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[…] Even when the United States and its coalition partners had over 130,000 troops in Afghanistan, civilian casualties were widespread. During President Barack Obama’s surge, when U.S. forces numbered nearly 100,000, there were almost 8,000 civilian casualties in 2011 alone, including over 3,000 killed that year. In 2019, the last full year before the Doha agreement was signed to end U.S. participation in the war, there were more civilian casualties than in 2020. Last year was actually the first time civilian casualties fell below 10,000 since 2013.

But that hasn’t stopped those in the Washington foreign policy establishment wedded to the war in Afghanistan from arguing that recent bad news should cause Biden to rethink the withdrawal. For example, a Washington Post editorial following the bombings suggested that central Asian basing discussions raise “the question of why the United States does not simply retain its relatively small footprint in Afghanistan” and argued that “the Biden administration should be prepared to step up its air support for Afghan forces to ensure that any Taliban offensive against Kabul or other major cities can be turned back.”

These steps would be tantamount to sinking deeper into a war that Americans are clearly ready to end. In recent polling conducted by YouGov, 66 percent of the general population supported Biden’s plan to bring our troops home from Afghanistan by September. Only 14 percent opposed the withdrawal. This is mirrored by those who know war the most: our veterans. 68 percent of veterans are supportive of withdrawal with only 19 percent opposed. Läs artikel

Det er velkendt, at der er store huller i den danske overvågning af Arktis, hvor flere store lande har strategiske interesser.

Danmark får dog ros af USA for den øgede overvågning, som blev aftalt tidligere på året om blandt andet en stor radar, der skal opstilles på Færøerne, og droner, som skal overvåge luftrummet over Grønland.

Den amerikanske udenrigsminister, Antony Blinken, er glad for initiativet.

– Danmark tager et skridt frem med investeringen på omkring 1,5 milliarder kroner, siger han på et pressemøde mandag i København under et besøg.

– Det giver gennem teknologi en kapacitet til at vide, hvem der gør hvad og hvor på et hvilket som helst tidspunkt. Det er som regel vigtigt for at opretholde sikkerheden.

Den øgede overvågning skal opdage russiske fly, der flyver over Færøerne og Grønland og finde russiske ubåde i de arktiske farvande. Läs artikel

Hans Dahlgren, Ann Linde och Anna Hallberg är ministrarna som getts ansvaret för regeringens EU- och utrikespolitik av statsminister Stefan Löfven. Men ingen av dem har fått väljarnas röster att sitta i riksdagen, ingen av dem har några stödtrupper i regeringspartiet. Det verkar nu inte ens som övriga ministrar märkt att regeringen förändrat EU-politiken. […]

Den tidigare politiska tjänstemannen Ann Linde fick ta klivet upp till posten som utrikesminister. Till handelsminister utnämndes den politiska novisen Anna Hallberg, som gick med i partiet när hon fick erbjudandet om uppdraget.

För första gången saknas folkvalda politiker med stark förankring i sina partier på de poster som ska driva Sveriges EU- och utrikespolitik.[…]

Det är naturligtvis Stefan Löfven som borde gå ut offentligt och tala om att regeringen förändrat sin syn på EU-samarbetet utifrån erfarenheterna av coronapandemin och Brexit, och inför den framtidsdebatt som nu inletts i EU. Det är Löfven som valt att tillsätta ministrar på tunga poster som inte ens andra ministrar i regeringen lyssnar till, eller inte låtsas höra för att de inte orkar ta debatten med övriga partier och sina väljare. Läs artikel

I efterskalvet till det överraskande amerikanska militära uttåget från Afghanistan kommer tidigare militära strategier och politiska argument att hamna på historiens sophög. För svensk del måste lärdomar dras av ett mångårigt krig under Nato-flagg och utan påtagliga resultat.

En viktig förklaring till misslyckandet är den bakomliggande Pentagondoktrinen från Vietnamkriget om militärt-civilt samarbete i så kallade ”strategiska byar”, som i Afghanistan benämndes Provincial reconstruction team (PRT).

Svenska Afghanistankommittén, genom sin medarbetare Lasse Bengtsson i Kabul, talade klarspråk redan för drygt tio år sedan (debattartikel i Aftonbladet den 10 mars 2011): ”Utan stöd från befolkningen kan inte ens Afghanistankommittén fortsätta att arbeta. På frågan om vi behöver stöd av militären, så svarar vi nej. Tvärtom – en sammanblandning mellan den militära insatsen och vår vore förödande.” Läs artikel

[…] Vad som är särskilt anmärkningsvärt i den nuvarande händelseutvecklingen är magnituden i det israeliska anfallet. Inte sedan 2014 har ett sådant urskillningslöst och oproportionerligt bombande bevittnats och enligt B’tselem står det redan klart att krigsbrott begås av Israel. Hamas raketbeskjutning mot civila är också att anses som krigsbrott, men den analys som lägger lika ansvar på båda parter, eller rent av legitimerar Israels våldsanvändning med att “Hamas började” måste ses som en skev historiebeskrivning. […]

Vad den nuvarande händelseutvecklingen med tydlighet visar är att det inte går att styra en befolkning genom militär ockupation i evighet. Det vi ser är inte en konflikt mellan två jämbördiga parter där båda har lika mycket ansvar. Det handlar om ett utdraget tillstånd av konstant våld, ockupation och förtryck som kanaliserats i bosättarkolonialism och apartheid-politik. Det finns egentligen bara två alternativa lösningar; en tvåstatslösning eller en gemensam stat för båda befolkningar med lika rättigheter. Fortsatt ockupation innebär ett fortsatt och konstant lågintensivt våld, vilket historien visat med jämna mellanrum kommer att punkteras av mer intensiva episoder där palestinskt motstånd intensifieras och möter ockupationsmaktens militära överlägsenhet. Det är vad som har hänt just nu. Läs artikel

Dr Henry Kissinger warns that the turbulent relationship between the United States  and China carries the seeds of war.

President Joe Biden describes ties between the two as ”extreme competition”, not conflict. The latest US intelligence report casts China as America’s top national security threat. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says there are three aspects of the relationship with China – adversarial, competitive and cooperative. […]

Limits are also imposed by the unenthusiastic response from countries Washington is wooing for its anti-China alliance.

Even close European allies, with economic equities in ties with China, are reluctant to be drawn into such a coalition. Mr Biden told the Munich conference in April that the US and its allies faced ”long-term strategic competition” with China and needed to stand up to its ”economic abuses and coercion”.

But Europe, much less the rest of the world, does not see it the same way. German Chancellor Angela Merkel says so openly, Japan is reluctant to sanction Beijing and other Asian countries are even less willing to join any contain-China coalition. Whether this reality urges the US towards a conciliatory policy is to be seen. Läs artikel

Europe’s biggest and most complex air and missile exercise gets underway on Saturday (15 May 2021) with ships and aircraft from across NATO defending against a variety of missiles. Exercise “At-Sea-Demo/Formidable Shield” is held primarily at the Hebrides range off Scotland, and also at the Andoya training site off Norway, involving 15 ships and dozens of aircraft from ten NATO nations. […]

Held every two years, Formidable Shield will run until 3 June and is led by Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO on behalf of the US Sixth Fleet. The exercise will involve around 3,300 personnel from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Spanish Navy’s frigate ESPS Cristobal Colon is the flagship of the exercise. Läs artikel

The current instability in the Sahel has attracted a heavy international security presence to the region which has taken on a logic of its own. Yet there is a need to reflect on how the international presence and local power dynamics mutually shape each other to gain a more comprehensive understanding of why current efforts to stabilise the situation have fallen short. […]

For European states in particular, contributing troops to larger allies’ initiatives in the region has also become an important political means to show loyalty and commitment. While a collective NATO engagement in the region is unlikely to see the light, given the many bilateral and multilateral operations already underway, NATO members’ support for French initiatives should be interpreted as a means to reinforce solidarity between member states. US, Danish, Estonian and British support to the French-led operation Barkhane in the shape of troops, equipment and logistics is a case in point here. Macron’s call for the Europeanisation of the fight against terrorism in the Sahel has more recently been exemplified by the call for partner nations to support a French-led joint Special Task Force called Takuba in the region. While the new initiative has received a lukewarm response from EU member states, it is another platform for European states to back up France, improve European interoperability and add broader legitimacy to French initiatives in the region.

The less than enthusiastic support for Takuba is likely to, in part, be driven by a reluctance to collaborate with a former colonial power whose presence in the region is contested. Läs artikel

[…] The Biden administration’s inability to set priorities heightens the risks to America. In particular, Washington’s strategic myopia is driving Russia and China together, increasing their diplomatic, economic, and military cooperation to resist U.S. pressure. Given the lengthy border between Russia and China and the inherent jockeying of the two countries for a dominant position in Central Asia, Moscow and Beijing should have more to fear from each other than either would from the United States. It requires extraordinarily clumsy, abrasive behavior on Washington’s part to forfeit that advantage.

Ideally, U.S. policymakers should seek ways to reduce tensions with both powers. At a minimum, Washington needs to make a choice—pursuing a rapprochement with one country in order to focus on effectively waging a strategic rivalry with the other. A sober assessment would indicate that the wiser course would be to repair relations with Russia. Russia’s $1.5 trillion economy ranks eleventh in the world, just ahead of Australia’s $1.48 trillion. Conversely, China’s $16.8 trillion makes that country the world’s second-largest economic power. Those figures mean that Russia is a second-tier economic player, while China is a strong peer competitor that is closing fast on the United States. Moreover, Beijing has assiduously used its financial capabilities to cultivate influence around the world. Läs artikel

The United States claims it wants to safeguard the progress made in the past two decades but it also wants to evade any responsibility toward Afghanistan, as per President Joe Biden’s latest remarks and his decision to withdraw troops from the country. Biden stated that the reason the US and its allies came to Afghanistan could not justify their presence there now. The president ignored the fact that the United States chose to frame the intervention as a liberating mission. Therefore, at such a critical juncture of history, we must ask: Was progress truly made in the past twenty years? And can the post-settlement Afghanistan sustain such progress?

It was imperative to show the Afghan people what democracy could achieve for them and the power they held within this new order, yet the same old story of elites amassing riches and power continued, this time exponentialy. The United States always kept the government of Afghanistan on the hinge of collapse and at the height of dependency lest it forget who was at the helm. Läs artikel

[…] US nuclear-powered submarines have over the last few years increased sailings in the north. Crew change and supply arrangements have until now been arranged in the fjords outside Troms in northern Norway.

On Monday, however, the first docking took place, as the “USS New Mexico” came to Tønsnes municipal harbor some 10 kilometers north of Tromsø city center.

Security is tight. A no-fly zone is established over the port, and access to the harbor area is strictly guarded by the Norwegian Armed Forces. The military guarding of the port will only last for as long as the submarine stays. Normally, the port in Tønsnes serves civilian vessels in Tromsø, including the oil and gas supply activities offshore northern Norway. Läs artikel