Länkar

Iseptember 2020 opererte en britiskledet flåte- og flystyrke i det høye nord. Skipene seilte langt inn i Barentshavet. Omtrent 1200 personer fra Storbritannia, USA, Danmark og Norge deltok i dem maritime øvelsen. I følge britene var dette første gang på over 20 år at de ledet en flernasjonal maritim styrke betydelig nord for polarsirkelen. Et bakteppe for marineøvelsen var en pågående global kampanje og operasjon. […]

Den britiske marinen har ikke bare gjenopptatt tilstedeværelse og øving i den europeiske delen av Arktis, men også i andre deler av Polhavet. Etter mange års fravær deltok Royal Navy i 2018 og 2020 på nytt i den amerikanske ubåtøvelsen ICEX. Den foregår i området nord for Alaska og Canada, i Beauforthavet og nordover. En øvelse hvor ubåtene seiler under havisen og i tillegg stiger opp og bryter gjennom overflateisen. Beauforthavet er for øvrig oppkalt etter en britisk admiral og hydrograf. Läs artikel

France should pull out of Mali. That is the French media message to the Macron administration, as fatalities rise in what is highlighted as a quagmire.

The new year began with a deadly start, when a homemade road bomb killed Jan. 2 two French soldiers in an armored car, just five days after three soldiers were similarly slain. That brought to 53 the number of French soldiers killed since 2013 in the Serval and Barkhane operations in the Sahel region, sub-Saharan Africa. The Barkhane mission seeks to hit armed groups linked to the al Qaeda and Islamic State.

An Ifop opinion poll showed a swing away from public support, for the first time showing 51 percent against the mission in Mali, Le Point weekly magazine reported Jan. 11. […]

A video report on L’Opinion, a news website, set out clearly the case for withdrawing troops: there has been no terrorist attack on French soil from the Sahel region, intelligence chiefs said. The “insurrections” can only be resolved by talks, as the conflicts reflect disputes that date back to before the French colonialism. A French intervention in Mali may have been needed in 2013, ordered by the then president François Hollande, but today’s problem is how to pull the troops out while avoiding making it look like a failure, the video report said. […]

France pulled out of Afghanistan in 2012, two years earlier than expected. That withdrawal was one of François Hollande’s campaign promises when he ran for the presidency, and when he went out to Afghanistan as head of state and commander in chief, he told the French troops they would be home by Christmas.

It remains to be seen how Macron will shape the way ahead with regard to the Barkhane mission. Läs artikel

[…] On the occasion of the first anniversary of the Pau summit, France finds itself at a turning point in a murderous and unpopular military engagement in the Sahel. As Takuba begins to fully deploy, the future of France’s support to the G5 Sahel countries remains ambiguous. But one thing is clear: the fight against Islamist terrorism in the Sahel cannot be definitively won as long as these countries do not become their own providers of security and stability, an unrealistic scenario in the medium and even long term. […]

While President Macron insisted in Pau that the time for ambiguity is over, days after massive protests against the French presence in Mali, members of the G5 Sahel have not shown a solid alignment with Paris over the past year. As early as February 2020, the Malian government considered starting negotiations with terrorist groups, a lawlessness for France, as this would contradict the strategic discourse of its military involvement in the region. Läs artikel

– Kina forholder seg til internasjonale regler i nord. Kinesernes aktiviteter er mindre omfattende enn man kan få inntrykk av, sier statssekretær Audun Halvorsen (H) i Utenriksdepartementet.

Forsvarsdepartements sikkerhetspolitiske direktør Svein Efjestad sier det slik:

– Av og til virker det på meg som om man har et overdrevet trusselbilde av hva som skjer i nord. Det kommer stadig antydninger om stor kinesisk aktivitet i nord, men det kan jeg ikke se særlig tegn til. Det er ett eksempel på at vi bør følge med, men også at vi gjør det. Läs artikel

Ett svenskt specialförband blir en viktig del av franskledda styrkan Takuba i Mali som aktivt ska motarbeta terrorister i området.

Frankrike bidrar med flest soldater följt av Sverige. I övrigt bidrar Estland och Tjeckien med mindre grupper specialförband som det ser ut nu.

Svenska riksdagspolitiker hade hoppats på bredare stöd från andra och varnar för att insatsens effekt nu minskar.

Allan Widman (L) : ”Kan man inte fylla upp med styrkor från andra länder minskar effekten och risken ökar för de svenska soldaterna.” Läs artikel

Last week, President Emmanuel Macron announced that France will be “adjusting” its military strategy in the Sahel. The deaths of five French soldiers in Mali in the last four weeks has shocked his government, and begun to rattle French public opinion about its long-term military intervention in the region.

A member of France’s National Assembly Defence Commission, also finally admitted an awkward truth, telling journalists last week that “we cannot say that the situation [in the Sahel] has improved in the last eight years…. The human and financial cost is out of all proportion to what can be drawn from it. The Sahel peoples must be given back the means to decide for themselves.” […]

Bruno Charbonneau, a Professor at the Royal Military College Saint-Jean in Canada, has long spoken out about the weaknesses of military strategies in the Sahel, especially the France-led focus on counter-terrorism. “The narrow military focus reflects Western stabilization priorities” he argues. “This emphasis means that international military actors, and regional governments, don’t have to address more complex questions about the drivers of the crises. A key consequence is that it sustains the impunity of local and governmental actors.” Läs artikel

2018 erkände Frankrikes president Emmanuel Macron förekomsten av utbredd och systematisk tortyr mot såväl självständighetsförespråkare som franska antikolonialister under landets utdragna och blodiga kolonialstyre i Algeriet.

Macrons inställning tycktes öppna för en ny dörr i Frankrikes tabubelagda självskrivna historia om sin koloniala närvaro i Algeriet. Presidentens uttalande – och att det fälldes över huvud taget – bottnar i Macrons partipolitiska och ideologiska oberoende ställning gentemot den franska kolonialhistorien, menar David Lees, Frankrikehistoriker vid University of Warwick. […]

Här, i Algeriet som vann självständighet 1962 efter ett åttaårigt och blodigt befrielsekrig, dröjer andra slags sår kvar efter den franska kolonialismen. Bland annat efter Frankrikes kärnvapenprover i Saharaöknen i centrala och södra Algeriet. Mellan 1960 och 1966 genomförde Frankrike 17 kända kärnvapentester, varav flera ägde rum utan vare sig förvarning eller planerade skyddsåtgärder för lokalbefolkningen, däribland tuaregnomader.

Frankrike har ännu inte städat upp efter sig i de kontaminerade zonerna, något som Internationella kampanjen för att avveckla kärnvapen (ICAN) rekommenderar landet att göra i rapporten ”Radioaktivitet under sanden” från 2020. Läs artikel

After the crises in Ukraine, and despite the Georgian government’s allegedly more pragmatic attitude towards Russia, official statements from Moscow increasingly project Georgia as hostile. This may be the result of the Kremlin stepping up a propaganda campaign to put pressure on Georgia, but it is also linked to growing perceptions of Georgia as becoming an agent of NATO. Moreover, Russia’s increasingly insistent rhetorical and practical support for the independent status of the two Georgian breakaway republics, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, is still framed with reference to Kosovo as a tit-for-tat in a conflict with the West.

In parallel with this hardening in Russian views, there is hardly any diplomatic contact between Russia and Georgia. The regional multilateral frameworks have become dysfunctional, obstructed by polarization. Further Georgian NATO integration could entail an increasing risk of war, unless frank discussions and engagement with Russia can be promoted. Läs artikel

Three “peace agreements” have been signed by representatives from herder and farmer communities that have become trapped in violence sparked by armed group attacks in central Mali, a Swiss mediator said.

The accords bring together the Fulani – also called Peul – who mainly comprise semi-nomadic herders, and the Dogon, who are chiefly sedentary farmers. The two groups have historic tensions over access to land and water, but the friction turned bloody after armed fighters pushed into their region more than five years ago.

“On 12, 22 and 24 January 2021, the Fulani and Dogon communities signed three peace agreements with humanitarian objectives,” the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), a Swiss organisation, said on Tuesday. […]

Under the accords, the signatories pledged to encourage members of their communities “to work for peace by forgiving past acts and spread messages of cohesion and calm”. They also agreed to “guarantee physical integrity, the free circulation of people, goods and cattle … to respect the habits and customs” of all, and enable people of all communities to have access to villages and markets, the statement said. Läs artikel 

 Idag träder den i kraft, FN:s konvention om förbud mot kärnvapen. En dag att minnas. Men i Sverige är det tyst – en skammens tystnad.

Sverige var länge pådrivande för att skapa ett förbud mot att använda kärnvapen. Konventionen antogs i FN 2017 av 122 stater, däribland Sverige. ICAN, ett nätverk av organisationer i 101 länder, som stått bakom kampanjen för ett förbud, fick Nobels fredspris 2017.

Nu har 51 länder ratificerat konventionen om förbud mot utveckling, förvaring och användning av kärnvapen. Den blir en del av folkrätten. Det verkade ganska givet att Sverige också skulle ratificera, utrikesminister Margot Wallström (S) drev på men stoppades av försvarsminister Peter Hultqvists (S) och militärledningens motstånd. De borgerliga partierna gick också emot. En konvention skulle underminera deras Natoengagemang – i Natomedlemskapet ingår ju användning av kärnvapen.

Så där står vi nu. En majoritet av svenskarna vill ha ett förbud, 1600 parlamentariker över hela världen stödjer det (i Sverige över 30), hundratals städer har anslutit sig (i Sverige bara Göteborg). Läs artikel

[…] Rear Adm. Ewa Skoog Haslum said during an American Enterprise Institute online discussion today that the Baltic and North seas are busy waters for merchant, military and recreational traffic and that keeping the waters free and safe are important to Sweden, which is not a NATO member but a close partner to the alliance.

Though Russia is not taking actions in the region that rise to the level of needing a military response, she said it has become increasingly important for the Swedish Navy, Swedish civilian agencies and international navies to work together to be present, have good maritime surveillance, and share information so that Russian harassment of other vessels or other gray -zone actions don’t go unnoticed.

“It’s very easy to hamper or harass without anyone [seeing] it or [knowing] it – that is maybe the worst problem if you compare [the maritime environment to] what can happen ashore,” she said.
“That’s why we are very much concerned of always be present at sea, because then we can be the eyes at sea, and we can also both show our flag of course to other nations but also to show that we are ready to protect the merchant shipping, if that’s the one being harassed.”[…]

When it comes to working with international navies, she said Sweden is making procurement decisions that could support a “day-zero connectivity” goal, so that when it joins with NATO navies for exercises they are already able to seamlessly come together and begin working without any troubleshooting to get connected. […]

In the same event, U.S. 2nd Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Andrew Lewis also spoke of the importance of these exercises, saying in a previous exercise with the Swedish Navy he “learned more than I ever thought I would learn about mine countermeasures, about anti-submarine warfare, about operating in a very restricted waterway.” Läs artikel

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday rejected calls for Europe to pick sides between the U.S. and China, in a nod to the plea made by Chinese President Xi Jinping a day earlier.

While the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is looking to group together democracies to contain China, Merkel was pointedly wary about the formation of factions.

“I would very much wish to avoid the building of blocs,” Merkel told the Davos World Economic Forum. ”I don’t think it would do justice to many societies if we were to say this is the United States and over there is China and we are grouping around either the one or the other. This is not my understanding of how things ought to be.” Läs artikel