Military & War News and Discussions

[caltrek]

^^^I wonder if this is the Pentagon's way of telling us that our country's procurement process sucks. The unidentified reason being that the military-industrial complex has come to place highest priority on pork barrel projects designed to bring dollars into specific states and congressional districts. Actual winning of a war, or projecting our power into another region of the globe, have become secondary priorities. At least IMHO.

In turn, again IMHO, this can be traced to the importance of military Keynesianism. That is to say, use of the military budget as a way to stimulate demand in the domestic economy. I prefer other more constructive methods of stimulating demand, such as investment in our infrastructure. At any rate, Keynesianism is the twentieth century answer to the 19th century problem of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. At least in my understanding of that 19th century problem.

[caltrek]

MiG-21 Goes Down in Rajasthan, Fifth Crash Involving Bison this year
by Rahul Singh
December 24, 2021

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-ne ... 39656.html

Introduction:

(Hindustan Time) A MiG-21 Bison of the Indian Air Force crashed in Rajasthan on Friday evening, the fifth crash involving the Bison this year. "This evening, around 8:30 pm, a MiG-21 aircraft of IAF met with a flying accident in the western sector during a training sortie. Further details are awaited. An inquiry is being ordered," the IAF said in a statement.

The fate of the pilot was not known when this report was filed.

The crash has once again turned the spotlight on India’s longest-serving fighter plane, its safety record and the IAF's plans to replace the ageing jets with newer ones in the coming years.

The Bison is the latest variant of Mig-21 in IAF service.

IAF operates four squadrons of MiG-21 Bison aircraft — a squadron has 16 to 18 fighter jets. The last of these upgraded MiG-21s are set to be phased out in the next three to four years. The air force got its first single-engine MiG-21 in 1963, and it progressively inducted 874 variants of the Soviet-origin supersonic fighters to bolster its combat potential.

Of the 874 MiG-21 variants inducted by the IAF, more than 60% were licence-produced in India.

[weatheriscool]

Report: Women, children among dozens killed in Myanmar
Source: Associated Press

Myanmar government troops rounded up villagers, some believed to be women and children, fatally shot more than 30 and set the bodies on fire, a witness and other reports said Saturday.

The purported photos of the aftermath of the Christmas Eve massacre in eastern Mo So village, just outside Hpruso township in Kayah state where refugees were sheltering from an army offensive, spread on social media in the country, fueling outrage against the military that took power in February.

The accounts could not be independently verified. The photos showed the charred bodies of over 30 people in three burned-out vehicles.

A villager who said he went to the scene told The Associated Press that the victims had fled the fighting between armed resistance groups and Myanmar’s army near Koi Ngan village, which is just beside Mo So, on Friday. He said they were killed after they were arrested by troops while heading to refugee camps in the western part of the township.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/myanmar-mass ... c7bbaeae3a

[weatheriscool]

President Biden signs $770 billion defense bill
Source: Reuters

By Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, for fiscal year 2022, which authorizes $770 billion in defense spending, the White House said on Monday.

Earlier this month, the Senate and the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly for the defense bill with strong support from both Democrats and Republicans for the annual legislation setting policy for the Department of Defense.

-snip-

Authorizing about 5% more military spending than last year, the fiscal 2022 NDAA is a compromise after intense negotiations between House and Senate Democrats and Republicans after being stalled by disputes over China and Russia policy.

It includes a 2.7% pay increase for the troops, and more aircraft and Navy ship purchases, in addition to strategies for dealing with geopolitical threats, especially Russia and China.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... li=BBnb7Kz

[wjfox]

The US has been getting 'its ass handed to it' in war games simulating fights against Russia and China

In war games simulating a high-end fight against Russia or China, the US often loses, two experienced military war-gamers have revealed.

"In our games, when we fight Russia and China, 'blue' gets its ass handed to it," David Ochmanek, a RAND warfare analyst, explained at the Center for a New American Security on Thursday, Breaking Defense first reported. US forces are typically color-coded blue in these simulations.

"We lose a lot of people. We lose a lot of equipment. We usually fail to achieve our objective of preventing aggression by the adversary," he said.

At the outset of these conflicts, all five battlefield domains — land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace — are contested, meaning the US could struggle to achieve the superiority it has enjoyed in the past. [...]

[wjfox]

China harvests masses of data on Western targets, documents show

December 31, 2021 at 5:13 p.m. EST

China is turning a major part of its internal Internet-data surveillance network outward, mining Western social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to equip its government agencies, military and police with information on foreign targets, according to a Washington Post review of hundreds of Chinese bidding documents, contracts and company filings.

China maintains a countrywide network of government data surveillance services — called public opinion analysis software — that were developed over the past decade and are used domestically to warn officials of politically sensitive information online.

The software primarily targets China’s domestic Internet users and media, but a Post review of bidding documents and contracts for over 300 Chinese government projects since the beginning of 2020 include orders for software designed to collect data on foreign targets from sources such as Twitter, Facebook and other Western social media.

The documents, publicly accessible through domestic government bidding platforms, also show that agencies including state media, propaganda departments, police, military and cyber regulators are purchasing new or more sophisticated systems to gather data.

These include a $320,000 Chinese state media software program that mines Twitter and Facebook to create a database of foreign journalists and academics; a $216,000 Beijing police intelligence program that analyzes Western chatter on Hong Kong and Taiwan; and a cybercenter in Xinjiang, home to most of China’s Uyghur population, that catalogues the mainly Muslim minority group’s language content abroad.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

[weatheriscool]

At least 23 killed amid clashes between armed groups in north Colombia
Source: CNN

As many as 23 people have been killed in clashes between rival guerrilla groups in Colombia's northern Arauca area, according to a spokesperson from the Attorney General's office.

"We are proceeding with the preliminary figure of 23 victims, but the information is still not [fully] clear. It's very hard to enter the area where the clashes occurred, so these numbers must be handled with care," spokesperson Paola Tovar told CNN.

Colombia's ombudsman Carlos Camargo said that fighting first erupted between the National Liberation Army -- the largest leftist guerrilla group in the country known by its Spanish acronym ELN -- and dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in the early hours of January 2.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/03/americas ... index.html

[weatheriscool]

Australia, Japan sign defense pact as China concerns loom
Source: AP

SYDNEY (AP) — The leaders of Japan and Australia signed a “landmark” defense agreement Thursday that allows closer cooperation between their militaries and stands as a rebuke to China's growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met in a virtual summit to sign the Reciprocal Access Agreement, the first such defense pact signed by Japan with any country other than the United States.

The agreement follows more than a year of talks between Japan and Australia aimed at breaking down legal barriers to allow the troops of one country to enter the other for training and other purposes.

“Japan is our closest partner in Asia as demonstrated by our special strategic partnership — Australia’s only such partnership,” Morrison said. “An equal partnership, shared trust between two great democracies committed to the rule of law, human rights, free trade and a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

Read more: https://kearneyhub.com/news/national/go ... e09ed.html

[caltrek]

Untangling Ourselves From the Dark Side of War

https://www.shmoop.com/quotes/cannot-si ... e-war.html

Quote:

(Schmoop) "You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. The very prevention of war requires more faith, courage, and resolution than are needed to prepare for war. We must all do our share, that we may be equal to the task of peace."

This line was written by Albert Einstein in a letter to Congressman Robert Hale (December 4, 1946).

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022 ... k-side-war

Extract:

(Common Dreams) Albert Einstein…adds, pointing out a truth that is still waiting to resonate culturally and politically: "The very prevention of war requires more faith, courage, and resolution than are needed to prepare for war."
…
Robert Farley…writing at Business Insider…writes, "…great powers are recalibrating and reasserting their interests."

What "interests" is he talking about? The unaddressed assumption here is that there is nothing more than a simplistic military-political will operating at the national level across Planet Earth, a will that is only capable of asserting itself through violence, including nuclear violence, and with seriously limited capacity for self-reflection and no complex understanding even of its own interests. And this is our future: We're probably going to blow ourselves up.

And, my God, there is indeed way too much truth to this, but if the mainstream coverage surrenders to this partial truth and leaves Einstein out—leaves out the fact that war is never inevitable and always a choice—the truth threatens to become absolute. This is what I truly fear.

[weatheriscool]

Trilateral naval drills between China, Russia and Iran start on Friday
Reuters ^ | Jan 20

"The purpose of this drill is to strengthen security and its foundations in the region, and to expand multilateral cooperation between the three countries to jointly support world peace, maritime security and create a maritime community with a common future," the Iranian official told ISNA.

Both navies from Iran's armed forces and Revolutionary Guards will take part in the drills, which include various tactical exercises such as rescuing a burning vessel, releasing a hijacked vessel, and shooting at air targets at night.

https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-ch ... 022-01-20/

Very likely that china and iran would fight with Russia if one of them got into a war.

[raklian]

Trilateral naval drills between China, Russia and Iran start on Friday
Reuters ^ | Jan 20

Very likely that china and iran would fight with Russia if one of them got into a war.

I doubt it. It's more likely they will betray each other at the very last minute after they've squeezed out as much as political benefit they could from their short-lived display of superfluous political-military friendship. They're not going to risk themselves in a direct confrontation with the greatest military power on the planet.

The Iranians and Chinese will leave Russia out in the cold. Their ruling parties rely on the stability of their citizens' relative contentment, so getting involved in a high-casualty war with the United States wouldn't make any sense from their point of view.

[weatheriscool]

Taiwan reports new large-scale Chinese air force incursion
Source: Reuters

Taiwan on Sunday reported the largest incursion since October by China's air force in its air defence zone, with the island's defence ministry saying Taiwanese fighters scrambled to warn away 39 aircraft in the latest uptick in tensions.

Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has complained for more than a year of repeated missions by China's air force near the democratically governed island, often in the southwestern part of its air defence identification zone, or ADIZ, close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands.

Taiwan calls China's repeated nearby military activities "grey zone" warfare, designed to both wear out Taiwan's forces by making them repeatedly scramble, and also to test Taiwan's responses.

The latest Chinese mission included 34 fighters plus four electronic warfare aircraft and a single bomber, the Taiwan ministry said.

The aircraft flew in an area to the northeast of the Pratas, according to a map the ministry provided.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-paci ... 022-01-23/

[caltrek]

Defense Contractor CEOs Indicate Global Insecurity Will Benefit Their Bottom Line
by Eli Clifton
January 30, 2022

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022 ... l-security

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) According to chief executives of the top taxpayer-funded weapons firms, their balance sheets will benefit from the U.S. engaging in great power competition with Russia and China, the recent escalations in the Yemen war, and the potential for a Russian invasion of Ukraine. But at least one CEO didn’t want to give the impression that weapons firms are simply merchants of death, claiming that her firm, the third largest weapons producer in the world, “actually promote[s] human rights proliferation.”

Those comments were all made on quarterly earnings calls this week, at which executives for publicly traded companies speak to investors and analysts who follow their industries and answer questions about their financial outlook.

The occasion brings out a degree of candor about companies’ fundamentals and their business interests that aren’t always disclosed in marketing materials and carefully worded press releases.

For example, CEOs from both Lockheed Martin and Raytheon outright acknowledged that a deteriorating state of global peace and security and an increase in deadly violence are very much in the interest of their employees and investors.

Lockheed CEO James Taiclet assured investors that the $740 billion defense budget — twelve times the budget provided to the State Department to conduct diplomacy — could continue to grow in 2023, a critical metric for weapons contractors, the ultimate recipient of nearly half of all defense spending.

[weatheriscool]

Skyranger 30 HEL adds laser weapon to mobile air defense arsenal
By David Szondy
February 07, 2022

Rheinmetall has unveiled its portable Skyranger 30 HEL air defense system that boasts a combination of a 30 mm automatic cannon, Short Range Air Defense (SHORAD) missiles, and a high-energy laser to protect mobile units.

After the end of the Cold War, one of the casualties of the victory was that many Western armed forces scrapped their anti-aircraft systems. But things have changed in the past decade, with a shift in the geopolitical situation and the emergence of an increasingly complex mix of drones, autonomous flight systems, and smart munitions that have prompted the need for a new generation of countermeasures.

The problem is that no one weapon is a panacea that can take out all threats, so a combination is needed for full protection. It's a bit like an aircraft carrier, which seems vulnerable because it doesn't have much in the way of guns, but is extremely hard to kill because it sits in the center of a screen of defenses that spreads out for hundreds of miles and consists of a myriad of ships, submarines, satellites, aircraft, missiles, and point defenses that a hostile force must penetrate to reach its target.

https://newatlas.com/military/skyranger ... er-weapon/

[Yuli Ban]

What in the 90s was a cyberpunk apocalyptic scenario, is now everyday: the war conflicts of the 21st century will be marked by indirect tactics, information technologies or military operations carried out remotely.

In 1993, Alvin and Heidi Toffler published their essay Future Wars. The American sociologist left a thesis: “our way of fighting reflects our way of earning money, and the way of fighting against war must reflect the way of waging it”. And also a warning: “how we deal with this threat of explosive violence will determine, to a large extent, how our children live or perhaps die.” The Tofflers, he who died in 2016 and she in 2019, and also authors of The Third Wave and The Shock of the Future, divided the story into three waves. The first, the agricultural revolution, which occurred in the Neolithic, which turned us from nomads to sedentary ones. The second, the industrial revolution, which arrived three centuries ago and multiplied our way of producing, consuming and exploiting the planet’s resources. Finally, the information revolution, which appeared in the 70s when they refined their theory and today marks our lives. Therefore, the wars of the information and technology age will be marked by the use of both. Something that overlaps with the military theory that emerged in the same 90s in which the Tofflers wrote their essays.

US Army experts and theorists such as Martin Van Creveld fleshed out another classification, those of the four generations of wars. They begin with the sisters of fire and the third generation is that of the great conflicts of the 20th century: World War I and II, the Spanish Civil War, the Yom Kippur War… and continues until the 21st century, with wars such as the Lebanon in 2016.

Our time is that of fourth generation wars, which overlap with the previous ones.

[Nanotechandmorefuture]

What in the 90s was a cyberpunk apocalyptic scenario, is now everyday: the war conflicts of the 21st century will be marked by indirect tactics, information technologies or military operations carried out remotely.

In 1993, Alvin and Heidi Toffler published their essay Future Wars. The American sociologist left a thesis: “our way of fighting reflects our way of earning money, and the way of fighting against war must reflect the way of waging it”. And also a warning: “how we deal with this threat of explosive violence will determine, to a large extent, how our children live or perhaps die.” The Tofflers, he who died in 2016 and she in 2019, and also authors of The Third Wave and The Shock of the Future, divided the story into three waves. The first, the agricultural revolution, which occurred in the Neolithic, which turned us from nomads to sedentary ones. The second, the industrial revolution, which arrived three centuries ago and multiplied our way of producing, consuming and exploiting the planet’s resources. Finally, the information revolution, which appeared in the 70s when they refined their theory and today marks our lives. Therefore, the wars of the information and technology age will be marked by the use of both. Something that overlaps with the military theory that emerged in the same 90s in which the Tofflers wrote their essays.

US Army experts and theorists such as Martin Van Creveld fleshed out another classification, those of the four generations of wars. They begin with the sisters of fire and the third generation is that of the great conflicts of the 20th century: World War I and II, the Spanish Civil War, the Yom Kippur War… and continues until the 21st century, with wars such as the Lebanon in 2016.

Our time is that of fourth generation wars, which overlap with the previous ones.

The corporate wars are also starting to become a thing now too! Though not as wild as the cyberpunk series of course though when you have apps being shut down and all that does change everything.

[weatheriscool]

Poland wants to urgently buy U.S. Reaper drones, as Russia fears mount
Source: Reuters

Wed, March 16, 2022, 7:14 AM·1 min read

(Reuters) - Poland wants to buy several MQ-9 Reaper drones from the U.S. under a special, accelerated procedure, and is eyeing further procurements at a later date amid rising security concerns three weeks into a Russian invasion of its neighbour Ukraine.

"We are planning to urgently procure the first MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial systems... We are talking about delivery of several sets," Lieutenant Colonel Krzysztof Platek, a spokesperson for the Polish Defence Ministry's Armament Agency, said in an interview on Wednesday.

Simultaneously Poland is pursuing the Zefir programme under which the purchase of MALE-class unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) is being negotiated, Platek said, declining to specify which drones might be ordered.

Poland hopes for the first drones to be delivered before the end of the year. The value of the planned acquisition was not disclosed by the ministry.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/poland-wants ... 40949.html

[weatheriscool]

And Now Russia Is Threatening Bosnia and Herzegovina Over NATO, Too
Source: The Daily Beast

Russia is now threatening to repeat the aggression it unleashed against Ukraine in Bosnia and Herzegovina if the country joins NATO. In comments made to the broadcaster FTV on Thursday, Russian Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina Igor Kalbukhov claimed the country could do as it wishes in regards to the alliance—but warned that Moscow would respond. “If [Bosnia and Herzegovina] decides to be a member of any alliance, that is an internal matter. Our response is a different matter. Ukraine’s example shows what we expect. Should there be any threat, we will respond,” he said in comments carried by Euractiv. ...

-snip-

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia-is ... r-nato-too

[Yuli Ban]

It took less than six hours for drug-developing AI to invent 40,000 potentially lethal molecules. Researchers put AI normally used to search for helpful drugs into a kind of “bad actor” mode to show how easily it could be abused at a biological arms control conference.

All the researchers had to do was tweak their methodology to seek out, rather than weed out toxicity. The AI came up with tens of thousands of new substances, some of which are similar to VX, the most potent nerve agent ever developed. Shaken, they published their findings this month in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence.

[caltrek]

It took less than six hours for drug-developing AI to invent 40,000 potentially lethal molecules. Researchers put AI normally used to search for helpful drugs into a kind of “bad actor” mode to show how easily it could be abused at a biological arms control conference.

All the researchers had to do was tweak their methodology to seek out, rather than weed out toxicity. The AI came up with tens of thousands of new substances, some of which are similar to VX, the most potent nerve agent ever developed. Shaken, they published their findings this month in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence.

Here is a link to the Nature Machine Intelligence article mentioned in Yuli's post: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-022-00465-9