The Taliban appears happy to deal – and may be willing to accede to the US’ conditions  to rid themselves of the Americans knowing that if they renege on their word, the GIs are unlikely to return. It also highlighted the complex choices facing the US, allies such as Australia, regional players like Turkey and Iraq, and institutions such as the UN. in the White House. Likewise, Iran — which lost Qassem Soleimani, head of its Revolutionary Guards covert action arm, the Quds Force, to a US drone strike in January — has been on a path of military confrontation with the US for years. Armed groups have formed across the political spectrum, worsening divisions the coronavirus has exposed in American society. FBI agents targeted The Base after its members allegedly sought to ­attack a massive pro-gun rally outside the Virginia State Capitol building in Richmond in January. Bad as 2017 and years prior were for this sad segment of our planet, next year will probably not be much better. The bomber, Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh, claimed to be enraged by government over­reactions at Ruby Ridge (1992) and Waco, Texas (1993), which between them saw law ­enforcement kill 78 civilians including 26 children. 283 kr. Click on the picture below to read the New York Times’ commentary on the negotiations. As part of this strategy, US ­forces may launch periodic operations (missile and drone strikes, air raids or special forces operations) to preserve their preferred balance but would avoid protracted commitments, and troop numbers in Iraq and Syria would be drawn down. Taking a strategy like offshore balancing, however successful it might prove to be in the Middle East, and blindly applying it on the Korean peninsula, to Russia or China  where conditions are dramatically different, would be full of risk. Vladimir Lenin once remarked that “there are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen”. He also was a special adviser for counterinsurgency to former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. If Trump is defeated, elements of the militia movement or street protesters might also engage in violence. Protesters, some heavily armed, are out in force to demand reopening of the economy. Khan Sheikhoun is a town of 50,000 on the southern edge of Idlib, a province in northwestern Syria that abuts Turkey to the north, Aleppo to the east, and Hama and Latakia provinces to the south and west. It also implies holding military power back, over the horizon or outside the region, rather than establishing permanent bases. By Thursday, militarised police were on the streets firing tear gas and rubber bullets against vociferous opposition. The latter, whilst not as original, eye-catching and exhilarating as its parent, was nevertheless a cinematic masterpiece. Still, despite the ongoing condemnation from the policy establishment and allies alike, Trump’s decision to exit the Iran deal may indicate something deeper than mere ill-informed petulance — and if a strategy of offshore balancing does emerge, it just may point the way to disengagement from the post-9/11 wars, a goal that every president since 2001 (including George W. Bush himself, since about five minutes after his “mission accomplished” speech in May 2003) has sought but failed to achieve. Ancient statues were dynamited as pagan idols. If violence does spread, it will not be a re-run of the American Civil War. Some call the urban guerrilla aspect of the Boogaloo “Minecrafting”: Twitter threads seeming to discuss the game may actually refer to the coming conflict — context is everything. Kosovo 1999 it was not. In April 2014, a dispute over grazing rights in Nevada triggered an armed stand-off between militia and federal agencies including the Bureau of Land Management and the FBI. There are, he says, “already hundreds militias of varying political complexions across the country. The sacking of secretary of state Rex Tillerson and national security adviser HR McMaster in March has removed competing power centres in US foreign policy, while former CIA director Mike Pompeo (Tillerson’s replacement as Secretary of State), and Defence Secretary James Mattis appear more than capable of executing an offshore balancing strategy. Language policing on social media has not only pushed accelerationist groups underground; it has created a whole new language. Professor Kilcullen said we might may be dealing with adversaries who have a much broader definition of war than we do. Perhaps the best analogy is ­Colombia, which saw 10 years of amorphous conflict from 1948 to 1958, a decade known as La Violencia. On politics generally, we couldn’t get through the year without featuring Donald Trump. In his recent State of the Union address he repeatedly emphasized the need for a political solution in Afghanistan. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Saudi crown prince seem to have successfully sold Trump on their expansive vision of the Iranian threat, creating the possibility that Washington may be manipulated into decisions that run counter to its own wider interests. A former Australian infantry officer with a doctorate in anthropology, Kilcullen has made quite a name for himself in recent years. And under those circumstances, winning the war was desirable but continuing it was mandatory, since it was the war that guaranteed international engagement. The Ghouta attack was not an act of unthinking evil but one of calculated desperation, and strikes against regime positions could have not only punished Assad for his use of gas, but enabled a rebel advance into Damascus that would have opened a path to negotiations. From race-relations to healthcare to tax reform to The Middle East, South Asia and North Korea, we view his bizarro administration with a mix of amusement and trepidation. Although it’s ship of state is taking in water, Saudi Arabia will continue its quixotic and perverse adventures in the Gulf and the Levant. As the year draws to a close, our adversary has withdrawn for the long, hot summer, but will return in 2018, and the struggle will continue – as it will throughout the state and indeed the nation as timber, coal and gas corporations, empowered by legislation, trash the common treasury with the assent of our many governments. In 2005 and 2006 he was Chief Strategist in the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the U.S. State Department. US President Donald Trump’s missile strike against Syria’s Shayrat air base last week, responding to the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun in northern Idlib province, garnered cautious praise across the political spectrum. But again, the key question is why Assad’s forces felt the need to use the nerve agent in the first place. There was indeed a huge rise in militia ­activity. Laddas ned direkt Vid val av prioriterat leveranssätt. The frail, overcrowded boats still bob dangerously on Mediterranean and Aegean waters, and the hopeful of Africa and Asia die hopelessly and helplessly. The Nusra-led offensive in Idlib and Hama has been under-reported, but for Syrians it’s the most important event of 2017 so far. Picture: AFP From Inquirer 15 minute read The rise of militias and armed protesters across the US is sometimes seen. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are already fighting a proxy war against Iran and its Houthi allies in Yemen, from where conflict is spilling into the Horn of Africa and bringing missile strikes to the heart of Saudi Arabia (most recently, this past week after the nuclear deal announcement). Hate follows and rationalises fear, not the other way around. For political reasons, Israeli and Arab components would operate separately, but Washington would co-ordinate with each and support both to prevent the re-emergence of Islamic State while containing and undermining Iran, ­Hezbollah and Russia (with the emphasis very much on Iran). The term “Boogaloo” is widely used for the coming civil war. This comes in the wake of hugely expensive and largely unsuccessful efforts by the US to dominate a region directly through direct military intervention – and subsequent entanglement that left it ‘neck deep in the big muddy’ to quote political activist and balladeer Pete Seeger. Whilst constituencies with a high proportion of Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Chinese cleaved to the concept that marriage was only for man and women, the country, urban and rural, cities and states voted otherwise. Knocking out Khan Sheikhoun from the air would immediately collapse the rebel salient, letting the regime stabilise the front line. Many questioned latter day imperial hubris. Dr. David Kilcullen has a piece at Small Wars Journal that you should read. These criticisms, too, are overblown. Within days, rebel fighters pushed to within 5km of the Hama suburbs, threatening the regime’s control of a critical city that anchors its northern flank and provides access to Aleppo. As such, this is a low-cost approach — something military planners call an “economy of effort” strategy — that reduces exposure and preserves freedom of action. Using the Syria strike to telegraph a zero-tolerance policy for weapons of mass destruction, administration spokesmen talked of a new joint effort with China to rein in North Korea’s nuclear adventurism. Then Barack Oba­ma, in announcing his surge in December 2009, also (very helpfully for the Taliban) announced its end date, later extended by NATO but still resulting in a rigid timetable for withdrawal. Donald Trump is as much a symptom as a cause of America’s toxic polarization. Most self-respecting Bolsheviks and Nazis never let such volatile circumstances go to waste. This then was the backdrop to In That Howling Infinite’s 2017 – an electic collection covering politics, history, music, poetry, books, and dispatches from the Shire. inquirer Home of the hateful, fearful, heavily armed David Kilcullen Coronavirus is threatening to ignite a tinderbox of grievances in the US. Their goal is to accelerate the collapse of a social order they see as doomed, by bringing on a racial war, a class war or both. but Kilcullen begs to differs, suggesting a less dystopian but nonetheless disturbing outcome: “In ‘contested areas’ – where the territories of left and right-wing militants overlap – we can expect violence irrespective of the outcome. The most important is proxy conflict, which can spiral out of control when more than one external power backs local actors, drawing them into confrontation. But in many ways it poses a much more severe threat to the regime than Baghdadi’s group. And it was before the Iranian nuclear deal of 2015 brought a flood of funds, advisers and troops from Tehran to further bolster the regime. The decision to dump the deal is far from the only indicator. Donald Trump and the shifting, unpredictable nature of US foreign policy; the growth of Chinese influence and engagement in Afghanistan’s political and economic development; and the rise of Islamic State-Khorasan, the Afghan branch of Abubakar al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State terrorist group, and now the Taliban’s is an arch-enemy. Independent thinking, unique experiences and powerful networks – our members achieve more together. And if you have ever wondered how this blog got its title, here is Why :In That Howling Infinite”? McCormick's model shows the interplay among the actors: insurgents, government, population and external organizations. Strategist David Kilcullen carries this argument to its next logical step. Others asked what were the long term goals, and what was the exit strategy. Even as the regime recaptured Aleppo in December 2016 — with heavy support from Russian airstrikes, Russian special forces, Iranian advisers and Hezbollah militia — Nusra and other groups formed an alliance, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, to recapture ground from Assad’s forces. Khan Sheikhoun now sits at the base of a rebel salient that stretches from Idlib south into the outskirts of Hama city, and west into al-Ghab. Beskrivning. Under this scheme, Washington would support allies (including, potentially, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as a coalition of local Kurdish militias) but end combat troop deployments. Unsurprisingly, doing exactly that has become a major priority for Assad. Winning the war is, of course, a real objective for coalition capitals as it is for Washington — but it’s a secondary one. All the effort since then has been about rebuilding Afghanistan, and that effort is founded on two assumptions: that leaving without first standing up a stable pro-Western government would trigger a Taliban return, and that a Taliban return would mean terrorist attacks emanating from Afghanistan. Whether you think that’s good or bad probably depends on your view of America’s role in the world, and the longstanding propensity of US leaders to use unilateral military force. So he started Caerus Associates, which is “two-thirds tech, one-third social science, with a dash of special operations.” The whole region could be further destabilized, and America and its allies could be sucked back in – on other’s terms. Whilst a American force that once reached 140,000 soldiers America could not wipe out the Taliban, a mere 13,000 troops bolstering the Afghan army today, seems capable keeping the Taliban more or less in check. Last month marked the 25th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in US history. Here is his assessment of the Khan Sheikhoun gas attack and the US’ “laughably symbolic” response. Internal conflict in Saudi Arabia is also a risk: a recent incident where a drone flew into the royal compound in Riyadh triggered a coup scare and highlighted nervousness within the Saudi royal family about opposition towards Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reforms. Alongside an Arab coalition, ­Israel seems ready to step into any gap created by US withdrawal, while cheering Trump’s decision to exit the Iran deal. But there is a third wave coming: the possibility of armed conflict towards the end of this year, when the combined health and economic impacts of the crisis will peak amid the most violently contested presidential election in memory. Most Australians are in headquarters roles in Kabul, at Camp Qargha (the officer academy near Kabul), as advisers to the Afghan Air Force, and at the training, advisory and assistance command for Afghanistan’s southern region in Kandahar. Extremists joined in and “conflict entrepreneurs” emerged to prolong and profit from the violence. He asks: “What’s different now? On Australia’s part, after peaking during 2010-11 with reconstruction and stabilization forces in Oruzgan province and a special operations task group that ­achieved widespread respect for its ­professionalism, our commitment now stands at about 300 ­personnel. It is a well-tried and well-documented strategy whereby an offshore power counters a rival by backing opposing coalitions in a region of ­strategic competition, supporting local allies indirectly (with weapons, money, advisers intelligence or diplomatic cover), and using proxy military muscle, regular and irregular, to prevent any one rival dominating the region. Whether it spreads will depend on level-headed political leadership – and today’s hyper-partisan coronavirus debate offers little hope of that. In the dark times, will there also be singing? Last month’s coalition strike on Syria sent a similar message in that it avoided targeting the Assad regime’s leadership or Russian and Iranian assets in Syria. Containing the Taliban as a remote, rural threat, grave enough to stop the international community abandoning Afghanistan yet able to be gradually overcome as a long-term national project (with international money and help) would be ideal. In retrospect, the risk that Ruby Ridge and Waco would trigger a terrorist backlash seems obvious. Our history posts reprised our old favourite, A Brief History of the Rise and Fall of the West, whilst we examined the nature of civil wars in A House Divided. Indeed, an undeclared low-level air battle has been going on between Israel, Hezbollah and Iranian forces in Syria since February. But, offshore balancing requires a cool nerves, a steady hand and deft footwork. We are living through such weeks now. Hopefully, as with many of Trump’s isolationist initiatives, like climate change, trade, and Iran, less immoderate nations will take no notice and carry on regardless. Will the Donald be impeached? Last November, we welcomed Donald Trump to the White House with bated breath and gritted teeth, and his first year as POTUS did not disappoint. It was also accompanied by clear statements that the US did not seek regime change — effectively acquiescing in Bashar al-Assad’s victory, moving away from Obama’s goal of regime change and further disen­gaging from involvement in the Syrian conflict. Far from eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons — as former national security adviser Susan Rice repeatedly claimed — that agreement left Assad’s regime with reduced but still lethal capability, including extensive supplies of chlorine gas and smaller stocks of nerve agent that it used in later attacks. But, in fact, Syrian use of chemical weapons in the war so far has been highly calculated and strategic. The husband of one leader posted a Facebook video this week expressing his readiness to take up arms against the government to prevent a “new world order” being imposed through lockdowns. The group’s leader, until recently known by his nom de guerre “Norman Spear”, was unmasked in January as Rinaldo Nazzaro, a New Jersey native based in St Peters­burg, Russia, from where he directed cells in Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. Here is where you can find videos of their latest shows and songs new and old. Whatever its possibilities, offshore balancing does carry significant risks. Westworld was a delight with its fabulous locations and cinematography, a script that kept us backtracking to listen again to what was said and to keep up with its many ethical arcs and literary revenues. This dispute — over federal attempts to impound the cattle of a rancher named Cliven Bundy — brought hundreds of militia members from across the country to Nevada where they surrounded federal agents, trained weapons on them and forced them to back down. David Kilcullen is one of the world's leading experts on guerrilla warfare and, rarely among his kind, has a PhD in political anthropology. Women were not allowed out of their homes unless covered head to toe and accompanied by a male relative. Sadly, the former, Alien: Covenant, was a disappointment, incoherent and poorly written. Between the motion There is also the not-so-minor matter of the sovereign independent government of Afghanistan, which strongly resents being cut out of negotiations, has defense and interior ministries led by highly competent hard-line adversaries of the Taliban, and is highly unlikely to acquiesce in its own abandonment. The strategy’s other key benefit is its low cost and ability to preserve (or, in this case, restore) strategic freedom of action. More worrying, on left and right, are underground groups including so-called “accelerationists”. The May Government’s hamfistedness is such that at Year End, many pundits are saying that the public have forgotten the incompetence of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and predict that against all odds, his missus could soon be measuring up for curtains in Number Ten. An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier. But his change of policy after the Khan Sheikhoun attack — perhaps prompted by the presence in his inner circle of experienced strategists such as Secretary of Defence James Mattis and National Security Adviser HR McMaster — shows he’s at least capable of learning and adapting. So, with a US presidential election next year and its guerrillas gaining ground, Taliban negotiators know that this is the best offer they are likely to get, while by January 2021 there could be a very different occupant in the White House and Washington’s Afghanistan “forever war” project could be back on. Until a week ago, Trump’s Syria policy was to downplay any call for regime change, acquiesce in the permanence of Assad’s regime and collaborate with Putin against Islamic State. There are real risks to allied aircraft over Syria from Russian and Syrian air defences, and to special forces and conventional troops (there are now, according to media reporting, as many as 1500 rangers, marines and special forces on the ground in Syria) in the event of strikes against the regime. This approach, if it does emerge, would be a classic instance of offshore balancing, where an offshore power counters a rival by backing opposing coalitions in a region of ­stra­tegic competition, supporting local allies indirectly (with weapons, money, advisers intelligence or diplomatic cover) to prevent any one rival dominating the region. In In That Howling Infinite, read also: The Devil Drives, and  One Two Three what are we fighting for? And in inexperienced, needful, and impetuous hands, it could render the US vulnerable to being played by its partners. Conflict resolution expert and mediator Lawrence Susskind encapsulated it thus: when two sides are locked into an apparently intractable conflict, “you must engage the constructive middle. In the end 200,000 people were killed, two million were displaced and the Colombian Army — after initially staying out of the conflict — eventually stepped in to end the violence, seizing control in a coup in 1953. Many of these are first-time buyers from the ­pro­gressive end of politics, who traditionally shun firearms and have little knowledge of weapon safety. When Obama called his own bluff on the red line, ceded the diplomatic initiative to Moscow and put the Kremlin in the driver’s seat for negotiations on Syria, he enabled a Russian-brokered agreement on Syria’s chemical stockpile that bolstered the regime’s legitimacy. 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