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[…] Russia’s relations with non-NATO countries in the Baltic Sea region—Sweden and Finland—have also become markedly strained. Stockholm has just decided on a major increase in its defense spending, citing the Russian threat. Moscow, of course, has always considered Sweden an informal member of NATO. What is new is that Finland, Russia’s direct neighbor and a neutral–friendly partner during the Cold War, is now cooperating very closely with the United States and NATO. The Baltic Sea has largely become a NATO lake.

In response, Moscow reversed the post-Cold War policy that had long seen its western flank as its safest. New military formations have been established. The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, rather than becoming a laboratory for close Russian-European cooperation, has been rebuilt as a military fortress, a behind-the-lines West Berlin on steroids. While Russians worry about defending Kaliningrad, Poland and the Baltic countries fear a Russian strike to cut off the Baltics by seizing the Suwalki gap.

What we are witnessing here is not a new Cold War, but a new kind of confrontation, which is also fraught with high risks. The most likely danger is no longer a massive cross-border invasion or a large-scale nuclear attack, but an inadvertent direct collision between Russian and Western forces where they operate close to each other, or a miscalculation by one side linked to misperception about the other. Läs artikel

[…] History can be “an inconvenient truth.” But the last serious crisis in cross-strait relations appears to have been long enough ago (1996? 2008?) for some in Washington to have forgotten—or maybe never to have known—how serious it can get. In the meantime, U.S.-China relations have deteriorated to a point where Beijing’s perspective on almost any bilateral issue is now deemed invalid or unreasonable. Indeed, its views on many issues are invalid and unreasonable. But we should be extremely cautious about dismissing Beijing’s perspective on Taiwan, or underestimating how deadly serious the issue is to Chinese leaders. It represents the unfinished business of the Chinese Civil War and thus involves the legitimacy and the survival of the Chinese Communist Party. Despite American distaste for the Chinese Communist Party, the inconvenient truth is that Washington explicitly committed several decades ago to not “pursuing a policy of ‘two Chinas’ or ‘one China, one Taiwan’” as a strategic prerequisite to establishing a relationship with Beijing. China has since become both the United States’ primary global strategic competitor and a necessary strategic partner on a wide range of global issues. That will be hard enough to manage without endangering the relationship’s foundation of mutual understandings regarding Taiwan.

The good news is that, contrary to the prevailing wisdom, Beijing is not in fact looking for excuses or an opportunity to attack Taiwan: it is looking for reasons not to do so. The danger is that Chinese leaders currently do not perceive Washington and Taipei to be providing those reasons. Läs artikel

The security situation in Europe has deteriorated to its lowest point since the end of the Cold War. NATO and Russian military forces operate in much closer proximity than just a few years ago, previous lines of NATO-Russia communications have broken down, and the nuclear and conventional arms control system that took decades to build is rapidly unravelling, with nothing to take its place.

Against this backdrop, the ELN has lent its support to an extended series of detailed senior expert discussions led by ELN members Sergey Rogov and Alexey Gromyko on how NATO and Russia might reduce the risk of inadvertent conflict. The experts group has comprised some 30 people including retired diplomats and military officers from the United States, Russia and Europe. While members of the group differed over the root causes of the current crisis, they share a common concern that as tension builds between Russia and NATO, there is a growing danger of a real military confrontation.

1. Re-establishing practical dialogue between Russia and NATO, including direct contacts between the military commanders and experts of Russia and NATO member states.
2. Developing common rulesthat will reduce the risk of unintended incidents on land, air and sea.
3. Enhancing stability by increasing transparency, avoiding dangerous military activities, and providing dedicated communication channels that would avoid escalation of incidents that might occur.
4. Utilizing (and possibly supplementing) the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act to codify restraint, transparency and confidence-building measures.
5. Exploring possible limitations on NATO and Russian conventional force deployments in Europe to enhance transparency and stability.
6. Establishing consultations between Russia and US/NATO on the topics of intermediate-range missiles and ballistic missile defense, in order to prevent a new nuclear missile race in Europe.
7. Preserving the Open Skies Treaty. Läs artikel

Look at and listen in to three spheres of contemporary Western society – politics, research and media: The word” peace” and related words, such as the UN Charter norm of” making peace by peaceful means”, nonviolence, negotiations – have disappeared. And with the words, the discourse and with the discourse, the interest, the education and expertise, the focus, the awareness and the strategies.

Let us start with the political sphere. In Scandinavia where I happen to live, today’s status is very different from the 1980s. There are no global disarmament policies or disarmament ministers; the UN’s basically non-armed peace-keeping is hardly ever mentioned; while Sweden has integrated with NATO and has soldiers under NATO command, it no longer contributes a single UN peacekeeper. Läs artikel

On Jan. 23, 2020, Gen. François Lecointre, chief of the defense staff and France’s highest-ranking general, told the National Assembly that the French army knew what it was doing with Operation Barkhane, the French military intervention in the Sahel that began in 2014.

This was partly due, he explained, to the fact that the army could draw on the heritage of colonial-era doctrine personified by Gen. Joseph Gallieni and Gen. Hubert Lyautey. These men made their careers conquering and “pacifying” France’s colonial empire in Indochina and Africa during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Their ideas were the basis for doctrinal developments in the 1940s and 1950s, when colonial wars evolved into counter-insurgency campaigns and colonial doctrine became counter-insurgency (COIN) doctrine. For Lecointre, the association between contemporary French military operations and French colonial practices was a positive one. He hoped to communicate confidence and cultivate the trust of the French public and France’s civilian leaders, assuring them that the French military mission in the Sahel was justified and its objectives attainable.

For some, Lecointre’s remarks had the opposite effect. He confirmed the idea that France was conducting a colonial campaign — that it was approaching Africa through a (neo)colonial lens and not, as the French government claims, merely defending friendly countries from Islamist terrorists. Critics of French interventions in Africa such as Bruno Charbonneau stress the continuities between colonial, neo-colonial, and contemporary policies and practices. Other regional experts like Yvan Guichaoua and Nathaniel Powell are troubled by the repetition of policies and practices that have, in their view, done more to destabilize the region since decolonization in the 1960s. In other words, the problem is not that the French military does not know what it is doing, but rather that France’s track record suggests the country’s savoir faire is doing more harm than good.

There is also a widespread belief that the French approach to the Sahel is overly militarized. In March 2020, Hannah Armstrong, a senior analyst with International Crisis Group, told the New York Times that “French counterterrorism mimics U.S. counterterrorism of 15 years ago.” Operation Barkhane was doomed to follow the course of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. According to Armstrong, sooner or later, the French will realize the war is a lost cause and leave. Alex Thurston has argued that “French policy seems to lack a vision beyond the theory that eventually, killing enough terrorists and undertaking enough development projects will eliminate the jihadist presence.” Charbonneau has taken issue with France’s application of the “global approach,” which he associates with actions that negatively impact Malian politics and society. Ultimately, most agree that, in Thurston’s words, “France is not succeeding at stabilizing the Sahel.” Läs artikel

[…] Självklart måste antalet värnpliktiga öka. Värnplikten bör vara allmän. Den kan förenklas och ha som målsättning att vara ett uthålligt motståndsförsvar över hela vårt markterritorium. Detta visar en tänkt angripare att Sverige värnar sin självständighet. Tidsmässigt ska värnplikten anpassas till utbildning och arbetsliv i samhället.

Den folkliga förankringen liksom personalförsörjningen ska ha värnplikten som grund, menar skribenterna.

Vår militära alliansfrihet är viktig. Ja, med trovärdig politik kanske den viktigaste krigsavhållande faktorn. Läs artikel

After Secretary of State Mike Pompeo completed his Asian tour in October, many observers labeled this tour as “anti-China.” He attended the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) conference in Tokyo and visited states with shared security concerns about China like Vietnam. This tour brought more discussion about the role of Quad in East Asian national security. Prime Minister Abe initiated Quad in 2007 as “an Asian arc of democracy” to contain China. But different interests among its members contributed to its collapse in 2008. Later, Japan, Australia, India, and the United States revived Quad in 2017 to secure a “rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific.” With China’s growing power and assertiveness, many suspect Quad as the first step toward a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-like alliance in the Indo-Pacific. However, a comparison between American security establishments in Europe and Asia shows that a multilateral alliance in Asia is unlikely to emerge. […]

Second, bilateral treaties in East Asia give the United States more influence over its allies. Washington and its Asian allies share security interests, such as promoting regional stability and encountering Chinese and North Korean threats. However, there are conflicts of interest among them. For example, both Japan and Korea refuse to increase their share of defense spending. They also have strong economic ties with China, which they do not want to jeopardize over the Sino-American strategic conflicts. A multilateral treaty would allow Japan and Korea to resist the American pressure jointly. Bilateral treaties ensure that the U.S. can deal with them separately. Thus, this arrangement maximizes American leverage over its Asian allies. Läs artikel

Norges FN ambassadør Mona Juul: Norge skal lede arbeidet med å sette den humanitære situasjonen i Syria på Sikkerhetsrådets dagsorden. […]

I VG 19. desember 2020 ble Mona Juul intervjuet om hvilke saker Norge skal bringe til «bordet» i Sikkerhetsrådet. Juul svarer: «Norge skal lede arbeidet med å sette den humanitære situasjonen i Syria på Sikkerhetsrådets dagsorden».

Hvem har bestemt at Norge skal bruke setet i Sikkerhetsrådet til den «humanitære situasjonen» i Syria? Hvorfor skal den «humanitære situasjonen» i Syria opp igjen i Sikkerhetsrådet? Den ble jo ferdigbehandlet tidligere i år. Og, den handlet ikke om «den humanitære situasjonen»[…]

Arbeidet Norge nå påtar seg på vegne av USA handler ikke om humanitær bistand. Oppdraget handler om en omstridt FN-resolusjon (2165) fra 2014 som tillater at FN og bistandsorganisasjoner kan frakte «humanitær bistand» fra naboland gjennom en rekke grenseoverganger inn til Syria uten syriske myndigheters godkjenning. […]

Grenseovergangene det er snakk om er fra Tyrkia i nord, fra det britisk-kontrollerte Jordan i sør gjennom At-Tanf-området hvor USA holder tusenvis av syrere som gisler i et avsidesliggende ørkenområde i den beryktede konsentrasjonsleiren Rukban, og en tredje fra det USA-okkuperte Irak nordøst for Syria. Totalt 6 grenseoverganger. […]

Nå har nordmenn jobbet for fred i Syria siden 2011 og ingen fred er i sikte. Det har heller ikke stått i arbeidsinstruksen. Det er heller ikke «fred» Juul skal bringe til «bordet» i Sikkerhetsrådet i FN. USA ønsker ikke fred i Syria. De gjør alt de kan for at Syria ikke skal vinne krigen. Med god hjelp fra norske diplomater. Läs artikel

Republikens president Sauli Niinistö och Rysslands president Vladimir Putin förde ett långt telefonsamtal måndagen den 28 december 2020.

Presidenterna utbytte de traditionella nyårshälsningarna och uppmärksammade samtidigt 100-årsjubileet av de diplomatiska förbindelserna mellan länderna.

Utöver de bilaterala relationerna mellan Finland och Ryssland diskuterade presidenterna ingående coronaläget, stormaktsrelationer och vapenkontroll. Presidenterna fortsatte också sin tidigare diskussion om Belarus, Ukraina och fallet Navalnyj. Läs artikel

NATO says that Russian military activity in the alliance’s airspace increased slightly this year as its jets across Europe scrambled more than 400 times to escort or shadow unknown aircraft.

In a statement released Monday, NATO said almost 90 percent, or about 350 of these missions, were connected to flights by Russian military aircraft.

“This is a moderate increase from 2019,” NATO said. “Russian military aircraft often do not transmit a transponder code indicating their position and altitude, do not file a flight plan, or do not communicate with air traffic controllers, posing a potential risk to civilian airliners.” Läs artikel

Riksdagen har utsatts för en cyberattack under hösten. Attacken uppdagades av riksdagens egen tekniska övervakning, uppger riksdagsinformationen i ett pressmeddelande. Centralkriminalpolisen (CKP) utreder attacken. […]

CKP uppger att det är möjligt att okända gärningsmän har fått tag på information och spridit det till en annan stat för att gynna staten eller för att skada Finland.

”Intrånget har riktats mot fler än en person, men vi kan inte uppge exakt hur många som drabbats”, säger kriminalöverkommissarie Tero Muurman vid CKP i ett pressmeddelande.

Enligt CKP samarbetar man bland annat med Skyddspolisen gällande fallet. Också internationellt samarbete har ingått i utredningen. ”Fallet är exceptionellt i Finland, allvarligt på grund av målet och tråkigt för offren”, säger Muurman. Läs artikel

Avskrekking og beroligelse er kjernen i Norges forhold til Russland, vår mektige nabo i øst.

Nå trues denne doktrinen av vår allierte i vest, USA, uten at dette gjenspeiles i den offisielle norske diskusjonen.

USA bygger mye av sin arktiske sikkerhetspolitikk på overraskende manøvrer. Det reduserer den forutsigbarheten som ligger til grunn for norsk sikkerhetspolitikk. […]

Det er Nato og USA som skal komme oss til unnsetning dersom det skulle bli behov for det.

Reduseres forutsigbarheten veies ikke det opp av forsterket avskrekking. Mye tyder på at USA vil det annerledes, og dermed stiller Norge overfor større utfordringer enn vi så langt har vært vant til å håndtere. I løpet av de siste par årene har den militære opptrappingen i nordområdene ikke bare økt, men også blitt mer synlig for oss som ikke sitter foran skjermene i Forsvarets operative hovedkvarter utenfor Bodø. […]

I desember 2018 seilte for første gang siden 1990-tallet et atomdrevet amerikansk hangarskip inn i nordlige farvann. I løpet av høsten er det avslørt at samme type skip skal bruke Tromsø som havn i perioder. I samme periodesendte amerikanske og britiske styrker sine krigsskip inn i Barentshavet, et område hvor amerikanerne ikke har vært siden 80-tallet.

På spørsmål om hvorfor norske styrker ikke deltok i denne øvelsen, var det offisielle svaret at det ikke var prioritert. Det riktige svaret er antakelig at Norge forsøker å unngå å provosere Russland. Läs artikel