State Department: 'Russian Military Has a Significant Presence in Ukraine'

    Ever since March 2014 when President Obama referred to Russian aggression against Ukraine as an "invasion", administration officials have avoided that word in conjunction with the ongoing conflict. In fact, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey R. Pyatt's declared on April 29, 2014, that "Russian troops crossing Ukraine's borders would be a major escalation, and would draw an inevitable, sharp reaction from the United States," implying that, President Obama's March remarks notwithstanding, no Russian troops had "invaded".
    Evan as recently as this week, Ambassador Samantha Power at the United Nations charged Russia with training, supplying, aiding, and arming separatists in Ukraine, but stopped short of saying that Russian troops were engaged across the border in Ukraine. And Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, in Kyiv for a meeting with Ukrainian Finance Minister Jaresko referred to the "ongoing military offensive... being carried out by Russia-backed separatists," but made no mention of Russian forces.
    Today, however, when asked to comment on remarks by a US army general that suggested Russian special operations forces are playing an active role in the conflict, a state department spokesperson replied:

We cannot confirm specific numbers, but the Russian military has a significant presence in Ukraine.  In late December, Russia transferred more than one hundred additional pieces of Russian military equipment and material to pro-Russia separatists.  The latest transfer complements the previous transfer of hundreds of pieces of Russian military equipment provided to pro-Russia separatists since the September 5 Minsk ceasefire agreement, including tanks, armored personnel carriers, heavy artillery pieces, and other military vehicles. 

There are several sites near the Ukraine border, which serve as staging points before transporting Russian military equipment to pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine. Russian combat forces remain deployed near the Ukraine border, and Russian military forces still operate in eastern Ukraine, where they play a coordinating role and provide ongoing tactical support to pro-Russia separatists.

    The US Department of Defense (DOD) has been more vocal about Russian military activity in eastern Ukraine beyond simply supplying and training separatists. In remarks Tuesday at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Special Operations and Low-intensity Conflict Symposium, Army Gen. Joseph L. Votel suggested that Russian special operations forces are active in the conflict:

[A] resurgent Russia is now employing coercive techniques against its neighbor using [special operations] forces, other clandestine capabilities, information operations, other cyber operations and groupings of ethnic proxies and surrogates to drive wedges into our key allies in East Europe.

    General Votel seemed to distinguish between the activities of Russian forces and "groupings of ethnic proxies and surrogates," presumably the separatist forces in Ukraine that have been fighting Ukrainian forces in the eastern part of that country since early 2014. When asked for comment, a DOD spokesperson said, "The general referred to the use of Special Operations Forces and Information Operations. In the US military, Special Operations Forces is an umbrella term for all special operations units to include units that conduct  Military Information Support Operations or MISO. MISO, also referred to as Psychological Operations, is a subset of Information Operations‎ and has nothing to do forces on the ground."
    A second DOD spokesperson's comments mirrored those of the state department, and also called on Russia to fulfill the Minsk agreement by "withdrawing all troops and weapons from eastern Ukraine":

[W]e've been saying out of the DoD for quite a while now [that] we cannot confirm specific numbers, but the Russian military has a significant presence in Ukraine.  We call on Russia to de-escalate this conflict by fulfilling the commitments they signed up to in Minsk, including by withdrawing all troops and weapons from eastern Ukraine, establishing effective international monitoring of the international border and returning control of Ukraine’s side of that border to the government in Kyiv, freeing all hostages, and working towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

    President Obama himself addressed the Ukrainian situation with Chancellor Merkel of Germany in a phone call on Tuesday, but the readout of the call made no mention of Russian forces in Ukraine. Rather, the president and Chancellor Merkel decried "Russia’s materiel support for the separatists and its failure to fulfill its commitment under the Minsk Agreement."


Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Pentagon Calls Paris Attack 'Lone Wolf'' Event, Twitter Hacking 'Cyber Vandalism'

    The Pentagon called the hacking of the Central Command's (CENTCOM) YouTube and Twitter accounts Monday "cyber vandalism" in a letter to service members and their families to allay concerns about the incident. General Lloyd Austin said that the FBI is investigating the "alleged breach" of the two social media sites by hackers who claimed to be aligned with the Islamic State (ISIL.) While Austin said that "CENTCOM network was not compromised and no classified information," he acknowledged that the hackers posted "information obtained from the accounts," though he did not go into further detail.
    Austin also referred to "the threat of ‘lone wolf’ attacks by individuals who align with or are sympathetic to radical Jihadist elements," examples of which, according to Austin, are the "recent tragedies in Paris..., New York City and Ottawa, Canada." The general acknowledged that Monday's hacking included threats, but said there were no "no credible threats made to U.S. military personnel or their families."
    In any case, Austin said, the military is taking the threats "very seriously" and will "take all possible measures" to keep military personnel and their families safe.
    The full text of General Austin's letter is here:

This week, hackers claiming to be aligned with the extremist group ISIL took control of CENTCOM’s Twitter and YouTube accounts for approximately 30 minutes. They posted tweets with information obtained from the accounts and they also posted threats against military members and their families. 

I recognize that this has caused significant angst among family and friends who are understandably concerned about their loved ones’ safety. I want to personally reassure you that we are taking this matter very seriously and we continue to take all possible measures to keep our personnel safe. 

With respect to the alleged breach of our Twitter and YouTube accounts, The Federal Bureau of Investigation is in the process of conducting a full investigation. However, you should know that the CENTCOM network was not compromised and no classified information was obtained by the group. Also, as yet, there have been no credible threats made to U.S. military personnel or their families. 

That said, we do not take these threats lightly, and we will do what is necessary to mitigate them. Unfortunately, the threat of ‘lone wolf’ attacks by individuals who align with or are sympathetic to radical Jihadist elements exists today, and we’ve seen this demonstrated with the recent tragedies in Paris and before that in New York City and Ottawa, Canada. We must all take the necessary precautions and be highly vigilant to protect against these threats. 

Our people are our most important assets and our top priority and that includes our family members. And, we need to make sure that we are looking out for one another. All of you are an important part of our CENTCOM team, and I want to thank you for your many contributions and your strong support. If you need anything or have additional concerns please do not hesitate to reach out to your service member’s chain of command or the headquarters. 

Be safe!
GEN AUSTIN
COMCENT

    Although General Austin referred to the Paris attacks as 'lone wolf' events, there have been some possible links to al Qaeda uncovered as Thomas Joscelyn reports in the January 19 edition of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, including an eyewitness account that one of the killers said "You can tell the media that it’s al Qaeda in Yemen" during the attack on Charlie Hebdo's offices.

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Reporter: Benghazi 'Still a Major Issue With Right-Wing and Obama-Haters'

    General David M. Rodriguez of the U.S. Africa Command updated reporters Wednesday on the defense department's efforts to assist the response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa. However, later in the briefing, the general addressed questions on other topics as well. Several reporters inquired about the U.S. military's current role in Libya, and eventually the subject of the 2012 terrorist attacks on the Benghazi diplomatic facility came up. One unidentified reporter referred to Benghazi as "a major issue with the right-wing and Obama-haters..." (video)
    The broader exchange regarding Benghazi involved two different reporters and went as follows [emphasis added]:

Q: General Rodriguez, can I just follow up on Libya? Do we -- does the U.S. have military personnel operating in Libya right now? 

GEN. RODRIGUEZ: No, we do not. 

Q: And -- are you still continuing to search for any of the Benghazi attackers? 

GEN. RODRIGUEZ: Yes, we continue to search for the Benghazi attack network, yes. 

Q: But without U.S. military on the ground. 

GEN. RODRIGUEZ: That's right, without people on the ground, yes. 

Q: My train of though train of thought. I was going to ask you about Libya -- Liberia, excuse me, but Benghazi. Two years after the attack on the U.S. consulate, this has become still a major issue with the right-wing and Obama-haters, that the conspiracy theorists about why we didn't rescue. Two years later, what assets do you have at your disposal right now? Review the bidding. If something like that happened again, what do you have available? 

GEN. RODRIGUEZ: We have the FAST teams from the Marines. We have -- we have a commander's emergency response forces from the special forces. We have the special purpose MAGTF crisis response that's up in Moron, Spain. And then we have the East African response force in Djibouti.
We also have force-sharing agreements with European Command to be able to be much more responsive and quicker. And then we think we have developed an improved way to execute the indications and warnings with our interagency partners to ensure that we can move and reposition closer.
We have done that three times, for example, into Sigonella based on indications or warning. And then, of course, the reinforcement of the embassies, both by diplomatic security and the Marine security guards, as happened throughout the region, and we've done that in Libya. We've done that in Tunisia. We've done that in the Central African Republic and, of course, in South Sudan, between that time and now.

    The recent release of the House Intelligence Committee's report on Benghazi did little to settle the controversy surrounding the events of September 11, 2012.


Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Pentagon: Military Losing Technological Superiority to China

    During the first Gulf War in the early 1990s, the US military used a new generation of technological weapons that left the rest of the world far behind. But according the Frank Kendall, the Pentagon's undersecretary of defense for acquisitions, technology and logistics, that advantage is evaporating. Speaking at a breakfast at the Navy League in Arlington, Virginia Wednesday, Kendall said the deterioration has continued during his four and a half years on the job, "in large part because of our budget situation," including sequestration. Claudette Roulo of DoD News reported on the under secretary's breakfast remarks: 

When I talk to people on the Hill and I mention that I'm concerned about technological superiority, … I get a reaction that is a sort of surprise, first of all, and disbelief. … I think we have gotten so accustomed to our technological superiority militarily that it's just a given, and it's one of the things I kind of fight against when I try to have these conversations,” Kendall said.

    While the US military's budget is being cut, China's budget has been growing at about 12% annually, Kendall said, and may soon be as large as the US's. China is of particular concern according to the under secretary because "no one's studied us more -- including immediately after the first Gulf War -- than the Chinese. And they have been building systems since then designed to counteract some of the things that we have." Kendall is not concerned about war with China, but a stronger military will give that country proportionally more influence in the region. Additionally, the Chinese may sell their technology to other countries that the US might end up facing someday in an armed conflict, and this also poses a problem. Again, DoD News reports:

The United States tends to rely on a small number of very expensive, but very capable, assets, the undersecretary said, and that makes the military vulnerable once an enemy learns how to attack those assets, noting that no one has a monopoly on technology, warfighting power or doctrinal and operational concepts.

    In October, Bill Gertz of the Washington Free Beacon reported on a draft of the annual report of the congressional, bipartisan U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission that seems to confirm and even expand on Kendall's concerns:

China’s rapid military modernization is altering the military balance of power in the Asia Pacific in ways that could engender destabilizing security competition between other major nearby countries, such as Japan and India, and exacerbate regional hotspots such as Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea,” the report concludes in a section on military developments.

    Accusations of cyberespionage by the Chinese in recent years have also heightened the concerns about China's ability to keep up with US technology and design systems to counteract it. While Kendall did not address espionage by the Chinese, he said that strategic investments in technology by China are targeted at changing the balance of power in Asia:

“They're designed to present us with a very difficult problem if we want to operate in the vicinity of China,” he added. “And it's structured in a way that they can, perhaps, control escalation, so they can force us to back down.”

    Overall, as the one in charge of acquisition the US military's technological assets, Kendall does not seem optimistic: "I'm worried about whether we're keeping up or not."

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Pentagon's Counter-IED Force to Shrink by Two-Thirds This Year

    News broke this week that under a plan released by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, the United States Army will be reduced to its smallest force since before World War II.  Though not directly related to that plan, another announcement this week by the Defense Department gives a foretaste of what those cuts may look like.  Plans are underway for massive cuts to the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), the organization that has led military's efforts to combat the weapon of choice among insurgents and terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world. JIEDDO's current staff of 3,000 will be reduced to 1,000 by the end of this fiscal year, and further plans could see the number fall as low as 400 down the road.

    Army Lt. Gen. John D. Johnson, the director of JIEDDO, said guidance from then-Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called on him to "scale JIEDDO down" and draw up plans for what "an 'enduring' JIEDDO might look like in the future."  The Army News Service reports:

"There is a full appreciation that JIEDDO functions should endure. The key is that it be scaled to what the nation can afford," Johnson said. "And we have to be smart as to how we structure it so it can be rapidly expanded as necessary based on the nature of the threat and the challenges we are going to face in the future."... 

Johnson said he will spell out to the deputy secretary what could be done with 400 personnel, and what risks are associated with it. 

"There are certain parts of an organization like this that if you reduce it beyond a point, it could take six months, a year, even longer to re-establish it," he said. "And in that time period, our soldiers and Marines in the field are suffering from the effects of IEDs, and it ends up costing us more to try to fix the problem without necessarily having the sophistication of understanding the entire system of systems."

    Lt. Gen. Johnson was positive about the coming changes, but expressed some concerns as well.

Some parts of JIEDDO can't be easily scaled. One of the areas he's looking to protect, Johnson said, is the intelligence integration functions of JIEDDO. 

"My concern is, right now, we have a fairly persistent look at the organizations that most commonly use IEDs," he said. "If we were to take our eyes off, what are the chances that there would be an adaptation or permutation in the way they use IEDs that we didn't anticipate, and how long for us to catch up?" 

    JIEDDO has worked with other countries, such as Pakistan and Colombia, to help then deal with their own threats from IEDs, and was even involved in discussions after the Boston Marathon bombing to see what lessons could be learned from that domestic attack.
    News of the reductions first surfaced in October 2013.  At the time, Johnson was also positive about adjusting the size and scope of the organization, but was adamant about its continuing mission:

The future is important because the IED fight is far from over, he said.  

“In the last 12 months, there were more than 14,000 IED-related events outside of Afghanistan causing more than 32,000 casualties,” he said. “These weapons have been used by threat networks and criminal entities around the world and even here at home as we saw recently in the Boston Marathon bombings.”  

“The inevitable next fight is somewhere in our future,” he said. “We must be able to rapidly posture for that fight. We must continue to lean forward and stay abreast of how our enemies are using IEDs and what new tactics and technologies they are employing. This will allow us to develop the capabilities to defeat the IED, the tactics to attack enemy networks and train our forces so they are prepared for the IED environments we will face in the future.” 

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard. 

Defense Dept. Anti-Tobacco Video Competition: "Fight the Enemy"

    The Department of Defense (DOD) has just announced that the public will be invited to vote in a video competition called "Fight the Enemy."  In this case, the enemy is tobacco.  The innovation office of the military's assistant secretary of defense for health affairs is sponsoring the competition among U.S. service members around the world who were invited to film and submit "tobacco countermarketing" videos.
    The videos in the competition are hosted on the Fight the Enemy website, and visitors are invited to click the "like" button to vote.  The following is one of the videos found on the site:

    Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, says that improving the health of service members is a "national imperative":

“Improving the health and well-being of service members is a national imperative,” Woodson said. “We ask the defense community to help us make tobacco-free living a cultural norm by harnessing the power of social media and sharing the videos with their social networks.”

    Voting will be held for the next month before the winners are announced:

The video with the most “likes” will be declared winner of the People’s Choice Award. A panel of DOD judges will select winners for first, second and third place in the competition. Winners will be announced on March 19 in conjunction with National Kick Butts Day, officials said.

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard. 

Defense Dept. Urges Furloughed Workers to Use ‘Free or Low-Cost’ Recreation During Time Off [TWS]

    While furloughs of civilian employees of the defense department have not lived up to the pre-sequester billing, the Pentagon is doing what it can to ease the pain for those who will be taking involuntary time off.  The American Forces Press Service is reporting that the director of the Pentagon's Morale, Welfare and Recreation (WMR) program is urging furloughed civilians to tap into "fitness, recreational and educational services, often at no charge or for significantly less than one might pay just outside an installation’s gates."  The list of "free or low-cost" offerings is extensive:

A common access card gives DOD civilian employees access to free or low-cost use of base fitness centers, swimming pools, libraries, movie theaters, bowling alleys, clubs, arts-and-craft centers, auto repair shops, golf courses, campgrounds, shooting ranges, beaches and marinas. 

Depending on the location, DOD civilians also can rent camping, boating, snorkeling, skiing and other outdoor gear at their base outdoor recreation office. They can visit the installation tickets and tours office to buy discount tickets to civilian movie theaters, theme parks and travel and tour packages. 

Some civilian employees may not realize they’re also qualified to rent the recreational campgrounds, cabins, cottages, trailers and trailer or recreational vehicle parks with hook-ups found on many military installations.

    There is even access to resorts that the article refers to as the "crown jewels" of the program:

That extends to the crown jewels of the MWR program: Armed Forces Recreation Center resorts at popular vacation spots. All run by the Army but open to military and civilian employees from every service, these include Shades of Green on the grounds of Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.; the Hale Koa in Honolulu; the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort in Garmisch, Germany; and the Dragon Hill Lodge in Seoul, South Korea. 

The Navy runs a similar resort-type facility, the New Sanno Hotel, in Tokyo. In addition, the Air Force has a partnership with Keystone Resort, Colo., to offer discounts at Rocky Mountain Blue, with a variety of lodging options and recreational discounts.

    The WMR director said it's too early to say whether or not DOD civilians are utilizing the program more since sequestration, but he expects an increase due to the low cost and convenience.  He speculated that the WMR program may soon be subject to cost-cutting, but that in the meantime, civilian employees should "make the most of the furlough situation."

“MWR is here for them,” he said. “There’s no better time than now to check out what’s available.”

Note: A version of this article appeared first at The Weekly Standard. 

Gov't Awards Contract on IED Detection to Northeastern University in Boston

    In what may be just an eerie coincidence, the Defense Department posted a contract award notice today to Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts for research into "Methods for Explosive Detection at Standoff." Of particular concern are Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) that have become a favorite among terrorists and gained widespread attention during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  According to the solicitation first issued in October 2012:

DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] is soliciting innovative multidisciplinary research proposals to rapidly develop and demonstrate non-contact methods to detect explosives embedded or packaged in opaque media with high water content (e.g., water, mud, meat/animal carcasses) at standoff.

    Accompanying documents further explain the purpose and goals of the research:

A. Background/Vision
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are persistent threats that manifest themselves in
almost innumerable forms. Their detection and safe disposal is a formidable challenge.
Over the past two decades, much progress has been made to address this challenge with
the development of technologies with ever increasing levels of sophistication. These
range from indirect methods to detect packaging, wiring, or fusing to more direct
detection methods. Indirect methods such as these are outside the scope of this program...
The vision of this program is to develop methods that permit rapid detection of bulk
explosives embedded within an opaque medium with high water content. This will
preclude the use of trace detection methods and bulk methods where significant
penetration into the medium is not possible. In addition, the use of ionizing radiation,
other than possible employment of backscatter technology must be excluded because of
health concerns to military personnel and civilians in proximity to the area of concern...

B. Program Objectives and Metrics
The goal of the MEDS program is to develop and demonstrate non-contact methods to
detect explosives embedded or packaged in opaque media with high water content such
as mud, meat, animal carcasses, etc. Because detection/imaging methods have not been
developed or applied to this regime, proposals for a proof-of-concept program with
emphasis on demonstration of feasibility are solicited. Objectives are intended to
demonstrate feasibility and are not intended to reflect an operational environment. 

    A revision to the original solicitation on April 8 appeared to postpone the award notice until October 15, 2013 from the original date of Monday, April 15:

The purpose of this Modification 1 to DARPA-BAA-13-01, Methods for Explosive Detection at Standoff (MEDS), is to change the proposal closing deadline from April 15, 2013, 4:00PM, ET to October 15, 2013, 4:00PM, ET.

    However, the award notice was posted this morning without further explanation.  Earlier awards were made to the University of Arizona, BAE Systems, and Quasar Federal Systems under the same solicitation heading.


Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

The Obama Administration's Class War on War

    It would certainly be difficult to build up much sympathy for the super-rich, but the Obama administration launched one of the purest class warfare volleys over the weekend that I've seen.  On Sunday, the Obama Truth Team tweeted this:

    Note that the usual hackneyed phrase "millionaires and billionaires" has been truncated to "ask billionaires to pay their fair share."  According to a Wall Street Journal article in June 2011, the number of millionaires in the U.S. was about 3.1 million at last count.  On the other hand, billionaires in the U.S. total only 425 according to Forbes latest list.  Due to the lack of details provided by the Truth Team, I must assume the billionaire tax is the Cadillac version of the Buffett Rule.  But according to a March report in the Huffington Post, the Buffet Rule including millionaires would only bring in $31 - $47 billion in new tax revenue over the next decade, in other words, only $3.1 to $4.7 billion per year.  Exclude those relatively destitute millionaires (it takes 1,000 millionaires to make a billionaire) from the pool and the new revenue could easily drop to $1 billion per year.
 
    The Truth Team's phrasing ("automatic defense cuts could be prevented if House Republicans dropped their refusal...") sounds somewhat magical, as if their single action would break a spell.  However, a less charitable interpretation is that the Obama administration is holding the Pentagon budget hostage unless the Republicans agree to shake down 425 American citizens.  For a measly $1 billion in tax revenue, the White House threatens $56.5 billion in additional cuts to the defense budget.  The Democrats have often resorted to class warfare to advance their policies, but threatening America's ability to wage real war certainly raises the tactic to a whole new level.