A Potential For Dangerous Escalation: "Russia To Destroy Any US Platforms That Strike Syria"

"Abstinence from all injustice to other first-rate powers is a greater tower of strength than anything that can be gained by the sacrifice of permanent tranquillity for an apparent temporary advantage" - Thucydides, History Of The Peloponessian War.

Iskandr M. Short range missiles capable of conveying nuclear warheads. 

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

Colonel General Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, - an official whose words should always be taken very seriously - has announced that US aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic Forces will no longer go unpunished. He has threatened to destroy any platforms that will have launched missiles against Syrian Government Forces, as such acts are putting Russian servicemen in Syria in danger. What this means in practice is that, if the US Fifth Fleet were to launch the strikes against Syria government targets, the entire Fifth Fleet will be sunk by Russian retaliatory strikes. This act, of targeting the opponent's military assets, is called Counter-force and is covered by the Laws of War. But, it can easily escalate to Counter-value: the targeting of non-military assets as war, inevitably, starts to subserve its logic. 

There is, therefore, the potential for dangerous escalation, even to the general use of nuclear weapons between the two countries. This, only if the United States continues to not pay heed to those words above by Thucydides. For it is due to the United States not playing by the book, in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria, and in other places, that we are this close to catastrophe.

Islamic State On The Korean Peninsula

“As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don’t know we don’t know” - Donald Rumsfeld, United States Secretary of Defense.

What comes after Kim Jong-un? That is the question.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defence under George W. Bush during the 2003 Iraq invasion, said something that greatly amused pundits, he said: “As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” While pundits and comedians were amused insofar as this could be a punchline when they tell their next joke at a party, the person who studies international dynamics, to make predictions on the next security threats, must take a different instruction from the “unknown unknowns” quote.

Donald Rumsfeld was trying to make the case that they should invade Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to obviate the danger of the “unknown unknowns” threat from Saddam Hussein. In hindsight, it was a disingenuous and cynical claim, because as it turns out, the invasion caused more instability and suffering than any unknown Saddam Hussein capability. This is not lost on analysts who notice that, the result of the invasion, was suffering for the Iraqis, and the creation of a hitherto unheard of armed group that now threatens Europe at will – the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

With the knowledge we now have of how things turned out in Iraq and Libya, after United States regime change actions there, we can make the case – with mathematical certainty – that if the United States attacks North Korea as threatened, the outcome is knowable. The United States thinks it can make a decapitating strike on the North Korean Supreme Leader. This will then lead to the population being freed from a dictatorship and thus there will be no retaliatory strikes from North Korean Rocket Forces. The problem with that line of reasoning is that experience belies it. It is no longer a case of unknown unknowns what will happen after regime change action, but known knowns: civil war and rise of armed non-state actors in those ungoverned spaces.

What will happen if the United States attacks North Korea, is that North Korea’s Rocket Forces will retaliate with missiles against South Korea and Japan – a situation which will put over 20 million people directly in harm’s way. But even if this danger was not there, and Kim Jong-Un could be removed by force, wherever a power vacuum has occurred, non-state armed groups have invariably filled the vacuum. We have never heard of a single terrorist attack in North Korea, but this will not be the case once the monopoly on the legitimate use of force is taken away. And with Islamic State being the umbrella of choice for those aggrieved by the West, it is not inconceivable that terrorist attacks against Western interests will start happening on the Korean Peninsula, if use of force is pursued as an option against North Korea. 

Russian Involvement in Syria: Enforcing Its United Nations Security Council Veto.

“Abstinence from all injustice to other first-rate powers is a greater tower of strength than anything that can be gained by the sacrifice of permanent tranquillity for an apparent temporary advantage” - Thucydides, The History Of The Peloponnesian War, 5th Century B.C.

Ambassador Vitaly Churkin of the Russian Federation at the United Nations Security Council.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

The Western mainstream media has been working hard to portray Russia’s involvement in the Syria conflict, on the invitation of the legitimate government there, as an act of misplaced geopolitical ambitions which has prolonged the conflict and suffering. The Western media and government officials are peddling the idea that Russia is on the wrong side of history and international law. I cannot say much about who is on the right and wrong side of history, as that is a subjective determination. In Libya, the intervention in 2011 was claimed by the same sources to be on the right side of history – a narrative which is belied by the facts of Libya today. We can, however, say something definitive about Russia’s intervention in Syria vis-à-vis International Law.

The closest the international society of states has to a Constitution (a repository of public international law), is the United Nations Charter, and the highest enforcement body of the United Nations is the Security Council (UNSC). Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter is where the Security Council’s powers and functions are described. The UNSC sits in deliberation over breaches of international law and passes binding United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCR). Any one of the five Permanent Members can block the passing of a Resolution by resorting to its Veto power. The Veto is a mechanism which allows a Permanent Security Council to block the passing of a United Nations Security Council Resolution. Once the Veto has been deployed, no actions that undermine that Veto should be taken by the other Members of the international community. A Permanent Security Council Member thus has three options available to it when deliberating a Resolution: Vote for, Abstain, or Veto. The United States tends to Veto all Resolutions demanding that Israel should observe rules of common decency in its occupation of Palestine. Once the United States vetoes a Resolution on Israel, the matter is closed.

I have characterised Russia’s intervention in Syria as enforcing its United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Veto. I am thus talking about something that is only happening because, in pursuit of its perceived exceptionalism, the United States and its allies have chosen to deliberately circumvent Russia’s Veto of the UNSC Resolution on Syria. Syria, too, cannot be discussed in isolation from Libya and the UNSC Vote authorising use of force there. The Russian Federation abstained from the UNSC Resolution establishing a No-Fly Zone over Libya, the United States then overstepped the limits of the Resolution and effected Regime Change in Libya. The result is that Libya is now in a state of anarchy. Russia, having given the United States the proverbial enough rope in Libya, rightly, vetoed the Resolution proposing protection of civilians in Syria. Experience had shown that protection of civilians is only a cover for the United States’ geopolitical manoeuvres. Having failed to get the Resolution, the United States decided to still give arms to the rebels and terrorists fighting the Syrian Arab Army, in direct contravention of the rules of Security Council Veto.

Russia’s intervention in Syria should then be viewed in the light of these facts. Russia and Iran are the only countries that are in Syria legally. Turkey, the United States, United Kingdom, France and Jordan are in Syria illegally. Use of force without a United Nations Security Council Resolution is illegal, as is being in a country without the invitation of the legitimate government of that country. Russia is in Syria on the request of the Syrian Arab Republic government, and Russia’s actions have so far prevented regime change there, as would have been the case had the UNSC Resolution on Syria passed. The Veto, therefore, has been enforced.     

Alexander Prokhorenko, the Russian Spetsnaz Operative who called an airstrike on himself to avoid being taken prisoner by ISIS in Syria.

Information Superiority In Warfare: A Myth?

A diagrammatic representation of USAF Col John Boyd's Observe - Orient - Decide - Act (OODA) Loop.

The above decision making model will be my reference point during my attendance at a major warfare conference in London in the next few days. The OODA Loop is fully explained here and a good example of how Donald Trump has (unwittingly) used it appears here 

The conference is on information superiority in warfare and, make no mistake, information, in all walks of life, is an invaluable commodity. The thing to remember, however, is that information has its own nature and rules which defy total domestication even by the most dedicated adherent. So, even before I attend this important conference, I am already circumspect about the grand pronouncement western war fighting says it aims at;  

Information Superiority is defined by Western militaries as “the operational advantage derived from the ability to collect, process, and disseminate an uninterrupted flow of information while exploiting or denying an adversary’s ability to do the same.” 

With an annual budget of over US$700 billion, failures to win (outright) the war in Afghanistan, makes a mockery of such a grand pronouncement and opens up avenues to discuss more decisive factors in warfare.

The Most Potent Global Security Threat Of The Twenty First Century

The unthinkable is the logical conclusion of all the great powers' strategic manoeuvring. Picture Credit: Wonderful Engineering.  

The greatest global security threat of the 21st century is the United States of America's fear of losing its status as the world hegemony. From this fear precipitates actions - in the name of "strategic manoeuvring" - that have destabilized, to name only the latest places: Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. Ukraine represents exactly the kind of overreach, on the United States' part, that may result in the unthinkable.

This is the top tier of global security threats, all other threats should be viewed through this prism. It is also not necessarily that America is evil, Thucydides writing in the 5th Century already showed that all pre-eminent powers will behave this way. The only difference now is that a war fought to maintain such a hegemony will be the last war.