Will Chinese View US President Obama As A Diminished Figure?

     

    The last time President Barack Obama went to China, five years ago, he was a political supernova from a nation with a depleted, debt-ridden economy. When he returns to Beijing on Monday, he will be a political casualty from a country with a resurgent economy. 

White House officials hope the later distinction will outweigh the earlier one when Obama meets with President Xi Jinping before traveling on to Myanmar and Australia. But they are likely to be disappointed: China, analysts say, is likely to dwell more on Obama's electoral reversals than on the comparatively robust American recovery. 


"Politics trumps economics, at the end of the day," said Nicholas R. Lardy, an expert on the Chinese economy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. 

That is not to understate the shift in economic fortunes between China and the United States since 2009. At that time, in the depths of the financial crisis, visiting Americans were lectured by Chinese officials about the need for the United States to put its fiscal house in order. Now, Obama has cut the deficit in half while the Chinese economy is the one slowing sharply, weighed down by a sea of bad loans. 

But Lardy said the Chinese economy was not as troubled as some in Washington believe. The government, he said, was orchestrating a slowdown in growth to squeeze out excesses in housing and other markets - a difficult process that he said Beijing was managing fairly well. 

Obama, meanwhile, has been preoccupied by other crises, from the Ebola outbreak to the threat posed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The Republican takeover of the Senate has added to doubts that the president will have either the time or the political influence to push forward his much-promoted strategic pivot to Asia. 

China's state media has been unforgiving about Obama's political travails. 

"Obama always utters 'Yes, we can,' which led to the high expectations people had for him," The Global Times, an English-language website affiliated with the People's Daily, the official Communist Party newspaper, said in a postelection editorial. "But he has done an insipid job, offering nearly nothing to his supporters. U.S. society has grown tired of his banality." 

The timing of the editorial, just a few days before Obama's arrival in Beijing, was unusual. But it reflects a broader nationalist strain in China, embodied by Xi, who has consolidated his power and displayed few signs of conciliation toward Obama on thorny issues like Chinese cyberattacks on U.S. companies. 

Obama's best bet to counter doubts about his standing, analysts said, will be to move quickly on projects that reinforce America's presence in the region, like a proposed trade deal, and in areas where China and the United States can work together, like climate change. 

"It's a matter of, in part, communicating through your body language, through your ambitions, and through what you commit to," said Kenneth G. Lieberthal, a China adviser in the Clinton administration who is now at the Brookings Institution. "That's an important part of what he'll do, but I certainly think that the election does not help him in that." 

One of the areas where a Republican-controlled Congress might actually help rather than hinder Obama is in passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an ambitious trade pact involving 12 countries that is a centerpiece of the president's pivot to Asia. 

Negotiations for a deal have bogged down in the last year, in part because Japan and other Asian countries are reluctant to make big concessions without knowing whether Obama will have "fast-track" authority to pass a treaty in Congress. The White House held off asking for such authority before the midterm elections, at the request of Democrats. 

Now, though, a free-trade-friendly Congress is more likely to grant Obama fast-track authority. That could give the administration a genuine window to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2015 before the next presidential election. While in Beijing, Obama is expected to meet with leaders of the countries involved in the negotiation. They will be there for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, an annual meeting of Pacific Rim countries being held in China. 

The U.S. trade representative, Michael B. Froman, has played down expectations for any breakthrough in Beijing. And China, which has not been invited to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, will be watching the U.S. efforts with some skepticism. 

Still, Xi and Obama could find common ground on climate change. As the world's two largest carbon emitters, China and the United States are trying to develop a common position on new targets for emissions reductions in advance of climate talks in Paris next year. The thinking is that they could then pull the rest of the world into a treaty. 

While the Chinese may view Obama as a diminished figure, analysts say they are well aware that his successor - whether Hillary Rodham Clinton or a Republican - could end up taking a tougher line toward China. That means they will keep looking for ways to work with him. 

Administration officials reject the contention that Obama's focus on Asia has been impeded by events elsewhere in the world. Susan E. Rice, the national security adviser, noted that it was his second visit to the region this year - a "substantial investment of time and attention," she said, given "all the issues that we are all facing." 

On the eve of the trip, the White House got good news from unlikely sources: Japan and China, which agreed to set aside a longstanding dispute over islands in the East China Sea. The United States has fretted about being drawn into an increasingly dangerous confrontation. 

"The tensions between Japan and China have been overshadowing the whole region, and the relationship between the United States and China," said Jeffrey A. Bader, a former China adviser to Obama. "When relations between China and its neighbors are stable, that helps us."

Eye On China, India And US Set To Ramp Up Joint Naval Drills

     India and the US are set to deepen and broaden their bilateral military exercises to include more warfare components involving nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers. They would also invite more countries to join the Malabar exercises as the two nations share concerns about the growing Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean.


Both the Indian and US navies have been warily watching the growing Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean, especially its submarine manoeuvres. In the recent weeks, India conveyed its displeasure to the Sri Lankan government at least twice over its decision to permit Chinese submarines to dock in its ports.

According to dependable sources, India and US officials have had detailed discussions, including at the Defence Policy Group meeting in Washington DC, on stepping up the bilateral naval exercises. The decision involves a series of steps, starting with increasing the nuclear submarine and aircraft carrier warfare components.

The two sides are also looking at adding both army and air force components to the traditionally naval exercise.

Sources said the two sides are looking at inviting more countries, thus expanding them mostly into trilateral exercises. In July 2014, India and the US invited Japan to the exercises held in north-western Pacific. Malabar has featured Australia and Singapore, besides Japan, in 2007.

Through most of the UPA tenure, especially under defence minister AK Antony, Malabar exercises off Indian coast have mostly been bilateral affairs, in an effort not to raises Chinese hackles.

However, under the new regime in New Delhi there is a noticeable shift in the strategic posturing, especially vis-a-vis China. In Washington DC in October, the joint statement issued by Narendra Modi and Barack Obama had referred to the situation in South China Sea. It was the first time that the two sides had so explicitly referred to the issue in an Indo-US joint statement.

The move to deepen and broaden the Malabar exercises flow from Modi's declared strategic vision, especially reflected in the joint statement.

The move comes even as the government is warily looking at the growing Chinese submarine activities in the region. It has for sometimes been uncomfortable about Chinese sending its submarines as part of their anti-piracy patrols. When INS Vikramaditya was sailing from Russia starting November 2013, a Chinese submarine was in Indian Ocean observing the carrier. At one point of time, the Chinese officially informed New Delhi about the presence of its submarine in Indian Ocean, though it said it was for anti-piracy operations.

PLA's DF-31B ICBM 'poses threat to US national security'

     

     After China tested its DF-31B intercontinental ballistic missile on Sept. 2, the Washington-based Strategy Page said that this new missile with a range of 10,000 poses a serious challenge to the national security of the United States.

The report said that China is estimated to have 400 missiles with the capability to carry nuclear warheads. Only a few dozen of them including the DF-5, the DF-31A/B and the DF-41 can reach the United States, however. China is believed to have had about 24 DF-5 missiles in service over the past 20 years. Even though they are capable of reaching the United States, few of them were believed to be operational because of reliability and maintenance problems.


Most of China's ballistic missiles are tactical missiles like the DF-21, which is capable of hitting targets in Russia and India. The United States has the capability to intercept nearly all DF-5s launched from China and Beijing claims that it has not aimed its missiles against any nation. While the DF-26C is being developed to replace the older DF-21, China is designing new missiles such as the DF-31A/B and the DF-41 to replace the role played by the DF-5 in the past.

With a range of 15,000 kilometers, the DF-41 can be used against any targets in the United States. It can be moved, erected, and launched from a special truck. The article said that the missile has very similar capabilities to the 36-ton Minuteman III of the United States, first deployed in the 1970s. However, the DF-41 is unlikely to enter service with the PLA for quite some time.

China's nationalistic tabloid Global Times said that the DF-31B will be able to enter service much faster because it is only an upgrade version of the DF-31A.

Can India Emerge As A Top Global Military Power?

     

      A recent study by Britain's ministry of defence has predicted that India is likely to be among the top three military powers in the world by 2045, along with the US and China, with a projected defence outlay of $654 billion. Though India's military-industrial acumen is unlikely to surpass technological sophistication of the US by 2045, it may, along with China, rival it in terms of size. 

It is also likely to surpass Japan, Australia and South Korea (which will be ahead of other regional military powers) by developing sizeable and technically advanced armed forces, including ocean-going navies, capable of delivering an enduring and capable maritime presence both regionally and further afield, according to the study titled 'Global Strategic Trends - Out to 2045'.


This projection explains why the Narendra Modi government is aggressively pushing its defence agenda. Recently the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) cleared purchases worth Rs 80,000 crore, including six submarines worth Rs 50,000 crore. DAC also approved purchase of 8,356 Spike anti-tank guided missiles and 321 launchers from Israel. Modi's reaction to the recent Pakistan-engineered skirmish on the Kashmir border—which resulted in the death of hordes of civilians besides forcing hundreds of villages to flee their homes as troops exchanged fire in perhaps the worst violence in the region in a decade—also amply demonstrated that India is posed to strongly defend its borders and foil any peer attempt aimed at weakening its military might. 

Modi not only asked the army to retaliate befittingly, but warned Pakistan that its military infiltration may cost the neighbour more than what it imagines. Pakistan's subsequent retreat showed that it was sort of taken aback by the strong, calculated response from the Indian side. India's 'retaliation response' to Pakistan followed its equally strong reaction during the recent border standoff with Chinese forces that overshadowed Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to India aimed at deepening commercial ties between the two countries. 

The Modi government also unveiled plans to build 54 more border posts in Arunachal Pradesh and strengthen Indo-Tibetan Border Police, which guards the Indo-China border. In another geopolitical move, India said it will supply naval vessels to Vietnam and help it modernise its defence system during the India visit of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. All these recent moves are early signs of India's determination to strengthen its defence prowess and slowly emerge a top military power globally.

While the US will continue to be a key partner in India's quest to emerge a global military power, as reflected by the Modi government's recent decision to acquire Boeing's Chinook and Apache helicopters in a deal worth $2.5 billion, what is more important is India's growing defence alliance with Israel. The fact India chose to buy anti-tank guided missiles worth $670 million from Israel, rejecting a rival US offer despite US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel's 'unprecedented' offer to co-develop and co-produce US' Javelin missiles in India during his recent India visit, reinforces that Israel is likely to be a crucial defence ally for India going ahead.

A key feature of Modi's government's defence strategy is to indigenously develop military equipment as part of its broad 'Make in India' strategy—the decision to build six submarines in India at a cost of about Rs 50,000 crore is a clear deviation from the hitherto followed strategy of sourcing military equipment from outside. However, the government will find it difficult to convince the top honchos of armed forces which want sophisticated, ready-to-use foreign weaponry, than trying to develop it locally which may involve a lot of time and effort. The Modi government also has to keep lobbyists for foreign manufacturers of defence equipment at abeyance. 

While study by the Britain's ministry of defence portrayed a bullish future for India as a military power, it warned that the country has to "overcome domestic political issues and improve the way it invests to attain the capabilities needed to project conventional military power globally". One hopes that PM Modi is listening.

British Forces Hand Over Control of Last Base in Afghanistan

     British forces Sunday handed over formal control of their last base in Afghanistan to Afghan troops, ending combat operations in the country after 13 years which cost hundreds of lives.

The Union Jack was lowered at Camp Bastion in the southern province of Helmand, while the Stars and Stripes came down at the adjacent Camp Leatherneck — the last US Marine base in the country.


All NATO combat troops will depart Afghanistan by December, leaving Afghan troops and police to battle Taliban insurgents on their own.

The huge joint base built in the desert near the provincial capital Lashkar Gah was the most important installation for the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

Between 2010 to 2011, it housed almost 40,000 foreigners including sub-contractors.

Hundreds of US Marines and British troops are set to leave Helmand soon, though the precise date has not been revealed for security reasons.

In a ceremony Sunday the Afghans took formal control of the base, despite already being present in a portion of it. The British and US flags were lowered, leaving only Afghanistan’s national flag to flutter in the breeze.

Britain’s Defence Secretary Michael Fallon paid tribute to his nation’s role in fighting the Taliban.

A total of 453 British troops and 2,349 Americans were killed.

“It is with pride that we announce the end of UK combat operations in Helmand, having given Afghanistan the best possible chance of a stable future,” he said in a statement from London.

Many facilities such as pipelines, buildings, roads and even office furniture remain in place, with the US alone estimating $230 million worth of equipment is being left behind.

Cautious Optimism
Marine Gen. Daniel D. Yoo, regional commander, said the Afghan army is now now capable of taking over the reins.

“I’m cautiously optimistic they will be able to sustain themselves. I know from my experience that they have the capability and the capacity if they allocate the resources properly,” he said.

“We’re very proud of what we’ve accomplished here,” added the officer, who was among the first Marines on the ground in autumn 2001, when a US-led coalition toppled the Taliban who had been in power since 1996.

Gen. Sayed Malook, who leads the Afghan forces in the region and has now established his quarters in the base, said the camp would become a military training center and house 1,800 soldiers.

“I’m certain we can maintain the security,” he said Sunday. Asked about the departure of the NATO troops, he said: “I’m happy and sad. I’m happy because they are going to their home, I’m sad because they are friends.”

At Camp Leatherneck troops busied themselves with packing up, sorting out what medical equipment will go and what will remain.

Cpl. Ruf Stevens, in charge of vehicle transport, returned to his hut with his assault rifle in one hand and a guitar he found in a dustbin in another.

“I just think we got the job done. It’s a dirty job but pride comes with it,” he said.

The operational command center, a small room in a wooden hut filled with surveillance screens and computers, is seeing out its final days.

Surveillance has picked up little in the way of insurgent activity in recent days as the yearly fighting season comes to an end.

After Camp Leatherneck and Bastion, the most important NATO bases will be at Kandahar, Bagram, Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif.

There are now about 40,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, down from their 2011 peak of around 140,000.

A residual force of around 12,000 soldiers including 9,800 Americans and 500 Britons will remain after December as part of a security pact signed by new president Ashraf Ghani.

Their role will be training Afghan troops and counter-terrorism.

US Army Explores Its Armored Vehicle Options

Defense News 

M2A3 Bradley IFV

    Nearly a year after the US Army canceled the Ground Combat Vehicle, officials defended the program as on-budget and called the decision to scuttle it a pragmatic move to improve further-along armored vehicle programs with available money.

On Tuesday, Brig. Gen David Bassett, commander PEO Ground Combat Systems, noted that the Future Fighting Vehicle (FFV) program, a follow-on to the GCV, is largely a science-and-technology development effort, meant to help the Army explore its options while it pursues various engineering-change proposals for its existing armored vehicles.


Bassett had some fun with reporters who may have thought the FFV was at this point more than notional.

“If you came today thinking we were going to describe the future fighting vehicle, that we were going to tell you whether we would retain the nine-man squad in the back, and have a manned or unmanned turret, or that we had discovered some new armor technology, I apologize. You’re not going to get any breaking news on that front,” Bassett said.

Program officials repeatedly mentioned the reality of shrinking defense budgets. Bassett said the decision to cancel the GCV was the best way to ultimately provide airborne brigades with better ground vehicles.

“I think it reflected a different budget environment than when the program was initiated,” he said, “an acknowledgment that we faced either an investment with the GCV or a set of investments across the entire [brigade] formation.”

Next Steps
The future of the Bradley and the FFV are intertwined. In 2016, the Army plans to decide whether to turn the FFV program into an effort to produce actual vehicles, a potential Bradley replacement, or lead to a third round of improvements for the Bradley.

If the Army sticks to its current schedule, then the two major Bradley upgrades are a variety of mobility improvements that would include a new power pack, a new suspension and possibly up-gunning to a 30mm or larger cannon.

Meanwhile, the service has promised to release about $50 million in funding that it had left over from the GCV in order to finance further concept development from the two competitors, BAE Systems and General Dynamics, which likely will receive about $20 million each, with another $10 million going to Army research laboratories for further in-house work.

The program office is monitoring technology development at the Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center, searching for breakthrough armor technologies and other advancements. That includes an advanced combat engine, a modular active protection system and new hull manufacturing.

“If GCV represents the technology that was available and affordable, by the time you get to this new program start, it might take a 70-ton vehicle and bring it to 60 tons,” Bassett said.

Bassett offered the caveat that the FFV must be achievable and affordable.

“We ran into this in the GCV program where we looked at armors that were lighter, but the cost was a multiple of what we ended up adopting,” Bassett said. “It doesn’t do us any good to adopt something we can’t afford.” 

US Military Girds for More 'Unconventional Warfare'

      

      The US military must prepare for murky, undeclared wars in which foreign entities use proxy insurgencies against established governments, typified by Russia and Iran, US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) writes in a new white paper.

The paper, “Counter Unconventional Warfare,” describes how US rivals are employing unconventional warfare (UW) — the external sponsorship of insurgent and separatist movements — and argues for a comprehensive joint, inter-agency, intergovernmental and multinational [JIIM] strategy that applies “political, economic, military and psychological pressure,” with a prominent role for US special operations forces.


The term unconventional warfare may be new, but the concept is familiar to US troops who created Filipino guerrilla forces to fight the Japanese during World War II and the Sons of Iraq in 2007. Today, Russia employs its “New Generation Warfare,” to organize pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine, filling out their ranks with advisers and fighters, says the white paper. While Iran, it says, employs proxy forces that include Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and various groups in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq and the Caucasus.

“While the joint force must prepare for protracted conflict with increasingly powerful non-state actors, we must also counter state adversaries who use modern military technologies as well as proxies and surrogates,” the USASOC paper says. “Difficult to detect in a timely fashion via conventional methods, countering these hybrid threats will place a premium on broad-based intelligence efforts, rapid, coordinated innovation and adaptation, and a commitment to undermining the means and will of adversaries to persist in conduct inimical to US and allied interests.”

Ahead of budget season, it is white paper season. The USASOC white paper and two recently released documents also highlight the Army’s role in national defense and the spread of complex threats. There is a Rand study, “Improving Strategic Competence: Lessons from 13 Years of War,” the Army’s operating concept, “Win in a Complex World.”

The US has used proxies of its own, partnering with irregular, “non-statutory” civil defense forces (CDFs) as a cheap, stop-gap security measure, though these groups can be difficult to control and have agendas of their own, according to a recent CNA Corp. report, “Risky Business: The Future of Civil Defense Forces and Counterterrorism in an Era of Persistent Conflict.”

While the Obama administration’s national security guidance eschews large-scale stability operations in favor of small-footprint “by, with, and through” approaches, the report presents a strategy for using civil defense forces to fight non-state organizations such as the Islamic State, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Shabab, and Boko Haram, which have local political objectives and depend on the population for support.

How might an unconventional warfare approach look against the Islamic State? The US could thwart the Islamic State’s recruiting efforts by using foreign double agents to taint the ranks and sew distrust, writes Clint Watts, a former executive officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy at West Point, in the blog “War on the Rocks” on Oct. 20.

“Unconventional warfare approaches always have potential disadvantages or consequences that naturally arise when working through surrogates rather than the direct command of militaries,” Watts writes. “But the US’s taste for large enduring deployments has long soured; proxies must now be utilized to defeat [the Islamic State].”

Naming the rise of the Islamic State, Russian revanchism and the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, as three surprising and disruptive “black swan,” events, USASOC commander Lt. Gen Charles Cleveland said the US must maintain a “persistent influence” in foreign nations, for peace, stability and good governance, to get ahead of conflicts before they metastasize.

And he argued against budget cuts that undermine such efforts.

At a panel at the US Army’s annual meeting on Oct. 15 with a State Department official and policy experts, Cleveland called for an interagency planning framework, and the ability to win through a whole-government approach, without US military’s “iron mountain.”

“Unconventional warfare is a form of warfare, and there are practitioners out there across the globe that are getting very good at it,” Cleveland said. “Do we not owe the American people a capability to be as good as our adversaries at this form of warfare — and know it to the detail needed so we can counter it or practice itself when our interests are at stake?”

Sarah Sewall, undersecretary of state for civilian security, democracy and human rights, said military and the State Department must work together closely amid “dynamic” and “gray” scenarios. Categories such as insurgency, terrorism and civil wars are blurring together, and defying categorization.

“Failures of governance and rising extremism are interrelated phenomena that are structurally tearing apart at the global fabric,” Sewall said, adding later: “We are needing to intervene earlier, before things are being seen as full-blown crises.”

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, director of the Army Capabilities and Integration Center, said the service should build expertise in negotiation theory, interest mapping and how to exert influence, whether through persuasion or coercion.

“I think we have to bolster the legitimacy of our key partners and ultimately trace grievances back to the enemy, who are really causing these problems,” McMaster said.

The US has a choice to help stabilize nations now in a deliberate way, or fight wars later, said Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“If we don’t have nation-states that are capable of keeping peace — law and order — on their own, that creates gaps which extremist groups like [the Islamic State] can exploit, and then we get sucked in to deal with the resulting problems,” Boot said.

US-Led Strikes Kill More Than 500 Militants in Syria

USN F/A-18 Hornet

US-led airstrikes in Syria were reported Thursday to have killed more than 500 jihadists in a month, as Kurdish fighters readied to reinforce the embattled border town of Kobane.

An AFP correspondent across the frontier in Turkey reported fierce clashes and fresh air raids in Kobane, with heavy gun and mortar fire rocking its western side in the evening.

The Islamic State (IS) group, which on June 29 declared a “caliphate” over territory it seized in Iraq and Syria, was on Thursday described as the world’s wealthiest “terror” group, earning $1 million a day from oil sales alone.


The battle for Kobane has become crucial for both IS and its opponents, with a senior US official this week saying that the Kurds there were inflicting heavy losses on the jihadist group.

The Kurds have been holding out against IS jihadists for more than a month, buoyed in recent days by a promise of Iraqi Kurd reinforcements and by US air drops of weapons.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday that 200 Iraqi Kurd peshmerga fighters would travel through his country to join the battle in Kobane, where IS has an estimated 1,000 militants.

Warplanes were again heard flying over Kobane and at least three airstrikes were carried out Thursday, a month after the US-led coalition expanded its aerial campaign against IS in Iraq to Syria.

The airstrikes have killed 553 people since their launch, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, including 464 IS fighters and 57 militants from the al-Qaida affiliated Al-Nusra Front.

Thirty-two civilians have also been killed, including six children and five women, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria. The “vast majority” of jihadists killed were foreigners.

'World's Richest Terrorists'
After first focusing on Iraq, the US-led coalition has dramatically expanded its strikes in Syria recently, including in Kobane.

The US military said in its latest update that fresh coalition raids near the town destroyed IS fighting positions, a vehicle and a jihadist command and control center.

In Iraq, airstrikes hit IS targets including fighting positions, a vehicle and a training center.

David Cohen, the US undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence who has been leading the fight against IS on the financial front, said Thursday that its “primary funding tactics enable it today to generate tens of millions of dollars per month.”

Marwan Muasher, vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said IS was now “considered the world’s wealthiest and most financially sophisticated terrorist organization.”

On the ground, the jihadists made fresh advances in and around Kobane on Thursday, reportedly seizing territory in the town center and to its north.

IS had also taken control of a string of villages west of Kobane, said the Observatory, making its first gains on the ground in several days.

The jihadists and Kurds have regularly traded territory in and around Kobane, with neither side able to gain a decisive edge.

Kurdish officials say the exhausted fighters are in desperate need of relief and anxious for promised reinforcements from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.

Iraqi Kurdish lawmakers in their capital Arbil agreed Wednesday to send their peshmerga fighters, after Turkey said it would allow them to travel across its territory to Kobane.

Mustafa Qader, the Iraqi Kurdish official responsible for the peshmerga, said the fighters “will remain there until they are no longer needed”.

Mount Sinjar Besieged
In Iraq, IS fighters killed a Yazidi commander after surrounding Mount Sinjar in the country’s north, where they had trapped thousands of civilians this summer.

The civilians, mostly members of the Yazidi religious minority, eventually escaped via Syria with the help of Kurdish fighters from Iraq’s neighbor to the west, but that route has now been cut.

“The mountain is besieged” again, and IS militants are “trying to climb the mountain on foot to fight the Yazidi volunteers,” Dawud Jundi, another commander of the forces defending the area, told AFP by telephone.

The IS assault began Monday, when some 300 of the militants seized nearby villages and then turned their sights on the mountain itself.

“We don’t have anything but light weapons,” Jundi said, adding that on Mount Sinjar “there are almost 2,000 families whose situations are very bad.”

The first siege of Mount Sinjar was a key moment in the conflict with IS, with the plight of the people trapped on the mountain helping to prompt Washington to begin airstrikes against the jihadists.

The Iraqi capital Baghdad has also seen a wave of bomb attacks against Shiite targets in recent days, with IS claiming responsibility for some.

On Thursday IS jihadists gained ground west of Baghdad, further reducing the government’s shaky hold on Anbar province, a day after car bombs in the capital killed at least 28 people.

India picks Israel's Spike anti-tank missile over U.S. Javelin

Israeli Spike ATGM

US Javelin ATGM

India has opted to buy Israel's Spike anti-tank guided missile, a defence ministry source said on Saturday, rejecting a rival U.S. offer of Javelin missiles that Washington had lobbied hard to win.

India will buy at least 8,000 Spike missiles and more than 300 launchers in a deal worth 32 billion rupees ($525 million), the source said after a meeting of India's Defence Acquisition Council.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's five-month-old government wants to clear a backlog of defence orders and boost India's firepower, amid recent border tensions with China and heavy exchanges of fire with Pakistan across the Kashmiri frontier.

"National security is the paramount concern of the government," the source quoted Defence Minister Arun Jaitley, who also holds the finance portfolio, as telling the procurement panel.

"All hurdles and bottlenecks in the procurement process should be addressed expeditiously so that the pace of acquisition is not stymied."

Spike is a man-portable 'fire and forget' anti-tank missile that locks on to targets before shooting. It is produced by Israel's Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, which declined to comment.

It beat out the rival U.S. Javelin weapons system, built by Lockheed Martin Corp and Raytheon Co, that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had pitched during Modi's visit to Washington at the end of September.

Senior U.S. officials had said they were still discussing the Javelin order as part of a broader push to deepen defence industry ties with India by increasing the share of production done in the country.

Analysts estimate that India, the world's largest arms buyer, will invest as much as $250 billion in upgrading its Soviet-era military hardware and close the gap on strategic rival China, which spends three times as much a year on defence.

US, Japan to bolster space cooperation over Chinese threat

The US and Japan will boost military cooperation in space to counteract China’s growing capability to shoot down satellites, a leading Japanese daily reports. The plan follows recent moves to increase space-based intelligence sharing between the states.

The plan comes as part of the revised Guidelines for Japan-US Defense Cooperation, due to be published by the end of the year, Asahi Shimbun reported on Wednesday.

The plan will fundamentally alter Japan’s previous commitment to the peaceful utilization of space, and put an end to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) only monitoring Japanese space satellites.

The space surveillance functions will be conducted by a special unit to be created within Japan’s Self-Defense Forces after 2018. JAXA’s surveillance functions will be relegated to the new unit in phases.

In May, Japan agreed to pass on data gathered by JAXA to the US.

Strategic Command’s Joint Space Operations Center. The US military has likewise provided Tokyo with classified information on space security since last year.

The news follows an announced made by US deputy assistant secretary of state for space and defense policy, Frank Rose, who said China had conducted a weapons test for an attack on a satellite in July.

In an earlier interview with Asahi Shimbun, Rose said Washington is "very concerned about development of China’s anti-satellite capabilities."

His comments echoed those made by US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper earlier this year.

“Threats to US space services will increase during 2014 and beyond, as potential adversaries pursue disruptive and destructive counter-space capabilities,” Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee in February.

He noted that Chinese and Russian military leaders understand “the unique information advantages” space systems afforded states, saying both are “developing capabilities to disrupt the United States’ use of space in a conflict.”

In 2007, a Chinese test to destroy a space satellite create 3,500 pieces of space junk. The experiment highlighted the double threat of anti-satellite missiles; they both destroy their target and send out a spray of debris which can strike other satellites.

On Monday, China launched the Yaogan 22 satellite into space, the country’s seventh space launch this year.

Chinese media report the satellite was deployed for scientific experiments and other civilian purposes, but Western analysts believe it will be used to conduct global surveillance.

The United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) Space Control and Space Surveillance Network maintains a worldwide network of 30 space surveillance sensors (radar and optical telescopes, both military and civilian) to observe around 16,000 objects orbiting Earth.

Since the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the agency has cataloged 39,000 such objects, with many of them already reentering the atmosphere.

China's arms industry makes global inroads

Chinese HQ-9 long range missiles From the moment Turkey announced plans two years ago to acquire a long-range missile defense system, the multi-billion-dollar contract from a key NATO member appeared to be an American company's to lose. For years, Turkey's military had relied on NATO supplied Patriot missiles, built by the American companies Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, to defend its skies, and the system was fully compatible with the air-defense platforms operated by other members of the alliance. There were other contenders for the deal, of course. Rival manufacturers in Russia and Europe made bids. Turkey rejected those - but not in favor of the American companies. Its selection last month of a little-known Chinese defense company, China Precision Machinery Export-Import Corporation, stunned the military-industrial establishment in Washington and Brussels. The sale was especially unusual because the Chinese missile defense system, known as the HQ-9, would be difficult to integrate with existing NATO equipment. China Precision is also subject to sanctions from the United States for selling technologies that the United States says could help Iran, Syria and North Korea develop unconventional weapons. A state department spokeswoman said this month that American officials had expressed to the Turkish government "serious concerns" about the deal, which has not yet been signed. Industry executives and arms-sales analysts say the Chinese probably beat out their more established rivals by significantly undercutting them on price, offering their system at $3 billion. Nonetheless, Turkey's selection of a Chinese state-owned manufacturer is a breakthrough for China, a nation that has set its sights on moving up the value chain in arms technology and establishing itself as a credible competitor in the global weapons market. "This is a remarkable win for the Chinese arms industry," said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks arms sales and transfers. In the past, Chinese companies have been known mainly as suppliers of small arms, but that is changing quickly. From drones to frigates to fighter jets, the companies are aggressively pushing foreign sales of high-tech hardware, mostly in the developing world. Russian companies are feeling the greatest pressure, but American and other Western companies are also increasingly running into the Chinese. "China will be competing with us in many, many domains, and in the high end," said Marwan Lahoud, the head of strategy and marketing at European Aeronautic Defense and Space, Europe's largest aerospace company. "Out of 100 campaigns, that is, the commercial prospects we have, we may have the Chinese in front of us among the competitors in about three or four. They have the full range of capabilities, and they are offering them." The Stockholm institute released a report this year on global weapons transfers that found the volume of Chinese conventional weapons exports - which included high-end aircraft, missiles, ships and artillery - jumped by 162 percent from 2008 to 2012, compared with the previous five years. Pakistan is the leading customer. The institute now estimates that China is the fifth-largest arms exporter in the world, ahead of Britain. From 2003 to 2007, China ranked eighth. China's foreign arms sales are also rising fast in dollar terms. According to IHS Jane's, an industry consulting and analysis company, Chinese exports have nearly doubled over the past five years to $2.2 billion, surpassing Canada and Sweden, and making China the world's eighth-largest exporter by value. The total global arms trade revenue in 2012 was estimated to be $73.5 billion, and the United States had a 39% share, according to IHS Jane's. Xu Guangyu, a retired major general in the People's Liberation Army and director of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, said in an interview that the push by Chinese companies to develop and sell higher-tech arms was "a very normal phenomenon." "In arms manufacturing, China is trying to increase the quality and reduce price," he said. "We're driven by competition." Xu said that besides pricing, Chinese companies had another advantage: they do not "make demands over other governments' status and internal policies." He added: "Our policy of noninterference applies here. Whoever is in the government, whoever has diplomatic status with us, we can talk about arms sales with them." Chinese officials know that China's encroachment on Western-dominated military markets raises concerns. When asked about the missile-defense sale to Turkey, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said, "China's military exports do no harm to peace, security and stability," and do not "interfere with the internal affairs of recipient countries." The largest Chinese arms production companies, all state-owned, declined interview requests. Their finances are opaque, though there are some statistics on their Web sites and in the state news media. The China North Industries Group Corporation, or the Norinco Group, said on its Web site that its profits in 2012 were 9.81 billion renminbi, or about $1.6 billion, a 45 percent increase from 2010. Its revenues in 2012 were 361.6 billion renminbi, or about $59 billion, a 53 percent increase over 2010. Another company, the China South Industries Group Corporation, or CSGC, said on its Web site that it had profits of about $1 billion in 2011, on revenue of about $45 billion, both big increases over 2008. China's investment has been heaviest in fighter planes - both traditional and stealth versions - as well as in jet engines, an area in which China had until now been dependent on Western and Russian partners, said Guy Anderson, a senior military industry analyst in London with IHS Jane's. "China has been throwing billions and billions of dollars at research and development," he said. "They also have a strategy of using the gains they get from foreign partnerships to benefit their industrial sector. So they should not have any trouble catching up with their Western competitors over the medium term, and certainly over the long term." He estimated that China was still a decade away from competing head-to-head with Western nations on the technology itself. But Chinese equipment is priced lower and could become popular in emerging markets, including in African and Latin American nations. "We are in an era of 'good enough' - the 90 percent solution that will do the job at the best possible price," Mr. Anderson said. "In some cases, that may even mean buying commercial equipment, upgrading it slightly and painting it khaki." New customers for Chinese equipment include Argentina, which in 2011 signed a deal with the Chinese company Avicopter to build Z-11 light helicopters under license. Mass production for the Argentine military began this year, and 40 helicopters are expected to be built over the next several years. The value of the contract has not been made public. Companies selling drones, another focal point in the Chinese arms industry, are ubiquitous at arms and aviation shows. At an aviation exposition in Beijing in late September, one Chinese company, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, had on display a model of a CH-4 reconnaissance and combat drone, with four models of missiles next to it. Though the drone had been "designed for export," one company representative said, there were no foreign buyers yet. The company was still being licensed by the government to sell the aircraft abroad. He added that the drone was not yet up to par with some foreign models, and that the engine was a foreign make, though other parts - including the missiles - had been developed in China. The Aviation Industry Corporation of China, or AVIC, had on display a model of a Wing Loong, the best-known Chinese drone export, which sells for about $1 million, less than similar American and Israeli drone models. An article in People's Daily said the export certificate for the Wing Loong, or Pterodactyl, was approved in June 2009, and it was first exported in 2011. At the Paris Air Show in June, Ma Zhiping, president of the China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation, told Global Times, another state-run newspaper, that "quite a few countries" had bought the Wing Loong, which resembles the American-made Predator. Clients were in Africa and Asia, he said. Two fighter jets made by Chinese companies are being closely watched by industry analysts and foreign companies for their export potential. One is Shenyang Aircraft's J-31, a fighter jet that Chinese officials say has stealth abilities. A People's Daily report last month said that the J-31 was being made by Shenyang, an AVIC subsidiary, mostly for export, citing an interview with Zhang Zhaozhong, a rear admiral in the Chinese Navy. In March, the airplane's chief designer, Sun Cong, told People's Daily that the J-31 could become China's main next-generation carrier-borne fighter jet. The other jet is the JF-17, a less-sophisticated aircraft that an American official said had been in the works for about two decades in an "on-again, off-again" project. The jet was ostensibly the product of a joint venture between Pakistan Aeronautical Complex and China's Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation, also an AVIC subsidiary, but China did the real work, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the secrecy surrounding military projects. So far, Pakistan is the only client, and the official said he believed Pakistan had made a "political decision" to buy it. China is Pakistan's biggest ally, and each relies on the other to help counter India. Besides the JF-17, the two nations have had official joint production agreements on a frigate, a battle tank and a small aircraft. A defense official from Japan, a territorial rival of China that monitors its arms trade closely, said Chinese jets still had big shortcomings that could hurt international sales; most notably, China cannot make reliable engines or avionics, he said. The JF-17 uses a Russian engine. "I believe they can make a few very good engines in the laboratory, but they can't make it in the factory, kind of mass produce it in factories, because of lack of quality control and maybe experience," he said. He added that Chinese engineers had been trying to develop an engine, the WS-10, a copy of a Russian model, but had been having problems. It is not uncommon for customers to overcome weaknesses in Chinese manufacturing by buying Chinese platforms and outfitting them with better Western equipment. Algeria placed an order last year for three Chinese corvettes, but is outfitting the ships with radar and communications equipment from Thales Nederland, a unit of the Thales Group, based in France. Thailand has been awarding contracts to the Saab Group, based in Sweden, to upgrade Chinese-built frigates, said Ben Moores, a senior analyst at IHS Jane's. This year, a Chinese company was competing against foreign counterparts, including at least one American company, for a $1 billion Thai contract for naval frigates, but lost to Daewoo of South Korea. As China moves to catch up with established Western rivals, competing not only on price but also with comparable technology, Hakan Buskhe, chief executive of Saab, said his company and others would be likely to find themselves under pressure to cut their own research and development costs to lower pricing - a trend that could benefit North American and European governments looking to squeeze more ability out of shrinking defense budgets. "We need to be able to develop more for less," he said. Edward Wong reported from Beijing and Tokyo, and Nicola Clark from Paris. Gerry Doyle contributed reporting from Hong Kong. Patrick Zuo and Bree Feng contributed research from Beijing.

India, US to jointly develop, produce defence equipment

 Washington and New Delhi are firming up "practical projects" for joint development and production of defence equipment in India to take the defence relationship between the two countries to the "next level", US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns disclosed Friday.

        "We have made some concrete suggestions about areas in which we think co-production and co-development would make sense for both countries, and we just need to sort through the practicalities of that with our Indian counterparts," Burns, who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday, said.

Read more at:http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india-us-to-jointly-develop-produce-defence-equipment/1114404/

F-35B performs first vertical take-off

Sources say that test pilots at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, performed the firstLockheed Martin F-35B Joint Strike Fighter vertical take-off on 10 May.

The US Marine Corps' short take-off and vertical landing variant had a requirement to perform vertical take-offs right from the outset of the JSF programme. However, the capability is not emphasised because the F-35B would not be able to carry a tactically significant payload in that configuration.

Operationally, the USMC envisions its F-35Bs performing short rolling take-offs carrying a full load of ordnance and fuel, and then performing a vertical landing once the aircraft returns to the amphibious assault ship or expeditionary airfield.

The concept of operations is similar to that currently flown by the USMC's Boeing AV-8B Harrier II squadrons. Although the Harrier is often touted as a vertical take-off and landing machine, it flies a similar short take-off and vertical landing profile for the overwhelming majority of its missions.

The original X-35B prototype demonstrated the ability to take off vertically in 2001.

Navy set to receive the first P 8I aircraft from Boeing

Indian Navy P 8I during its first flight

The Indian Navy is all set to acquire its first US-made long-range maritime patrol and ASW aircraft to counter the growing influence of China in Indian Ocean Region(IOR), .  The first of the aircraft, known as P8I Poseidon, is expected to land in India around May 15, said an Indian  Navy official. 

      The  aircraft will be based in INS Rajali, a naval base on the Tamil Nadu coast. With a range of about 8600 km and an endurance of 10 hours, P8I Poseidon can fly non-stop up to Australia – much beyond India’s neighbouring maritime zones – and augment Navy’s surveillance capability by leaps and bounds.  



      India is buying eight P8I ,from Boeing, at a cost of $2.1 billion. These aircraft will replace the Russian Tu-142 of Indian Navy, inducted 25 years ago. The Navy will receive the first three in 2013 and the remaining five will arrive by 2015. India is the first customer of P8I, outside the USA. New Delhi is negotiating with Washington to buy four additional P8Is from Boeing for further expanding its maritime footprint. Acquisition of 12 P8I will complete the first phase of the Navy’s requirement of 24 long range maritime reconnaissance aircraft.