Michele Flournoy and LTC Robert Lyons, USAF (Ret.) write: To be clear, we cannot succeed in maintaining our technological edge and our military superiority unless we have a more stable and healthy defense budget along with a more innovative and responsive acquisition system that allow the DOD to invest in the future capabilities needed to protect our interests and sustain our leadership globally. Now is the time for pragmatic compromise to protect our national security, but time is running short. – Strategic Studies Quarterly (PDF)
0 Comments
Interview: Stanislav Belkovsky is one of the most outspoken and controversial political experts in modern Russia…Our own Karina Orlova spoke with him over the weekend about Putin’s grand strategy (or lack thereof), and how it’s playing out with regards to Ukraine. – The American Interest Under strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, a former rebel who has become a fervent ally of President Vladimir Putin , Chechnya underwent a striking Islamization in recent years. Most women on the streets of Grozny, the capital, wear the Islamic hijab, a dress code until recently enforced by drive-by paintball shootings. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required) In an interview, Mr. Gorbachev shrugged off the fact that 25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he remains among the most reviled men in Russia. “It is freedom of expression,” he said. Yet the official line denigrating traditional democracy, combined with the very idea that he should face trial, obviously irks him, so he churns out articles, essays and books about the need to enhance freedom in Russia. – New York Times “How Ahrar al-Sham Has Come to Define the Kaleidoscope of the Syrian Civil War” (Sam Heller, War on the Rocks)
“Here and elsewhere, Ahrar has made clear that it attempts to draw on the legacy of not just figures like Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, but also Abdullah Azzam, founder of modern transnational jihadism, and the symbols of the Chechen jihad against Russia. In his lecture, [Ahrar al-Sham deputy leader Ali] al-Omar says jihad will continue to the Day of Reckoning, even if it might take different forms beyond military action -- political or evangelical struggle, for example. And in his defense of Ahrar’s political engagement, al-Omar references Ahrar’s ‘ceiling’ -- the limits of its ability to compromise. It seems safe to say that Ahrar’s ceiling is lower than others’; Ahrar has historically refused to compromise its ‘thawabit’ (fixed principles) in the service of expediency. In many ways, Ahrar al-Sham has fused a specifically Syrian revolutionary character with a Sunni-sectarian pan-Islamism. In much of northern Syria, it is Ahrar that defends journalists, activists, and civil society against predatory jihadists, and over the past several years Ahrar has made serious efforts to integrate itself with the revolutionary political mainstream. Yet while Ahrar al-Sham’s ambitions are Syrian, al-Omar makes clear that Ahrar also views itself as the greater Sunni nation’s bulwark against a Shi’ite onslaught.” Three Republican senators are reassuring U.S. allies in Asia and looking to mitigate the damage they believe Donald Trump is doing to important trans-Pacific relationships, further evidence that when it comes to the GOP's presumptive nominee and America's most critical allies, politics no longer end, so to speak, at the water's edge. - Politico
Beijing’s multibillion-dollar plans to build overland and maritime links across Central and South Asia — whether that means huge investments in Pakistan or gas pipeline deals in places like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan — grab the lion’s share of attention. But the ultimate prize in the Silk Road plan — also known in China as the “One Belt, One Road” initiative — is someplace else: Europe. – Foreign Policy
China must stop its university students from being “brainwashed by western theories”, according to a group of Chinese scholars who have urged Beijing to reinstate more Marxism in economics courses. – Financial Times For years any trip to Beijing for US economic policymakers has come with currency concerns heading the agenda. But as the Obama administration’s economic team prepares for its final “Strategic and Economic Dialogue” with Chinese counterparts next week, there are signs the renminbi has been usurped by overcapacity. – Financial Times Fighters aligned with Libya’s United Nations-backed unity government are advancing along the Mediterranean coast toward the Islamic State stronghold of Surt, signaling the first major assault on territory that, since last year, has become the terrorist group’s largest base outside of Iraq and Syria. – New York Times
Deciding who to blame for Libya’s descent into chaos after the 2011 ouster of former strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi has become something of a big power parlor game…Amid the recriminations, no one ever points the finger at the Libyans themselves — except, that is, for Ibrahim Dabbashi, Libya’s ambassador to the United Nations, who bluntly faulted a succession of post-Qaddafi leaders he served for squandering a historic opportunity to lead the country toward a better future. – Foreign Policy Algeria said on Wednesday its troops had killed eight Islamist militants and seized weapons during an operation 350 km (220 miles) east of the capital Algiers. - Reuters France is using a drone base in Niger to keep an eye on jihadists from al Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb, the BBC reports. Five French drones are stationed at Base 101, which carries out around 40 sorties per month as part of Operation Barkhane, begun in early 2014.
China's air force is telling mil geeks to pump the breaks on claims that the country's J-20 stealth fighter jet is already being used in training exercises, Reuters reports. The statement, made by the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) on Chinese social media, came in response to some analysts' claims that new, grainy imagery from a recent exercise showed a J-20 involved in the drill. Nonetheless, the PLAAF pledged that the J-20 would be available "in the near future."
|
Archives
April 2024
Categories |