Australia in the Indian Ocean

Happy Indian Republic Day

2012-01-25T16:10:00.000+11:00

Happy Republic Day.

The Republic Day of India commemorates the date on which the Constitution of India came into force - on 26 January 1950.

Although India obtained Independence on 15 August 1947, it did not yet have a permanent constitution - until 26 January 1950. The date 26 January was chosen to honour the memory of the Declaration of Independence or Purna Swaraj, publicly issued on 26 January 1930 by the Indian National Congress, led by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.

The main Republic Day Parade takes place at the Rajpath, in New Delhi, viewed officially by India's President.
-
Coincidentally 26 January is also Australia Day previously known as Anniversary Day, Foundation Day, and ANA Day. The date commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788 and the proclamation at that time of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of Australia. We should remember that although the First Fleet had some convicts the vast majority of convicts remained in Britain populating the British aristocracy and royalty (including one late Earl Mount... what's his name? etc :)
-
Pete

What will INS Chakra (ex Nerpa) be used for?

2012-01-19T17:09:00.001+11:00

Possibly an Akula II which may be INS Chakra (ex Nerpa).

-

This post is a following from comments raised on Full(?) handover of nuclear submarine INS Chakra (ex-Nerpa) said to occur by end January 2012 January 16, 2011 on this blog.

Sujith said...

Pete,

The argument that the coming of the Chakra is good news to the IN as in it helps bolster the numbers is flawed IMO.

I believe Chakra will serve mostly as a platform to train crew and more importantly act as a test platform for missiles and the like, as you well understand.

I think IN will have specific strategies to its nuclear subs and conventional ones and they will not be used interchangeably (unlike the USN, it would be financially impossible for the IN)

This is probably why the IN is buying the Scorpenes, and planning to buy 6 more subs of foreign make, and acquire 12 more of a domestic design.

All-in-all, I don't think Chakra will be an a deterrent patrol anytime soon.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 5:13:00 PM
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Sujith
In response I think INS Chakra is contributing to a mistaken public perception that India's submarine force has been strengthed but eventually Chakra will represent a de facto strengthening.

As the average newspaper reader know less than you and I do about the "real" utility of "bright shiny new" weapons I think the public perception that Chakra will quickly enhance India's defence capability will be encouraged by the Indian Navy.

I agree that for several years Chakra will be primarily a training and weapons test vessal for (say three) years until Arihant http://idp.justthe80.com/naval-projects/submarines/ins-arihant-ssbn#TOC-Weapon-fit is fully ready to take over the training/systems testing role.

Chakra has a training role wider than its SSN designation.While Arihant is classed as an SSBN it also has a broader crew training and systems testing role.

I suggest the difference between peacetime training and operationational service of a sub is a finer line than for surface ships. Part of this is the common need for reactor and broader undersea safety observed in training and on operations, The likely? presence of a Chakra weapons load needed for realistic testing in part gives Chakra an operational capability.

As I expect Chakra will be tested on the high seas it will need to maintain its stealthy operating style (eg. low radio emissions, low sonic signature) which is similar to an operational vessel. The Indian Navy (and Russian Navy) will not want Chakra's (Akula II) operating emissions revealed unnecessarily.

So I agree Chakra will not embark on a deterrent patrol anytime soon. A serious patrol might occur in say 3 years once Chinese submarines are known to have entered the Indian Ocean. Even though India will not wish to destroy such subs (in peacetime) India will aim to gather intelligence on the emissions (eg, sonic signatures) and tactical style of these Chinese subs.

BTW I just spotted (late in the peace) this useful site Indian Defense Projects Sentinel http://idp.justthe80.com/ which has an entry on Chakra http://idp.justthe80.com/naval-projects/submarines/ins-chakra-ssn .
-
Pete

Indonesia tests Yakhont missile - Has bought Harpoon and may buy Chinese C-705 Missiles

2012-01-18T14:30:00.010+11:00

Russia's Yakhont anti-ship missle, sold to Indonesia in 2007 but only tested by Indonesia in April 2011. India and Russia are developing the BrahMos a derivative of the Yakhont.

China's C-705 possibly being sold to Indonesia to arm a future force of 24 Indonesian fast patrol boats.
-
Spacewar April 28, 2011 reported :

"Indonesia tests Yakhont missile, finally

by Staff Writers Jakarta (UPI) Apr 28, 2011

Indonesia has test fired a Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship missile during naval exercises in the Indian Ocean, Indonesia's Antara news agency said. The missile, with a NATO code name SS-N-26, was launched from the Van Speijk Class frigate Oswald Siahaan and took 6 minutes to cover 155 miles and destroy a target vessel.

The successful launch was the first test by Indonesia's navy of its Yakhont missiles, and a long time coming, a senior officer said.

"The target ship was hit and sank," navy spokesman Rear Adm. Iskandar Sitompul said. "We bought these missiles a long time ago and have finally tested them."

Russian observers were present during the firing and drills for preparation for firing.

The Yakhont has a maximum range of around 190 miles [in theory keeping under 300km MTCR limit] when cruising at high altitude. But it will travel at cruise-missile levels -- 15-50 feet -- during the final minutes of its flight before hitting its target, Antara reported.

Yakhont missiles -- the export version of the P-800 Oniks missile produced for Russia's military -- are made by NPO Mashinostroyeniya, a rocket design bureau based in Reutov, Russia. During the cold war NPO produced several major weapons systems, including the SS-19 Intercontinental ballistic missile.

India is NPO's second largest customer after Russia for several missiles including the Yakhont. NPO technicians also helped develop India's indigenous missile the BrahMos [actually its probably more a development of Russia's Yakhont than being indigenous Indian. After all BrahMos is the product of a Russian-Indian joint venture].

Indonesia bought an undisclosed number of the Yakhont missiles for $1.2 million each in 2007 to deploy alongside the navy's Harpoon missiles purchased around the same time.

In December 2005, the Indonesian navy announced plans to buy Harpoon missiles from the United States, following the U.S. decision the month before to lift its military embargo on Indonesia.

"The number of the missiles and when it will be bought would still have to be discussed further," Indonesian navy chief of staff, Admiral Slamet Soebijanto told reporters at the time.

Similarly to the situation with the Yakhont missiles, military budget issues delayed testing and deployment of missiles purchased by Indonesia's navy.

When Indonesia announced in 2005 its intention to purchase Harpoon missiles, budget and planning assistant to the navy chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Yussuf Solichien said procurement had been a long process. "These (Harpoon) missiles are as powerful as Exocet MM 38 missiles, which could hit targets (50-62 miles) away. We have the launchers but have not been using them in the last five years."

The all-weather, over-the-horizon, anti-ship missile Harpoon was developed and later manufactured by McDonnell Douglas, now Boeing Defense, Space and Security, beginning in the early 1970s.

In 2004, Boeing delivered the 7,000th Harpoon unit since the weapon's introduction in 1977. Further development of the Harpoon led to the land-strike weapon, the Standoff Land Attack Missile.
-
Comments

This timing of that test (in which Russians participated) might have been a symbolic Indonesian reaffirmation of good Indonesian relations with Russia (possibly) balancing early indications that Indonesia was to buy South Korean (HDW 209 equivalent (see article on this blog) submarines rather than Russian Kilo subs.

Meanwhile the Jakarta Post reported January 5, 2012 reports Indonesia plans to buy 24 small missile boats armed with Chinese C-705 anti-ship missiles.

Indonesian purchases from mutually suspicious US, Russian and perhaps Chinese suppliers may owe as much to political/diplomatic considerations as they do to military efficiency. Indonesia may be using its buying pattern to underline its non-aligned status. Like India Indonesia does not want to be, or appear, overly dependent on one power. This strategy also promotes peaceful relations with more powerful countries.
-
Previous references to "Indonesia, Yakhont" are at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_Navy#History and

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2011/04/28/Indonesia-tests-Yakhont-missile-finally/UPI-35041303986180/

There have been many articles on Australia in the Indian Ocean concerning BrahMos and (so-called) BrahMos 2 (expected to be hypersonic.) see http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/search?q=BrahMos.
-
Pete

Retrospective - Australian in Guantanamo for Five Years Without Trial

2012-01-17T16:47:00.001+11:00

[Below is an Australia in the Indian Ocean article originally published on 14 January 2007 concerning David Hicks - imprisoned illegally for 5 years in Guantanamo gaol by the US - contrary to international law. Due mainly to Australian public pressure (including this blog and by many on OLO) on the Australian and US governments Hicks received improved treatment. Hicks was eventually charged and tried in Guantanamo and rightly returned to Australia. After some time in home detention in Australia he was released.]

On 14 January 2007:

"Davids Hicks being moved between cell blocks at Guantanamo Bay. The United States has held an Australian citizen, David Hicks, without trial and currently without charge for more than five years, at Guantanamo Bay. Hicks was captured in December 2001 after having allegedly served with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Major US allegations include Hicks:

- associated with leaders of al-Qaeda after 9/11
- was issued with weapons to fight American troops in Afghanistan, and
- was ordered to translate terrorist material into English for Osama bin Laden.
.
.On January 14, 2006 Major Michael Mori, the US Marine Corps lawyer assigned to defend David Hicks wrote:
-
"WHEN I was assigned to represent David Hicks, I knew the US Administration and those within the military commissions system, such as Colonel Morris Davis, chief prosecutor for the US Office of Military Commissions, would resist providing an Australian the same rights and protections as an American. I never imagined Australian ministers would actively support the United States' hypocritical treatment of an Australian.

In The Sunday Age last week, the [Australian]Attorney-General tried to defend the indefensible treatment of David Hicks. It was the Attorney-General who permitted David to languish in Guantanamo for two years without legal counsel, permitted 2½ years to pass before he was charged, permitted the prosecution to charge him with offences made up after the fact, and permitted him to be tried in an illegal commissions system that was unacceptable for American and British citizens.

The [Australian] Attorney-General says David cannot come home because "Mr (former Australian Guantanamo inmate Mamdouh) Habib and the released UK citizens had neither been charged under the military commission process nor been designated as eligible for trial". The truth is Habib and two released British citizens were designated for commission by President Bush in July 2003 but are now free. Being designated for trial or charged does not prevent detainees from being released from Guantanamo.

The Attorney-General also claims David cannot come home because the US made it clear early on that a detainee would not be repatriated unless he would be prosecuted. More than 300 detainees have been released from Guantanamo without prosecution, including the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan and detainees who fought with Osama bin Laden.

The Attorney-General's praise of the new commission's system is very similar to his praise of the previous illegal commission's system. Australia remains the only country that supports the commissions.

Recent media statements by Colonel Davis are a regurgitation of the charges laid against David in 2004, all of which have disappeared. David has never violated any valid law — Australian, US or international — and the Attorney-General knows that.

The reality is David Hicks is being left to be done over in another unfair system that is not good enough for anyone else so politicians don't have to admit they made mistakes. If the Attorney-General believes in Guantanamo and the commissions, all Australians who were in Afghanistan should be rounded up and sent there."
.
Comment
.
The U.S. administration has referred to Hicks as "the worst of the worst", but it has not alleged Hicks engaged in any direct acts of terrorism, nor that he fired on or killed any U.S. or Coalition soldiers.

Its for Hicks’ jailers to agree on legal charges anprove that he should be in jail. If they (the US) haven’t been able to try him after five years this strongly suggests the US has simply decided to keep him in prison - ignoring internationally accepted legal processes.

The obvious explanation is that this is an example of revenge for 9/11. As the US Government presides over the world’s only superpower it appears it can deliver vengeance or “justice” according to its own [Bush Administralian] rules (rather than international or even [usual] US law) whenever it chooses. The Australian Government has, for five years, decided that its military and political reliance on the US permits Australia’s political leaders to abrogate their responsibility to demand fair legal process for Hicks or his timely return to Australia."
-
[Fortunately Hicks was treated more fairly on his return to Australia in May 2007. I think it was neither in Hicks or Australia's interests for the then Howard Government to sacrifice the rights of its citizens to score alliance political ("Deputy Sheriff") points with the US.].
-
Pete

Full(?) handover of nuclear submarine INS Chakra (ex-Nerpa) said to occur by end January 2012

2012-01-16T15:20:00.000+11:00

(click on image to enlarge) An Akula II Submarine probably similar to INS Chakra.

-
The are many previous references http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/search?q=nerpa in Australia in the Indian Ocean to the gradual progress of Chakra/Nerpa towards being leased by India. Thanks to Sujith for alerting me to the imminent(?) passage to India of the nuclear attack submarine INS Chakra (previously Russia's Nerpa).

An article of January 11, 2012 in South Africa's defenceWeb reports:

"India takes delivery of INS Chakra nuclear submarine"

The Indian Navy has officially taken delivery of the Akula-class nuclear powered attack submarine INS Chakra (ex-Nerpa), which is being leased from Russia for a decade.

The Akula II class (Project 971) submarine finished sea trials three years late, paving the way for delivery on December 29. [UPI may put this final timings in doubt as it has reported that the crew will set sail for India toward the end of January 2012.]. The signing ceremony took place at the Bolshoi Kamen ship building facility in [Siberia], ITAR-TASS news agency quoted a senior Russian navy official as saying. The crew will set sail for India at the end of this month in the 9 246 tonne (dived) submarine.

India is joining a relatively small club of nations to operate nuclear submarines, including the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, France and China. However, India was a member of this club before when it leased a Charlie class cruise missile submarine from Russia between 1988 and 1991.

The Nerpa has a long and storied history. Construction started in 1993, but suspended due to lack of funding. The partly constructed vessel was mothballed until January 2004, when Rosprom (the Federal Agency for Industry) signed an agreement with the Indian government to complete the submarine and lease it to the Indian Navy.

The Nerpa had been scheduled for delivery in 2008 but an accident during sea trials on November 8 of that year caused major delays. 17 civilians and three crewmembers were killed when the fire suppressant system accidentally activated, releasing gasses that suffocated those on board."

[From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akula_class_submarine All Akulas are armed with four 533 mm torpedo tubes which can use Type 53 torpedoes or the SS-N-15 Starfish missile, and four 650 mm torpedo tubes which can use Type 65 torpedoes or the SS-N-16 Stallion missile. These torpedo tubes are arranged in two rows of four tubes each. Improved Akulas, Akula IIs have an additional six 533 mm torpedo tubes mounted externally, capable of launching possibly up to 6 decoys each^{[citation needed]}. The external tubes are mounted outside the pressure hull in one row, above the torpedo tubes, and can only be reloaded in port or with the assistance of a submarine tender. The 650 mm tubes can be fitted with liners to use the 533 mm weaponry. The submarine is also able to use its torpedo tubes to deploy mines.]
-
Comments
-
The imminent handover (does that mean complete handover of control to an Indian crew and/or geographical entry to Indian waters?) of the Chakra/Nerpa to India is good news for the Indian Navy. India's Navy has lately suffered or will experience a rundown of its conventional submarine numbers so the introduction of a new submarine with higher capabilities brought by nuclear propulsion represents a much needed orbat and publicity boost.

Its possible that the crew may now be fully Indian but I suspect there would also be a minimum of 10? Russian consultants/advisers for the next 2 years particularly to help monitor and maintain the reactor and perhaps the combat system. The accommodation (bunks) would be a limiting factor on numbers of Russian advisers but "hot bunking" should accommodate them. The reactor is a major safety issue - where things rarely go wrong - but experience in rectifying reactor problems is a vital and rare team skill.

Previous references include:

http://livefist.blogspot.com/2011/12/finally-indian-navy-gets-russian-nuke.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INS_Chakra
-
Pete

India and China Militarising Antarctica?

2012-01-01T23:37:00.000+11:00

Is this a (or the) Indian Base in Antarctica?

-
Sam Bateman and Anthony Bergin co-authors of an Australian Strategic Policy Institute paper, Sea Change: Advancing Australia's Ocean Interests have written an interesting article in The Australian, December 31, 2011. Article in summary: "China and India's increasing interest in the Antarctic could presage the use of their stations for military purposes, destabilising the continent as a zone of peace."

The article, "New dawn in Antarctic awareness" reads:

"WITH the announcement of an increased US military presence in Australia, our strategic planners are focused on the rising importance of the Indo-Pacific. But we have taken our eye off our southern flank.

Like other rising nations, China and India want a higher profile in Antarctic affairs. But, unlike other countries, they're chasing that profile with much more vigour and with determined independence.

They have active Antarctic programs and are increasing the number of their polar bases. Two of China's bases are in the Australian Antarctic Territory. Its latest is at Dome A, one of the highest and coldest points on the Antarctic continent.

China is extremely interested in the prospects of future Antarctic resource development.

[bolded by Pete for emphasis] One of India's bases has a monitoring role associated with its planned hi-tech monitoring station in northern Madagascar. That station is part of India's aim to have a presence throughout the Indian Ocean, partly to balance growing Chinese influence there. Satellite technology and research are central to Antarctic operations. Most low-earth orbiting satellites cross the Antarctic continent every 90-100 minutes. If they do so on descending orbits, they can download their data into ground stations in Antarctica.

Countries could make use of their Antarctic bases and the full range of signals and electronic intelligence that require the use of satellites and ground stations for direction-finding and monitoring.

New Delhi, for example, is setting up a remote sensing ground station in eastern Antarctica to boost the remote-sensing data transmitted by Indian satellites.
-
Occupying Dome A is full of political symbolism, but it is no coincidence that the Chinese have established their third station there. At one of the highest points on the continent it's ideal for sending, receiving or intercepting signals from satellites.

It offers China unprecedented visibility for astronomical research. The main advantage of ground stations in Antarctica is that they can retask satellites in a timely fashion.

Advanced defence forces are heavily reliant on space-based infrastructure, communications and navigation systems. China and India could use their Antarctic bases for these purposes. But how would we know?

To do so would be at odds with the Antarctic Treaty, but the sparse use of the treaty's inspection mechanisms means that such activity could go undetected.

The US, Russia and China have demonstrated the capability to destroy space vehicles using anti-satellite missiles. India and Pakistan may be prompted to initiate their own space warfare programs. If Antarctic sites take on military significance, we could see a move towards destabilisation of Antarctica as a zone of peace.

For Australia these potential developments are worrying. We're [Australia is] the largest claimant in Antarctica. Our territorial claim in Antarctica can't be defended in military terms and doesn't need to be if Antarctica remains demilitarised.

There's now [an Australian defence posture review] under way to examine whether our military is appropriately positioned to respond in a timely way to Australia's defence and security demands.

Today there is almost no Defence engagement on Antarctic issues. Defence could use one of its four C-17 Globemasters for Antarctic logistics. New Zealand uses its air force to fly personnel to and from Antarctica. Our air force should work with New Zealand into and out of Antarctica to gain polar logistics experience. Defence should be represented on high-level interdepartmental forums on Antarctica.

Military personnel could be included in Antarctic missions for operational support. Short-term secondments by Defence to the Australian Antarctic Division in Tasmania would give our armed forces a greater feel for what might be required if circumstances were to change. None of the new vessels to be acquired by the navy will be ice-capable and Defence has passed responsibility for Southern Ocean patrols to Customs.

Antarctica matters. It's time our strategic planners looked south."
-
Pete

The Mystery of the Sentinel - Two Sentinel Theory

2011-12-25T12:32:00.000+11:00

The crash of the Sentinel UAV - see http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9222743/Analysts_wary_of_Iran_s_spy_drone_hacking_claims brings up many inconsistencies.

It is known that the Sentinel crashed - due to a software error, US "pilot" error or a landing or crash induced by the Iranians or perhaps Russians.

Most assume that the Iranian are incapable of landing the Sentinel in such a displayed intact form.

This raises the possibility of Russian involvement perhaps on the ground within Iran or using a Russian aircraft to jam or suter like steer the Sentinel into a smooth landing.

It is possible that the seemingly intact Sentinel displayed on the Iranian media is a mockup - that the real Sentinel crashed in pieces in Iran - that the Iranians handed over the real Sentinel to the country most likely to value the Sentinel for exploitation (for source codes, stealth technology with some subsequent reverse engineering).

My two Sentinel theory also saves political face and deniability for the US (a valuable piece of secret technology going to Russia) for Russia (receiving "stolen" US goods) and for Iran (giving away a captured Sentinel to Russia).

Is my theory viable?

Pete

Indonesia Decides to Buy Korean Made Submarines And Australia Issues SEA 1000 Requests for Information

2011-12-24T14:35:00.000+11:00

An HDW 209 Type 1400 (this particular sub, S31, is Tamoio part of Brazil's Tupi Class) in what looks like "Sepetiba" Rio de Janeiro's harbour. Indonesia's three new submarines will be similar.

The HDW family tree with HDW 209 on several branches - click to expand.

-
While North Korea is undergoing a tense and hopefully predictable transition to a new "Emperor?" of the Kim Dynasty (possibly Kim Jonghe Un) South Korea has its first submarine export order. Blending reports (hotlinked in red) from The Jakarta Post (December 22, 2011) (South) Korea Herald (December 21, 2011) and South Korea's Chosun Ilbo (December 21, 2011):

Signing Contract

The Indonesian Defence Ministry and Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine Engineering (DSME) signed the contract on Tuesday December 20, 2011 to build the three submarines.

The contract was signed by the Indonesian Defence Ministry's Defence Facilities Agency chief, Maj. Gen. Ediwan Prabowo, and DSME President and CEO Nam Tae-sang.

Under the contract, two submarines will be built in South Korea in cooperation with state-owned shipbuilder PT PAL, while the third submarine will be built at PT PAL’s facilities in Surabaya, Java, Indonesia.

Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Hartin Asrind told the Jakarta Post over the phone that the contract was worth US$1.07 billion and construction [unclear whether that means simultaneous construction in Korea AND Indonesia] would start in January 2011.

Indonesia’s signing of a contract to procure three submarines from a South Korean company is an effort to keep pace with other countries in the region.

Submarine Characteristics

The 3 submarines will be a development of the HDW 209 (Type 1400) (see references to Korea and Chang Bogo here) designated KSS 1 Chang Bogo Class in South Korea. With technical assistance from the German firm HDW DSME has built nine Chang Bogo Class subs since 1988. DSME is now building KSS 2 (HDW 214 developments) for the Korean Navy. The subs being built for Indonesia (which may or may not include AIP?) are likely to have many features of the HDW 214.

The deal represents a major East Asian regional defence order and probably signals closer South Korea - Indonesian bilateral relations overall. See two previous articles in Australia in the Indian Ocean concerning South Korean submarine developments.

The HDW 209 (Type 1400) equivalents being built by Korea for Indonesia will weigh approximately 1,400 tons surfaced and 1,600 tons submerged, be 61.3 meters long, will carry up to 40 crew members and have eight weapons tubes for 14 torpedoes, mines, missiles (Harpoon or BrahMos?) and other weaponry. The two Korean built subs will be delivered to the Indonesian Navy between 2015 and 2018 while the Indonesian built sub may be delivered and commisioned later.

The order may double Indonesia’s existing fleet of two HDW 206 Cakra Class submarines; the KRI Cakra and KRI Nenggala (both elderly - launched in 1977). As submarines inevitably rust/corrode and expansion-contraction causes metal fatigue after 30 years the 33 year old KRI Cakra and KRI Nenggala are probably at the end of their operational lives.

Major Achievement for Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine Engineering (DSME)

This represents the largest single defense export contract ever awarded to a Korean firm. DSME beat Russian (Kilo sub) and French (Scorpene) and German (HDW) competitors to win the contract. Australia in the Indian Ocean commented in August 2009 on the apparent cancellation of an understanding that Indonesia would buy Russian Kilo subs - see Where have the Indonesian Kilo submarines gone? and October 2009 Further Delays to Indonesian Submarine Purchase Plans

DSME has been working with the Indonesian government since 2005 for the submarine contract and also refitted KRI Cakra in 2006. These activities helped DSME beat the other companies competing.

Other Submarine Forces (and Acquisitions) in Indonesia's Region

• Australia, 6 Australian built, Swedish Kockums designed Collins Class commissioned in 1996-2003 with 12 future Australian built "SEA 1000" Class subs for possible introduction from 2022 onwards.

• Indonesia, 2 German built U-206 Cakra Class launched 1977 and commissioned 1981. The 3 U-209 discussed above built and/or developed in South Korea likely to be commissioned by 2015-2018

• Malaysia, 2 French built Scorpene, KD Tunku Abdul Rahman Class commissioned in 2009

• Singapore, 4 Swedish built Challenger Class commissioned 1999-2001 and 2 Swedish built AIP Archer Class commissioned in 2011

• Vietnam, 4 to 6 Russia built Kilo Subs to be commissioned 2015-2019.

Australian SEA 1000 Progress
-
Separately Australia's Defence Ministers, December 13, 2011, announced the next step in the very slow moving (already late) SEA 1000 Australian future submarine project - see http://www.minister.defence.gov.au/2011/12/13/minister-for-defence-and-minister-for-defence-materiel-progress-of-future-submarine-project-2/ :

"Options for the Future Submarine range from a proven fully Military off the Shelf design through to a completely new submarine. All options are being considered, other than nuclear propulsion which the Government has ruled out....

The Australian Government has approved the release of Requests for Information to three overseas submarine designers offering off-the-shelf submarine designs, which will provide a better understanding of the capabilities of off-the-shelf options. The designers are:

• DCNS (France), designer of the Scorpene

• HDW (Germany), designer of the Type 212 and Type 214 submarines

• Navantia (Spain), designer of the S-80 submarine;"

Pete's Comment
-
Given the purchases by neighbours of HDW 206s, 209s, 214s (Korea) and Scorpenes in the region the familiarity of Australia's nieghbours with HDW and Scorpene sonar signatures may present an argument that Australia not select modified HDW or Scorpenes for its future submarine. For this and other reasons (eg. US Combat System and Tomahawk capability built into Spanish Armada version) a 4,200 ton enlarged development of the Spanish (Navantia) designed and built S-80 may be the best choice for Australia.
-
Pete

Intelligence Failures in Detecting Major Changes in North Korea

2011-12-21T21:40:00.001+11:00

Kim Il Sung Jr Jr (Kim Jong-un) Toddles the Stage

-
The New York Times, December 20, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/world/asia/in-detecting-kim-jong-il-death-a-gobal-intelligence-failure.html?_r=1 has written an insighful article about the difficulties in obtaining intelligence on North Korea including the succession following Kim Jung Il's death:

"In Kim’s Undetected Death, Sign of Nation’s Opacity"

WASHINGTON — Kim Jong-il, the enigmatic North Korean leader, died on a train at 8:30 a.m. Saturday in his country. Forty-eight hours later, officials in South Korea still did not know anything about it — to say nothing of Washington, where the State Department acknowledged “press reporting” of Mr. Kim’s death well after North Korean state media had already announced it.

For South Korean and American intelligence services to have failed to pick up any clues to this momentous development — panicked phone calls between government officials, say, or soldiers massing around Mr. Kim’s train — attests to the secretive nature of North Korea, a country not only at odds with most of the world but also sealed off from it in a way that defies spies or satellites." Rest of Article.
-
Pete

Christmas in Taliban Land - IED Bombers Set Free and Paid for their Trouble

2011-12-19T11:38:00.004+11:00

Three "wise" Taliban Kings? see Birth of Jesus.

Christmas in Australia on 25 December is in Mid-Summer - so snow and sleigh bells do not quite fit.

-
Taliban prisoners may be imprisoned, tortured, executed or could get lucky this Christmas if freed on the coalition/ISAF's "Release After Four Days - With High Pay" scheme.

Yes there is the matter of coalition/ISAF forces knowingly handing over prisoners to Afghan Government forces for torture and possible execution. And there is the modernised Phoenix Program ("Kill-Capture") practice of shooting Taliban that could have been taken prisoner or killing them just after their surrender. But there is a lighter side:

The Australian, December 15, 2011 reports that identified Taliban IED bomb makers, captured by Aussie forces, are increasingly being rewarded by being set free 4 days after capture AND being given $200 "inconvenience" pay (a fortune in impoverished Afghanistan). see http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/defence/suspect-bombers-200-inconvenience-pay/story-e6frg8yo-1226222322624 -

While Taliban are underserving beneficiaries of Christian spirit and money Aussie Diggers are being intentionally shot by Afghan Army troops (theoretically on the same side). Reality in Afghanistan is outdoing the Catch-22 novel as a quirky, surrealistic, little war that keeps on giving - and taking lives.

Apart from Afghanistan Christmas continues its merry way in Australia and on the internet.

- Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is not strictly a Christmas Carol but it has a special beauty.

- Snoopy's Christmas - is a modern Carol. Its message is self sacrifice, humanity and peace temporarily triumphing over war.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all (even Taliban? :)
-
Pete

INS Teg Platform for BrahMos Test in Baltic - and what of 3M-54 Klub Sizzler?

2011-12-17T21:15:00.001+11:00

INS Teg? testing BrahMos in the Baltic

Possible configuration of BrahMos at initial launch stage - the "cap" might stabilise the missile's attitude during vertical launch.

Artists conception of Klub "Sizzler" missile - not necessarily a 3M-54 Klub
-
The Russia and India Report, December 1, 2011 reported: "The Russian-Indian joint sea-launched BrahMos cruise missile was successfully tested in the Baltic Sea on Wednesday, November 30."

The ship platform for the test was the Indian frigate INS Teg. Teg is one of three Russian Talwar Class (Project 11356) frigates designed and under completion by Russia for the Indian Navy. Teg is due for delivery by January 2012 followed by INS Tarkash and INS Tikand for delivery by late 2012 and 2013 respectively. The three ships will all carry BrahMos as their main anti-ship missile. Three earlier ships of the Talwar Class already delivered by Russia sport the SS-N-27 3M-54 Klub (or Club) "Sizzler" missile.

Another version of the BrahMos is under development for submarine launch by India's six Scorpene subs currently under long delayed construction. Note that the conventional Russian subs (Kilo Class) known as Sindhughosh Class in Indian service were retrofitted with the Klub-S (submarine version of the 3M-54 Klub)

Russia and India Report indicates "BrahMos cruise missiles have been adopted by India's Army and the Navy' s surface ships. The Indian Air Force has also ordered a batch of land-based missiles. Work is also underway to adapt the missile to Su-30MKI planes used by the Indian Air Force."

My Comments

Russia's announcement of the BrahMos test might perceptually make up for the delay in delivering INS Teg. An earlier October 2011 post on Australia in the Indian Ocean indicated transferral of the three Talwar class frigates to the Indian Navy would now be Teg in April 2012, Tarkash in September 2012, and Trikand in June 2013. "But nobody can guarantee that these terms will not change."

The joint Indo-Russian BrahMos project benefits India in terms of technology transfer as well as reaffirming India's good relations with Russia. India can deepen its research and weapons production base as it develops BrahMos. Although BrahMos is largely derived from Russia's SS-N-26 P-800 Oniks/Onyx/Yakhont India's contribution to the BrahMos project might tend to optimise BrahMos for Indian mission profiles and perhaps make BrahMos more technically flexible for export.

Its interesting that the BrahMos in the surface naval role for INS Teg, Tarkash and Trikand will be in place of the 3M-54 Klub (or Club) "Sizzler" fitted to the earlier three ships of the Talwar Class (already delivered to India). The 3M-54 Klub "Sizzler" is highly capable, particularly in terms of evasive manoeuvrability - perhaps not a strong characteristic of BrahMos. Perhaps the benefits of BrahMos being made in India and optimised for India outweigh the strengths of 3M-54 Klub "Sizzler" ?

Perhaps also an enemy carrier group might be harder pressed to counter a combination of BrahMos AND 3M-54 Klub "Sizzlers" than one missile type?

Russia meanwhile may benefit from reverse technology transfer in terms of Indian developed electronics for BrahMos radar/homing/guidance. It would be a considerable future achievement if several BrahMos when fired at a target like a carrier taskforce could electronically interact to present the greatest collective threat to a (probably Chinese) carrier and its escorts.

Pete

JSF's Endless Blues - Too Big to Cancel

2011-12-15T08:31:00.001+11:00

-
Lockheed shrewdly packaging the JSF (F-35) as 3 different versions, for 3 different US services and for pre-bought foreign customers (eg. Australia) makes this project too financially, diplomatically and politically "big" to cancel.

The JSF plays the US defence acquisition system in a way that defeats any prudence, opposition or logic. Well done Lockheed and the Admirals, "Bird" Generals, US politicians and Pentagon officials eventually employed by Lockheed.

See latest defects http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/joint-strike-fighter-13-flaws/
-
Pete

New US Paper on China's Defence Sigint and Infosec Service (aka PLA GSD Third Department)

2011-11-30T19:12:00.001+11:00

MAP - Global Security provides mysterious gives directions to the HQ of China's PLA ("3rd Department") "...covertly located. Situated on the road between the Summer Palace and Xiangshan [Fragrant Hills], it is far from downtown and there is no plate or signboard at the gate." ;)
-
The Washington thinktank knowns as the Project 2049 Institute (hotlinked here), drawing on the experience of US Defense intelligence alumni and declassified information, has produced a detailed paper on China's Defence Sigint and Infosec Service. The paper's full title is The Chinese People's Liberation Army Signals Intelligence and Cyber Reconnaissance Infrastructure, of November 11, 2011 by Mark A. Stokes, Jenny Lin and L.C. Russell Hsiao. Its full string: http://project2049.net/documents/pla_third_department_sigint_cyber_stokes_lin_hsiao.pdf .

Here are some excerpts (some I've bolded) on each page reflecting some of the more interesting details:

p.2 "This overview offers a preliminary examination of the PLA [General Staff Department] GSD Third Department, China‘s premier cryptologic service. The CCP owes its success during the Chinese Civil War to signals intelligence (SIGINT) derived from interception and decoding of telegrams and radio communications. With modest origins in the 1930s, the Third Department was previously known as the Central Military Commission (CMC) Second Bureau and consisted of three entities responsible for collection, translation, and deciphering/encryption.

Today, the GSD Third Department and its counterparts within the PLA‘s Military Regions (MRs), Air Force, Navy, and Second Artillery oversee a vast infrastructure for monitoring communications traffic from collection sites inside China, possibly from embassies and other facilities abroad, and perhaps from space-based assets in the future. Its network of assets are able — assuming sufficient interest and barring sophisticated encryption — to monitor almost any radio communication or phone call within line of sight of Third Department SIGINT...

p. 3 "...On the other hand, faced with increasing challenges to its communication systems and computer networks, the Third Department also has assumed the responsibility for assuring the security of PLA computer systems in order to prevent foreign adversaries from gaining access to sensitive national security information. These functions are encompassed under the concept of technical reconnaissance which is the foundation of ―informatized warfare.

Like its American counterpart, the National Security Agency (NSA), the GSD Third Department appears to be diversifying its traditional SIGINT mission. Cyber surveillance, or computer network exploitation (CNE) in the U.S. lexicon, represents the cutting edge of SIGINT and the Third Department may serve as the national executive agent for CNE. The GSD Third Department stands as a reasonable choice to act as the national PRC authority over cyber surveillance because of its traditional core competency in SIGINT, its high performance computing and encryption/decryption technical capabilities, and status as China‘s largest employer of well trained linguists. Computer network operations (CNO) in China often are referred to as network attack and defense, based on the premise that without understanding how to attack, one will not know how to defend. In the U.S. lexicon, CNO includes computer network attack (CNA), CNE, and computer network defense (CND)."

p.4 "...the GSD Third Department manages a vast communications intercept infrastructure and cyber surveillance system targeting foreign diplomatic communications, military activity, economic entities, public education institutions, and individuals of interest....One unconfirmed report credits the Third Department with as many as 130,000 personnel working in general headquarters staff positions, 12 operational bureaus, and three research institutes.

Major General Meng Xuezheng is reported to be serving as the Third Department Director. Meng appears to have replaced Lieutenant General Wu Guohua [Director 2005 - December 2010]...One Western report claims that Wu Guohua was transferred out due to unauthorized cyber operations..

p.5 "...According to one U.S. study, Chinese analysts believe that the United States is already carrying out extensive CNE activities against Chinese servers. Therefore, from the Chinese perspective, defending computer networks must be the highest priority in peacetime. ..."

p.7 "...In addition to a liaison office in Shanghai, the Third Department manages a Hong Kong and Macao Liaison Bureau"

p.8 "The Second Bureau appears to function as the Third Department‘s premier entity targeting the United States and Canada, most likely focusing on political, economic, and military-related intelligence."

p.9 [possibly covering Taiwan and South Asia is the Sixth Bureau] headquartered in Wuhan‘s Wuchang District.

p.15 [Paper's] Conclusion

"If information is power, then the GSD Third Department represents one of the most powerful bureaucracies in China today. Among its sources of strength is the country‘s largest pool of well trained linguists specialized in niche areas, such as banking and financial transactions, military activities, energy, and diplomatic exchanges.

The combination of SIGINT and CNE, for example, fusing transcripts of phone conversations with intercepted email exchanges, would enable a powerful understanding of plans, capabilities, and activities of an organization or individual in near real time. Key word and voice recognition technology and large data bases permit greater efficiency in collection directed against specific targets. Advanced computing facilitates breaking of all but the most sophisticated encryption and passwords. The linkage between CNO and PLA psychological warfare training units appears reasonable. Monitoring of communications, email accounts, websites, and internal networks could support sophisticated perception management operations."

p.16 "Beyond its traditional SIGINT mission, the Third Department serves as the national authority for CND and most likely CNE. "

p.17 "...If monitoring of the cybersphere and intrusion of foreign computer networks is an extension of SIGINT, then one could assume the Third Department prefers to operate surreptitiously. Alerting defenders of vulnerabilities within communications and computer networks seems to contradict a basic cryptologic principle. Third Department resources dedicated toward high performance computing – the best in China – and its large arsenal of competent linguists could constitute China‘s cryptologic A-Team.

One possibility is that a capable yet overt B Team operates independently at the MR or Military District level. However, given its oversight of the cybersphere in China, alongside domestic law enforcement, Third Department authorities, at a minimum, are likely aware of CNE activities directed against foreign targets from Chinese soil. Regardless, if the B Team in China has been the main source of cyber surveillance, one should wonder what a GSD Third Department A Team could achieve when operating in a clandestine fashion.

As a final note, the linkage between psychological warfare and CNO indicates a broader perspective than that adopted in the United States. Rather than a narrow technical concern over hostile computer network attacks, Chinese authorities may also seek to counter the introduction of ideas and concepts deemed harmful to the CCP‘s monopoly on state power. A priority of CNE operations may be identification of friends and foes in Washington [and in Australia?] through social network analysis.

Unsubstantiated rumors regarding the transfer of Third Department Director Wu Guohua for his inability to control CNE operations are interesting. If true, it appears that senior civilian leaders could have some understanding of the political damage caused by overt, hostile network penetration. The PRC government has legitimate information security concerns. However, aggressive and overt cyber surveillance directed against foreign targets does little to engender sympathy. The inability of the GSD Third Department to control intrusive cyber activities directed against foreign entities may indicate a profound weakness in the governance of China‘s sprawling cyber-infrastructure."
-
Pete

ISAS Paper on China's "New" (old) Aircraft Carrier Strategy

2011-11-27T00:20:00.001+11:00

Artist's conception of what may be called "Shi Lang" (ex Varyag) when its structure and airwing are complete in 2-3 years.

The National University of Singapore's (NUS's) Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) generates a wealth of papers here on India and its neighbours - see this string http://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/ . There's nothing as accessible in Australia.

For example ISAS Insights paper No. 133, 5 September 2011 (reference here ) China and Its Aircraft Carrier: The Dragon’s Deft Dealings with a Nervous Neptune by Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is interesting reading. Here are some portions:

"Abstract - The latest sea-launch of the Aircraft Carrier by China may be a more cosmetic exercise than substantive. Of more consequence is perhaps the acquisition of a deadly maritime armoury... The answer to avoid it may lie in a regional Big-Tent Naval conference like those held in the past among western maritime powers."

"...[a Chinese] Aircraft Carrier should not come as a surprise to anyone. The surprise, if any, should be that it has taken that long for the Chinese to do so. That is because in most decisions, time is not necessarily of the essence to them. It is always tempered with pragmatism, perceptions, prestige, patience and posturing. When all these constellations of forces combine, the Chinese take the required policy step. It is always intensely measured. This is one element of Marxist thinking that is also ingrained in China’s cultural behaviour pattern.

[In]...mid to late 1980s...A new concept then evolved, which involved three missions...Protection of Chinese vessels from Somali pirates further west in the Indian Ocean would be an additional goal. It is noteworthy that 90 per cent of China’s trade by volume is transported by sea. Two-thirds of its energy needs will be met from overseas by 2015. There is much therefore that needs to be protected.

...Unsurprisingly, the PLAN is the fastest growing force in the Chinese military. Since 2000, China has procured around 20 major surface vessels as frigates and destroyers, and at least 31 new submarines.

There is chatter in strategic circles around the world that China plans to build around six aircraft carriers. [This first Chinese carrier (ex Varyag was just a Soviet/Russian/Ukrainian hull] ...all the add-on equipment will be Chinese.... Eventually the Chinese would build their own in entirety. In line with the policy of calibrations, the [carrier] trial was launched to coincide with the visit of the United States (US) Vice President Joseph Biden, just as some months earlier [the Chinese (bolded by Petefor emphasis)] stealth-fighter was tested when the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was in Beijing.

More significant than carriers, the Chinese have focused on deadly weapons that would reduce the effectiveness of these platforms. One is the DongFeng (East Wind) 21 D [see ‘Report: China Develops Special ‘Kill Weapons’ to Destroy US Aircraft Carrier’, US Naval Institute (31 March 2009), http://wwwusni.org/news-and-features/chinese-kill-weapon . Accessed on 5 September 2011.] [Full designation can be DF-21D (CSS-5 Mod-4)], a precise anti-ship killer-missile that supposedly can destroy a US Super-carrier in one strike. It is believed to employ a complex guidance system, a low radar signature and an unpredictable flight path rendered so by its manoeverability. Also, it has the capacity to evade tracking system, with the possibility of travelling at a speed of mach-10, which would allow it to reach a maximum range of 2,000 km in 12 minutes.

The other is the stealth-fighter mentioned earlier, the J 20, which many American military strategists see as a game-changer....It is seen as rendering all air defence systems in the region as obsolete, with no radar arrays having the capability of picking it up. [For details of its capabilities, see Robert Johnson, ‘China Claims Air Superiority with Its New J-20 Stealth Fighter’, Business Insider (10 May 2011).]
It can therefore remain undetected throughout its flight, with potentially devastating consequences for targets, including US and other Aircraft Carriers.

Why Carrier?
-
But why acquire Aircraft Carriers...these are incredibly costly...vulnerable as targets that can be more easily acquired and destroyed? Also, for that very reason each Carrier needs a protective [flotilla of warships]. Enter prestige as a factor in the calculations, a somewhat Asian value, but not necessarily devoid of military significance. [actually the US, UK and France also put significant store on carrier prestige] This became all the more apparent when in July this year a senior Chinese researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences, General Luo Yuan, said: ‘If we consider our neighbour India will have three Aircraft Carriers by 2014, as also Japan, I think the number for China should not be less than three, so we can defend our rights and our maritime interests effectively’. [‘China needs at least three aircraft carriers’, Spacewars (30 July 2011) article here Accessed on 11 September 2011]. But six, the reportedly planned number, is even better than three.
-
This also goes to show the main purpose of Chinese Aircraft Carriers is not necessarily to tilt the naval balance in their favour. China is doing this through other means, by developing other capabilities, deploying effective weapon systems and procuring more appropriate sea-vessels. The combination however, is in effect designed to dampen the combative spirit of regional competitors like Vietnam, Australia and even India, the great Asian rival. With the US and its latest Air Sea Battle Concept (ASBC), the Chinese see themselves as having a lot to deal in their hands vis-à-vis their major superpower protagonist. [Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury ,’Power-play of Peers in the Pacific: A ‘Chimerican’ Chess Game?’, ISAS Insight No.124, 10 June 2011.]
-
"...Aaron L. Friedburg, a Professor of Princeton University, has written: ‘Those (Chinese) preparations do not mean that China wants war with the United States. To the contrary, they seem intended mostly to overawe its neighbours while dissuading Washington from coming to their aid if there is ever a clash’.[‘China’s Challenge at Sea’, International Herald Tribune (5 September 2011).]

Conclusion

That leaves out India, and the complex relationship between the Indian elephant and the Chinese dragon. India has let its ‘blue water’ aspirations be widely known. It has presence in the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and even in the South China seas. In six years, India hopes to have three Carriers with battle groups, deployed both near and far. The capabilities will be augmented by MIG-29 K aircraft with a range of 2,300 km, and such sophisticated missiles as the ‘BrahMo[s]’ with its 300 km range and ‘Dhanush’ [a navalised Prithvi development], which can be fired both on and under-water with 350 km range. The danger is that Sino-Indian paths at sea may cross. Indeed recently there was the case of the Indian naval ship [INS Airavat] , cruising close to Vietnam, which was warned off the supposedly ‘Chinese waters’ by China’s navy.

Fortunately this did not lead to any further incident, but such possibilities cannot be ruled out in the future. What is obviously required is a ‘Big Tent’ regional naval conference, as between western powers in the past, agreeing on some rules of naval conduct and ‘confidence building measures’. A failure in understandings in this regard could result in accidents, with consequences far more horrendous now, than then."
-
End - see whole paper.

Joint US - Australian Base Envisaged for Cocos Isands in Indian Ocean

2011-11-22T12:58:00.001+11:00

The Cocos (Keeling) Islands are ideally situated to base air and sea assets to cover alternate (to the Strait of Malacca) sea lines of communication (SLOCS) between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
-
The Australian, November 21, 2011, reports:

"Smith forecasts Cocos Islands joint military base"

THE upgrading of defence ties with the US may include the development of joint military facilities on Cocos Islands.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith said yesterday the first priority would be upgrading the HMAS Stirling naval base [Australia's main submarine base - envisaged for greater use by US SSNs] , near Perth. "In the future, there may well be some possibility or prospect of greater utilisation of Cocos Islands," he said.

Mr Smith told the Ten Network there would have to be a major upgrade of the infrastructure on Cocos Islands, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, before they were fit for joint use by the Australian and US forces.

His comments confirm that the steps announced last week, starting with 250 additional US troops visiting Darwin, mark the start of what is likely to be a much wider collaboration. Mr Smith has played down suggestions of China's displeasure with the new military arrangement between Australia and the US, saying the official response has been measured and appropriate.

But a spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Liu Weimin, said the move might not be in the interests of countries in the region and questioned the expansion of military ties while global economics were still shaky.

An editorial in China's state-run People's Daily newspaper went further, saying if Australia used its military bases to help the US hurt Chinese interests, "one thing is certain . . . Australia will be caught in the crossfire".

Mr Smith said the media commentary should be divorced from China's official response. "And the official response has quite frankly been a measured one. It hasn't been over the top." He said China was against military alliances, but understood Australia's ties with the US."
-
Pete

Australian Uraniun, Agni 2-3 and 4, Nirbhay-Israeli Turbo Popeye SLCM, Israeli "K-15"

2011-11-17T02:24:00.003+11:00

Israel's Dolphin submarine (HDW 214 derivative). Are India and Israel jointly developing Nirbhay/Popeye Turbo submarine cruise missiles and K-15 ballistic missiles for both countries' submarine fleets?

-
Hi Sujith
-
This is my response to your comment on my last Blog post (http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2011/11/australian-prime-minister-gillard-now.html):
-
Uranium
-
I don't think uranium market pressure is pushing this surprise change of heart by Gillard. Australia, after all, has a vast amount of more profitable energy and other resources to sell.

The change of heart is probably due to a concerted, coordinated US and Indian political/diplomatic pressure. It also indicates a willingness by Gillard to assert her authority by overruling the seemingly China line decision of her competitor Rudd (whom she replaced by stealth). It was Rudd who decided to renew the ban on Australian uranium to India.

The US-India relationship is vastly more complex than the MMRCA concerns eg. a comprehensive (non-public) intelligence pact after the 26/11/2008 Mumbai Massacre. Also the US and allies remain in Afghanistan largely as a US assurance that India need not return to a state of conflict with a highly irritating Pakistan.

Agni 2-3 and 4

Thanks for the chhindits reference: http://chhindits.blogspot.com/2011/11/india-launches-new-generation-strategic.html . Very hard to know why "Agni 4" is of shorter range than Agni 3. It defies the usual Agni 1 to 5 extension of range sequence. The mixing of Agni numbers could be a security cover and also because Agni 3 appears to have a different and larger propulsion than Agnis 2 and 4.

My expectations in comments under http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2011/10/update-on-eventual-russian-military.html seem validated ie - the smaller the payload/warhead the longer the effective range (into China).

Nirbhay - Popeye Turbo SLCM

On the "new" missile front we also have the Nirbhay cruise missile test recently. When I heard about Nirbhay I recalled a mysterious Indian-Israeli missile test south of Sri Lanka a few years back - and thought an Indian-Isreali Popeye Turbo SLCM was possible - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popeye_missile#Variants .

This hunch was to a degree confirmed by http://tarmak007.blogspot.com/2010/04/nirbhay-missile-taking-good-shape-says.html "Nirbhay...built with ‘a certain percentage of Israeli collaboration’ "

Israeli Dolphin Subs Armed with Combination of Cruise and Ballistic Missiles?

However as Nirbhay's diameter may be identical (520mm) to the US Tomahawk SLCM Nirbhay may fit into the smaller torpedo tubes (533mm) of Israel's Dolphin Class (HDW 214) subs. This leaves the Dolphin's larger 650mm tubes a mystery - perhaps as a pressure chamber to "launch" Israeli "Seal" divers and to launch small K-15 like ballistic missile.

Logically an Israeli attack on Iran, the Saudis and Iraq etc would be best achieved with a less than predictable combination of submarine, air and ground launched ballistic and cruise missiles.
-
Pete

Australian Prime Minister Gillard Now Supports Sale of Uranium to India

2011-11-15T21:59:00.003+11:00

Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Canadian PM Harper and at the G20 summit in Cannes, France, last week.

-
Michelle Grattan, probably Australia's most influential journalist, has written the following concerning Prime Minister Gillard's surprising announcement today supporting the sale of Australian uranium to India. My comments are in square brackets [...]. Grattan in The Age writes, on November 15, 2011:
-
[Good news, maybe!] "PM backs uranium for India - AUSTRALIA'S ban on uranium exports to India is set to be overturned, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard declaring the present policy outdated,
Ms Gillard will push for a change in party policy at next month's [Australian Labor Party (ALP)] National Conference, December 2 - 4, 2011] to lift the ban, bringing Australia into line with America's thinking.
-
In an article [here] in today's Age, Ms Gillard declares it is ''time for Labor to modernise our platform and enable us to strengthen our connection with dynamic, democratic India''.
-
The U-turn, Ms Gillard's most radical foreign policy initiative to date, would substantially improve relations with India, which has greatly resented that Australia discriminates against it - because it is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - while being willing to sell to China. The change will be opposed by the Left but will get through the conference, backed by the Prime Minister's authority and the Right's numbers [Grattan is going out on a limb in her certainty uranium to India will be passed by the ALP Conference. However Grattan's insider knowledge is usually reliable. Alternatively the ALP may decide to form an ALP Committee to study the issue for several months to a year].
-
Buoyed by some improvement in the polls, including yesterday's Nielsen poll showing her approval jumping 6 points, Ms Gillard wants to use the conference - at which she is looking forward to ''some noise'' - to stamp her mark on the party.
-
...Pressure to change the platform has been mounting, with Resources Minister Martin Ferguson leading the charge. Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is also in favour of a switch. But the proposed change has not gone to cabinet, on the grounds that it is the PM's position for the party's conference, rather than a government policy.
-
[As foreshadowed in this Blog yesterday] The [Australian] Greens [which hold the balance of power in Parliament] will be against exports to India, but Ms Gillard, who has been painted as the creature of Bob Brown, is quite happy to be differentiated from her minority partner when there is an opportunity.[however confidentially the Greens may tolerate uranium to India as a partial quid pro quo for the ALP recently pushing through the (largely) Greens' carbon tax legislation].
-
Ministers have been annoyed, however, that India has been trying to pressure Australia publicly, complicating moves to lift the ban. [Prime Minister Singh's non-attendance at CHOGM in Perth, several days ago, also stung] Mr Rudd [generally pro-China] recently pointed out sharply that India had no problem with getting [uranium] supplies elsewhere.
-
The present ALP platform, banning exports to non-signatories, dates from 2007...."
WHOLE ARTICLE
-
COMMENT
-
An Indian comment reiterating India's positive policy on climate change may be appropriate in providing some confidence to the ALP Left and the Greens who have strongly opposed Australian uranium to India...
-
Pete

Australian Uranium Trade to India - ALP National Conference

2011-11-14T10:10:00.001+11:00

Revisiting Australia's continued refusal to sell Uranium (U) to India:

The upcoming Australian Labor Party (ALP) National Conference, December 2-4, 2011 provides another opportunity to review Australia's U trade ban to India.

Thom Woodroofe's On Line Opinion article of November 10, 2011 is in the right direction.

COMMENT

Some points:

- Where Thom claims "This is an extremely dangerous position for Australia to be in." Overtly (ie. unless there is confidential Indian pressure) this overstates Indian resentment. Some solid evidence is needed to prove "extremely dangerous". Its noteworthy that India has made no public threats on the U issue. India remains a major customer for other Australian resources with two-way India-Australia trade amounting to AU$22.201 billion in 2010.

- Australia through the Nuclear Suppliers Group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.%E2%80%93India_Civil_Nuclear_Agreement#Reactions_following_the_waiver provided defacto agreement for countries in general to export U to India. Yet Australia insists on maintaining its U ban to India on NPT grounds.

- the ban is not only a minority ruling ALP Government issue but the Australian Greens (who hold the balance of power in Australia's Parliament) strongly oppose U to India. Of course the Greens oppose all U mining and exports anywhere. The ALP would be mindful of the Greens' position.

- Re "Safeguards such as making the trade conditional on the cessation of the production of fissile material for weapons could also be embedded within any bilateral deal." This is already the main area of NPT-Indo-Aus disagreement. India sees maintenance of its production of fissile material (HEU and Plutonium) as a matter of national survival that is non-negotiable.

As a safeguard (in line with the safeguards on U exports to China and Russia) Australia could stipulate that Australian U cannot not be converted into fissile material by India.

Australian Minister for Resources and Energy Martin Ferguson's export overtures to India may simply be window dressing as such U exports may have been simply vetoed by Greens' pressure - see http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2011/02/australian-uranium-sales-to-india.html

Interesting to see what the ALP National Conference (December 2-4, 2011) decides or doesn't decide on this issue. I tend to think the existing anti-India policy (which quietly gives trade preference to China) will be reaffirmed.

It is significant that in May 2011 India and Australia commenced free trade negotiations - see Australian Government Media Release. While uranium might not formally be an item under these negotiations India might do well to raise the restrictions Australia has placed on its U trade (compared to freer U trade by Australia's competitors) for leverage.

Pete

Iranian visits to my website in search of "nuclear explosion" information.

2011-11-09T09:41:00.006+11:00

In the context of Australian ABConline report of November 9, 2011 of:

""particular concern" about information provided by two member states [probably the US and Israel] that Iran had carried out computer modelling studies linked to nuclear weapons in 2008-09."

Australia in the Indian Ocean's sitemetre detected Iranian nuclear Googling search visits from 2006 onwards attracted by the post http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2006/04/divine-strake-nuclear-bomb-simulation.html titled "Divine Strake [US] Nuclear Bomb Simulation DELAYED INDEFINITELY". That post drew Iranian Google searches for "nuclear explosion simulation" with sitemeter details as follows:

- July 21, 2006 search by someone at the main Iranian nuclear weapons development establishment at "Esfahan" (aka Isfahan), Iran.

- October 30, 2006 by an employee of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Tehran, who was conducting a Google search with the key words "what is nuclear simulation". As the term "nuclear simulation" usually means simulations of nuclear explosions this is intriguing...

- More to the point on November 19, 2006 an unidentified person (IP 217.218.64.202) from Tehran, using ISP "Area No 6 Partition" conducted Google search with key words "nuclear explosion simulation".

- March 4, 2007 someone (IP 213.176.127.82) from Tehran using ISP "Iranian Research Organization" also conducted a Google search with key words "nuclear explosion simulation".

- On August 3, 2010 Iranian Googling of the phrase "SILEX Uranium enrichment" occurred:

"Referrer: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iibL3efnMDw/SyYQhckeVLI/AAAAAAAABSc/wWnyL3NWA5U/s400/SILEX_Newman2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2009/12/silex-laser-enrichment-cheaper-faster.html&usg=__r4iCRTEbKDYoKsmcGjFVHNDR :

Host Name

IP Address 94.183.118.XX [I removed the full label IP Address as I don't want to get particular Iranian scientists in trouble. In any case the NSA would probably have more exact simultaneous record anyway, including exact latitude, longitude and level of building or bunker etc]

"Country Iran, Islamic Republic Of Region Tehran City Karaj

ISP Shatel Isp/icp In Karaj Returning Visits 0

VISITOR SYSTEM SPECS Date Time Type WebPage: 3rd August 2010 05:03:20 Page View

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iibL3efnMDw/SyYQhckeVLI/AAAAAAAABSc/wWnyL3NWA5U/s400/SILEX_Newman2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2009/12/silex-laser-enrichment-cheaper-faster.html&usg=__r4iCRTEbKDYoKsmcGjFVHNDRiCRTEbKDYoKsmcGjFVHNDR"

All this amateur "sigint" would have been separately detected and scrutinised by the US NSA etc.

None of the foregoing is meant to finger Iranian nuclear researchers. There are, no doubt, much more subtle ways to determine the progress and direction of Iranian uranium enrichment research - weapons related or peaceful.
-
Pete

Are Pakistani Nukes in Military or Disguised "Civilian" Trucks Safe?

2011-11-08T10:02:00.006+11:00

The US trying to impose order on nuclear risks in the Middle East-Iran-Afg-and Pak.

It is strongly assumed most Pakistani medium range missiles are aimed at India. This, of course, is a major worry. However what may be more dangerous is one or more of these missiles being captured by Pakistani state or non-state extremist factions.

Pakistan transporting its missiles in any form by road increases the risk that nuclear missiles and/or warheads might be hijacked by extremists. Extremist (by their mindset) might not be concerned with the risk of nuclear mutually assured destruction (MAD).

See my COMMENT section following this Danger Room, November 4, 2011, report:

"Freaked out about the insecurity of its nuclear arsenal, the Pakistani military’s Strategic Plans Division has begun carting the nukes around in clandestine ways. That might make some sense on the surface: no military wants to let others know exactly where its most powerful weapons are at any given moment. But Pakistan is going to an extreme.

The nukes travel “in civilian-style vehicles without noticeable defenses, in the regular flow of traffic,” according to a blockbuster story on the U.S.-Pakistan relationship in The Atlantic. Marc Ambinder and Jeffrey Goldberg write that tactical nuclear weapons travel down the streets in “vans with a modest security profile.” Somewhere on a highway around, say, Karachi, is the world’s most dangerous FLOWERS truck." WHOLE ARTICLE
-
COMMENT
-
Here's hoping the article confuses genuinely civilian trucks/vans with Pakistani military transporter erector launcher (TEL) trucks disguised as civilian semi-trailers/prime movers with the missile(s) hidden in the shipping containers. Presumably disguised TELs would be unobtrusively protected by other nearby vehicles and hopefully helicopters.

TELs are used for surface to air missiles as well as surface to surface missiles with a variety of warheads including nuclear (eg. Shaheen 2/Hatf 6.)
-

Pete

Toxic gas forces Australian Submarine to emergency surface, HMAS Farncomb

2011-11-04T12:09:00.002+11:00

A Collins Class sub which may be HMAS Farncomb. It photographs better (in Sydney Harbour) than it operates!
-
Australia typically has only one (unreliable) submarine operating at any particular time - with the other five laid up. This makes India's submarine hassles seem trivial.

The Australian, November 3, 2011 reports: "Toxic gas forces sub to surface"
-
"A COLLINS-CLASS submarine has been forced to make an emergency surface in the South China Sea after a build-up of toxic gases forced the crew to don oxygen masks. It is the second time in as many months that HMAS Farncomb [this and all other links in text added by Pete] has taken the extreme step of blowing its emergency ballast tanks to surface rapidly to deal with a malfunction.

The submarine was forced to withdraw from a Five Power (UK, Australia, NZ, Malaysia, Singapore) defence exercise [called Exercise Bersama Lima 2011] last Thursday [27 October 2011] when its cooling system failed, causing the potentially harmful refrigerant gas Freon to waft through the underwater vessel.

"Contamination of the atmosphere in the submarine is always considered a risk and (was) treated accordingly," a Defence spokesman said. "In this case the submarine's automatic gas detection system registered a high Freon reading."

The commander responded immediately by blowing the submarine's emergency ballast tanks to bring the boat quickly to the surface, while also conserving a supply of air so that this could be used to help flush the toxic gas from the submarine after it surfaced.

Sources say the crew responded well to the emergency and no lives were in danger, although crew in the aft compartment strapped oxygen masks to their face as a precaution.

The Farncomb then limped back to port in Singapore, where technicians are investigating the malfunction, which is the first of its kind on a Collins-class boat.

After a run of bad publicity for the troubled Collins-class fleet, the Department of Defence released a brief and incomplete media release [here] about the incident at 7.30pm last Friday night [28 October 2011], more than 24 hours after it occurred, at a time when media coverage would be minimal.

The incident robbed Farncomb's crew of a valuable opportunity to play freestyle war games with [the other Five Power nations] as part of Exercise Bersama Lima 2011, which involves 18 warships and 65 aircraft. Farncomb was the only submarine involved in the exercise.

[HMAS Farncomb's August 2011 Incident]

In [an earlier incident in] late August 2011, Farncomb was forced to blast its emergency ballast tanks to get to the surface after it experienced a double engine failure at midnight off the coast of Perth [near the submarine base at Freemantle, Western Australia]. As The Australian reported exclusively, the powerless submarine sank [in the August 2011 incident] from near the surface to a depth of at least 120m, frightening some of its crew, before the commander ordered an emergency blow of the ballast tanks, causing the boat to rise to the surface." An investigation into the [August] incident is believed to have concluded that the propulsion failure of the main motor and then the failure of the back-up system was due to a mistake by crew members rather than a technical fault.

The [October 2011] breakdown of the cooling system on Farncomb last week was the second time this year that technical faults have forced a Collins submarine to withdraw from a regional defence exercise.

[HMAS Dechaineux's May 2011 Incident]

[Also indicative of Australia's chronic sub reliability problems] In May 2011, [a sister sub of the Collins Class] HMAS Dechaineux did not make it to the South China Sea to join Exercise Bersama Shield because of a fault in its propulsion system."
-
Pete

Australia's Vastly Expanding Uranium Mining - But No Power Reactors!

2011-10-21T15:46:00.001+11:00

Just three operating Uranium Mines (see Green dots) in Australia - including Olympic Dam in the State of South Australia.

-
Here's an interest commentary, of October 11, 2011, by Tom Elliott an Australian radio announcer concerning Australia's hypocrisy on several nuclear issues http://www.3aw.com.au/blogs/breaking-news-blog/nuclear-hypocrisy/20111011-1liv2.html:

"Nuclear hypocrisy?"

Yesterday the [Australian] federal environment minister, Tony Burke, gave his approval for a massive expansion of the Olympic Dam mine in South Australia. [Note that the expansion of Uranium mining appears to be mainly to supply China].The owner of the mine, BHP, plans to spend as much as $30 Billion on the project over the next 30 years, with the result that Olympic Dam will become the largest producer of uranium in the world.

Understandably, the South Australian State Govt is extremely happy about BHP’s plans. After all, the company will build new towns in the area, create around 25,000 jobs and generate $65bn of overall economic activity.

There are concerns from the [leftwing, environmentally conscious] Greens [who hold the balance of power in the Federal Government], of course, that the mine will create a mountain of radioactive waste, and that the construction and operation of a desalination plant [there being little fresh water around the mine] will destroy the breeding grounds of the giant cuttlefish. But [the Federal Labor Government] has decided that the financial advantages outweigh these potential costs.

What I cannot understand, however, is how the Govt can say on one hand it’s ok to approve the creation of the world’s largest uranium mine, yet on the other hand remain steadfast in its opposition to nuclear power in this country. It’s a bit like saying we’ll outlaw all drugs here, but happily grow crops like opium poppies to supply addicts away from our shores!

And don’t even get me started on the issue of climate change. As we speak, in Canberra the carbon tax is about to be converted from a proposal into a reality. The logic behind the tax is that it’ll force us to reduce our CO2 emissions. And yet this task will be hamstrung from the start because the Govt refuses to allow emissions free nuclear energy to replace the coal fired plants on which over 90% of our electricity currently depends.

There’s so much contradictory decision making going on here, it’s a wonder these politicians can lie straight in bed. Climate change bad. Coal fired power plants bad. Uranium exports good. But Nuclear power here bad. Doesn’t make too much sense, does it?

Background from the World Nuclear Association

(updated October 2011) Australia's uranium has been mined since 1954, though only three mines are currently operating. More are planned.

Australia's uranium reserves are the world's largest, with 23% of the world total.

In 2010-11 Australia produced over 7000 tonnes of uranium oxide concentrate [known as "Yellowcake"]. It is the world's third-ranking producer, behind Kazakhstan and Canada.

Australia uses no nuclear power, but with high reliance on coal and likely carbon constraints on electricity generation, it remains a possibility.

see MORE including a brief history of Australian Uranium Mining.

Pete

Update on eventual Russian military equipment orders to India

2011-10-11T11:59:00.002+11:00

An Akula Class submarine similar to (or the same as Nerpa (to be INS Chakra) theoretically on its way to Vishakhapatnam by 'next month' November 2011?).
-

Periodically this blog updates the state of India's weapons' orders and development - a useful Russian article caught my eye. Viktor Litovkin of Russia and India Report (RIR) has written a detailed and interesting report concerning the many weapons system orders India has with Russia and Russia's intention to at last hand over some of them in the foreseeable future. His political asides are also interesting.

I suspect that India tolerates such a plethora of late and overbudget orders because India values its geopolitical relationship with Russia. Some assistance in thermonuclear development might also be an incentive for Indian tolerance - though I have no evidence for this suspicion. Certainly India is receiving more Russian assistance for Arihant indigenous submarine development than the Indian Navy is prepared to admit. Prime Minister Singh at the launch of Arihant in 2009 thanked "our Russian friends for their consistent and invaluable cooperation, which symbolises the close strategic partnership that we enjoy with Russia”.

India is in good company in that Australia has a similar relationship with the US - Australia tolerates constantly late and overbudget weapons (except Boeing's Super Hornet, the C-17 and the Abrams tank all on time and budget) from the US for the sake of Australia valuing the US alliance. Although Australia is very reliant on the US while India (from a non-aligned position) would most probably not expect any active Russian assistance in a war with Pakistan or China.

I've paraphrased Viktor Litovkin's article here:
http://indrus.in/articles/2011/10/10/nerpa_2012_next_month_gorshkov_by_dec_13099.html

"Nerpa next month, Gorshkov by Dec 2012"

October 10, 2011

India and Russia managed to iron out some differences over delays in the supply of spares and put their defence ties on the even track during Defence Minister A.K. Antony’s visit to Russia in early October 2011. The nuclear submarine Nerpa and the much-awaited INS Vikramaditya will be heading to India "shortly" [we should wait until we see it!].

Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony...discussed with Russian counterpart Anatoly Serdyukov a host of issues aimed at exploring fresh avenues for military cooperation and resolving some irritants, including spare part delays.

High on Antony's agenda was the creation of a joint project of the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) [which means the T-50, PAK FA?], which has the potential to become the largest joint defence programme between the two countries. India may spend about $35 billion over 20 years to induct 250-300 PAK FAs starting from 2020, of which 214 will enter the service first.

The talks touched upon the forthcoming 10-year lease of the K-152 Nerpa [INS Chakra] multi-role nuclear submarine which will be transferred to the command of an Indian crew by December 2011 [but surely Russian engineers will need to oversee the reactors functions?].

The aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya (Admiral Gorshkov in Russia) should be transferred to India in 2012. The aircraft carrier is already more than [only?] 85 percent complete [actual completion may be 2014 at current rate of Russian renovation].

Antony in particular, they talked about the latest delay of transferring three Talwar class Type 1135.6 frigates (INS Teg, Tarkash and Trikand) to the Indian Navy. India is now due to receive Teg in April 2012, Tarkash in September 2012, and Trikand in June 2013. "But nobody can guarantee that these terms will not change."

The Russian, Viktor Litovkin, opined "...not once in the last twenty years has Russia managed to deliver a ship on time. This includes the first batch of Indian Talwar frigates, which was built in St Petersburg's Baltic Shipyard at the beginning of this century. However, when these ships were completed and inducted, they became the pride of the Indian Navy."

According to Russian Defence Minister Serdyukov, Russia was unable to hold training exercises with India in order that Russia not send the wrong political signals to Japan during Japan's Fukushima nuclear crisis. This is in the wider context of "strained" relations between Moscow and Tokyo over the issue of the Kuril Islands.

New Delhi offered Moscow the purchase of the jointly-produced BrahMos supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles that the Indian military is actively preparing for the Coast Guard [a serious weapon for a Coast Guard!], naval surface ships and submarines. It is even planning to modify the missile for use on the SU-30MKI multi-role fighter jet - [Russia is stalling, perhaps until 2014, for more money to upgrade Indian SU-30MKI for BrahMos] A [notional?] Russian purchase of BrahMos [Russia already builds the very similar P-800 Oniks(Onyx)] would bring significant financial benefit to both countries in the world arms market.

The Indian side probably will not agree to buy Russia's GLONASS global positioning satellite system for Indian military use. India is already using the technically mature and cheaper American GPS system. India is not yet persuaded that mounting GLONASS as a backup system alongside GPS would provide value for money for Indian Army and Naval weapons systems

While Russia's weapons trade under performance is irritating the overall Indian-Russian bilateral relationship is useful.

The full two page article is at http://indrus.in/articles/2011/10/10/nerpa_2012_next_month_gorshkov_by_dec_13099.html

Comments to follow on Israel's ABM assistance to India using the India Long Range Tracking Radar (LRTR) developed from Israel's Green Pine radar.
-
Pete

7 steps for US officials dealing with the puzzles of Pakistan

2011-09-29T12:24:00.000+10:00

Indian Projects that are or were in Afghanistan - click to enlarge.

-
Retired Army Colonel Tom Lynch, who worked in CENTCOM until 2010, has written an article that appeared on Thomas E. Ricks' Blog (The Best Defense) on 20 September 2011.

By Tom Lynch "Best Defense department of dysfunctional diplomacy ":

Recent comments by Senator Kirk [who is also a US Naval Reserve Intelligence Commander with some experience in Afgh-Pak] from Illinois exemplify a familiar pattern by senior U.S. political, military and diplomatic officials struggling to understand the devilish intricacies and deep challenges of South Asian politics through the constrained access portal of experience in or focus on Afghanistan. This struggle all too frequently takes the pattern of a seven-step process of "discovery learning" regarding the complexities of South Asia security by Americans first introduced to Afghanistan without background in the wider region. That process goes something like this ....

STEP 1 - MEET Afghans, find them engaging, look for the quick way to help them with a "hand up," ignore the vexing, decades-long regional security dilemmas underpinning their plight.

STEP 2 - DISCOVER Afghans suffer from multiple internal and external challenges -- take the (northern) Afghan viewpoint that theirs is all a problem of Pakistan's making.

STEP 3 - BLAME Pakistan for all Afghanistan's ills and despair of American engagement with Pakistan or Afghanistan, throw out the "I" word suggesting that more India in Afghanistan would "teach" Pakistan a lesson (and presumably save some cash).

STEP 4 - DISCOVER Pakistan already believes there is an Indian under every rock in Afghanistan - and that threatening a quicker Coalition departure and greater Indian involvement won't faze Pakistan.... Rawalpindi will move more quickly to bolster its Afghan Taliban allies for a proxy war.

STEP 5 - DETERMINE that India isn't really interested in bailing out the Coalition (or American politicians and diplomats) on western terms, has its own regional objectives and timetables, and isn't much responsive to boisterous American rhetoric accelerating the timelines on a Pakistan-India proxy war in Afghanistan. That proxy war may come, but India will work to prolong its onset as long as possible.

STEP 6 - RECOGNIZE that a rapidly-accelerating proxy war between two nuclear-armed nations encouraged by a precipitous withdrawal of US/Coalition forces before some political mechanism in place to limit the possibilities for that war is irresponsible, an approach that is all too similar to America's walk away from Afghanistan and Pakistan back the early 1990s that led to a proxy war in Afghanistan between India and Pakistan before both were fully tested nuclear-armed states.

STEP 7 - RESOLVE either to remain engaged with Afghanistan, Pakistan and India for a lengthy and challenging diplomatic-military process (including some level of non-trivial economic and military aid to both Afghanistan and Pakistan for some time); or, SUCCUMB to the personal frustrations of it all and quit the field, making room for the next nouveau American to start the process at STEP 1.
-
Tom Lynch is a research fellow for South Asia and Near East at National Defense University (a joint services military college in Washington DC). A retired Army Colonel, he was a special assistant focused on South Asian security for the CENTCOM Commander and later the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during 2004-2010. The opinions here are his own.
-
Original article is at http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/09/20/the_seven_steps_of_american_officials_dealing_with_the_puzzles_of_pakistan

-
Comment
-
It goes to show how complex and frequently opposed interests in Afghanistan of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the US and the US allies in Afghanistan (including Australia) are.
-
What is the long-term solution?
-
Pete

SILEX Laser Enrichment - Capable of producing bomb grade Uranium?

2011-09-27T10:46:00.007+10:00

Uranium enrichment process in simplified technical and political terms. Here "L.I.S." (Laser Isotope Separation) means SILEX.

-
[this post was written in 2009 but I removed it as I don't want to give potential proliferaters any pointers. However with some recent mass publicity on SILEX - it featured in a 27/09/2011 TV segment on the 7.30 Report on ABC Australia - this SILEX post is back for a week - then I'll take it down again. Also see Iranian interest in SILEX in the preceding post. Pete]

"SILEX" (Separation of Isotopes by Laser EXcitation), the world's only third generation laser uranium enrichment process, was developed in Australia from 1990. It was rapidly developed in a basic but usable form, on a "shoe string", at the Australian Government's small experimental nuclear reactor complex at Lucas Heights, Sydney.

SILEX is a high value invention but could not be further developed or exploited in Australia's extremely limited nuclear research environment. For example Australia has no reactors (for power or weapons) to consume substantial quantities of enriched uranium. This is one reason why SILEX was mainly sold to US interests.

SILEX has dual-use uranium enrichment potential with enrichment to 4% uranium 235 already being achieved and 90% (bomb grade) being theoretically probable (according to this Peace Tasmania 2005 website, which also provided the diagram above).

According to SILEX "Company History" at http://www.silex.com.au/ in 2001 "The SILEX Technology was officially “Classified” by the US and Australian Governments. The implications of classification relate mainly to security protocols." This may further suggest that SILEX has particularly sensitive weapons potential.

Australian possession of such dual-use SILEX technology raised significant problems for Australia under the NPT. Hence there was domestic and international pressure on the Australian Government to shift SILEX research overseas to one of the five legal NPT weapons owners (by default the US, Australia's nuclear protector). Even though it was developed by the private SILEX company heavy government regulation made it relatively easy to persuade or agree with SILEX that the critical parts of the company's enrichment activities should be sold to US interests from the late 1990s.

Since reaching the US SILEX's progress appears to have slowed. One reason may be that GE and other consortium partners do not wish SILEX to be commercially successful, yet, because it would compete with less efficient existing technologies that these companies have already heavily invested in. They may wish to phase-in SILEX according to planned obsolescence best practice.

Another possible reason for slow US development is that the US Government does not wish to encourage (or even opposes) development of SILEX technology as it appears to be a relatively quick and simple enrichment method (compared to centrifuge-gas diffusion) which might accelerate nuclear weapon proliferation.

So for these two reasons GE appears to be holding onto the technology closely and not letting it develop at the same rate achieved previously in Australia..
------------------------------
DefenseNews, December 7, 2009, in a confusing repetitive way, has reported some plans, but the progress since the late 1990's appears glacial:

"Using infrared lasers and uranium gas, a division of General Electric hopes to commercialize a cheaper method of enriching uranium to run power plants.

But some nuclear experts worry that if GE succeeds, it may speed the delivery of dangerous technology to nations around the world that yearn to have nuclear weapons.

For five months, GE has been testing a process called laser isotope separation. It uses specifically tuned lasers to separate uranium 238...from uranium 235...

It is uncertain yet whether the same process can also produce the highly enriched uranium needed for nuclear weapons...[Peace Tasmania is "helpfully" more certain it can produce bomb grade uranium 235].

'Easy To Conceal'
-
In October [2009], two dozen of them wrote to the U.S. Senate expressing concern that the Laser Isotope Separation (L.I.S.) process "poses significant proliferation risks due to difficulties in detecting facilities using this technology."

A laser enrichment plant might be one-quarter the size of an enrichment plant that uses today's state-of-the-art centrifuges. The plant would also use much less electricity than a standard enrichment plant.

"You could hide an enrichment facility in a warehouse," said Charles Ferguson, a nuclear energy and weapons expert at the Council on Foreign Relations...

"This specific method of uranium enrichment makes it easy to conceal and, consequently, extremely difficult for international nuclear inspectors to detect," said Leonor Tomero, director of nuclear nonproliferation at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

The potential to produce nuclear fuel at lower cost is what attracted General Electric. It partnered with Hitachi and Canadian uranium company Cameco to form a new company, Global Laser Enrichment, that is testing laser enrichment near Wilmington, N.C. GE owns 51 percent of Global Laser Enrichment, which is generally referred to as GLE.

Last summer, GE said its aim was to develop "a next-generation uranium enrichment technology" to supply fuel for nuclear power plants worldwide.

...At the same time that demand for nuclear fuel is going up, GE said, some of the plants that now produce enriched uranium using centrifuges or an older process called gaseous diffusion are scheduled to shut down, possibly creating a shortage that GLE can fill.

Much of the detail about how LIS works remains secret, Ferguson said. "The people who really know the details have been obligated to sign nondisclosure agreements" and are not allowed to talk. Others, who include nuclear scientists, understand the laser enrichment process, but do not know precisely what GLE is doing, he said.

This much is known: GLE is using a process developed in Australia known as SILEX... According to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission notice, the company proposed to enrich uranium "up to 8 percent by weight."

GLE ...said it uses "lasers tuned to specific frequencies" to separate the U-235 from the U-238. The lasers produce two "product streams" - one is uranium hexafluoride (UF6) enriched with U-235, and the other is UF6 that has reduced U-235.

Technical details are proprietary and subject to U.S. export control laws, the company said.

...The nuclear experts who wrote to the Senate warn that if it ... "it [might] dangerously undermine U.S. nuclear nonproliferation efforts." Other countries will try to acquire the technology, and if they get it, it will be easier for them to hide their enrichment activities, the experts said.

"Previous laser enrichment research and laboratory-sized activities went undetected for several years in South Korea and Iran," they said. An interesting study of LIS proliferation (including SILEX) is by G. Janssens-Maenhout, J. Creemers*, J.F.A. Delbeke, S. Continihere,using indicators, inputs and outputs.
-
Still, Ferguson said during a recent discussion of the process and its potential impact, "there are a lot of technically challenging elements" that make the SILEX system difficult for almost any country to master [lets hope so]. "It would be hard to make a well-columnated stream of gas, the laser system is very advanced and very tricky to build … and you most likely need a relatively large team of technical experts as well as a lot of financial resources....article in full"
-
Pete

Israel's Dolphin submarines - nuclear K-15/modified Sea Lance Armament?

2011-09-21T12:40:00.002+10:00

Israeli Dolphin Class sub conducting a rapid surfacing manoeuvre.

-
The following excerpts from DefenseTech's July 24, 2011 article "Israel’s Boomers On the Rise" contains some historical details on Israel's submarine service and characteristics of Israel latest submarine type - the Dolphin Class.

This is followed by two of my own theories on the Dolphin's suspected nuclear missile armament - that this armament is (or soon will be) based on (or shared with) India's K-15 mini SLBM and/or based on the discontinued (SLBM) Sea Lance project.

DefenseTech article in part reads:

"...Since 1948 the Israeli Navy has had mixed success, helping protect the country’s relatively long, two-part coastline from invasion from the sea by terrorists, defending its vital interests in the Mediterranean and Red Seas...[Israel initially sourced its submarines from Britain. The British T-Class submarine HMS Totem was originally launched in 1943. In 1965 Totem (along with 2 other T-Class subs) was sold to Israel and in 1968 renamed INS Dakar it sunk with all hands en route to Israel.]

...Israel has, for decades, maintained a small submarine force [switching to Germany (which unlike UK has continued to successfully build conventional (not-nuclear propelled) subs]. Germany has since manufactured the Type 206, then the global best-seller Type 209 and most recently, the Howaldtswerke-Deutche Werft AG’s state-of-the-art Type 212 U-boats. (Type 214 designates the export-model 212; Dolphin-class is Israel’s name for their customized 214s.) From the 209 on, these are available with conventional diesel-electric power plus air-independent propulsion. The fuel cell AIP system allows quiet, continuously submerged and non-snorkeling, low-speed cruising for up to 84 days at a time.

Israel is reported to have deployed, for some time, three pure-diesel Dolphin-class boats, and will expand via a total now of three additional Dolphins with AIP to a total of six subs by 2013. Each of these is supposedly armed with nuclear-tipped, torpedo tube-launched cruise missiles in addition to a handful of German-made wire guided high explosive torpedoes. An early version of such cruise missile was derived from the U.S. Navy’s Sub-Harpoon, with a rather small nuke payload and a range of some 75 miles. The boats patrol submerged (as much as each design permits) mostly in the Med but more recently also in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. They serve as a second strike capability, a sub-launched nuclear deterrent analogous to, for instance, the U.S. Navy’s current SSBNs; the aging nuclear propelled Ohio-class which usually go out for 70-day “Hide with Pride” patrols.

[The Dolphins can carry a few (ten?) commandos with their gear, and deploy and retrieve them via an internal lock-in/lock-out chamber.] Swimmer delivery vehicles (up to four?) can be carried in the wider of the torpedo tubes (25.5-inch ) serving as ersatz dry deck shelters.]

Armament

[Dolphins can also deploy undersea mines, useful in extremis in the littoral waters with heavy shipping where the IDF supposedly sends them.

The Dolphins can probably launch cruise missiles such as Israel’s new Popeye Turbo with a range of nearly 1,000 miles at a Tomahawk-like speed of maybe Mach 0.7. However, in Israel’s case, theater-wide ranges with up to 90-minute delivery times, such as Popeye Turbo’s, are truly strategic.

The Dolphin is possibly armed with small ballistic missiles. Given the high level of cooperation between India and Israel on defence projects it is possible that the Dolphin's larger 25.5 inch (650mm) torpedo tube might be used to launch a smaller version of India's small SLBM the K-15 Sagarika.

Noting that the Dolphin have no VLS (vertical launch system) to launch ballistic missiles - this is not necessarily a technical obstacle. As an example of a horizontal launch precedent the proposed UUM-125 Sea Lance was envisaged to have a horizontal torpedo tube firing mode. Development details included:

"The Sea Lance was to be housed inside a watertight capsule which could be launched from an ordinary 21 inch torpedo tube. The Mk 117 digital fire-control system provided targeting information to the missile prior to launch. After being fired, the capsule would float to the surface where the rocket would ignite and its fins would flip out….In 1990, the entire program was canceled as a result of the collapse and dismemberment of the Soviet Union."

Have the Israelis exploited or been semi-officially passed information or human expertise from the cancelled Sea Lance project?].

The full DefenseTech article is at http://defensetech.org/2011/07/24/israels-boomers-on-the-rise/#ixzz1YV3aBF2H

Further References on the Dolphins

On this blog: http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2009/10/israeli-dolphin-sub-nuclear-armed.html October 8, 2009.

Other sources:

Pete

Amateur code breakers crack enzyme puzzle

2011-09-19T14:10:00.001+10:00

HIV-1 (in green) budding from a lymphocyte: Gamers have resolved a long-standing scientific problem (Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
-
In a happy story at last, ABCOnline September 19, 2011, reports via Agence France Press:

"Online gamers have deciphered the structure of an enzyme, which has long eluded scientists, providing insights for the development of antiretroviral drugs.

The exploits are published this week in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, where - exceptionally in scientific publishing - both gamers and researchers are honoured as co-authors.

Their target was a monomeric protease enzyme, a cutting agent in the complex molecular tailoring of retroviruses, a family that includes HIV.

"...[utilizing the Foldit 3D game] gamers, divided into competing groups, compete to unfold chains of amino acids - the building blocks of proteins - using a set of online tools.

To the astonishment of the scientists, the gamers produced an accurate model of the enzyme in just three weeks.

Cracking the enzyme "provides new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs," says the study, referring to the lifeline medication against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

It is believed to be the first time that gamers have resolved a long-standing scientific problem...." WHOLE ARTICLE

Pete

al Qaeda nuclear threat to New York? Scenarios to consider.

2011-09-09T22:27:00.004+10:00

Both Russia/USSR and the US built "suitcase bombs". Pictured is a US built H-912 transport container for a man-portable Mk-54 Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM) "suitcase bomb". Produced in the 1950s-60s these 158 pound bombs had an adjustable explosive force equivalent to 10 tons to 1,000 tons of TNT.
-
Most of the thinking and writing about non-state actors acquiring nuclear weapons appears to have concerned al Qaeda (AQ) due to AQ's:

• record of large scale, successful attacks on major US cities
• close relations with Islamist or corrupt elements of nuclear armed Pakistan - who could potentially supply nuclear weapons, material, components, or technical expertise.
• close relations with some Arabs wealthy enough (in theory) to buy nuclear weapons. bin Laden was also wealthy.
• record of suicide bombing and other suicidal acts.
• record of interest in acquiring or building a nuclear weapon

On this last point see http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FF04Df05.html :

In late 2001, US officials investigating the activities of Osama bin Laden discovered that the al-Qaeda head had contacted some Pakistani nuclear experts for assistance in making a small nuclear device. US officials sought two veteran Pakistani nuclear scientists in particular, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Abdul Majid, for interrogation...

This Cato paper from 2004 http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa519.pdf is representative of concern about AQ.

If a non-state actor voiced plans or warnings that it had acquired a nuclear weapon and was prepared to use it the official UNSC nuclear states (and Israel) would wish to destroy the loose nuclear weapon rather than enter into negotiations. If there was time - these established nuclear states would most likely band together to pre-emptively destroy the nuclear weapon (and its non-state handlers).

An overarching concern would be that extremist non-state actors would not feel constrained by thoughts of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) as they (or he/she) might be a suicide bomber on a grand scale.

Any communication by states might only be to play for time until the nuclear weapon (assembled or disassembled and its delivery platform) was detected and destroyed. Basically it would be a race against time to find the weapon using all types of intel sources from many countries. Russia and the US have been known to cooperate in counter-proliferation efforts. See http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/rsa/nuke/ocp27.htm :

Unfortunately for South Africa, a Soviet surveillance satellite detected the preparations for a nuclear test in August 1977 and Soviet authorities immediately notified the US.

More extended communication between US authorities and a non-state actor might occur if the non-state actor said it was already in (say) New York with its finger on the trigger conducting nuclear blackmail. The US government would have to determine if it was a hoax, that it was talking to the right AQ negotiators and determine if AQ had genuine/reasonable demands (if any). The risk that AQ might detonate a weapon no-matter-what - even after a deal is made - would have to be considered.

The weapon (say an old Russian 'suitcase nuke') may or may not be inoperable (given that nuclear weapons need expert handling and monitoring to remain fully efficient - their chemical balances 'decline' over time). US and ex-Soviet suitcase bombs would most probably be too old and unstable to work as advertised. A decision of whether or not to secretly communicate with the AQ might need to be balanced with the need to very publicly evacuate the city.

So communication is probably less likely to take place between states and non-state actors (especially if suicidal) compared to communications between states (where the dynamics of MAD hopefully apply).

Pete

ISI and 9/11 - Indian intelligence on the trail

2011-09-09T10:00:00.000+10:00

9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta before he murdered so many civilians. Interesting take on ISI money trails here. With implied contribution of the RAWs and IBs of this world at their best.

Not to be forgot - the 9/11 hijackers with (non-western help) killed many innocent people in Washington as well. Beginning of repairs to Pentagon in late 2001 following Muslim suicide hijacking of a large aircraft.

As the links between the ISI and the Taliban and the ISI and bin Laden are well established a link between ISI and 9/11 is no bizarre improbability.

The following 2009 documentary is excellent overall. Note the references to Indian intelligence 6 minutes, 30 seconds in:

string of documentary is http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-2129573093061789209&fs=true&hl=en&playerMode=normal

Transcript of documentary http://www.newsofinterest.tv/video_pages_flash/politics/911_pft/money_trail.php

Predictably American reporters twist the final message in the documentary towards US intelligence culpability for 9/11. But that is journalistic spin that typically "blames the parent" - a "moral relativity" mentality. Radical Muslim entities (including bin Laden) and ISI warlords are probably most at fault - proving it is more difficult.

Western intelligence may have known snippets but that is standard for most things that are about to happen in this world. Creating a useful picture (in time) from snippets is often difficult - especially for large agencies with too much information.
-
This post is not an invitation for "blame US/CIA/FBI" or "blame Israel/Mossad" comments - such comments probably won't be accepted as a huge (wasted intellectual) industry caters for them in the US. This post welcomes comments on possible Muslim intelligence (perhaps ISI or GID the Saudi [Foreign] Intelligence Directorate involvement in 9/11. GID during the Soviet occupation of of Afghanistan days and immediately up to/during 9/11? was headed by Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud [shortened: Prince Turki Al Faisal] Director GID 1977-2001 and then formerly Ambassador to the US during much of President Bush Jr's pro Saudi Administration] . Prince Turki may well still be defacto Director of GID - such is the informal highly personalised and decentralised system of royal authority (7,000 Princes...) in Saudi Arabia. Officially the current Diector/President of GID/GIP is Prince Mugrin Bin Abdul Aziz . GID/GIP have a quite an attractive new website oddly full of meeting/greeting PR.

I'll then incorporate extra evidence/links into the main text.
-
Pete

Has Pakistan deployed any Shaheen-2's?

2011-08-26T22:27:00.001+10:00

Shaheen-2 on parade again but is it deployed on trucks or in silos?.

The Shaheen-2 (Urdu for 'hawk') has been on parade often enough, but is it actually deployed by Pakistan or has the Saudi money invested for nuclear weapons been mainly wasted?

MissileThreat describes the Shaheen-2:

"The [Shaheen-2] Hatf-6 was first displayed in March 2000;...first flight test occurred in March 2004... two final tests in April 2008. Limited production of 5 to 10 missiles may have begun in 2005 with production numbers reaching 25 to 30 by 2008 [according to what evidence?]. The second flight test in 2008 was performed by an army crew from the Strategic Force Command, so the missile is presumably in service.

"...reported range of 2,500 km...accuracy of 350 m CEP....payload is a single warhead weighing 700 kg, though reports suggest that payloads up to 1,230 kg have been developed. The heavier payloads probably have a decreased range. The [Shaheen-2] warhead can be equipped for a nuclear yield between 15 and 35 kT [who says? Does that suggest Pakistan has not progressed in development to boosted fission - just pure fission plutonium implosion?]."

While its obvious that Shaheen-2's range is primarily intended for launch from Pakistan to hit most of India's major cities - in Saudi hands its main target would be a threatening Iran and perhaps a resurgent Iraq.

Pete

Pakistani Nuclear Forces 2011 - Megatons of Comfort

2011-08-26T18:56:00.002+10:00

Click on chart to download readable full size version.

(Graph courtesy of FAS Strategic Security Blog)

With a brief lull in my University studies I thought a look at Pakistan’s nuclear comfort zone was in order. Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris of FAS Strategic Security Blog report (17 July 2011) that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal has doubled since 2004 and could double again in the next 10 years if the current trend continues. Kristensen and Norris continue:

“The latest Nuclear Notebook on Pakistan’s nuclear forces is available on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists web site. Since our previous Notebook on Pakistan in 2009 there have been several important developments.

Based on our own estimates, official statements, and fissile material production estimates produced by the International Panel of Fissile Materials, we conclude that Pakistan’s current nuclear weapons stockpile of 90-110 warheads might increase to 150-200 within the next decade. This would bring the Pakistani stockpile within range of the British stockpile, the smallest of the original five nuclear weapon states, but still far from that of France (despite some recent news reports to the contrary).

This development is precipitated by the anticipated introduction of several new nuclear delivery systems over the next years, including cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles. The capabilities of these new systems will significantly change the composition and nature of Pakistan’s nuclear posture.

India is following this development closely and is also modernizing its nuclear arsenal and fissile material production capability. The growing size, diversity, and capabilities of the Pakistani and Indian nuclear postures challenge their pledge to only acquire a minimum deterrent. Bilateral arms control talks and international pressure are urgently needed to halt what is already the world’s fastest growing nuclear arms race."

"Losing the War on Terror"? Retrospective from 12 July 2006

2011-08-22T23:32:00.000+10:00

This article was originally published on 12 July 2006. With continual suicide bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan now (in August 2011) has anything changed?

Kids welcome soldier from 5/7 Royal Australian Regiment (RAR) in a small village on the outskirts of As Samawah, Iraq. Australians are now being moved to more dangerous areas of Iraq.
An Iraqi policeman guards the governor's house in the same province (Samawah) June 2006. Coalition forces are withdrawing from the province and Iraqi Government forces are moving in. (Looks like a sad result. Terrorist lookalikes, who cannot reveal their identities to their own people (for fear of reprisal) who are supposed to be instilling confidence.)

The following article from French journalist Michel Moutot has been carried in many publications including Middle East Online (below). It provides a French view of the War on Terror but also centers some of its arguments on a recent poll of US “experts”. Excerpts include:
"Despite high-profile arrests, security operations and upbeat assessments from the White House, the United States is losing its "global war on terror," experts warn.

Five years after Washington launched its hunt for those responsible for the September 11 attacks, the world has not become a safer place, and a new large-scale strike against America at some point appears likely, they say.

Even the killing last month of Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, hailed by the White House as a major blow against the terror network, has not dented its ability to recruit new militants or mount attacks.

In May the influential US magazine Foreign Policy and a Washington-based think-tank questioned 116 leading US experts -- a balanced mix of Republicans and Democrats -- on the progress of the US campaign against terrorism.

Among others, they consulted a former secretary of state, two former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and dozens of the country's top security analysts.

The result? 84% believe the United States is losing the "war on terror", 86% that the world has become a more dangerous place in the past five years, and 80% that a major new attack on their country was likely within the next decade.

….For Leslie Gelb, president of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, the unity of views expressed by those questioned reflects a deeply critical attitude towards the administration of President George W. Bush.

"It's clear to nearly all that Bush and his team have had a totally unrealistic view of what they can accomplish with military force and threats of force," he said.

Other experts questioned the very nature of the US campaign.

"It was a doomed enterprise from the very start: a 'war on terror' -- it's as ridiculous as a 'war on anger'. You do not wage a war on terror, you wage a war against people," said Alain Chouet, a former senior officer of France's DGSE foreign intelligence service.

"The Americans have been stuck inside this idea of a 'war on terror' since September 11, they are not asking the right questions."

"You can always slaughter terrorists -- there are endless reserves of them. We should not be attacking the effects of terrorism but its causes: Wahhabite ideology, Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood. But no one will touch any of those," Chouet argued.

…The United States "have fallen into the classic terrorist trap - they're lashing out at the wrong targets," causing collateral damage that boosts the cause of their opponents, he said.

Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA's Osama Bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, agreed that Washington was acting as its own worst enemy in the fight against Islamic terrorism.

…"The cumulative impact of several events in the past two years has gone a good way towards increasing Muslim hatred for Americans, simply because they are Americans," he said, citing Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and the East-West row over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

"Each of these events is unfortunate but not terribly serious for Western minds. But from the Muslim perspective they are deliberate and vicious attacks against the things that guide their lives and their faith."
Comment

With the recent Mumbai bombings and a related matter (Israel's invasion of the Gaza strip and Southern Lebanon) assessments of progress, if any, in the "War on Terror" are all the more crucial.

My initial reaction to Moutot’s article was “bloody French. What do they know? They failed in their own counterterrorism/insurgency efforts in Vietnam and Algeria. They’re biased and traded heavily with Saddam’s Iraq and currently with Iran”

But Chouet's statement jumps out: "You can always slaughter terrorists -- there are endless reserves of them. We should not be attacking the effects of terrorism but its causes: Wahhabite ideology, Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood. But no one will touch any of those".

The War on Terror is being fought under foreign policy constraints (realities?) that will prolong it if not make it unwinnable. Saudi Arabia was the country most directly linked with 9/11 on the basis of the origin of the hijackers and likely funding. However relations with this country are presumably seen as too important to let a complete counterterrorism campaign offend it. Why didn't Western intelligence agencies have, after 9/11, the same pressing need to enter Saudi Arabia that they had regarding Iraq and Afghanistan?

Another issue is methodology. Terrorist bodycounts (as Chouet said) are not relevant because “vacancies” can always be filled with more of the faithful.

Killing high level terrorist leaders is a little more relevant if it is seen as removing the foundation roots of the terrorist network.

However, even if the remainder of the loose al Qaeda network is destroyed unaffiliated groups (as in the 7/7 London bombings) can cause mayhem. Suicide bombing knowledge, methods and explosives recipes remain on the internet. Strong religious hatreds remain. Arab and Iranian sources of funding remain available that are separate to any incriminating connections with terrorist groups.

The subjective opinions of a large number of “experts” and then a statistical measure used by Foreign Policy (for objectivity) looks like a sound methodology although its only based on US "experts", many of whom are participants in counterterrorism policy and therefore may be strongly biased.

Perhaps the French and Foreign Policy article expect too much. Statements have been made, certainly in the UK and Australia, that the counterterrorism effort may take many years. Bush has also talked of stabilization. So a statement that one is “winning the War on Terror” should be seen more as an electoral slogan and less a public expression of an intelligence assessment.

So counterterrorism strategy is a fuzzy and intrinsically tragic picture.

How can one assess whether the “War on Terror” is succeeding, failing or staying the same?

Pete

Russia and India's PAK FA - Export Possibilities

2011-08-16T12:30:00.001+10:00

Su 35 in foreground - a PAK FA (T-50) behind it.

Interesting photos and comments particularly about South Korean interest in the PAK FA and the broader prospect of the PAK FA competing with the F-35 (JSF) for export orders.

http://defensetech.org/2011/08/15/fighter-porn-russias-pak-fa-stealth-jet/

Pete

China's, India's and Pakistan's Future Nuclear Relationship

2011-08-06T11:36:00.001+10:00

Click on map to expand to clarity.

The following are excerpts from an article Nuclear Weapons Stability or Anarchy in the 21st Century: China, India, and Pakistan, dated February 25, 2011 by Thomas W. Graham, Ph.D.

The article carries this disclaimer: "The views expressed in this paper are those of this author and do not reflect Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Department of Energy [America's nuclear weapon development umbrella organisation (DOE)] or any other organization. The analysis is based entirely on open source and unclassified information."

While the following is largely opinion the proximity of the author to the '"coal face" of America's nuclear weapons research industry makes his words more significant.

http://www.npolicy.org/article_file/Nuclear_Weapons_Stability_or_Anarchy_in_the_21st_Century__China,_India,_and_Pakistan_250211_1545.pdf

"...Current conventional wisdoms suggest [future] change in nuclear status and politics will be incremental. This may turn out to be tragically wrong if global nuclear dogma is influenced strongly by the unstable triangular nuclear weapons competition among China, India, and Pakistan. Three indicators are worth watching to foreshadow whether the world will move toward nuclear stability or anarchy in South West Asia.

First, will countries stabilize their operationally deployed nuclear forces at the approximate level of 150-200, 300-500 or larger?
Second, will these three countries adopt compatible and increasingly stable nuclear postures or will they continue to cling to three divergent nuclear postures?
Third, will future military crises be resolved with or without use or threatened use of nuclear weapons?

...to help us assess forthcoming global nuclear stability, it is imperative to take a fresh look at the dynamics of contemporary nuclear force structures and modernization in South West Asia.

...China, India, and Pakistan will continue to maintain three mutually incompatible nuclear doctrines. Multiple drivers for nuclear force modernization in each country will provide sufficient domestic and bureaucratic political pressure to expand and modernize nuclear weapons for decades to come.

Given this situation, proposed arms control treaties such as the CTBT and FMCT will not be implemented. Both proposed agreements are opposed by all three countries to varying degrees. The roots of their opposition are not being addressed seriously with policy research, strategic planning, or diplomacy.

…The United States has adopted a neo-Cold War nuclear posture to keep a few European allies quiet and to avoid a major bureaucratic fight between the White House and a few civilian Pentagon officials who work closely with Republican allies on Capital Hill. …Perhaps the administration’s logic was that it perceived the demonstration effect of a fundamentally new American nuclear posture would have little significant impact on thinking in China, India, and Pakistan.

So why pay a short term domestic political price for the prospects of marginal increases in long-term stability? However, absent such a fundamental change and serious discussions between the U.S. and China, one can predict with a high degree of confidence that business as usual will produce nuclear arms races in South West Asia for decades.

Other reasons to sustain a business as usual approach are obvious. America will continue to spend approximately ten billion dollars per year on national missile defense to neutralize potent domestic constituencies regardless of technical feasibility and negative impact on Russia and China.

The United States does not want to think seriously about steps it could take to address the Kashmir conflict because it is so complex, India’s position has been set in stone for decades, and it is easier to think of India as a global economic power sympathetic to American values.

The United States has not invested in civilian governance and rebuilding civil administrative capability in Pakistan because the military is the only functioning entity in the country in the short term. Honest and capable civilian political leadership in Pakistan is almost entirely lacking and will take many years to develop and mature.

Pakistani born Islamic terrorists and “India-phobic and paranoid” Pakistani strategic culture is acknowledged by American decision makers as a key problem, but American decisions and actions are focused almost exclusively on the war on terror. The perception persists in both Washington and Islamabad that “the U.S. needs Pakistan more than Pakistan needs the U.S."

In this context, adding the nuclear weapons issue to an overly crowded policy agenda with Pakistan will definitely over-load the circuits. The net result is probably that Pakistan leaders have concluded they can build as many nuclear weapons as they can produce plutonium and highly enriched uranium. They will take symbolic steps to better secure nuclear materials and weapons, but the question of “how much is enough” is off the table.

If this business as usual situation continues, the world should ready itself for a very rough ride in terms of nuclear weapons in the next two decades of the 21st century. South West Asia will be the dominant driver to an unstable world our children will rightly accuse us of having ignored to their peril. American decision makers in the 1980s chose to ignore on the ground realities after the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan.

The blow back next time will be orders of magnitude larger and more tragic." See WHOLE ARTICLE.
-
Pete

Hacktivists generating a counter-hacking industry.

2011-07-31T00:08:00.000+10:00

'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' glamourising hacking. In her case amateur signals intelligence gathering.

(photo via The Age)

From Australia's (Melbourne) Age, July 30, 2011:

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/attack-of-the-cyber-insider-20110729-1i4do.html

"Attack of the cyber insider"

"ZONE-H.ORG is a shadowy website based in the small Arizona desert city of Scottsdale. It's an archive of web pages that have been attacked and defaced - it is updated daily - in an uprising that has led one Australian computer hacking expert to label 2011 ''the year of the hack''.

''The situation has got out of control this year,'' says Phil Wurth, managing director of Content Security, one of the growing number of ''ethical hacking'' firms who fix holes in websites for Australian businesses and government.

...Swedish author Stieg Larsson glamorised the image of the counterculture hacker with his character Lisbeth Salander in his The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ''Millennium series''.

''There's been this wave of unrest,'' Gatford says. ''It feeds into the rising up of groups like Anonymous and LulzSec, who protest against things they feel are not appropriate.'' The Mosman website was targeted probably only because it had a gov.au URL, he says.

Hacking of government and corporate websites, whether serious or minor, stayed largely secret in Australia because there was no compulsion to report the breaches. Those hacked, Gatford says, were reluctant to admit it for fear of damaging their reputation and being targeted again.

Security team leader at penetration testing firm Content Security, Ken Pang, said fear of further attacks stopped hacked businesses from issuing warnings to other businesses. ''Don't challenge the hacker,'' he says. ''Not a smart thing to do.'''
-
Pete

Likely Israeli "Spy" killed in Christchurch Feb 2011 Earthquake.

2011-07-20T14:39:00.005+10:00

[Tragically killed in the line of duty] - photo (via Israel's YNet news) of Ofer Mizrahi .

Ofer's van after the quake (via YNet news)

-
My comments are in [ ] brackets and at end. msnbc.com (Asia Pacific) June 20, 2011 reports:

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — One of the victims of the February [2011] earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand may have been an Israeli spy [intelligence officer who had the job of collecting NZ passports for later use by Mossad, Shin-Bet or Israeli military intelligence] according to a report in The Southland Times.

The man, Ofer Benyamin Mizrahi, 24, was carrying five passports with him at the time of his death, according to the Times. The newspaper's reports centered around a possible breach of New Zealand's national police computers. The Times said police and the nation's Security Intelligence Service [NZSIS] were investigating

New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key, who was in Los Angeles Tuesday, declined to comment on the report other than to say "there had been no misuse of the police computer system or New Zealand passports by Israeli citizens," The Southland Times reported.

Mizrahi was one of three Israelis who died in the Feb. 22 earthquake, according to the Israeli media outlet Haaretz. Around 120 Israelis were living in the area around Christchurch at the time of the 6.3 magnitude quake, which destroyed most of the central business district in the southern city of Christchurch.

Misrahi and three other people were in a van that was crushed by a falling pillar. Misrahi was killed, but the others were able to extricate themselves, the Times said.

Mizrahi's three companions, one man and two women, photographed the crushed van and rendezvoused at a city square that Israeli officials had designated an "emergency meeting point," then were able to travel back to Israel within 12 hours, The Southland Times said.

[further proof that the passport gathering activity was an extensive and expensive Israeli operation comes from this: ] New Zealand authorities later confronted an "unaccredited Israeli search and rescue squad" and [armed New Zermed guards removed the Israeli "squad"] from the sealed-off area in the city, the Times said. This squad was one of two private search parties brought from Israel to New Zealand, without prior coordination with local authorities in New Zealand, [Israel's] Haaretz reported.

Israel's ambassador to the South Pacific region, Shemi Tzur [putting on a bold face] said the spy reports were "science fiction," The Southland Times said. New Zealand police say they are confident their computer system is secure.,

Adding to the intrigue is a comment [probably originatinating from a Russian FSB or SVR helper] posted on the website of Pravda, a Russian newspaper. The comment said the earthquake disrupted an Israeli spy base in Christchurch."
-
COMMENT
-
Israel obtains and uses "real" passports from popular, neutral countries, like New Zealand, for Israel's worldwide intelligence operations. One reason is that holders of Israeli passports are banned from most Middle Eastern countries.

Invaluable Wikipedia reports that Israeli agents visiting NZ were earlier caught red-handed in 2004 attempting to acquire NZ passports:

"In July 2004, New Zealand imposed diplomatic sanctions on Israel over an incident in which two Australian based Israelis, Uriel Kelman and Eli Cara , who were allegedly working for Mossad, attempted to fraudulently obtain New Zealand passports by claiming the identity of a severely disabled man. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom later apologized to New Zealand for their actions.

New Zealand cancelled several other passports believed to have been obtained by Israeli agents. Both Kelman and Cara served half of their six-month sentences and, upon release, were deported to Israel. Two others, an Israeli, Ze'ev Barkan, and a New Zealander, David Reznick, are believed to have been the third and fourth men involved in the passport affair but they both managed to leave New Zealand before being apprehended." see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossad#New_Zealand .

I think Israeli intelligence officers would not consider NZ a physically dangerous place to operate - particularly compared to the Middle East and other Muslim countries. Christchurch has suffered many severe earthquakes over the last few years - full of dangerous "acts of God" for anybody.

Probably the Mossad-NZ passport (and other "legend" background biodata) roadshow might attempt to move elsewhere in NZ's South Island (Invercargill?) to elude NZSIS attentions. Presumably NZ's North Island is a bit "hot" to operate in with much higher numbers of NZSIS "watchers" and observant foreign diplomats from other countries.

Israeli intelligence is probably helpful to Western intelligence services so deserves some sympathy for Ofer Mizrahi's death. However Israel has been caught too many times in NZ and Israel's known use of NZ passports endangers genuine New Zealanders who rely on their NZ passports to travel safely.

Pete

Chinese Defence Industry Way Ahead of India's

2011-07-19T13:42:00.001+10:00

China's J-20 stealth fighter prototype

-
India's Business Standard, July 18, 2011 reports:

'China's defence industry offers lessons to India"

article mentions Chinese developments including the J-10, early J-20 and DF-21B anti-carrier ballistic missile.

Article ends:

"...China’s defence industry has achieved major recent successes, triggered by its restructuring at the end of the 20th century. Earlier, the Chinese defence industry was separated, Soviet style, between research and development (R&D) and manufacturing units. When the R&D developed a product, the defence industrial ministry — called the Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (Costin) —would assign a factory to build the equipment. But when the factory got the blueprints, there was confusion because they had not been involved in the design.

“The Chinese leadership saw that this did not help the national interest; it only helped the defence industry. One of the first reforms was to overturn the power of Costin and allow the military a central role in overseeing the defence industry. If you don’t have end-users, particularly war fighters and the acquisitions community, playing a central role, then you’re not going to have innovation. If you’re just going to have industry administrators, then they are going to be looking just at their interests,” says Tai.

The result has been surging growth in the innovativeness of Chinese defence industry. In 1998, they filed for 313 patents. In 2008, it had gone up to 11,000 patents. In 2010, 15,000 patents were applied for.

India’s defence industry today mirrors its Chinese counterpart in 1998. The R&D element (the DRDO) functions separately from the manufacturing element (the defence PSUs). India’s military has little say, and no oversight, in what is researched and manufactured. And the Indian ministry of defence’s department of defence production is an accurate mirror image of China’s Costin, pushing back the innovative private sector to safeguard the interests of the state-owned enterprises."
-
Pete

Latest Terrorist Tragedy in Mumbai - 13 July 2011 Bombings

2011-07-14T15:23:00.003+10:00

Forensic cleanup to determine who did it and how.

BBC News reports, July 14, 2011:

"Mumbai (Bombay) and other Indian cities have woken up to a state of high alert after three blasts [on Wednesday, July 13, 2011] shook the commercial capital, killing 17 and hurting dozens.

Indian PM Manmohan Singh appealed to the people of Mumbai "to remain calm and show a united face".

-
Later the United Nations strongly condemned Wednesday's attack, describing it as "heinous".
-
No group has said they carried out the atttack, which took place in three districts during evening rush hour.
-
Earlier, Maharashtra state's Chief Minister, Prithviraj Chavan said he believed the blasts were "a co-ordinated attack by terrorists", as the explosions had occurred within minutes of one another.
-
The attacks are the deadliest in Mumbai since November 2008 when 10 gunmen launched a three-day co-ordinated raid in which 166 people were killed.
-
'Home-made bombs'
-
One explosion was reported in the Zaveri Bazaar, another in the Opera House business district and a third in Dadar district in the city centre.
-
All three bombs were reported within a 15-minute period, starting at around 1850 local time (1320 GMT).
-
Police sources were reported as saying the explosions were caused by home-made bombs. Mumbai was put on a state of high alert and a commando team is standing by.
-
The capital, Delhi, Calcutta and several other cities have also been put on alert, with police being stepped up at public places like malls, cinemas, parks and transport terminals..." FULL ARTICLE.
-
COMMENT
-
"Home-made bombs" causing this tragedy suggest home-grown terrorists but the synchronised nature of the blasts might suggest a higher level of coordination. Terror groups from Pakistan (by land, air or sea) will, of course, feature in the list of suspects.
-
This is a list of major terrorist incidents in India since 1987, including the November 26, 2008 ("26/11" Mumbai Massacre) and the September 13, 2008 (5 bomb blasts in Delhi markets) - which is more similar to the latest July 2011 bombings.
-
Very sad. I hope the perpetrators (bombers and planners) will be captured and haven't had the choice of killings themselves.
-
This kindly provided link "India’s elite commandos wait for snipers, night goggles" indicates that even after the 26/11/2008 Mumbai Massacre the Indian Government has not armed the National Security Guard (NSG) or other elite forces with the latest equipment.
-
Updating much of NSGs equipment would probably cost less than one jetfighter - and should boost public confidence in the Indian Government.
-
Pete

Malaysian Issues - Protests and (Separatly) Scorpene Submarines

2011-07-14T14:38:00.001+10:00

Malaysian protester arrested by police.

-
Agence France Press reported July 14, 2011:

"US airs concerns on Malaysia crackdown"

"WASHINGTON — The United States on Wednesday voiced concern about Malaysia's weekend crackdown on an opposition-backed rally and said it would keep an eye on developments.

Riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to end Saturday's rally to demand electoral changes and arrested more than 1,600 people. One demonstrator was killed.

"We do have some concerns," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters. "We... continue to stand for the right for people to freely express their democratic aspirations and express their views freely."

"I would stress that those must be peaceful demonstrations," Toner said. "We continue to monitor the situation closely."... FULL ARTICLE
-
COMMENT
-
Malaysia is in the unenviable situation of having a finely balanced ethnic mix that is similar in some respects to Fiji in the 1970s. That is the number of comparative newcomers (as early as the 15th century but mainly in the last 200 years) is similar to the number of more indigenous people. Malaysia is attempting to avoid the types of upheavals (social and in government structure) suffered in Fiji.
-
However some Malaysian laws regarding race and other democratic issues (such as a right to protest) are unacceptable to the US (with its worldwide mission of western style freedom of speech).
-
Scorpene Submarines
-
The geographic division of Malaysia between West (Peninsula) Malaysia and East (part of the island of Borneo) Malaysia separated by the South China Sea complicates Malaysian governance and strategic defence. Malaysia's purchase of two French Scorpene submarines is partly to this separation by geographical separation as well as protection of the future undersea (Ambalat) oil fields Malaysia claims.
-
Pete

Sectarian Violence in Karachi - Begiinning of Broader Slide into Anarchy?

2011-07-09T10:51:00.002+10:00

Photo by Asif Hassan of Agency France Press

An excellent and deep anaylsis of the sectarian strife in Karach (which also affects Pakistans relations with the US and NATO) is at http://ramanstrategicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/07/karachi-beirut-of-south-asia.html by B. Raman, amongst other high posts a former senior officer in RAW (India's CIA).

The following Report from ABCOnline, July 9, 2011, is less detailed but perhaps a better beginning to read into the subject:

'Pakistan struggling to quell political war'
-
'By South Asia correspondent Sally Sara, and wire services: Security forces in the Pakistani city of Karachi have been ordered to shoot on sight to stem violence in which 85 people have been killed since Tuesday.

Police and soldiers are struggling to stop gunfights between rival political and ethnic groups in the southern Pakistani city. Thousands of people are stranded in their homes as the violence escalates in Pakistan's biggest city. Shops, schools and offices are closed, petrol stations have been set on fire, and many families are running low on food and water.

"The walls of my house are riddled with bullets. Many of our household items have been destroyed. Most of time we duck inside the house to save ourselves from frequent volleys of bullets," said Akber Khan from Orangi neighbourhood.

"We are so afraid. We haven't slept for nights. One day I was on my balcony, when some bullets were fired at our house, Allah saved me. I haven't been on the balcony since," said eight-year-old Shaista Ahmed.

Witnesses said many people have started fleeing troubled neighbourhoods to stay with relatives in safer areas. Amnesty International said the shoot on sight policy had effectively declared Karachi "a war zone" and sent the message that government security forces were "above the law".

"Given the Pakistani army's record of human rights violations and impunity, such licence given to the security forces, in a volatile situation, can only be a recipe for disaster, encouraging lawlessness, further violence and killings," said Asia-Pacific director Sam Zarifi.

The government has now deployed an extra 1,000 extra troops to the area.

Interior minister Rehman Malik has appealed for an end to the bloodshed. "At least 80 people have been killed in the violence since Tuesday. The number of injured is more than 100," Mr Malik said, claiming that security forces had arrested 89 suspects over the killings.

The latest bout of violence comes just days after the the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the dominant local party that represents Pakistanis who migrated from India, walked out of the federal government led by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). Some analysts say the move has made it harder for the government to control the violence.

"With MQM out of the ruling set-up it is getting difficult for the government to normalise the situation. The government is helpless," said Tauseef Ahmed Khan, a professor at the Urdu University.

Pakistan's Human Rights Commission says up to 490 people have died in targeted killings in Karachi over the last six months. "The first half of the current year has been the bloodiest in the last 16 years for Karachi and second only to 1995 when over 900 killings had been reported in its first half," said its chairwoman Zohra Yusuf' - ABC
-
COMMENT
-
Is this the beginning of broader anarchy in Pakistan or a usual event in Pakistan's ongoing tragedy?
-
Pete

Why would India want to develop a 10,000 km Range ICBM?

2011-07-07T15:53:00.003+10:00

Some confusion in ranges. Inner circle (purported range of an Agni III) seems a PR beatup. Note distance from Delhi to Beijing is around 3,800 km. Inner circle may be extreme range of Agni III with light payload.

If (?) India has developed 500kg thermonuclear weapons then a light payload might be viable. Inner circle is more like a standard load Agni V - perhaps in-service 2017? Outer circle is touching on ICBM range of a future Surya I - perhaps deployed 2022? Map is from Asianews.
-
India's The Pioneer, June 19, 2011, reports:

'10,000-km ICBM on cards'

'Rahul Datta | New Delhi - India is seriously contemplating to enhance the reach of its strategic missiles. The Defence Ministry is considering a proposal to develop intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) [often labelled Surya 1 or 2] capable of hitting targets 10,000 km away.

At present, there is a voluntary cap on developing missiles beyond 5,000-km range and the ICBM capabilities will propel India into the elite league of nations possessing the deterrent with nuclear warheads — China, the US, Russia and the UK [France and Israel (Jericho II)].

The proposal for developing ICBM capabilities was moved by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) last month and currently being examined by the Defence Ministry. Since it is a major policy decision as ICBM has international ramifications and India is a nuclear weapon State, sources said here on Saturday that the ultimate decision to go for it would be taken by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS).

Air Chief Marshal PV Naik had recently pitched for developing ICBMs with a strike capability of 10,000 km and beyond, given India’s growing influence globally. While he had called for breaking out of the regional context, he also questioned the need for capping the missile programme, especially, if India had the technical capability to build it.

Explaining the significance of the proposal, sources said the Government had put a voluntary moratorium on developing a missile beyond a range of 5,000 km. This cap came about after India successfully test-fired Agni-III missile [see missilethreat.com Agni III specs] with a range of more than 3,000 km in 2006.

The Agni-III test enabled the DRDO to develop capabilities for an ICBM but a political nod is needed to go ahead. The Agni series of missiles fall into the category of intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) which can hit a target at 5,000 km. The DRDO will carry out preliminary tests of Agni-V [see more Agni V details] in December this year or early next year. This missile will have a range of 5,000 km.

India embarked on the indigenously designed and produced integrated missile development programme in the late 1980s and successfully developed Prithvi, Akash and Agni series of missiles. With the successful launch of Agni-3, the Government announced that the integrated missile programme had concluded.

As regards the ICBM, sources said the main objective of the proposed programme is to develop capabilities and have a deterrent in place to counter the growing military might of China. The neighbour has a very robust and the state-of-the-art missile programme, including ICBMs, and the capability to shoot down a missile in space.

Keeping this factor in view and the growing economic and strategic stature of India in international community, the security establishment has urged the political leadership to go ahead with the ICBM programme, sources said.

The security establishment wants India to develop ICBM as New Delhi is not part of Missile Technology Control (MTCR). Moreover, though a declared nuclear weapon State, India has resisted international pressure to ink Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as it has a ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons doctrine in place. This policy was announced after India conducted the Shakti series of nuclear tests in 1999.

All the UN Security Council countries having ICBMs can fire these long-range missiles from land or underwater from submarines known as submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). The first ICBM was reportedly developed by the erstwhile Soviet Union during Cold War with the US, and China quickly followed.

While short range and medium-range ballistic missiles known as theatre ballistic missile carry conventional warheads, ICBMs which can travel across oceans and hit targets across continents are strategic weapons with one or more nuclear warheads.

COMMENT

Granted extending Indian missile to 10,000 km will put all of Russia, Western Europe and Australia in range but not the US. So why extend to 10,000 km?

Isn't China the only distant enemy (and that would be within 5,000 km (Agni V) range)?
-
Pete

Update On Australian Plans to Acquire Global Hawk style UAVs - Force Posture Review

2011-07-03T23:20:00.004+10:00

The Australian Force Posture Review, announced June 22, 2011, will consider a wide range of issues - many specifically related to Australia's attitudes to the Indian Ocean strategic environment.

One issue is the massive size of the Indian Ocean and what are the best ways to keep is under surveillance. Australia uses or envisages using a wide range of ways (called "platforms") to watch:

- the whole Ocean:

using military/intelligence satellites owned by the US with some constant feeds to such ground stations as Pine Gap (central Australia) and Geraldton (on the mid coast of Western Australia).
land (Exmouth/North West Cape north coast of Western Australia) and navy ship based radio (eg VLF band) intercept stations. Perhaps also submarines...

- narrow/coastal surveillance -

to an extent all of the above as well as interception and radar equipment on small naval patrol boats and coastwatch boats, naval aircraft (see below) and coastwatch aircraft.

- mid range surveillance

land based, long range radar - the Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) is an over-the-horizon radar network that can monitor air and sea movements out to (officially) 3,000 km. JORN radar stations are situated at Longreach, Queensland (JOR1) and a second near Laverton, Western Australia (JOR2), a control centre in Edinburgh, South Australia (JCC).
coastwatch aircraft and naval patrol P-3 Orions. There have been initial steps to acquire P-8 Poseidons to replace the P-3s by 2018.

After the P-8s are in service 2018-2020 the Australian Government intends to acquire high altitude long range surveillance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) ) - also called 'Tier III' UAVs. This intention was announced in Subsection 9.70 of Australia 2009 Defence White Paper, which reads:

We will also acquire up to seven large high-altitude, long endurance UAVs to supplement the manned maritime patrol aircraft. These large UAVs, with an ocean -spanning range, will markedly expand the surveillance coverage of the maritime approaches to Australia, in both area and duration. They will also have a significant overland capability to provide support to our ground forces in a range of circumstances. Strategic UAVs provide persistent ISR, enhancing our situational awareness in both the land and maritime domains.

Global Hawk is the largest (weighs around 10 tonnes) and most well known long range (around 25,000 km), high altitude (20,000 metres or 65,000 feet) UAV but may be too expensive for Australia with capabilities that may be under-utilised by Australia alone.

Large (Tier III) UAVs are currently expensive and advanced niche platforms only operated by the US. Put another way only the US can currently afford large UAVs in a force mix that covers all Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) modes.

Australia is considering eventual acquisition of a large UAV type under Defence Material Organisation (DMO) AIR (for "air"-craft) 7000. AIR 7000 . AIR 7000 Phase 1B seeks"

- "Multi-mission Unmanned Aerial System (MUAS) [yet another acronym :] - a..."High Altitude Long Endurance Unmanned Aerial Systems for maritime patrol and other surveillance." At a cost of A$1,000 million to A$1,500 million which might buy 3 or 4.

In view of the high cost of Global Hawk and the network/shared nature of large scale surveillance information (already applying to satellites) it is possible that the US might operate Global Hawk from Australian landing sites. The arrangement might be of the leased/joint facilities type that already applies to Exmouth and Pine Gap. One might expect all information gained from Global Hawk to be fed to US and Australian defence agencies.

However joint control has its downsides perhaps in terms of the US and Australia having different mission objectives and the possibility Australia may not get the full feed.

Since the deployment of Global Hawk in the early 2000s considerable miniturisation of effective UAV sensors and computer processors has been achieved. This should permit medium sized UAVs to perform the long endurance ISR role that Australia needs. Hence the long delay in Australian acquiring mid-large sized UAVs might be beneficial in such UAVs developing into smaller scale, affordable, technology.

Australia has also considered, is, or will be considering, other (medium) UAVs including:

- the Mariner - a marine ISR version of the Reaper .

- the Boeing Phantom Eye under early development, using an an advanced propeller engine, much longer planned range/endurance projected than Global Hawk.

- perhaps the stealth UAV Sentinel or a similar stealth UAV might be a future possibility, and

- several other medium UAVs under development in the US or planned by US corporations.

The Australia Force Posture Review is highly likely to further develop doctrine for the use of a (AIR 7000 Phase 1B) medium-large UAV - though just an incremental step in a long process to 2021. The Force Posture Review is due to release a public report in 2012.
-
Pete

Different F-35 Stealth Features to Different Countries. Why? and Indian MMRCA?

2011-06-28T00:34:00.006+10:00

The F-35 - a serious new entrant in India's MMRCA competition?

-
This article http://defensetech.org/2011/06/23/how-stealthy-is-your-f-35/ appears to be an attempted "expose" of the unsurprising possibility of differing F-35 stealth suites for each customer country). The article talks of "the source on the Australian internet is but I don’t think he’s inside the program office". Anyone who can visualize technology transfer policy or who writes about F-35's frequently could be part of the "source" - not me of course.
-

Probably most advanced US jets would have (or have had) some differences in their export models based on such issues as the recipient country's:
.

- security record or agreed status. Australia and perhaps only the UK and Canada have the closest security-technology treaties with the US - (probably) particularly on protection of stealth features and source codes. So Australia, Canada and the UK are well placed to get the best stealth suites outside of the US. I'm certain that the US would have numerous (less close) agreements or understandings with other counties (eg. Japan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands etc). However for a variety of reasons these agreements and understandings might be kept confidential.
- degree of loyalty to the US alliance including participation in US military operations (eg. being in Afghanistan)

- how important a country is to the US (eg. Canada is important due to NORAD (sharing the North American continent). Israel is always boosted on this measure as well as acquiring US weapons for lower prices or gratis)

- how much each country is paying (eg. Saudi Arabia) ,

- stealth needs of the country (what stealth suite has the customer country asked for?)

- commonality of F-35 software and hardware with a country's existing wares.

- the US Government and the main supplier (Lockheed Martin) may also have legitimate marketing strategies expressed as differences in F-35 stealth features between countries.
- one wonders what the chances are of Lockheed offering the F-35 to India for India's MMRCA tender?

- another factor in the degree of F-35 stealth might be how early and fully a country invests its taxpayers money towards US national risk and Lockheed corporate risk in developing the F-35. As an early investor Australia has probably already poured around $300+ million into the F-35 project.

The Australian Government routinely sheds the odd $100 million to a $billion in defence project errors. Hence it should not be too late to bail out of the F-35 if the F-35 drags out further overtime, overbudget, below technical expectations compared to emerging Russian and Chinese developments.
-
Perhaps the US will over the F-22 in 2020 after its loyal allies have been politically pressured (behind closed doors) into buying the one and only present "choice" - the F-35. This might be an excellent marketing strategy for Lockheed Martin and its main current host nation (the US).
-
Boeing is providing competing products mainly based on the proven F-15, specifically the F-15SE Silent [Stealthy] Eagle. The F-15 would have many electronic and supply chain commonalities with the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornets that Australia has just received. But purchasing an advance on a proven aircraft will be shot down as it goes against all bureaucrat inclinations since 1980 which is to:
- create problems that can be solved
- over quite some years
- in a career advancing way
- for the fragmented many concerned
- with a minimum of accountability for allies, federal and state governments, politicians, officials, senior officers, main contractors and smaller contractors
- it being only taxpayers' money shared all round.
.

This is something I wrote about Australia's F-35 in 2008, called "Don't Buy in Haste" which achieved some short-term notoriety - and hasn't been proven wrong to date.
-

Pete

Vietnam's Naval Buildup Against China - Indian and Australians Visits

2011-06-21T10:44:00.005+10:00

[Click on Defense Industry Daily diagram to expand greatly] Improved Russian Kilo (Project 636) for Vietman - which may have sufficient improvements to be classed as a Project 677 ("Lada").

Excerpts of the Financial Times June 14, 2011 which reports:

"Vietnam shift could see return of US ships"

...The historic military facility [at Cam Ranh Bay] located within one of Asia’s best natural harbours, is at the centre of a strategic push from Vietnam to counter China’s growing assertiveness over disputed waters [especially the Spratly Islands] in the commercially important South China Sea....

...Cam Ranh Bay, houses Vietnam’s small navy. The Bay extends for 20 miles north-south and is up to 10 miles wide...last year, Nguyen Tan Dung, Vietnam’s prime minister, said he would let foreign naval ships use the base again to dock, resupply and undergo repairs on a commercial basis.

The move may generate some cash once the now crumbling facilities are refurbished, security analysts say. However, the main justification for opening up the bay is to balance China’s naval dominance in the South China Sea, which encompasses key global trade routes, valuable fisheries and is thought to sit atop vast oil and gas reserves.

“Who’s going to take up the offer to visit?” says Carl Thayer, an expert on security in the South China Sea at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra. “Precisely those navies that China doesn’t want in the South China Sea, including the Americans, South Koreans Australians, and Indians.”

One senior Asian defence official argues that the US will be keenest to take advantage of the opportunity to use the base, which offers great protection from storms and is located close to key commercial shipping lanes and the disputed [Spratly] islands. “The US has a Pacific fleet and it’s been more aggressive than many other countries in trying to build closer contacts with Vietnam to counter China’s rise,” he says.

The planned reopening of the base to foreign naval vessels is a sign of the shifting global strategic sands, with China’s inexorable rise causing concern among those such as Vietnam and the US, pushing these old enemies closer together.

Although Vietnam has developed deep economic and political ties with its larger northern neighbour since the 1990s, the relationship is coming under pressure because of China’s increasingly aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea, according to Ian Storey, a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, who studies maritime security.

China, which recently built a large naval base on Hainan island, to the north of the disputed waters, increasingly has the capability to deploy coercive diplomacy in the South China Sea, says Mr Storey. Recent incidents where Chinese maritime surveillance vessels have tried to sabotage Vietnamese oil exploration ships show Beijing also has the political will to do so.

Hanoi has responded by seeking to internationalise the territorial dispute, calling on other claimants to some of the contested Paracel and Spratly Islands – Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan – to hold joint talks and attempting to bring in the US as a mediator.

Despite macroeconomic difficulties, Vietnam has boosted its spending on military hardware, agreeing to buy a number of Sukhoi SU-30 jetfighters and six Kilo-class diesel submarines from Russia.
Once delivered in the next year or two, the submarines are expected to be based at Cam Ranh Bay, which analysts say Russia has agreed to refurbish as part of the $2bn contract to supply the craft.

...changing dynamics of global security mean that, in a twist of fate, American and Russian ships may soon be back at Cam Ranh Bay, this time working alongside each other and the Vietnamese to counterbalance an ever stronger China.

BACKGROUND ON VIETNAM'S 2009 KILO PURCHASE

http://rusnavy.com/news/navy/index.php?ELEMENT_ID=9667 "Rosoboronexport signed a delivery contract on six Project 636M diesel electric submarines to Vietnam during visit of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to Russia on Dec 15, 2009. All subs will be built at Admiralteyskie Verfi shipyard in St. Petersburg; rate of delivery is one sub per year. Total contract value of submarines construction makes $2.1 bln. Considering establishment of appropriate coastal infrastructure in Vietnam, delivery of arms and other systems, total sum could reach $3.2 bln." [Vietnam's Kilos may have sufficient improvements to class them as Project 677 "Lada" Submarines.]

On the Kilo see also http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/kilo/ and
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Vietnam-Reportedly-Set-to-Buy-Russian-Kilo-Class-Subs-05396/
-
Pete

US Taxpayer Still Buying Spy Gear for Pakistan

2011-06-19T20:56:00.001+10:00

Undercover Pakistan ISI in Afghanistan.

-
Wired.com June 16, 2011 reports:

[US taxpayer] "Still Buying Spy Gear for Pakistan."
-
Here’s what nearly $2 billion in annual U.S. aid to Pakistan purchases:...retrofitted aircraft that serve as spy planes; surveillance equipment; and assorted spy gear. Even after years of Pakistani intelligence intransigence on terrorism, the U.S. is still bankrolling the Pakistani spy apparatus.

Those are just a few items in the goody bag for the U.S.’ Pakistani frenemies, as revealed by a stroll through a U.S. government contractors’ database. Congress may bridle at the open spigot for Pakistan as the counterterrorism relationship deteriorates. But since the money is still flowing, the contracts keep on coming.

For instance: the Air Force wants maintenance crews to train Pakistanis at a Rawalpindi air base how to service Beechcraft B350 King Air planes. Those are the small aircraft the U.S. has souped up to serve as bays for spy cameras and communications interception, or for cargo delivery. Pakistan bought a few from the U.S. last year. The U.S. Air Force is still looking for pilots to train the Pakistanis how to fly them and use their intelligence equipment. They’ll come in handy the next time Pakistani intelligence wants to tell terrorists they’re being hunted.

Then there’s a more mysterious spying suite the U.S. is handing the Pakistanis. The [US] is testing the market to see who can provide engineering, logistics and software support for a “variety” of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance “technology insertion and support projects“ in Pakistan and other Mideast and South Asian countries....

Credit to the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus for catching this one: a ground-based surveillance system that “intercepts and locates the sources of enemy communications and then permits continued monitoring of them.” Now the Pakistanis will know exactly whom not to arrest.

If you’d like to paint the F-16s that the U.S. sold to Pakistan, step right up. Same goes for providing them with forklifts. And if you’re going to Pakistan, make sure you pack a bulletproof vest.

Two successive U.S. administrations have been unable to coax more than grudging, intermittent support for counterterrorism from Pakistan’s spy agency. Documents leaked by WikiLeaks point to the U.S. military’s ongoing belief that [ISI] continues to back Afghan insurgents that kill U.S. troops. And this week, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, accused Pakistani military officers and spies of actively aiding bin Laden.

The appropriations committee in the House decided this week to place conditions on U.S. aid to Pakistan, but they’re not very restrictive: the Obama administration will just have to explain how it intends to spend the cash Congress provides. Don’t expect to stop underwriting Pakistani spycraft anytime soon.

Pakistan's ISI still protecting al Qaeda's interests after bin Laden

2011-06-16T14:51:00.004+10:00

-
bin Laden's (ISI protected) Abbottabad Compound. Did Saudi unofficial aid money pay for its construction and running costs?
-
The New York Times June 14, 2011 reports that Pakistan (ISI) is retaliating against those Pakistanis who may have assisted the US to find and watch bin Laden at Abbottabad.
-
In arresting Pakistanis who may have assisted the US the ISI is effectively warning other Pakistanis (and the US) that future meddling in ISI's good relations with al Qaeda won't be tolerated.
-
New York Times article in part reads:
-
"Pakistan Arrests C.I.A. Informants in Bin Laden Raid"
-

-....Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan.

...The fate of the C.I.A. informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, but American officials said that the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, raised the issue when he travelled to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.

Some in Washington see the arrests as illustrative of the disconnect between Pakistani and American priorities at a time when they are supposed to be allies in the fight against Al Qaeda — instead of hunting down the support network that allowed Bin Laden to live comfortably for years, the Pakistani authorities are arresting those who assisted in the raid that killed the world’s most wanted man.
-
The Bin Laden raid and more recent attacks by militants in Pakistan have been blows to the country’s military, a revered institution in the country. Some officials and outside experts said the military is mired in its worst crisis of confidence in decades.

...But in recent months, dating approximately to when a C.I.A. contractor killed two Pakistanis on a street in the eastern city of Lahore in January, American officials said that Pakistani spies from the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, known as the ISI, have been generally unwilling to carry out surveillance operations for the C.I.A. The Pakistanis have also resisted granting visas allowing American intelligence officers to operate in Pakistan, and have threatened to put greater restrictions on the drone flights.

Another casualty of the recent tension is an ambitious Pentagon program to train Pakistani paramilitary troops to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban in those same tribal areas. That program has ended, both American and Pakistani officials acknowledge, and the last of about 120 American military advisers have left the country.

....In a sign of the growing anger on Capitol Hill, Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who leads the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that he believed elements of the ISI and the military had helped protect Bin Laden [statin the bleedin obvious].

Page 2 ....He warned that both lawmakers and the Obama administration could end up putting more restrictions on the $2 billion in American military aid received annually by Pakistan. He also called for “benchmarks” in the relationship, including more sharing of information about militant activities in Karachi, Lahore and elsewhere and more American access to militants detained in Pakistan.

...American officials said [CIA boss] Mr. Panetta presented satellite photographs of two bomb-making factories that American spies several weeks ago had asked the ISI to raid. When Pakistani troops showed up days later, the militants were gone, causing American officials to question whether the militants had been warned by someone on the Pakistani side.

Shortly after the failed raids, the Defense Department put a hold on a $300 million payment reimbursing Pakistan for the cost of deploying more than 100,000 troops along the border with Afghanistan, two officials said. The Pentagon declined to comment on the payment, except to say it was “continuing to process several claims.” [End of abridged version]
-
COMMENT
-
If Pakistan did not have nuclear weapons would Pakistan be "hosting" a large US/NATO/Australian occupation force of the type already in Afghanistan?
-
Unfortunately nuclear weapons, by they in Pak, Israel or North Korea automatically draw $ Billions in "aid". This massive monetary (or oil or food) aid is really a type of protection money to ensure that these three nuclear "pariahs" will not feel compelled to use their nuclear weapons.
-
Pete

Trident Debate - Cruise Missiles Ineffective in Leading a UK Nuclear First Strike

2011-06-12T14:02:00.003+10:00

-
One of four British Vanguard Class SSBN - at its Scottish base area (from UK DailyMail).
-

-
The UK Trident missile system on the current Vanguard submarine platform (from UK DailyMail).
-

-
A British Royal Navy Tomahawk Cruise missile - which may replace UK Trident - or more likely mixed with the UK future Trident capability.
-
-
The UK has been unable to decide for the last decade or so whether it will replace its Trident SLBM (its only active mode of warhead deployment) with an updated Trident system in a new class of 3 or 4 SSBN's. The UK might choose nuclear cruise missiles as the new deterrent or a combination of Trident and cruise. Fortunately US Multiple All-Up-Round Canister (MAC) technology could replace each Trident missiles with up to 7 Tomahawk cruise missiles per "Trident" tube.

The issue Britain's post Vanguard SSBN/Trident SLBM naturally comes up amongst us pacifists. Some advocate Britain going even further than the US in Britain completely replacing its Trident ballistic missiles with Tomahawk (or next generation) jet powered cruise missiles.

Concerning ballistic missiles vs cruise, the UK Ministry of Defence appears to primarily rely on the alleged technical disadvantages of cruise (in terms of payload, range, speed and vulnerability) compared to ballistic - see The Future of United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent (Trident White Paper) 2006, page 25 http://www.mod.uk/nr/rdonlyres/ac00dd79-76d6-4fe3-91a1-6a56b03c092f/0/defencewhitepaper2006_cm6994.pdf .

I've conjured up the scenario of a first strike by Britain against a nuclear enemy to highlight the downsides of cruise. Speed (in a first strike scenario - say against Russia, China or a nuclear armed Iran) might be the most compelling issue. If a ballistic missile armed enemy detects a UK cruise missile attack early on (say by satellite infrared or signals traffic analysis) - the enemy may be able to launch and complete a second strike even before the UK cruise missiles have hit their targets.

The risk exists that UK cruise would arrive too late, destroying, the enemy's now empty missile silos, truck/train mobile launchers and air bases (from which nuclear armed fast jets are now winging away to destroy British targets). The enemy (particularly an efficient Russia or China with S-400 SAMs) may also have shot down a significant number of UK cruise.

Trident also permits rapid multiplication of a nuclear attack by producing theoretically up to 12 MIRVs per Trident as well as jammers and many decoys. While cruise's are very stealthy they can't split into MIRVs.

Another problem with cruise is the inherent ambiguity of that missile mode with both nuclear and conventional traditions. The enemy may not know whether a UK cruise missile attack consists of all nuclear, some non-nuclear WMD, all conventionally armed warheads or a mixture.

An untrustworthy future Iran may work on a nuclear missile use them or lose them basis due to Iran's likely relatively small number of ballistic missiles within the next two decades. Hence any US, UK, Israeli, or French concept that conventional weapons are "safer" when used against a nuclear state may all go horribly wrong and lead to nuclear retaliation by that state (especially an emerging nuclear state (like North Korea now) that has only "narrow" nuclear options).

The deterrent "benefit" of nuclear MAD becomes more complex if conventional, or non-nuclear WMD's make uncertain the 'comfortable certainties' of nuclear MAD.

I agree that the option of installing four Trident missiles tubes (say four) modified Astute SSN's may avoid the vast development cost and inevitable time delay of building four new (single role) Trident SSBN's. See http://navy-matters.beedall.com/astute.htm (scrolling 3/4s down):

"Another factor that emerged in June 2004 is the possibility that the Maritime Underwater Future Capability (MUFC) studies currently being undertaken might result in a new multi-role nuclear submarine with an ISD as early as 2020 (rather than previous estimates of 2030) in order to allow it to replace the Vanguard Class SSBN's. MUFC would probably be improved Astute type design, but with 16 VLS tubes for cruise missiles or 4 more versatile Trident missile tubes."

If the ballistic vs cruise debate in the UK is still unresolved by 2020 the advantage of Multiple All-Up-Round Canister (MAC)s tube is Trident or vertically launched Tomahawks can be fitted, mixed or altered later. As each Trident MACs tube can fit 7 Tomahawk cruise missiles (as is already occurring with several US Ohio ex SSBNs) then 4 Astute Trident MACS tubes could mean 28 vertically lainched Tomahawk as well as horizontally launched torpedo tube Tomahawks. The convergence going on in the US (with Tomahawk missiles (in VLS) in Virginia SSN's and in some Los Angeles SSN's as well as wholly or partly Tomahawk armed Ohios) suggests the possibility of the UK following the missile versatility trail and on already developed Astute class subs.

-
Watch this blog for future discussions on nuclear options for all nuclear countries (except the US which is already well covered).
-
Peter Coates

So Cisco Cooperates with the NSA - Big Deal!

2011-06-08T23:06:00.010+10:00

-
A vastly simplified representation of the largely telephone exchange and undersea cable system of intercepting your phone use and regular internet activities (if there's content or relationship of interest to any particular government) .
-
-

This little article got me thinking and chirping about the ultra-organised seventy year old world sigint system.

So Cisco cooperates with the NSA - big deal! Much like other telcos and ISPs which have been legally required to cooperate with the NSA (and FBI) for the last 30 years or more. Given the split second international interceptability of world communications national legal systems need to move quickly to legalize the fast developing technical capabilities of Sigint services.

The enormity of the NSA's and the FBI's relations with Iridium, Cisco, Verizon, AT&T, the Bells, Facebook and Twitter etc is legally required and unsurprising.

A more detailed description is that a signals intelligence (sigint) service (eg NSA) cooperates with security services (eg FBI) in interception activities. The activities are to track, intercept and store transmissions within the world telecommunications network (including landline, cell phone, email, websites, or VoIP etc) wherever they go domestically or internationally as long as these activities conform to the law - and as long as the information is of official interest.
-
A standard, though sensitive variation, is cross-interception wherein (as a close neighbour example) the NSA and Canada's CSE sigint body agree to "spy on each other's citizens"(see 7th para of http://tscm.com/csedom.html). and then trade the intelligence gained (its actually legal in their domestic law and also facilitated by interlinked telephone exchanges, as well as common software and hardware) whatever is most efficient and legal in specific data stream situations.

Seventh paragraph of reads "CSE and Canadian Communications" http://tscm.com/csedom.html :

An even greater loophole in the legal protection of domestic communications (``private'' or otherwise) exists as a consequence of CSE's membership in the UKUSA community. This membership gives Canada extensive access to the SIGINT output of the other UKUSA member agencies, including the US National Security Agency. It is, of course, entirely legal under US law for the NSA to intercept Canadian domestic communications. It is also - apparently - entirely legal under Canadian law for CSE (and thus the Canadian government) to receive such intercepts, or any information derived therefrom, from the NSA, even if it would not have been legal for the Canadian government to intercept those communications in the first place. It appears that it would even be legal for the Canadian government to request that NSA intercept specific Canadian domestic communications. (Such an arrangement would enable the government to monitor anyone of its choosing while stating, truthfully, that no agency of the Canadian government was engaged in such activities.) It is not likely that this kind of activity currently is taking place on a large scale; NSA has more pressing targets for its eavesdropping resources. It is important to recognize, however, that there are no apparent legal impediments to such an exchange of information."

As a variation on spying using telecommunications - a couple of years ago Russian spies (from SVR) more or less openly used social media sites in the USA to rather obviously spy on the USA - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program . What also gave them away was their bank accounts being almost openly topped up with money regularly wired from Russia. Hard to know whether these Russian spies were in it to milk the Russian Government of money while knowing that the US Government were be on to them. After being the world's most obvious "spies" they were traded a while ago for alleged Western spies and are now heroes on big pensions in Russia. But this digression is more about Humint than the topic of this post which is Sigint.

-
The Western Sigint services have been associated with such terms as "Enigma, Ultra, Magic, Venona and Echelon" however "UKUSA sigint alliance" is probably a more useful way to describe the Anglo/English speaking international network. Other European organisations might also interact with UKUSA such as the French DGSE (Technical Division)). Meanwhile the opposition includes sigint areas of Russian civil intelligence (FSB (which absorbed FAPSI) and military (GRU) intelligence and the sigint areas within Chinese civil (MSS) and military (PLA) intelligence.
-

As well as MSS and PLA sigint areas China appears to coondinate thousands of mainland Chinese hackers to collect intelligence and conduct denial of service (DoS) activities. This is the best article I've seen drawing together Chinese hackers loosely cordinated by MSS and the PLA. However Russia may also coordinate DoS. While Western hackers sometimes cooperate to penetrate sensitive sites and also conduct DoS on a mass basis. Official US encouragement of Twitter to facilitate anti-Iranian Government campaigns is also suspected.
-
Mass hacker collection and DoS are very confusing pictures. About the only constant is that the US (and sometimes Australian) Government points the finger at Chinese activities almost as a reflex action. There appears to be a racist component to the ease of pointing. US concern that the Chinese superpower is becoming a threat in the international communications arena, formerly dominated by the US, may also partly explain finger pointing.
-
Part of the problem is that Western internet systems exist in difficult to regulate democracies of highly autonomous international internet consumers. It is difficult to regulate the internet particularly to the satifaction of sigint organisations which frequently have an orderly-military heritage.

China's more public modus operandi is no more legitimate or illegitimate than the way Western countries hack China, Russia or each other every second of the day.

Pete

Indian Special Forces - Could they also launch an operation like the one against bin Laden?

2011-06-07T23:52:00.003+10:00

National Security Guards (NSG) masked for anonymity.

-
The following is another excellent article by Kumar from Kumar's Blog, The Lone Ranger. Note that an edited version of Kumar's article appeared in the website of Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) at http://www.claws.in/index.php?action=master&task=859&u_id=158 .

"Tuesday, June 7, 2011 'Indian Special Forces - Capabilities and Shortcomings'

-
Does India have the ability to launch operations similar to Operation Neptune’s Spear? What are the requirements for undertaking such missions?

The US operation in Abbottabad has raised the question whether India can carry out similar strikes on Pakistani soil or any where around the globe against fugitives wanted in India on terror charges.

India, like any other country does have its own Special Forces – the Army has Para Commandos, which are elite airborne units and the Ghatak Platoons which are attached to each infantry battalion of the Army, the Navy has the Marine Commandos (MARCOS for short), and the Air Force the Garud. Besides, India has the National Security Guards (NSG), a Special Response Unit which is primarily tasked with counter terrorism activities, the Special Frontier Force whose one squadron is responsible for counter-terrorism duties and the various state police have their own Special Task Force for special operations, like for instance Jammu and Kashmir Police has the Special Operations Group to tackle terrorism.

Opinion seems to be divided if we really have the intelligence and military capabilities to emulate the operation carried out by the US Navy SEALs in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011 to neutralize Osam bin Laden.

In the backdrop of Osama bin Laden’s killing in Abbottabad, India’s Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik and Indian Army chief General V.K. Singh declared their forces have the capability and competence to carry out a commando operation outside the country to target terrorists.

‘There is no doubt about it. The army, navy and air force are paid to be ready. None of the services chiefs is going to say he does not have the capability,’ says retired Commodore C. Uday Bhaskar, director of naval think-tank National Maritime Foundation, when asked about the services chiefs’ comments.

Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal, director of army think-tank Centre for Land Warfare Studies, concurs with Uday Bhaskar. ‘We virtually have the same capability (as the US Navy SEALs),’ Kanwal told IANS, pointing out that the army itself has over half-a-dozen special forces battalions trained to carry out such attacks on strategic targets. Brigadier Kanwal, however added that India should look at energising its external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) for getting its wanted, rather than use its armed forces.

‘To be very honest, it is not possible to disclose if we have these capabilities or not. But, yes, we have the joint strategic capability for any special task that the government assigns to the armed forces, not necessarily in the neighbourhood, but anywhere around the globe,’ Air Marshal P.K. Barbora, former Indian Air Force (IAF) vice chief, told IANS [the Indo-Asian News Service]..

‘But the decision on such operations is not taken by the uniformed personnel. It is taken by the political leadership after receiving all inputs including the implications and fall- out, and after planning for all exigencies, be it a nuclear conflict,’ Barbora said.

The Contrary View

According to Lt. General R. K. Nanavatty, who has been involved in planning aspects of Indian Special Forces and has been studying the subject for years, India does not have the capabilities of executing an operation similar to Operation Neptune’s Spear. Nanavatty said “We are not capable for a variety of reasons. Political understanding of special operations is very important then only you can commit money, time and technology for nurturing such a force. “Special Operations today are controlled by men who do not understand them”.

Lt Gen P C Katoch, a former SF officer and a leading expert on Special Operations, said major operations by Indian troops have at various stages demonstrated what was wrong with them. “There are problems of intelligence, logistics etc. Our SF forces are doing what conventional troops can do and there is an overall lack of political willpower to nurture the capability with long term vision,” said Katoch, who led an SF unit in Sri Lanka with the Indian Peace Keeping Force in the 80s and has also been involved in planning of Indian SFs. “Our men are ready, but minus intelligence, support etc,” Katoch pointed out.

General Katoch pointed out that many of the mistakes of 1988 when Indian troops carried out an unsuccessful operation to capture the top leadership of the LTTE including its supremo Prabhakaran from Jaffna University were there to be seen in November 2008 in Mumbai when NSG commandos were deployed to take on the Pakistani terrorists. A decade back in 1999, a team of NSG commandos tailed hijacked IC814 aircraft to the Gulf region but returned. They couldn’t also think of carrying out a surgical operation in Kandahar for a host of reasons including lack of airlift and political will.

According to Colonel Anil Athale, the Indian State does not have the will to carry out such operations and hence has not created the wherewithal to carry out strikes like Operation Neptune’s Spear.

The Essentials

The two essential pre-requisites for conducting a successful special operation are availability of hard intelligence and sophisticated technical support. To elaborate, the planners and executors of this type of operation must be fed with concrete real time intelligence about the mission or objective to be accomplished. For instance, when the Israelis executed the raid at Entebbe in 1976, the commandos and the senior military commanders sitting in Tel Aviv were fully aware of the location of the hostages, the number of terrorists, the layout of the terminal building, etc. The commandos knew where their targets were, where precisely the Ugandan troops were stationed and how reinforcements, if any, were to be neutralized. There were no loose ends.

In the absence of human intelligence (HUMINT), it may be impossible to carry out a successful operation. America's Central Intelligence Agency maintained a safe house near Abbottabad town for a small team of spies who conducted extensive surveillance on slain Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's compound for months before President Barack Obama signed an order to kill the most wanted terrorist on April 29. It is estimated that the US has had about 3000 operatives active in Pakistan at the time of the Abbottabad raid.

The second essential is the availability of technological support such as satellite imagery of the target area, stealth technology for the purpose of infiltrating and exfiltrating of the operatives undetected and secure communications. India’s Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) capabilities are quite limited. India, in April 2009 launched its first dedicated radar reconnaissance satellite Radar Imaging Satellite 2 (or RISAT-2). The radar has an Israeli-built primary sensor which allows RISAT-2 to return images at any time of day, and in any weather conditions. India also has Cartosat-2 launched in 2007, which according to some experts may be used for military purpose. India needs to augment its space-based intelligence gathering capabilities.

Another important essential for carrying out special operations is political will. India lacks the political will to carry out any type of surgical strikes against non-state as well as state actors, notwithstanding the fact India has repeatedly been subject to terror strikes sponsored by Pakistan. In 1999, when IC 814 was hijacked and flown to Kandahar, Indian commandos merely tailed the hijacked aircraft but did not attempt a hostage rescue mission. Again in 2001, in the aftermath of the attack on Indian Parliament, the political masters could not muster the political will to carry out surgical operations against Pak-based terror outfits. It was the same story in 2008. Israel on the other hand, has displayed considerable amount of political will in striking back at its adversaries and has the unique distinction of having struck against non-state actors far from its borders.

India’s past experience of special operations (involving its Special Forces) have been limited in its scope. Barring Operation Cactus (1988) in Maldives, the failed mission to nab the leadership of the Tamil Tigers in Jaffna in 1988 and Operation Khukri (June 2000) in Sierra Leone all Special Forces’ operations have been carried out within the country, mostly in Jammu and Kashmir and in the North-East. In Operation Cactus a battalion of the Parachute Regiment was air-dropped to rescue and assist the government of Abdul Gayoom against the mercenaries belonging to the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and Operation Khukri was a daring rescue mission conducted by the Para Commandos in Sierra Leone resulting in the rescue of 21 hostages.

In Operation Blue Star (June 1984), commandos of the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment were unsuccessful in reaching the edge of the sacred pool to the Akal Takht. The National Security Guards (NSG) was established pursuant to an Act of Parliament called the National Security Guard Act, 1986. It was set up in the aftermath of the infamous Operation Blue Star wherein apart from the high casualties suffered, the shrine itself suffered severe damage. The operation necessitated the need for setting up a highly specialised and efficient force for counter-terrorist operations. Thus, NSG was deployed initially to combat the militancy in Punjab. In Black Thunder I (April 1986) about 300 National Security Guards commandos stormed the Golden Temple along with 700 Border Security Force troops and captured about 300 separatists.

Two years later, in May 1988, the Golden Temple was again besieged and the security forces conducted Operation Black Thunder II and were successful in eliminating about 40 militants and forced the surrender of 200 militants. Operation Ashwamedh was an operation conducted in April 1993 when NSG commandos stormed a hijacked an Indian Airlines aircraft with 141 passengers on board at Amritsar airport. The lone hijacker, Mohammed Yousuf Shah, was killed in the operation. In September 2002, again the NSG carried out Operation Vajrashakti to flush out two heavily armed LeT terrorists who had caused carnage in the Akshardham Temple, Gandhinagar. In this operation, while the terrorists were killed, nearly 29 devotees and two commandos and one state police officer were also killed. About 79 devotees were also injured in the terrorist attack.

It is important to remember that all operations carried out by Special Forces have not been successful. The US which is lauded today for its operation against the terror master-mind Osama bin Laden had to face embarrassment and political backlash in April 1980 when the then US President Carter authorized an operation to rescue fifty-three American citizens held hostage in Iran ended in disaster. Operation Eagle Claw, as the ill-fated rescue mission was called resulted in the death of eight US servicemen. The fireball in the Iranian desert took the Carter presidency with it.

Concluding Observations

In conclusion, it must be said that though India has Special Forces, they have been largely used as a kind of super-infantry - employing them on missions which the regular army would baulk at. India does not lack brave men and officers, but what it does not currently possess is the right blend of political will, politico-military-intelligence integration and specialized technology that make these operations possible.

As former Intelligence Bureau chief Ajit Doval says "What we need is to have a national political will accepting active national self defence as a doctrine to neutralise the enemies of India”. "The nature, instrumentalities and deniability quotient of covert actions should be determined by our mission objective, intelligence capabilities and requirements of consequence management," he added.

By their very nature, all Special Forces operations are fraught with not just physical danger, but grave political consequences may ensue from failure. A goof-up in Abbottabad would have led not only to the possible capture and death of the US Navy Seals, but a possible sinking of Barack Obama's presidency as in the case of Operation Eagle Claw.

An edited version of this article appeared in the website of Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) http://www.claws.in/index.php?action=master&task=859&u_id=158 "

COMMENT
-
The estimate of "3,000" US "operatives" in Pakistan may have originally come from A. S. Dulat, who in 1999-2000 was the head of India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). or "R&AW". A S Dulat is recorded in an Indian rediff News article May 5, 2011 as saying ""Do you know how many intelligence operatives work for America inside Pakistan? What is India talking about? There are around 3000 intelligence operatives helping Americans collect information." It would be likely that most of these "operatives" are Pakistani "helpers".
-
A. S. Dulat is recorded by Indian Military News May 8, 2011 http://indianmilitarynews.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/pakistan-would-have-been-more-trigger-happy-with-indian-aircraft/ ) : "The US has around 3,000 operatives in Pakistan, whereas India does not have even 300. The CIA is very much at home in Pakistan, something that India can’t achieve."
-
Pete

AFGHANISTAN - LETS HOPE AUSTRALIA'S LEADERS CAN DROP SAD U.S. SAYINGS

2011-06-03T18:21:00.003+10:00

I'm hoping that General Hurley, the new Chief of the Defence Force, and Defence Minister Smith will not insult all Australians with that brainless excuse for destroyed lives "stay the course" (coined by an average US President (Bush Senior) a sad, bad US President (his son) and unfortunately by a in retrospect, good US President (Ronald Reagan). I've heard it before from recent serving Australian officers, who have clearly benefitted from association with America's bigger, better, war machine. No names no pack-drill.).

Both Canada (still there but pressing to leave) and the Netherlands (just left Afghanistan) have experienced more years of death in Afghanistan than the bulk of Australian forces. Some Canadians (who have lost more than 150) and Dutch pro-war advocates clutched for reasons to stay in Afghanistan. However no pro-war advocate could genuinely locate plausible reason for fighting Afghans (for Afghan democracy!) other than being there because America wants our countries to be there - and we have to be loyal to the world's most powerful Army 'or China may in time get us' - goes the mantra.

Sadly India also wants Western forces in Afghanistan because that places US fighting forces on Pakistan's western front - all the better to lessen some of the genuine strain on India's western front. Few countries in the world (this side of South Korea) have such a dangerous neighbour - an unstable, extremist, country, whose main claim to fame is being the custodian of way too many 'Islamic Bombs'.

Our Australian, Canadian, UK and other NATO flags flying alongside America's are a diplomatic cover to disguise America's particular national strategic reasons for having us all in Afghanistan indefinitely (having mentioned them before in a post too long). If counter-terrorism was the reason then America could easily run a counter-terrorism campaign on its own with just a few thousand troops rather than a full-fledged counter-insurgency with over 100,000 troops and us and NATO.

The political opportunities of the Afghan campaign is revealed in Obama's apparently prescient decision in 2009-10, that 2 years hence, that is next year (2012) 30,000 US troops could and will be 'de-surged' back to America. This partial, but triumphal, return will symbolize Obama's sound leadership in war (essential for continuing US Presidents) just before the 2012 US Presidential Election. Funny forward thinking that.

We haven't heard "stay the course" from General Hurley, our new Defence Chief, as each of our brave troops' bodies return. The Chief, looks far too wise, and too humane, to echo U.S. leaders' lies, I hope.
-
Peter Coates

Background on May 2011 IRA Bomb Alerts in London and Dublin

2011-05-17T12:13:00.013+10:00

Police cordon off St James's Park, London after a (suspected "Real IRA") security alert near Buckingham Palace on Monday morning. Even more extensive security precautions are taking place in Ireland with the Queen due to visit in hours.

In what looks like an IRA campaign to dissuade the Queen from visiting Ireland, on (Tuesday May 25, 2011) a "viable" improvised explosive device (IED) was disarmed "made safe" in Maynooth (a satellite town near Dublin). There has been another bomb scare (proven a hoax) on Tuesday in Dublin itself. Hopes now appear obsolete that the IRA has dissolved or restricted itself to peaceful practices. It may not be useful to distinguish the "Real" from the "Provisional" IRA's because they may share many dual members - this assumes that the combined IRA hard cores are very small - perhaps less than 100 people.
-
see this Sky News video http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Video-Queen-In-Ireland-Irish-Police-Say-Bomb-Threat-Will-Not-Make-Them-Alter-Security-Measures/Article/201105315993434?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_0
-
This Guardian article is well written (perhaps originally by MI5? due to its comprehensive nature) with useful background.
-
"Central London warned of bomb threat"

Londoners asked to remain vigilant after Met police receive coded warning from dissident Irish republicans

By Vikram Dodd and Henry McDonald

Scotland Yard anti-terrorism officers were investigating a "coded" bomb threat to London from Irish republican dissidents hours before the Queen was due to depart for Dublin on a historic visit.

The Metropolitan police and MI5 were on high alert over a telephone warning made by a caller claiming to represent a dissident republican organisation on Sunday afternoon. The Met released news of the alleged bomb threat to the public at lunchtime on Monday .

A spokesperson for the Met said: "A bomb threat warning has been received relating to central London today. The threat is not specific in relation to location or time.

"The Metropolitan police service, City of London police and British Transport police are working closely together and all officers have been advised to be a highly vigilant to ensure the safety of London. Policing operations and contingency planning remain under constant review and a wide range of overt and covert tactics will continue to be used in London.

"At this time Londoners should continue to go about their business as usual but we encourage the public to remain vigilant and report any information about unusual activity or behaviour which may be terrorist-related to the confidential anti-terrorist hotline on 0800 789 321 ."

Although the republican dissidents have not bombed Britain in nearly a decade they still have the skills and the resources to do so.

[BACKGROUND]

While the Provisional IRA decommissioned most of its explosives in the middle of this decade a substantial arms dump ended up in the hands of the Real IRA.

In addition over the last two years the Real IRA has successfully smuggled a quantity of Russian-made TNT explosives into the Irish Republic as well as perfecting a new more accurate type of mortar bomb launcher.

Last year in an interview with The Guardian the Real IRA warned that England remained a key target for the terror group.

A crackdown on suspected republican dissidents prior to the Queen's arrival is happening on both sides of the Irish border.

In Dublin a massive security cordon has been thrown up around the city centre with the public being kept away from main arterial routes on which the Queen and her entourage will travel.

The Garda appear to be taking no chances with securing the route and have even taped off and closed public telephone boxes on the north side of the river Liffey.

There is a heavy Garda presence along the Liffey quays and north towards O'Connell Street. The security forces have also closed off Parnell Square around the Garden of Remembrance – one of the first venues the Queen will visit later.

Republican Sinn Féin has organised a demonstration in the nearby Summerhill area of Dublin's north inner city which security sources fear could turn violent at Garda lines close to the top of O'Connell Street.

Owen Paterson, the Northern Ireland secretary, meanwhile, used his powers to revoke the license of ex-IRA prisoner Marian Price and ordered her to be put back into prison. The former Old Bailey bomber appeared in a Derry court charged with "encouraging terrorism" over her presence at a Real IRA rally on Easter Monday. Price, a known republican stalwart, has been one of the most vocal critics of Sinn Féin's peace strategy regarding it as a sell-out of traditional republicanism.

This week's royal tour of the Republic is a major gamble for the new Fine Gael-Labour government in Dublin who want to use the Queen's visit to showcase Ireland after months of negative global publicity following the country's fiscal crisis. The taoiseach Enda Kenny has said he hopes the trip will further boost the numbers of British tourists coming to Ireland.

This is the first visit by British royalty to Ireland since 1911 and has attracted huge international media attention. More than 1,000 journalists from around the world are in Dublin for the three-day tour."
-
FURTHER BACKGROUND
-
The Real IRA - " The Real Irish Republican Army, otherwise known as the Real IRA (RIRA) and styling itself as …"Volunteers of Ireland", is a paramilitary organisation which aims to bring about a united Ireland. Formed in 1997 following a split in the Provisional IRA, it is an illegal organisation in the Republic of Ireland and designated as a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and the United States.

The organisation has been responsible for a number of bombings in Northern Ireland and England, most notably the 15 August 1998 Omagh bombing, which killed 29 people. On 7 March 2009 RIRA members claimed responsibility for an attack on the Massereene Barracks that killed two British soldiers, the first to be killed in Northern Ireland since 1997."
-
Wiki further advises - "Marian Price (born 1954) was one of the Price sisters jailed for her part in the IRA London bombing campaign of 1973. Price was part of a unit who placed four car bombs in London on 8 March 1973. The Old Bailey and Whitehall army recruitment centre were damaged with 200 injured and one man died of a heart attack."
-
Pete

Credible Account of the Operation to Kill Osama bin Laden

2011-05-08T20:03:00.005+10:00

Hopefully any arrangement to replace bin Laden will not produce such an effective leader.
-
A friend of longstanding, Kumar, from India, has written this excellent account of Operation Geronimo/Neptune's Spear to eliminate Osama bin Laden. In contrast to a week of perhaps understandably contrary US announcements and leaks (the US must wish to protect sources and methods) this account appears very credible. Kumar produced this and other comprehensive, high quality, articles on his website The Lone Ranger. This is Kumar's article in full:
-
"Operation Geronimo renamed Operation Neptune's Spear
Thursday May 5, 2011.

Note: The information contained in this post is drawn from various sources)

(Originally reported as Operation Geronimo it was subsequently reported as Operation Neptune's Spear, with Jackpot as the code name for bin Laden as an individual and Geronimo as the code word for bin Laden's capture or death)

May 2, 2011 will go down in history as a red-letter day in the War on Terror. The world’s most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden was killed in a pre-dawn operation in a highly fortified compound housing a mansion in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad, located about 30-40 miles north of the capital Islamabad. (Abbottabad is an important military cantonment and sanatorium, being the headquarters of a brigade in the Second Division of the Northern Army Corps).

The Operation

With heavy cloud rolling in over the town of Abbottabad, conditions were perfect for the raid to take out Osama Bin Laden after ten years on the run. The operation which was scheduled to take place the previous night was cancelled because the weather was clear and the U.S. aircraft would have been spotted from a distance. From Tarbela Ghazi Air Base in Pakistan, the modified MH-60 helicopters made their way to the garrison suburb of Abbottabad. Aboard were Navy SEALs, flown across the border from Afghanistan, along with tactical signals, intelligence collectors, and navigators using highly classified hyperspectral imagers. The entire operation which lasted less than 45 minutes was carried out by members of the elite and highly secretive Naval Special Warfare Development Group commonly known as DEVGRU and informally by its former name SEAL Team Six and backed by members of the CIA’s Special Activities Division (SAD). It appears that about 20 to 25 Special Forces operatives in four helicopters carried out the raid. Some reports indicate that nearly 79 members of the US Special Forces/SAD were involved in the raid. (Apparently 79 personnel traveled in four helicopters. However, the actual raid was conducted by about two dozen operatives).

The target of the operation was the compound, which had at its centre a three-storey building known as Waziristani Haveli or Waziristan Mansion. This house was in a residential district of Abbottabad's suburbs called Bilal Town and it was known to be home to a number of retired military officers from the area.

When the helicopters landed outside, men emerged from the aircraft and spoke to locals in Pashto, witnesses told BBC Urdu. People living in the area, known as Thanda Choha, were told to switch off their lights and not to leave their homes. According to residents of the area, there was no electricity in the area at the time of the operation.

Two dozen U.S. Navy Seals wearing night-vision goggles dropped into the high-walled compound. They stormed inside to secure the terror chief’s hideaway room by room, with head cameras relaying the action to the President and the director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, who was overseeing the operation at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Bin Laden and the DEVGRU team encountered each other on the second floor or third floor of the residence; bin Laden was "wearing the local loose-fitting tunic and pants known as a shalwar kameez". He was later found to have €500 and two phone numbers stitched into his clothes. Although there were weapons in the room, including an AK-47 and Makarov pistol, bin Laden was unarmed at the time he was shot. "The encounter with bin Laden lasted only seconds," according to Politico, and took place during "the last five or 10 minutes" of the raid. Bin Laden was killed by at least one and possibly two American bullets, one of which struck the left side of his head, another shot was widely reported to be a bullet to the chest.

Following the shootout with bin Laden, his body was carried out and taken away in one of the helicopters. Three men, including one of his sons, and a woman, who tried to act as a human shield to save him, were also killed. The raiding team did not suffer any casualty.

The raid was intended to take 30 minutes. All told, the time between the team's entry in and exit from the compound was 38 minutes. Time in the compound was spent neutralizing defenders; "moving carefully through the compound, room to room, floor to floor" securing the women and children; clearing "weapons stashes and barricades" and searching the compound for information. U.S. personnel removed computer hard drives, documents, DVDs, thumb drives and "electronic equipment" from the compound for later analysis.

At some point in the operation one of the helicopters crashed, either from technical failure or having been hit by gunfire from the ground.

The compound was about 3,000 sq yards in size but people from the area told the BBC that it was surrounded by 14ft-high walls, so not much could be seen of what was happening inside.

The walls were topped by barbed wire and contained cameras.

There were two security gates at the house and no phone or internet

Intelligence and Planning

For nearly a decade, American military and intelligence forces have chased the ghost of Bin Laden throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan, once coming agonizingly close to capturing him in a battle at Tora Bora, in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. As Obama administration officials describe it, the real breakthrough came when they finally figured out the name and location of Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, whom the Qaeda chief appeared to rely on to maintain contacts with the outside world.

A trusted courier of Osama bin Laden’s whom American intelligence had been hunting for years was finally located in a sprawling mansion 35 miles north of the Pakistani capital, close to one of the hubs of American counterterrorism operations. The compound was so secure, so large, that American officials guessed it was built to hide someone far more important than a mere courier.

What followed was eight months of painstaking intelligence work, culminating in a helicopter assault by American military and intelligence operatives that ended in the death of Bin Laden, and concluded one of history’s most extensive and frustrating manhunts.

Detainees at the Guantánamo Bay prison had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators, and said the man was a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. However, it was not until August of 2010 when they tracked him to the compound in Abbottabad, a medium sized city about an hour’s drive north of Islamabad, the capital.

C.I.A. analysts spent the next several weeks examining satellite photos and intelligence reports to determine who might be living at the mansion, and a senior administration official said that by September the C.I.A. had determined there was a “strong possibility” that Bin Laden himself was hiding there.

It was hardly the spartan cave in the mountains where many had envisioned Bin Laden hiding. Rather, it was a large mansion on the outskirts of the town center, set on an imposing hilltop and ringed by 12-foot-high concrete walls topped with barbed wire.

The property was valued at $1 million, but it had neither a telephone nor an Internet connection. Residents of the compound were so concerned about security that they burned their trash, rather putting it on the street for collection like their neighbors.

American officials believe that the mansion, built in 2005, was designed for the specific purpose of hiding bin Laden.

Months more of intelligence work would follow before American spies felt highly confident that it was indeed bin Laden and his family who were hiding in the compound — and before President Obama believed the intelligence was solid enough to begin planning a mission to go after the Qaeda leader.

On March 14, President Obama held the first of what would be five national security meetings in the course of the next six weeks to go over plans for the operation.

Four more similar meetings to discuss the plan would follow, until President Obama gathered his aides one final time last Friday.

Even after the president signed the formal orders authorizing the raid, Mr. Obama chose to keep Pakistan’s government in the dark about the operation.

“We shared our intelligence on this compound with no other country, including Pakistan,” a senior administration official said.

It is no surprise that the administration chose not to tell Pakistani officials. Even though the Pakistanis insisted that Bin Laden was not in their country, the United States never really believed it. American diplomatic cables in recent years show constant American pressure on Pakistan to help find and kill Bin Laden.

US officials, who did not want to be named, said the discovery that Osama bin Laden was holed up in an army town in Pakistan raised pointed questions about how he managed to evade capture and whether Pakistan's military intelligence knew about his whereabouts and sheltered him. Most intelligence estimates figured that bin Laden was holed up in Pakistan's tribal areas, close to the Afghan border, possibly in a cave sheltered by loyal tribesmen.

The house were bin Laden was holed is just 100 yards from the gate of the Kakul Military Academy, an army run institution where top officers train. Giving a graphic account of the operation, ABC quoting officials said some 10 years after the abortive US bid to nab him in the caves of Tora Bora, a small group of American forces in helicopters took just 40 minutes to land in a well-guarded mansion in a secure neighbourhood.

Questions – Answered and Unanswered

Firstly, a question that arises is why did the elusive AQ chief chose Abbottabad to hide? And whether the Pakistani establishment was aware of his presence in Pakistan? It is indeed strange that the world’s most wanted man chose a garrison town in which a brigade headquarters and a premier military training institution is located to hide. The Waziristan Haveli (in Bilal Town) itself was four kilometers north-east of the center of Abbottabad, 650 meters southeast of the PMA-Kakul Road, and 1.3 kilometers southwest of the PMA at 34°10′09″N 73°14′33″E34.16917°N 73.2425°E.

There had been connections between Abbottabad and elements of the Al Qaeda in the past. On September 28, 2001, Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing, provided the United States with a list of 71 al-Qaeda training camps spread across Pakistan proper, at locations as diverse as Abbottabad, Peshawar, Quetta and Warsak In July 2002,

The Christian Science Monitor published the results of a week-long investigation, which provided evidence that "Al Qaeda and an array of militant affiliate groups" had staff offices near the Karakoram Highway - from Abbottabad along the western perimeter of Kashmir - with the tacit approval of Pakistani intelligence. In June 2004, Pakistani intelligence agents killed one al-Qaida suspect as three other fled from a car in Abbottabad as part of a major Pakistani operation to "flush out al-Qaida suspects and their local supporters from hide-outs in a remote region near Afghanistan" that left 72 people dead, including 55 terrorists.

On January 25, 2011, Pakistan authorities arrested one of the most wanted al-Qaeda-linked Indonesian terror suspects, Umar Patek, in Abbottabad while Patek carried one million US dollars head money, but waited until March 30, 2011 to make Patek's arrest public. Hence, it should come as no surprise that the emir of Al Qaeda was hunted down at this place.

To answer the question, Abbottabad was probably not chosen by bin Laden, but rather by the Pakistani ISI. Abbottabad, it was felt, was the most unlikely place where the world’s most wanted man would choose to hide. Moreover, Abbottabad had well equipped medical facilities (belonging to the Pakistan Army) which could provide treatment for bin Laden’s renal ailment and other medical problems. It is thus incomprehensible that the Pak military establishment was unaware of the fact that bin Laden was staying in this place.

The second question is whether, Pakistan was aware of the operation to apprehend bin Laden? Whether the Pakistanis played any role in Operation Geronimo? Experts are divided as to whether Pakistanis were aware of the operation against Laden. Prima facie, it appears that the US chose to deliberately keep the Pakistanis in the dark about the raid. The US intelligence community has had reasons to believe that the fugitive was sheltered and protected by Pakistan and secondly in the past, when the CIA was close to apprehending him, Laden had been tipped off and thereby enabling him to escape capture. There was an apprehension in the US security establishment that Pakistan could not be trusted and made privy to such a sensitive operation as sharing intelligence relating to Laden would have jeopardized the operation. Others believe, that Osama bin Laden was a bargaining chip and he was bartered away pursuant to a deal which would enable Pakistan to have a significant role in the future political dispensation in Afghanistan.

The US, it is alleged is attempting to cover up certain aspects of this operation. Some questions remain unanswered or at any rate, not satisfactorily answered.

 Why did it take the US nearly ten months to execute this operation after it had some intelligence about Osama hiding in Abbottabad. The US received information about the possibility of Laden hiding in his Bilal town residence sometime in August 2010. Since Laden had evaded capture on previous occasions, one would have expected the US Administration to move quickly on the kill, rather than carry out surveillance for this long a period.

 Why were no photographs of Laden’s body made public, especially when there is a lot of disbelief about the entire operation in Pakistan and elsewhere?

 Why have the DNA test results not been made public?

 While acknowledging that Pakistan had no role to play in the operation why have top officials including the US President been thanking the Pakistanis for co-operation?

Conclusion

The operation from a purely military standpoint was a success with few parallels. The operation was backed by accurate and timely intelligence and the raiding team came out unscathed after fulfilling its mission successfully. In other words, it was a classical Special Forces operation executed with near perfection. The only hiccup was the loss of a helicopter. (It is now speculated whether the chopper that went down was a stealth helicopter).

The use of sophisticated technology enabled the US Navy SEALs to achieve their objective.

The operation also was the culmination of a joint effort by different organizations within the US intelligence community, the roles of some of which may never be made public for obvious reasons.

Osama’s death will most certainly result in a violent backlash either within Pakistan or in the form a terrorist attack targeting US interests in any part of the globe. At the time of this writing, India has issued a high security alert for its missions in Afghanistan.
-
Posted by Kumar at 6.12AM"
-
BACKGROUND - HELICOPTERS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN USED
-
No reason why helicopters involved were restricted to MH-60s. Chinooks are likely. Two or three Chinooks involved would have solved accommodation problems. Also there are other large helicopter types that might have been present eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_MH-53#MH-53J.2FM ..
-
Obama's visit to an army base in Kentucky brought my search to Fort Campbell, Kentucky - home of 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) -
-
The 160th officially operate several helicopter types including:
-
- A/MH-6M Little Birds
- MH-60K Black Hawks
- MH-60L Black Hawks

and significantly MH-47G Chinooks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CH-47_Chinook#MH-47G

General characteristics for Chinooks are Crew: 3 (pilot, copilot, flight engineer) and CAPACITY 33–55 troops.
-
"Ron" has corroborated the Chinook use indicating "according to reliable sources, the operators actually called in & rode SOAR Chinooks (CH47) home."
-
The crashed stealth helicopter indicates classified type(s) also used.
-
COMMENT
-
Its almost certain that Pakistani and Saudi reservations would not have hindered US resolve to launch the Op against bin Laden. Naturally the US in any case would not have advised these two countries as they probably would be most likely to warn bin Laden of the impending Op.

It seems likely that the US always intended to kill him on first contact - the risk that AQ terrorists would take hostages to have him released or the Saudi's would request he be tried in Saudi Arabia (perhaps leading to luxurious detention) would have been too great. Bin Laden was also the type to exploit any court case to promote his cause. This is a useful reference to the use of a safehouse, listening devices and satellites.
-
Actually it appears to be standard procedure in the West to kill terrorists (who have murdered others) in operations if they are not required for interrogation or if there is a risk they will detonate explosives or emit some other signal. A case in point is the end of the siege of the Iranian Embassy in London (1980) - only one terrorist survived because he was protected and "covered" with a gun by PC Trevor Lock. I saw the burnt out shell of the Embassy while in London in 1981.
-
The Israeli Entebbe raid was another example of a (mostly) successful raid where all terrorists were killed.
-
Pete

US Official Makes Sensible Comments About Osama bin Laden's Timely Demise

2011-05-06T18:06:00.000+10:00

Michele Flournoy - sounds like she has quite a future.
-
The Voice of America (VoA), May 5, 2011 has reported a better interview than most from a US official.

The week has been filled with contrary official and leaked comments about the demise of poor old OBL. This contrariness may be a US tactic to protect US sources and methods - there being other AQ leaders to kill or capture.

The VoA Report:

"US Official Sees Benefits, Challenges to bin Laden's Death

Pentagon [interview with] Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy

"US Official Sees Benefits, Challenges to bin Laden's Death

A senior U.S. defense official has made the first on-the-record comments from the [Defense] department about the implications of Osama bin Laden's death. The Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Michele Flournoy, said Thursday it could spur reconciliation in Afghanistan, but also poses new challenges for U.S.-Pakistan relations.

Under Secretary Flournoy found herself in the interesting position on Monday of hosting long-scheduled U.S.-Pakistan security consultations. It was just about 15 hours after President Barack Obama had announced that bin Laden was killed by American commandos in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad. She says she had a specific message for the Pakistanis in that meeting....

Speaking to a small group of reporters at the Washington offices of the Aspen Institute onThursday, Flournoy said that "many steps" are needed, including help interpreting the information from bin Laden’s compound, cooperation on ways to put pressure on al-Qaida, and efforts to improve stability in Pakistan and Afghanistan....

"I do think that Congress will have to be convinced to sustain both civilian and military assistance to Pakistan," she said.

That situation was on display at about the same time across town, during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The chairman, Democrat John Kerry, asked some questions that many members of Congress have been asking. "What did Pakistan’s military and intelligence services know? What is appropriate to think they should have known? Who did they think was living behind those 15-foot [4.57-meter] walls?, he said.

Flournoy says there is "no definitive evidence" that Pakistani officials knew the al-Qaida leader was hiding in a town populated largely by retired military officers. But she says the large volume of material taken from bin Laden's compound might prove otherwise.

She also says the Obama administration believes it is important to continue America's partnership with Pakistan in the war on terror, despite concerns about bin Laden’s hideout and other issues, including the sometimes questionable activities of Pakistan's intelligence service.

Senator Kerry expressed a similar view, as did the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar. "We must admit [that] Pakistan is not an easy partner. But distancing ourselves from Pakistan would be unwise and extremely dangerous," he said. Lugar said a break in relations with Pakistan would not only hurt the war on terror, but also would weaken intelligence gathering, increase the danger of a Pakistan-India conflict, end U.S. involvement in helping to secure Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and make U.S. military operations in Afghanistan more difficult.

At the Aspen Institute, Under Secretary Flournoy said bin Laden’s death could hasten the end of the conflict in Afghanistan.

"I think now that Osama bin Laden is dead, some of the personal relationships that connected senior Taliban leaders to him, that tie is broken. And I think that creates an opportunity for them to step forward and renounce al-Qaida and their affiliation with it," Flournoy said.

Flournoy said bin Laden’s death "dealt a very severe blow to al-Qaida," and that she hopes more Taliban leaders will accept Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s terms and join the reconciliation process. Some members of Congress say the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, set to begin in July, should be accelerated. But the Obama administration says the speed of the drawdown must still be based on the amount of progress made toward stability."
-
Pete

India's Rising Prosperity

2011-05-04T10:33:00.001+10:00

Before I start on Ossy's demise this youtube, sent by a mate, reflects India's rising prosperity and optimism:

-
Pete

Exploding Aussie Burnt by Delhi (Games) - Naughty!!

2011-04-27T22:43:00.005+10:00

Fiery Games Ceremony

-
ABCOnline April 26, 2010 reveals:
-
"Aussie doubts he'll be paid for Delhi Games
-
An Australian who provided services to the New Delhi Commonwealth Games last year is worried he will never be paid following the arrest of the event's chief organiser.
-
Authorities say Suresh Kalmadi [for *&^%# shame...] will be charged with several conspiracy counts relating to the awarding of commercial contracts for last year's games.
-
They allege Mr Kalmadi conspired to award a contract to a Swiss firm and manipulated tenders and knowingly inflated costs.
-
Howard and Sons Pyrotechnics director Andrew Howard says his Australian company is still owed $150,000 for supplying fireworks for the closing ceremony.
-
"Now there's nobody left to deal with the contractual obligations of the organising committee," he said. "They have all been locked up, put in jail, swept aside, but no-one has been replaced to deal with the situation at hand for people who are still owed money."
-
The New Delhi Games were the biggest sporting event India had hosted in 30 years, but for many Indians the Games became a national embarrassment [but got better].

There were complaints of cost over-runs, with the Games budget tripling to $6 billion. It has been estimated one-third of that budget was misappropriated. Mr Kalmadi has continually protested his innocence, but as the public face of the Games, he was booed at the opening and closing ceremonies.

Mr Howard says he believes Mr Kalmadi's arrest comes one year too late. "He was the chairman of a committee that throughout my entire dealings with them was totally inept," he said. "When dealing with the Commonwealth Games, one thinks that you're dealing with a professional outfit and they certainly didn't represent that."

Mr Howard says he doubts he will ever be paid. "I've been back to Delhi twice after the Games trying to deal with this situation of getting my goods returned, trying to get payment, and ever since that time the police authorities have been raiding their offices," he said. "This has been going on for a considerable period of time and the only way for it to really change is if all these [people] were cleaned up before the Games."

"Obviously all this was going on before the Games and it should have been cleaned up."

Australia's Commonwealth Games chief Perry Crosswhite says the experience will hurt India's international reputation and make it harder for the country to stage big sporting events in the future.
-
Comment
-
I have consulted Admiral Yamamoto's ghost on this matter (confidentially).

Yamo all dressed up.

-
He advises me "Pete, thanks for those tips on naval strategy. This pyrotechnic matter is somewhat worse than my own explosive Day of Infamy - Pearl Harbour of course."

-
Pete

Australia May Lease Part of US Lacrosse Spy Satellite

2011-04-21T13:15:00.005+10:00

Sketch of a US Lacrosse satellite - a portion of its sensors may be leased by Australia's Imaging (mostly 'spy' satellite) organisation known as the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation (DIGO). DIGO may continue to receive most of its imagery from US satellite feeds but its likely that UAV imagery (especially covering Afghanistan) is an increasing DIGO processing and analytical task.

It is less likely that Australia would operate an entire Lacrosse satellite due to high operating risks, need to expensively duplicate US ground station resources to maneauvre the satellite and its sensors. Australia might simply receive feeds from several Lacrosse satellites downlinked to DIGO's ground station just outside Bendigo, Australia. Australia probably has long benefitted from using selected feeds from a wide range of US spy satellites, with downlinks at 'Bendigo', 'Pine Gap' and 'Geraldton' - then most processing and intelligence consumption in Defence HQ, Canberra and at Headquarters Joint Operations Command just outside Canberra.

Philip Dorling writing for The [Melbourne] Age, 7 February 2011 reports:

AUSTRALIA and the United States have begun a partnership to share top-secret intelligence from spy satellites as Australia moves to acquire its own satellite to boost surveillance of Asia and the Pacific.

The secret agreement between Washington and Canberra provides for intensified co-operation and intelligence-sharing in the field of GEOINT - geospatial intelligence derived from imagery and other information obtained from surveillance satellites and reconnaissance aircraft.

The agreement, signed by the federal Labor government in February 2008, has been revealed in a secret US embassy cable obtained by WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to The Age.
The cable reports that former defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon and US Defence Secretary Robert Gates signed a "statement of principles on geospatial intelligence co-operation" at a "closed session" of the February 2008 Australia-United States Ministerial Meeting (AUSMIN) in Canberra.
The US record of the meeting says the agreement is designed "to take GEOINT co-operation to the same level that signals intelligence has reached between the two countries''.

The US and Australia have long worked closely under the framework of the United Kingdom-United States (UKUSA) Agreement that governs signals intelligence co-operation between the US, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

No reference was made to the new GEOINT agreement in either the 2008 AUSMIN communique or the media conference that followed. The reference to the agreement in the leaked cable from the US embassy in Canberra is specifically classified ''secret''.

The lead agencies involved in implementing the agreement are believed to be the Australian Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation (DIGO) at Russell Hill in Canberra and Bendigo in Victoria, and the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency with headquarters at Fort Belvoir in Virginia.

The agreement provides the context for the federal government's little-noticed decision, mentioned in the May 2009 defence white paper, to acquire an Australian spy satellite as a "high priority". Although the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation already has access to satellite imagery provided by the US intelligence community and bought from commercial satellite imagery suppliers, Australia's status as a satellite imagery consumer rather than producer has been a matter of concern for the Australian intelligence community.

The Defence Department has been considering acquiring an imaging satellite since at least the early 1990s.

''As a significant new measure, the government places a high priority on assured access to high-quality, space-based imagery to meet Defence's needs for mapping, charting, navigation and targeting data,'' the white paper said.
''It has decided to improve Australia's intelligence collection capabilities by acquiring a satellite with a remote sensing capability, most likely to be based on high-resolution, cloud-penetrating, synthetic aperture radar.'' [Lacrosse also has some ability to penetrate soil, though there have been more powerful instruments deployed in space for this specific purpose].

The [Australian] federal government has released no further information, including the projected cost. US aerospace companies Boeing, Raytheon or Lockheed Martin are the most likely commercial partners in acquiring the satellite, which will be built and launched in the US. The operator of America's spy satellites, the US National Reconnaissance Office, is believed to be closely involved with the Australian project, and the Australian surveillance satellite will probably form part of a constellation of similar satellites operated by the National Reconnaissance Office.

The National Reconnaissance Office in 2008 declassified the fact that it operates synthetic aperture radar satellites. Reportedly codenamed "Lacrosse" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacrosse_%28satellite)] and "Onyx", these systems can deliver high-resolution imagery, including through cloud, with a unit cost including launch estimated to be between $820 million and $1.65 billion.

The US will have access to imagery collected by the Australian-owned satellite under the terms of the February 2008 GEOINT agreement.

While Australia has specific intelligence priorities in relation to south-east Asia and Australia's maritime approaches, including the early detection of illegal fishing and people-smuggling boats, an Australian surveillance satellite will also potentially acquire imagery of intelligence significance for the US and other US allies.

Depending on its orbital path, an Australian satellite could also contribute to strategic surveillance of countries including China, North Korea, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran and other parts of the Middle East.

Unclassified studies indicate that a synthetic aperture radar satellite was identified by the Defence Science and Technology Organisation as a surveillance option for Australia as long ago as 1991. But at that time such a project was considered "beyond our resources and cannot be justified in the present strategic and economic circumstances" .

Another leaked US embassy cable shows that a congressman involved in oversight of the US intelligence community, Republican Ray LaHood, told then prime minister Kevin Rudd in January 2008 that "the US has no better friend on intelligence issues than Australia".

Background

More links related to Lacrosse satellite technology:

http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2009/January%202009/0109radars.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Imagery_Architecture

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=2005-016A

Pete

India wins Cricket World Cup - You Beauty!!! :)

2011-04-03T11:32:00.002+10:00

Great batsman Sachin Tendulkar featured in this victory photo.

-
ABCOnline and news agencies all over the world report India's victory in the cricket World Cup:

"Gautam Gambhir made 97 and skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni smashed an unbeaten 91 off 79 balls as India won the World Cup for the first time since 1983 with a six-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in Mumbai...."
-------------------------------------------------
Shobhaa Dé - her photo here (very pretty :)

describes India's win in her blog:

"If you think it only happens in Rio, think again! I have just returned from what is without a doubt, the biggest street party in the world. And it's happening right now on Marine Drive in Mumbai. Electric!

Thousands and thousands of euphoric Indians are on the roads - walking, on bikes, in cars, atop vans. There are more tri-colours on view tonight than ever before in the country's history! And to think a game can unite over a billion people and have their hearts bursting with unadulterated pride... joy... vindication!

Dhoni played much more than a captain's innings - he lifted the spirits of an entire nation with one final sixer. When that last ball soared, so did our morale. Never have I witnessed such euphoria - spontaneous, clean and infectious...."
-------------------------
COMMENT
-
YYYYAAAAYYYYY!!!!!!! :)
-
Pete

US Covert Actions and airpower only thing keeping rebels afloat

2011-03-31T20:14:00.002+11:00

Libyan rebels - a ragtag bunch in desperate need of training and supplying - but this holds longterm risks.

COMMENT
-
The handover of leadership (from the US to NATO) of the intervention into Libya appears to be largely a diplomatic and public fiction. There is continuity in the US being the dominant voice and actor in the intervention - whether the US makes decisions on its own or as the dominant member of NATO.

A trend over the last few days is that the Libyan rebels are proving unable to consistently beat Gaddafi's national-mercenary army. To get around some political pitfalls and massive monetary cost of NATO "boots on the ground" in Libya the US (through the CIA, US DIA and Special Forces) is most probably organising a force of contractor/mercenary/trainers .

The trainers once in Libya will more overtly train the (fragmented, ineffectual) rebel forces in weapons and tactics in the hope the rebels will consistently beat Gaddafi's army.

A major problem is training the rebels to destroy Gaddafi's tanks. A solution is training the rebels in using anti-tank missiles and in using laser designators to "light-up" the tanks so that NATO aircraft can detect and destroy the tanks. US trained agents are already doing some "lighting-up" but there are political risks, too few of them and the US does not want covert agents to be too closely associated with anti-tank missile use.

As well as acting as trainers the US organised "contractors" might eventually fight Gaddafi's army directly and probably more effectively - see http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/rebels-may-be-bolstered-by-private-armies-report-says/story-e6frg6so-1226031194555 .

The US and the rest of NATO would be aware of long term risks in training and supplying a rebel army to a high state of efficiency. The US and UK in particular would note the unexpected "blowback" of the CIA and MI6 training, supplying and generally cooperating with al Qaida in Afghanistan during the 1980s vs the Soviets.

Obama doesn't want to transform the rebels into a Libyan resurgence of al Qaida - into a radicalised Libyan force that appears incapable of governing Libya, has no fixed address, but has experience in blowing things up.

Pete

CIA and FBI Advise Australia that Prime Minister's Computer Hacked

2011-03-31T02:03:00.002+11:00

More information hacked? President Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard recently met.

-
Kim Zetter of wired.com (Threat Level), March 29, 2011 reports:

"Computers belonging to the Australian Prime Minister and at least nine other [Australian] federal ministers were recently hacked, according to a news report.

Besides Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and Defense Minister Stephen Smith were also targeted.

Several thousand e-mails were accessed by the intruders beginning in February, before Australian authorities were tipped off to the breach by U.S. intelligence officials at the CIA and FBI, according to [Britain's] Daily Telegraph.

The attack reportedly targeted the e-mail system for Australia’s Parliament House, which is used for nonsensitive communications among parliament members. Ministers use a more secure departmental network for more sensitive communications, according to the paper.

Hackers also recently struck Canadian government [defence] computers. That attack reportedly involved more-sensitive systems, allowing the attackers to access highly classified information, according to the CBC News. The hackers breached systems belonging to the Finance Department and Treasury Board as well as Defence Research and Development Canada, which conducts scientific and technological research for the Department of National Defence.

The intruders gained access through a spear-phishing attack that targeted top federal officials, then used their computers to send e-mail to IT staffers to trick them into revealing login credentials to gain a foothold on government networks.

As is the case in most of these types of hacks, fingers point to China as the culprit, even though attribution is generally difficult if not impossible to determine in a remote hack attack."
-
BACKGROUND
-
Advice is that probably the various agencies caught the email cache going through tor, the onion router network. The exit nodes are not secure and agencies run exit nodes to glean usernames, passwords, and IP addresses. The IP addresses are tough to get, but the agencies have the resources to track what goes where even through tor.

See this workshop paper http://hal.inria.fr/inria-00574178/en/. Its Abstract reads:

"Tor is a popular low-latency anonymity network. However, Tor does not protect against the exploitation of an insecure application to reveal the IP address of, or trace, a TCP stream. In addition, because of the linkability of Tor streams sent together over a single circuit, tracing one stream sent over a circuit traces them all. Surprisingly, it is unknown whether this linkability allows in practice to trace a significant number of streams originating from secure (i.e., proxied) applications.

In this paper, we show that linkability allows us to trace 193% of additional streams, including 27% of HTTP streams possibly originating from ``secure'' browsers. In particular, we traced 9% of Tor streams carried by our instrumented exit nodes. Using BitTorrent as the insecure application, we design two attacks tracing BitTorrent users on Tor.

We run these attacks in the wild for 23 days and reveal 10,000 IP addresses of Tor users. Using these IP addresses, we then profile not only the BitTorrent downloads but also the websites visited per country of origin of Tor users. We show that BitTorrent users on Tor are over-represented in some countries as compared to BitTorrent users outside of Tor.

By analyzing the type of content downloaded, we then explain the observed behaviors by the higher concentration of pornographic content [or whatever tracer content] downloaded at the scale of a country. Finally, we present results suggesting the existence of an underground BitTorrent ecosystem on Tor."
-
Pete