FPI Overnight Brief: February 2, 2010

Afghanistan

The U.S. military is deploying tens of thousands of fresh troops in a much-publicized strategy to woo the Afghan people through good government, economic growth and security. Yet behind the battle lines, the U.S. is quietly escalating a more forcible campaign. In recent months, small teams of Army commandos, Navy Seals and Central Intelligence Agency operatives have intensified the pace of what the military often calls "kill-capture missions"—hunting down just one or two insurgents at a time who are deemed too recalcitrant to be won over by any goodwill campaign…"You've got to kill or capture those bad guys that are not reconcilable," Gen. David Petraeus, chief of U.S. forces in the region, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in December. He said coalition commanders plan to escalate counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan even more in the coming months. The CIA plans to increase its presence by 25%, though it won't provide exact numbers. – Wall Street Journal

Mixing modern weapons with ancient signaling techniques, the Taliban have developed the habits and tactics to evade capture and to disrupt American and Afghan operations, all while containing risks to their ranks. Seven months after the Marines began flowing forces into Helmand Province, clearing territory and trying to establish local Afghan government, such tactics have helped the Taliban transform themselves from the primary provincial power to a canny but mostly unseen force. Until last year Helmand Province had been a zone outside of government influence, where beyond the presence of a few Western outposts the Taliban enjoyed free movement and supremacy. The province served as both a fighters’ haven and the center of Afghanistan’s poppy production, providing rich revenue streams for the war against the central government and the Western forces that protect it. In areas where they have built bases, the Marines have undermined the Taliban’s position. But the insurgents have consolidated and adapted, and remain a persistent and cunning presence. – New York Times

Pakistan

Pakistan's army chief said Monday that his country wants a "peaceful, stable and friendly" Afghanistan as its western neighbor and that achieving this goal would guarantee Pakistan the "strategic depth" it once sought by supporting the Islamist Taliban regime in Kabul. Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, in a rare meeting with foreign journalists at army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, said that Pakistan is eager to help the elected government in Afghanistan become capable of defending the country and that his army would like to help the United States train recruits for the new Afghan National Army…"We can't have Talibanization. We want to remain modern and progressive," Kiyani told reporters in a windowless conference room. "We cannot wish for Afghanistan what we don't wish for Pakistan." Pakistan once backed the Taliban regime in Kabul but abruptly abandoned it at Washington's request after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. - Washington Post

The reported death of the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, a violent Islamist group with close links to al-Qaeda, leaves the predatory and feared militia effectively decapitated, with its fighters on the run from the Pakistani army and public sympathy running low. Although the Pakistani Taliban has shown resilience in the past, Pakistani analysts said it would be difficult for the group to quickly recover from the loss of Hakimullah Mehsud, who has reportedly died in a village in northwest Pakistan of burns and injuries he suffered during a U.S. drone missile attack in mid-January. The group lost its original leader, Baitullah Mehsud, to a drone strike in August. In recent months, it has been driven out of its major sanctuary and become isolated from elders of the Mehsud tribe, who are negotiating with the government to hand over surviving Taliban commanders. – Washington Post

Iran

Iran's opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi said on Tuesday his fight for the nation's rights will continue despite pressure by hardliners to end anti-government protests, his website reported. "The green movement will not abandon its peaceful fight ... until people's rights are preserved," he told Kalemeh website. He said politically motivated arrests and hangings of protesters were against the law and that the constitution should be changed to secure people's rights. "Peaceful protests are Iranians' right," he said…Mousavi and another defeated candidate Mehdi Karoubi have urged their supporters to attend a rally on February 11, when the country marks the 31st anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution. – Reuters

Jeffrey Gedmin writes: What do the Iranians I've met think about current developments in their country? The first part of the answer is easy. Those I've met here loathe and despise the regime. I couldn't find an exception. A mother visiting from Isfahan and her daughter who now resides here recounted for me how the two quarreled last summer before the June 12 election. In the face of her daughter's objections, the mother had contemplated casting her vote for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but not because she favors the current Iranian president. On the contrary. Her reasoning was: Vote for the thug; the situation has to become worse before it can become better. By all accounts, the regime has made two big mistakes. First, there was the fraud -- or at least the widespread presumption of mass fraud -- in June's election. The regime's steadfast refusal to deal with public concern quickly led to public outrage. I've heard, time and again here, that the regime's brazen lying is an "insult," an unforgivable "humiliation." Second, the viciousness with which the regime has cracked down on dissent has shocked people, including those who thought they could no longer be shocked. – Foreign Policy

The United States and three European powers hope to blacklist Iran's central bank and firms linked to the Revolutionary Guard Corps in a new round of UN sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program, diplomats said. Western powers have called for a fourth round of UN measures against Iran for refusing to halt uranium-enrichment activities as demanded by five Security Council resolutions. The United States, Britain, France, and Germany want to reach an agreement this month with Russia and China -- which have veto power on the Security Council and have opposed tough sanctions in the past -- so that they can begin work on a new UN sanctions resolution as soon as possible. Western diplomats told Reuters that officials at the U.S. State Department have circulated a paper outlining possible new sanctions to senior foreign ministry officials in London, Paris, and Berlin. – Reuters

The War

A radical Islamist terror group operating in southern Somalia broke its ties to Hizbul Islam, joined Shabaab, and pledged loyalty to al Qaeda. The Ras Kamboni Brigade released a statement last Friday announcing that it has joined al Qaeda's affiliate in Somalia and joined "the international jihad of al Qaeda." …The Ras Kamboni Brigade was founded by Turki, a former senior leader in the Islamic Courts and its predecessor, al Itihaad al Islamiyah. The Ras Kamboni Brigade is estimated to have between 500 and 1,000 fighters in its ranks, US intelligence officials familiar with the security situation in Somalia told The Long War Journal. Turki operates terrorist training camps in southern Somalia and was likely the target of a US airstrike in March 2008. He is known to train suicide bombers in camps that are dotted along the southern border with Kenya. – Long War Journal

Victoria Toensing writes: In its attempt to sell us on civilian trials for terrorists, the administration claims we need to demonstrate that “we have the best criminal justice system in the world.” For just that reason illegal enemy combatants should not be tried under its rules. Battleground conditions do not translate to federal criminal rules. There are no evidence bags stored in the foxhole to preserve the chain of custody. Any effort by a trial judge to force the terrorist’s foot into our constitutionally honed Cinderella shoe threatens valued protections that have been enlarged over two centuries of Supreme Court review, most since World War II. At the same time, a policy that includes the possibility of a civilian trial for any terrorist controls our treatment of all terrorists, thereby crippling our ability to obtain needed intelligence. – The Weekly Standard

David Rivkin and Marc Thiessen write: The Obama administration's decision to read the Christmas Day bomber his Miranda rights has rightly come under withering criticism. Instead of a lengthy interrogation by officials with al Qaeda expertise, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was questioned for 50 minutes by local FBI agents and then later advised of his "right to remain silent." It's well understood that the focus on gaining evidence for a criminal trial was an intelligence failure of massive proportions. Not well understood is that the most powerful recent argument for aggressively interrogating terrorists, keeping them in military detention, and prosecuting them in military commissions comes to us from the Obama Justice Department itself. – Wall Street Journal

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden writes: In the war on terrorism, this country faces an enemy whose theory of warfare ends the hard-won distinction in modern thought between combatant and noncombatant. In doing that for which we have created government -- ensuring life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- how can we be adequately aggressive to ensure the first value, without unduly threatening the other two? This is hard. And people don't have to be lazy or stupid to get it wrong. We got it wrong in Detroit on Christmas Day. We allowed an enemy combatant the protections of our Constitution before we had adequately interrogated him. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is not "an isolated extremist." He is the tip of the spear of a complex al-Qaeda plot to kill Americans in our homeland. – Washington Post

Missile Defense

A US missile defence test designed to shoot down long-range missiles was aborted when the radar system failed. Rick Lehner, a Missile Defense Agency spokesman, said the target missile represented the type of technology that North Korea or Iran might develop. The target was launched from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific and the interceptor missile from California. The Pentagon said those two components performed as expected, but the sea-based X-band radar system failed. – BBC

Richard Bitzinger writes: As ballistic-missile threats have proliferated throughout Asia-Pacific, so too has MD. Japan is cooperating with the United States to create a two-tiered MD system, comprising the Sea-based Midcourse Defense (SMD) system and the land-based Patriot PAC-3 missile. SMD offers improvements to the current Aegis air defense system, including the addition of the Standard SM-3 Block IA missile, to intercept exoatmospheric missile threats. Japan is incorporating SMD into four current and two planned Aegis-equipped destroyers; they should be fully deployed by 2011. Until then, the U.S. Navy will provide limited missile defense coverage of Japan using its own Aegis-class SMD ships based in the Sea of Japan. Equally important, U.S. and Japanese defense companies are cooperating on developing the next-generation SM-3 Block IIA, a larger and more powerful missile…Australia and South Korea are also acquiring air-warfare destroyers (AWDs) that use the Aegis/ Standard missile combination…Increasingly, the hardware exists for a pan-Asian missile defense; what is then needed is the software of jointness and interoperability. Even here, some progress is being made. – Defense News

Rep. Michael Turner writes: In sharp contrast to the previous administration, the President Barack Obama made sweeping changes to our nations missile defense portfolio last year. It slashed the Missile Defense Agency budget by $1.2 billion, reduced the planned number of missile interceptors in Alaska that were intended to protect the U.S. homeland, cut nearly all investments in future capabilities, and dramatically changed missile defense plans for Europe. Yet it appears the Obama administration is now quietly shifting its missile defense policy. Perhaps the policy change is finally being driven by operational and threat analysis. Or perhaps it was a realization that these policy changes are harder to implement than first thought and more costly over the long-term. Nevertheless, the presidents Fiscal Year 2011 budget request to be released on February 1 will be the litmus test for whether the administration is truly committed to its missile defense policy or merely paying it -- and our nation and allies -- lip service. – Washington Times

China

A senior Chinese official on Tuesday warned that relations between the United States and China could be damaged if President Obama meets with the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of the Tibetans whom China considers to be a dangerous separatist, according to a report in Xinhua, the state news agency. The official, Zhu Weiqun, said if a country’s leaders meet with the Dalai Lama “we will take necessary measures to help them realize” the possible harm, he said, without giving further details. Mr. Zhu is the executive deputy minister of the United Front Work Department, the arm of the Chinese Communist Party that officially manages ethnic policy. Any move by American leaders to meet with the Dalai Lama will “harm others but bring no profit to itself either,” Mr. Zhu said. He added: “If the U.S. leader chooses this time to meet the Dalai Lama, that would damage trust and cooperation between our two countries, and how would that help the United States surmount the current economic crisis?” - New York Times

Internet security experts say China has legions of hackers, and that they are behind an escalating number of global attacks to steal credit card numbers, commit corporate espionage and even wage online warfare on other nations, which in some cases have been traced back to China. Three weeks ago, Google blamed hackers that it connected to China for a series of sophisticated attacks that led to the theft of the company’s valuable source code. Google also said hackers had infiltrated the private Gmail accounts of human rights activists, suggesting the effort might have been more than just mischief. In addition to independent criminals, computer security specialists say there are so-called patriotic hackers who focus their attacks on political targets. Then there are the intelligence-oriented hackers inside the People’s Liberation Army, as well as more shadowy groups that are believed to work with the state government. – New York Times

Joshua Stanton writes: For our State Department, there often seems to be no higher purposes than avoiding offense to the ChiComs, and when an apologist for and subsidiary of ChiCom Inc. like Chas Freeman can be nominated for an important national security position in the U.S. government, it’s enough to suggest a few guesses as to why. I certainly don’t see us gaining any cooperation from China by kowtowing — sadly, I mean this literally — and failing to impose real consequences on China for its continued support for Kim Jong Il, UN sanctions notwithstanding...I certainly do not propose that the United States transfer functioning nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles to Taiwan. It would suffice to quietly transfer the technology needed for Taiwan to develop its own indigenous ballistic missile capability, and to let Taiwan know that the United States would not object if Taiwan decided to close its nuclear fuel cycle. If we’re really serious about putting pressure on China, boosting Taiwan’s security, and giving Taiwan a deterrent that doesn’t depend on the U.S. Navy, then we should quietly assist Taiwan to acquire the technology to develop its own ballistic missiles, and do nothing to discourage its acquisition of nuclear weapons. – The New Ledger

Dean Cheng writes: At this point, U.S. and Chinese interests often diverge, sometimes coincide, but are not necessarily fundamentally antagonistic. The realities of Sino-American trade, and the larger aspect of China's global economic relations, mean that this is not a replay of the Cold War. The PRC is not the Soviet Union. But neither is the PRC the United States. From hacking human rights activists' accounts at Google to deploying ever more missiles opposite Taiwan, the PRC has shown that it will brook few challenges to its authority. This is further complicated by Beijing's resistance to transparency measures, especially regarding decision-making, often obfuscating the identities of key players. As one Chinese official has stated, "It is not for the weak to reveal to the strong, but for the strong to reveal to the weak." In this light, the United States needs to bolster its conventional capabilities and reassure its allies in the region, even as it engages in outreach to the PRC. The growth in Chinese military capabilities suggests that it would be imprudent for the United States to reduce its conventional, high-intensity war-fighting capacity in favor of a greater focus on counterinsurgency. While it is understandable that much attention is paid to the latter, the United States cannot afford to allow the former to atrophy. – Defense News

Obama Administration

President Obama on Monday proposed a $5 billion increase in the State Department's 2011 budget, most of which is intended for programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq — the only three countries to also benefit from an additional $4.5 billion this year. Global health and development aid overseas will go up significantly in the fiscal year beginning in October, while the biggest decreases will affect the fight against HIV/AIDS and migration and refugee assistance. The State Department budget request, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, totals $52.8 billion, Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew told reporters. Aid and civilian contributions to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq represents 20 percent of the entire budget, he added. – Washington Times

Gerald Seib writes: The U.S. government this year will borrow one of every three dollars it spends, with many of those funds coming from foreign countries. That weakens America's standing and its freedom to act; strengthens China and other world powers including cash-rich oil producers; puts long-term defense spending at risk; undermines the power of the American system as a model for developing countries; and reduces the aura of power that has been a great intangible asset for presidents for more than a century. "We've reached a point now where there's an intimate link between our solvency and our national security," says Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior national-security adviser in both the first and second Bush presidencies. "What's so discouraging is that our domestic politics don't seem to be up to the challenge. And the whole world is watching." - Wall Street Journal

Iraq

Baghdad suffered its third mass-casualty suicide attack in eight days as a suicide bomber killed 54 Iraqis at a checkpoint in the city. A female suicide bomber detonated her vest in a crowd of women and children in the northern Shia neighborhood of Shaab in Northern Baghdad. The Iraqis were joining a march to the city of Karbala to commemorate the death of Imam Hussein, a revered Shia religious figure. "The bomber set off the blast as she lined up with other women to be searched by female security guards at a security checkpoint just inside a rest tent," The Associated Press reported. – Long War Journal

Venezuela

A new slogan appearing on the T-shirts and banners of anti-government protesters in Venezuela sums up a growing sentiment about President Hugo Chavez after 11 years in power: "You struck out." The list of strikes against Mr. Chavez keeps growing: Latin America's worst inflation, increased blackouts, runaway violent crime and a scandal involving bankers close to his government. The socialist-inspired governing model that Mr. Chavez calls his Bolivarian Revolution — named after 18th-century independence leader Simon Bolivar — is weakened and hobbling. And though Mr. Chavez retains close ties with a bloc of leftist governments from Bolivia to Nicaragua, many Latin Americans don't see Venezuela's oil-funded populism as viable. Among Venezuelans, Mr. Chavez's popularity slipped below 50 percent in polls late last year. – Associated Press

Defense

Carl Bildt and Radek Sikorski write: A recent report by the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament indicates that the United States possesses approximately 500 active warheads — of which approximately 200 are said to be stored in Western Europe; Russia holds around 2,000 warheads, the vast majority in the western part of the country…As part of efforts to further reduce nuclear weapons in general, as well as to build confidence in a better order of security in Europe, we today call on the leaders of the United States and Russia to commit themselves to early measures to greatly reduce so-called tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. These measures could be the result of negotiations, but there is also room for substantial unilateral confidence building efforts. We understand that Russia is a European power, but we urge Moscow to make a commitment to the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from areas adjacent to European Union member states. We are thinking of areas like the Kaliningrad region and the Kola Peninsula, where there are still substantial numbers of these weapons. Such a withdrawal could be accompanied by the destruction of relevant storage facilities. – New York Times

The Pentagon is reorienting U.S. military forces toward battling insurgents and terrorists, and on Monday released its new four-year strategy and a $708 billion defense budget request to support it. Despite the cancellation of numerous weapons projects, the defense spending request to Congress grew by 3.4 percent from 2010, with $159.3 billion to be allocated for U.S. military missions in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. That war funding adds on to a base Pentagon budget of $548.9 billion. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the new strategy and budget reflect an effort to "enhance our ability to fight the wars we are in today, while at the same time providing a hedge against current and future risks and contingencies." "We have, in a sober and clear-eyed way, assessed risk, set priorities, made trade-offs, and identified requirements based on plausible, real-world threats, scenarios and potential adversaries," Mr. Gates told reporters at the Pentagon. – Washington Times

The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) unveiled Feb. 1 envisions a U.S. military that would be very different than the one Defense Secretary Robert Gates found upon taking office in 2006. The much-anticipated review calls for a force shaped for a wide swath of activities in many hotspots, not one only shaped to simultaneously fight two peer militaries. The 2010 review keeps a requirement for a force capable of conducting two major contingencies at once, but it "breaks from the past … in its insistence that the U.S. Armed Forces be capable of conducting a wide range of operations." And it's no short list, ranging from two big operations to "homeland defense and defense support to civil authorities, to deterrence and preparedness missions, to the conflicts we are in and the wars we may someday face," the QDR states. Gates, during a briefing at the Pentagon, told reporters he found the Cold War-era force planning construct "too confining," and felt it "didn't represent the real world" in which the U.S. military will operate for years to come. – Defense News

John Bolton writes: [R]educing our nuclear -arsenal will not somehow persuade Iran and North Korea to alter their behavior or encourage others to apply more pressure on them to do so. Obama’s remarks reflect a complete misreading of strategic realities. We have no need for further arms control treaties with Russia, especially ones that reduce our nuclear and delivery capabilities to Moscow’s economically forced low levels. We have international obligations, moreover, that Russia does not, requiring our nuclear umbrella to afford protection to friends and allies worldwide. Obama’s policy artificially inflates Russian influence and, depending on the final agreement, will likely reduce our nuclear and strategic delivery capabilities dangerously and unnecessarily. (Securing “loose” nuclear materials internationally has long been a bipartisan goal, properly so. Obama said nothing new on that score.) Meanwhile, Obama is considering treaty restrictions on our missile defense capabilities more damaging than his own previous unilateral reductions. – The Weekly Standard

The Pentagon's $708.2 billion spending plan for 2011 is the largest budget ever, but it's not big enough to keep buying C-17 cargo planes or a second engine for Joint Strike Fighters. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that he will "strongly recommend" that President Obama veto the 2011 bill if Congress adds money to the budget to keep those programs alive. As he unveiled the new defense budget Feb. 1, Gates also announced a shakeup of the troubled Joint Strike Fighter program. He fired the program manager, U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. David Heinz, and said a three-star officer will replace him. - Defense News

Baker Spring writes: The Obama Administration is going to point out that the core defense program for the Department of Defense (DOD) will see real growth in fiscal 2011 compared to fiscal 2010. Modest real growth will continue in the Department’s core budget thereafter, based on a placeholder $50 billion annual expenditure for overseas contingency operations (OCO). The massive decline in the projected funds for OCO, however, makes it all but certain that these operations will increasingly be funded at the expense of the core defense budget. Indeed, DOD’s core program will fall from about 3.9 percent of GDP in the current fiscal year to just 3.2 percent of GDP in fiscal 2015…Regardless of which combination of steps the Obama Administration takes, this defense budget means that the security commitments of the U.S., both to itself and its allies, ultimately will have to be scaled back. If it refuses to admit that at least some key U.S. security commitments will be withdrawn under this budget, the Obama Administration will be making the nation’s security policy a form of bluff. – The Foundry

President Barack Obama is seeking increased funding for nuclear weapons research and security programs next year, even as his administration promotes nonproliferation and has pledged to reduce the world's stockpile of nuclear arms. The administration on Monday asked Congress for more than $7 billion for activities related to nuclear weapons in the budget of the National Nuclear Security Administration, an increase of $624 million from the 2010 fiscal year. NNSA Administrator Thomas D'Agostino defended putting more money into the programs, saying the U.S. needs the best nuclear weapons facilities, scientists, technicians and engineers as it moves toward eventual disarmament. – Associated Press

Ukraine

Ukraine's Yulia Tymoshenko relished a solo performance on television today, heaping insults on arch foe Viktor Yanukovych after he shunned a prime-time debate with her ahead of a presidential run-off on February 7. The fiery, fast-talking Tymoshenko, facing an empty rostrum where Yanukovych should have stood in their scheduled 100-minute duel, branded him "a common coward" for not turning up. "I believe that an empty spot is exactly what he is," said Tymoshenko, wearing her trademark peasant-style braids. "And although he is absent from here, I can feel his smell. This is the smell of fear. I do not want a common coward to become the next leader of our nation," she said sternly. - Reuters