På grund av ökad rysk aktivitet i Östersjön har Försvarsmakten gjort en så kallad beredskapsanpassning där extra förband tillförts Gotland från både armén och marinen.
”Bedömningen är fortfarande att hotbilden är oförändrad och sannolikheten för ett väpnat angrepp på Sverige är låg”, säger Tomas Ängshammar, kommunikationschef vid Försvarsmakten Gotland. Läs artikel
”Folkeretten forplikter oss som stat til å etter beste evne forsvare vårt eget territorium og holde orden i vår eksklusive økonomiske sone. Dette er regjeringens fremste folkerettslige forpliktelse. Det er først når dette er oppfylt at vi har krav på andres anerkjennelse som selvstendig stat. Ved å prioritere internasjonale operasjoner på bekostning av forsvaret av egne grenser, har vi ikke lenger kapasitet til å oppfylle våre folkerettslige forpliktelser som selvstendig stat. Dette har våre politikere valgt å neglisjere til fordel for internasjonale operasjoner med tvilsomt rettsgrunnlag som bombingen av Libya, invasjonen i Irak og okkupasjonen av Afghanistan.
Her hjemme gjør et svekket forsvar oss mer utsatt i et stadig mer ustabilt Europa. Det øker faren for å bli en brikke på stormaktenes sjakkbrett. Når regningen gjøres opp for denne uansvarlige eventyrpolitikken må vi legge til kostnadene ved å gjenoppbygge vårt eget forsvar. Ansvaret ligger først og fremst hos de to statsbærende partiene i Norge, Arbeiderpartiet og Høyre, sammen med militære rådgivere som tidligere forsvarssjef Sverre Diesen.” Øystein Steiro Sr. resett.no
[…] As the United States continued to evacuate thousands of citizens and allies at Kabul’s airport this week, dozens of civilians and soldiers were killed in several Islamist attacks across a vast and dangerous three-border region that straddles Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali. It was just another marker in a protracted fight that has killed thousands, displaced 2 million and — like Afghanistan — is considered by some as unwinnable. […]
“If there’s any lesson to draw, it’s that indefinite military solutions aren’t sustainable,” said Bakary Sambe, Senegal-based director of the Timbuktu Institute think tank.
“Sooner or later, there’s got to be an exit,” he said. […]
Macron announced in July France’s Barkhane operation would formally end early next year, with troops shrinking to up to half their current numbers and shifted to other anti-terrorist missions — notably forming backbone of the European Union’s fledgling Takuba force, currently aimed at helping Mali fight terrorism in the Sahel region. […]
Not under French consideration, though, is any dialogue with extremists — an effort controversially tried with the Taliban that is earning support among some Sahel authorities, at least when it comes to homegrown groups.
“The French have considered this a red line,” Guichaoua said. “Because that would mean somewhat that French soldiers died for nothing. But it is on the agenda for Malian authorities.”
Local-level negotiations with jihadi groups have long taken place, he said — to gain access to markets, for example, or get hostages released — but not high-level ones, “and the main reason is France.” Läs artikel
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I hamnarna i S: t Petersburg och Leningradregionen kommer logistikspecialister (MTO) i Western Military District (ZVO), som en del av en särskild övning för att tillhandahålla trupper, att utföra ett antal träningsuppgifter.
I synnerhet i hamnarna i Viborg och Ust-Luga, lastning av vapen och militär utrustning på ett civilt fartygs ägarfartyg med hjälp av en mobilkran på ett pneumatiskt körningsutrustning och en portaljärnvägskran, lastning av en militär nivå på egen hand på färjor, evakuering de skadade med flyg och transport av mer än två tusen ton kommer att övas i hamnarna i Viborg och Ust-Luga. dieselbränsle från järnvägstankar till tankfartyg. Läs artikel
The fall of Kabul to the Taliban on 15 August 2021 is a major political and ideological defeat for the American Empire. The crowded helicopters carrying US Embassy staff to Kabul airport were startlingly reminiscent of the scenes in Saigon – now Ho Chi Minh City – in April 1975.
The speed with which Taliban forces stormed the country was astonishing; their strategic acumen remarkable. A week-long offensive ended triumphantly in Kabul. The 300,000-strong Afghan army crumbled. Many refused to fight. In fact, thousands of them went over to the Taliban, who immediately demanded the unconditional surrender of the puppet government. President Ashraf Ghani, a favourite of the US media, fled the country and sought refuge in Oman.
The flag of the revived Emirate is now fluttering over his Presidential palace. In some respects, the closest analogy is not Saigon but nineteenth-century Sudan, when the forces of the Mahdi swept into Khartoum and martyred General Gordon. William Morris celebrated the Mahdi’s victory as a setback for the British Empire. Yet while the Sudanese insurgents killed an entire garrison, Kabul changed hands with little bloodshed. The Taliban did not even attempt to take the US embassy, let alone target American personnel. Läs artikel
William Dalrymple har skrivit en väldokumenterad bok om det första brittisk-afghanska kriget (1839–42),Return of a King (Bloomsbury 2013). Många har tidigare skrivit om kriget men Dalrymple har tagit del av nya ögonvittnesskildringar och i väst opublicerade uppteckningar om kriget av afghaner som på olika sätt deltog.
Jan Myrdal skrev om boken i Folket i Bild/Kulturfront 3:2013:
”Detta är, åtminstone i den sydasiatiska underkontinenten och den engelsktalande världen, en av denna säsongs viktigaste böcker. Den i Indien bosatte skotske historikern William Dalrymple har nämligen skrivit den hittills bästa och kunnigaste sammanfattningen om det Första Afghankriget 1839–1842. Han redovisar med vilka drag ’det stora spelet’ om Asien den gången öppnades och tydliggör med hittills i väst okända dokument den ohyggliga parallelliteten mellan det första Afghankriget och det nuvarande femte Afghankriget.”
Kriget var det första av de tre brittisk-afghanska krigen på 1800-talet och början på The Great Game, stormaktspelet mellan Ryssland och Storbritannien om inflytandet över Centralasien.
Som motdrag mot Rysslands och Persiens ökande inflytande bestämde sig britterna för att återinsätta den landsflyktige kungen Shah Shuja som fördrivits från Kabul av sin rival Dost Mohammad Khan. Åsikterna var delade inom de styrande bland britterna om vem av de två man skulle satsa på, men det blev Shah Shuja.
Tre hundra kameler med vin
Den brittiska armén sattes upp i Indien och utgjordes av 1 000 britter och 14 000 sepoyer (beteckningen på indiska soldater i kolonialarmén) från Ostindiska kompaniet. Till det kom 6 000 soldater rekryterade av kungen och inte mindre än 38 000 indiska så kallade Camp Followers, familjer, tjänare, hantverkare och andra som följde med armén som tross. För att klara transporten krävdes 30 000 kameler för den långa marschen upp genom Indusdalen och över bergspassen in i Afghanistan. De brittiska officerarna färdades ståndsmässigt. Trehundra kameler var öronmärkta för vinförrådet. Högre officerare behövde 50–250 kameler vardera för sin personliga utrustning.
Jag landade i Kabul 2009 när drömmen om ett demokratiskt, marknadsliberalt och modernt Afghanistan nådde sin kulmen.
Intrycken var överväldigande.
Det var byggboom. Kapitalet flödade. Staden som ligger som i botten av en kittel, omgiven av berg, insvept i smog, stod i snabb förvandling. Biståndskontor poppade upp som svampar ur jorden, drogbaroner byggde palatslika residens i den gräsliga stil som fick namnet narkotektur.
I Kabulbubblan minglade det internationella folket med inhemsk elit; på klubben L’Atmosphère, bevakad av kulsprutenästen, flödade alkoholen, i poolen simmade västerländska biståndskvinnor i minimala bikinis medan afghanska tjänsteandar passade upp. Några stenkast därifrån låg myndigheten för religiösa affärer, i flyktinglägren någon stadsdel bort dog småbarn av sjukdom och undernäring. Läs artikel
Rather than focusing on how we got out, it would be far wiser to focus on how we got in.
Under President George W. Bush, the early mission — to defeat al-Qaeda and get Osama bin Laden in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — quickly turned to nation-building. The United States would seek to build a democratic state in an impoverished country with entrenched divisions and cultural, language and religious traditions of which U.S. national security managers and military officials remained utterly ignorant. […]
We also need accountability and truth-telling in Congress. As Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) has proposed, it’s time for public hearings to probe the bureaucracy about its pattern of lying, while strengthening the War Powers Act and congressional oversight. Läs artikel
[…] It is easy to forget, given Washington’s unilateral withdrawal without consultation, but this was in fact a Nato war with the heavy participation of European countries. It is Germany’s largest military intervention since the Second World War, with around 150,000 German soldiers deployed there over the past two decades and 12.5 billion Euros of German taxpayer money spent in 20 years of training for an Afghan army that collapsed in just a week. At the war’s end, Germany had the second largest contingent of troops in Afghanistan after the United States.
And yet, despite those 20 years of German commitment and the refugee risks presented by the hasty withdrawal, Germany and other European Nato members were not consulted about when and how to end this war. President Trump unilaterally made his peace deal with the Taliban last year, setting an exit date of May 2021 in contravention of the Nato policy of conditional withdrawal.
President Biden promised to be different than his predecessor and consult with Europeans about their shared war, saying: “We went in together, we’ll go out together.” But in the end, he ran roughshod over concerns expressed by Italy and the UK at the June 2021 Nato summit about the pace of withdrawal, delaying the exit date by just four months. […]
the UK, Germany and eastern Europe. CDU chancellor candidate Armin Laschet broke some major German taboos on Monday when he called this “the biggest debacle that Nato has suffered since its founding” which must prompt “a no-holds-barred analysis of errors in Germany, with our allies and in the international community”. Former British Prime Minister Theresa May went even further in a speech to the House of Commons on Wednesday, saying: “Surely one outcome of this must be a reassessment of how Nato operates … What what does it say about us as a country, what does it say about Nato, if we are entirely dependent on a unilateral position taken by the US?” Läs artikel
Norwegian F-35 fighter aircraft operated with NATO AWACS and U.S. Air Force and Navy assets in a multi-domain exercise off the Norwegian coast on August 18, 2021.[…]
Norway supported the exercise with F-35 fighter aircraft from 332 Squadron based at Ørland and F-16 fighter aircraft from 331 Squadron based in Bodø. Both Squadrons are under the command of 332 Air wing at Ørland.
”Norway is dependent on this type of exercise and cooperation with Allied forces. Today’s training is a good example of us moving in the right direction and that we are on the right track in utilising F-35 effectively in a multi-domain operation, with Allies, under a significant Anti-Access/Area-Denial or A2AD threat,” says Lieutenant Colonel Ole-Marius Tørrisplass at Norwegian Air Operations Centre, Royal Norwegian Air Force.
United States Air Force in Europe-Air Forces Africa supported the event with personnel from Combat Communications Squadron out of Ramstein Air Base, Support Operations Group personnel from U.S. Army Garrison Wiesbaden, Germany and Air Control Squadron personnel out of Aviano Air Base Italy. USS Arleigh Burke, a U.S. Navy Europe guided missile destroyer and assets from U.S. Space Command contributed to this complex combined training event. Läs artikel
[…] Our event database illustrates both the offensive and defensive sides of the geopolitical equation. Show of force and freedom of navigation activities, especially by the United States and NATO, have pushed aircraft and naval operations into areas that hitherto had seen little, if any, probing by the opposing sides since the height of the Cold War.
Take, for example, the deployment of U.S. strategic air assets from bases in the United States to the European theater. Over the last three years, these bomber task force deployments have steadily increased the U.S. presence in northern Europe, especially in Norway and its adjoining seas, with B-1, B-2, and B-52 missions above the Arctic Circle and over the Barents Sea. U.S. and allied navies have also extended their show of force and freedom of navigation operations into the same area — including a carrier strike group — for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
These naval demonstrations are highly visible and demonstrate significant offensive capability. At least three allied multinational task forces have conducted patrols into the Barents Sea which, given the vast Russian military establishment there centered on the Northern Fleet, drew considerable attention from Moscow. NATO and Russia are engaged in an ongoing geopolitical drama, one in which the actors are willing and perhaps driven to increase the tempo and expand the arena in which it plays out. This makes dangerous military interactions, both at sea and in the air, much more commonplace and virtually guarantees more of the same all along the NATO-Russian frontier. Läs artikel
Det var ett bra beslut, nödvändigt och välkommet, att USA och dess allierade liksom juniorpartnern Sverige lämnade Afghanistan.
USA med sina bundsförvanter var i Afghanistan utan folkrättsligt stöd. USA startade den 7 oktober 2001 bombkriget mot Afghanistan. Angreppet var ett brott mot FN-stadgans våldsförbud och har aldrig sanktionerats av FN.
Man var en utländsk ockupationsmakt i kriget.
Mot slutet av det 20-åriga kriget fick det alltmer också karaktären av ett inbördeskrig. Det strider mot folkrätten att stödja ena sidan i ett inbördeskrig, och i detta fall en korrupt sida som man hade riggat och själv styrde och höll under armarna och som föll som ett korthus efter tillbakadragandet. Den sidan hade sedan länge förlorat kontrollen över stora delar av territoriet.
Uttåget skulle ha skett för länge sedan, och man skulle aldrig från början ha gått in med militär.
I det läge som nu råder måste Sveriges linje vara att hävda försvar av Afghanistans territoriella integritet och självbestämmande. Stormakter ska inte blanda sig i annat än om de bjuds in för konstruktiva bidrag till utvecklingen av landet.