by crises in other parts of the world. It may also stiffen the spines of other players, most importantly the Association of South East Asia Nations (ASEAN).
FULL ARTICLE ( via China File)
Photo: Aljazeera English
Source: China File
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Hagel Leaves Successor With Two Wars Obama Pledged to End | David Lerman, Eltaf Najafizada and Aziz Alwan
Departing U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will hand his successor two intractable wars that President Barack Obama had promised to end.
The battles against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and against the Taliban and its allies in Afghanistan show no sign of abating, much less ending, as Obama announced today that he’s nominating Ashton Carter, who spent more than two years as the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian leader, as his next defense chief.
In Afghanistan, now America’s longest war, the capital city of Kabul has become a battleground for daily bombings. At least 10 attacks late last month killed scores of victims and led to the resignation of the city’s police chief. Obama has quietly authorized a continuation of offensive air and ground operations in 2015 to protect U.S. forces.
In Iraq, the war Obama thought he had ended in 2011, the rise of Islamic State terrorists has forced the president to authorize a renewed air war over Iraq and Syria and the return of a growing number of American troops on the ground.
A number of U.S. officials, who discussed policy disputes on condition of anonymity, say that’s not enough. So do outside analysts such as Anthony Cordesman.
“The Obama administration has yet to demonstrate that it has a successful strategy or plan for dealing with any of these wars,” Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, wrote in a report this week titled, “The Obama Administration: From Ending Two Wars to Engagement in Five – with the Risk of a Sixth.”
FULL ARTICLE (Bloomberg)
Photo: DOD Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley/Chuck Hagel/flickr
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U.S. cracks down on Somalia militants with strike on Shabab leader | W.J. HENNIGAN
A U.S. airstrike intended to kill the leader of Somalia’s Al Qaeda-affiliated Shabab group illustrated the Pentagon’s determination to take down militants responsible for a wave of bombings and suicide attacks throughout the Horn of Africa.
The Pentagon on Tuesday did not confirm whether the operation — which took place late Monday — killed Shabab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane, 37. But the special-forces strike against a militant encampment in the town of Barawe, south of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, was seen by U.S. officials as a setback for the Islamic militant group, which has struggled in recent years with leadership disputes, military defeats and questions about its direction.
“We are assessing the results right now,” said Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby. “We certainly believe that we hit what we were aiming at.”
FULL ARTICLE (LA Times)
Photo: DoD Photo by Glenn Fawcett/flickr
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Pentagon confronts militant dilemma in Africa | William Wallis in Washington and Katrina Manson in Nairobi
The hum of US drones is becoming more familiar over African skies.
From Nigeria to Somalia, US military presence on the continent is a creeping reality. US troops may be thin on the ground, with the Pentagon preferring to rely on training and financial support to allied forces, but special forces are now operating at any given moment.
The trend has its most recent roots in the aftermath of the September 2001 attacks on the US, when US officials scoured the globe for “ungoverned spaces” with the potential, like Afghanistan, to foster anti-American extremists. Several African countries cropped up on the radar, notably Somalia. In the semi-desert underbelly of the Sahara, Mali was identified among other weak states vulnerable to jihadi influence spreading south from the Maghreb. Nigeria, too, soon featured in assessments of threats.
These were either prescient musings by US spies or a self-fulfilling prophecy coaxed partly into reality by US meddling – there are subscribers to both camps. Either way, Islamist extremism in Africa has metastasised just as the Pentagon and the CIA assessments predicted.
FULL ARTICLE (Financial Times)
Photo: United States Marine Corps/flickr