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][…] With the Suleimani killing, Trump has effectively thrown in the towel. The wars he promised to end will continue. America’s enemies list never gets smaller; the body count grows ever larger.

They will do so in no small part because the Congress is pusillanimous and supine, having long since forfeited its constitutionally prescribed authority regarding war. The Democratic members of the Senate and House who whine about not having been consulted or at least notified in advance of the drone attack that took out the Quds commander deserve not a respectful hearing but contempt. Their behavior over the past decade and more in giving presidents a free hand to wage war however they see fit cannot be described as anything but cowardly. It was, after all, President Obama who pioneered the role of assassin-in-chief to which Trump has now laid claim.

More importantly, the U.S.’ Middle East wars will continue due to the intellectual bankruptcy of the foreign policy establishment, which remains wedded to a highly militarized conception of “American global leadership.”[…]

This is an election year. In a serious democracy, the casting of ballots is preceded by a thorough public vetting of the vital issues of the day. The worsening crisis in U.S.-Iranian relations certainly qualifies as one such issue. Yet far surpassing that issue in importance are even larger questions pertaining to the misuse of American military power in the Middle East and to the normalization of war. Läs artikel

The U.S. government justified the strike as an act of self-defense, saying that Qassem Soleimani, the leader of an elite Iranian military and intelligence unit, had been plotting attacks on Americans – an allegation that few analysts seriously doubt, given his track record as the architect of Iranian attacks abroad. […]

”We have carried out the attack on the territory of a state that plainly did not give us permission,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a law professor and an expert on international disputes at the University of Notre Dame. ”The attack was unlawful, the assassination was not justifiable.” The U.S. government doesn’t see it that way, and hasn’t for a long time, under both Democratic and Republican administrations. ”The U.S. government does not believe it is bound by human rights law treaties vis-à-vis our operations overseas,” said Bobby Chesney, the James A. Baker III Chair in the Rule of Law and World Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin. Läs artikel

The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killing on Friday said the President Trump-approved drone strike against Qassim Soleimani, Iran’s top general, violated international human rights law.

In a lengthy Twitter thread, Agnès Callamard said that “outside the context of active hostilities, the use of drones or other means for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal,” adding that the US would need to prove the person targeted constituted an imminent threat to others.

She also took issue with the justification for using drones in another country on the basis of self-defense.

“Under customary international law States can take military action if the threatened attack is imminent, no other means would deflect it, and the action is proportionate,” she wrote. Läs artikel

1. Neither the White House nor the Department of Defense (DoD) has offered a legal justification for the killing of general Soleimani. That is probably because it is difficult to find one.
2. If there is a war (armed conflict) between the US and Iran, then Soleimani, as a general, is surely a legitimate target. However, there is no such war.
3. There is, perhaps, a civil war (a non-international armed conflict) in Iraq, in which the US is supporting the Iraqi government. (My impression is, though, that the still ongoing violence in Iraq does not reach the level of civil war.) If so, the US has to act under the authority of the Iraqi government, which invited them. It is not at all clear that the killing is within the bounds of what the Iraqi government has approved. The Iraqi prime minister Abdul-Mahdi has condemned the earlier US attack on a Shia militia on 29 December.
4. Another potential justification is that the US is at war with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), headed by Soleimani, which the US declared to be a terrorist organisation in 2019. However, the US has not declared itself to be at war with all terrorist organisations, but only with those affiliated with al-Qaeda, and this certainly does not apply to the IRGC. Läs artikel

«Tilstedeværelse» er oppdraget til de 120 norske som er i Litauen i Nato-bidraget eFP. Litauere følger med på naboer i øst og vest.

– Selvfølgelig vil vi ha dem her. Det gjør oss tryggere fra Russland, sier Edgardas Sminovas med et skuldertrekk. Forsvarets forum møter ham utenfor matbutikken i den lille byen Rukla.

Det er Nato-oppdraget enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) vi har spurt ham om. Deployeringen av Nato-soldater til Litauen, Estland, Latvia og Polen i kjølvannet av den russiske annekteringen av Krim-halvøya i 2014. […]

Norge er ett av seks land som bidrar med personell i eFP i Litauen. De andre er Tyskland – som leder bidraget, Belgia, Nederland og Tsjekkia. Island bidrar med én presse- og informasjonsoffiser.

Men enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) er også tilstede i både Estland, Latvia og Polen. Totalt 27 av 29 Nato-land bidrar sammenlagt i eFP. […]

Litauen har selv rustet opp egne styrker de siste årene, og har en motorisert, en mekanisert og en lett infanteribrigade, med vernepliktige, skriver Defense News.

– Dette er betydelige poster på budsjettet vårt, for befolkningen vår. Vi er et lite land- bare tre millioner mennesker, og å ha de tre brigadene, bemanne dem, utstyre dem, bevæpne dem, sørge for ammunisjon og sensorer. Det er mye, men vi gjør det, sa Giedrimas Jeglinskas, viseforsvarsminister i Litauen til Defense News i oktober. Läs artikel

På måndag trettondagen den 6 januari 2020 erövrar kontingent 1/20 kasernerna, då ungefär 12　000 nya rekryter inleder sin tjänstgöring. Inom Armén börjar cirka 9 800 rekryter och resten fördelas till Marinens, Flygvapnets och Gränsbevakningens truppförband.

Flest rekryter mottas vid Arméns stora truppförband såsom Karelska brigaden, Björneborgs brigad och Kajanalands brigad. Svenskspråkiga rekryter inleder i huvudsak sin tjänstgöring vid Nylands brigad.

Torsdagen den 19 december 2019 övergick sammanlagt omkring 7　900 beväringar och kvinnor som avtjänat frivillig militärtjänst från Försvarsmakten och Gränsbevakningen till reserven. Läs artikel

Julen 2011 redeployerte jeg fra Afghanistan. På den ene siden følte jeg på gleden over å ha med hele laget mitt uskadd hjem. På den andre siden grublet jeg over taktiske erfaringer jeg hadde gjort meg. Ingen nordmenn hadde blitt drept under vår kontingent, men det hadde vært nære på under flere stridskontakter. Jeg kunne ikke unngå å merke meg hvor strategisk effektiv fienden hadde vært, på tross av primitive ressurser, i å nøytralisere våre ambisjoner om å spre regjeringskontroll. Hva om samme fiende hadde kombinert sin taktikk med systematisk seleksjon og trening, og moderne ATGM, MANPADS, nattoptikk, fjernstyrte stridsvognsminer og droner? Våre tunge kjøretøy hadde tvunget oss inn i forutsigbare operasjonsmønstre som tillot fienden å velge tid og sted for trefningene. Jeg minnet imidlertid meg selv på at Hærens første oppgave er nasjonalforsvar. Hvis det som passer best for forsvaret av norsk territorium ikke er optimalisert for COIN (opprørsbekjempning) i Afghanistan så må dette aksepteres, tenkte jeg. […]

Vinteren 2012 støttet mitt lag TMBN under Cold Response 2012. På et tidspunkt måtte øvelsen spoles tilbake noen timer. Et helt mekanisert infanterikompani hadde blitt «utslettet» i Setermoen skytefelt av jagerfly ledet av fiendens JTAC. Ingenting ved lendet på Setermoen gjorde det overraskende at en mekanisert styrke hadde blitt lokalisert og ødelagt av luftressurser. Det fikk meg til å tenke over hvor sårbare disse avdelingene ville være hvis en reell fiende fikk luftherredømme. Neste vurdering var av hvor sannsynlig fiendtlig luftoverlegenhet ville være i en eventuell krig mot Russland. Läs artikel

[…] If you happen to be one of those readers who scrolls through the opinion pages of the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Politico, or any other mainstream publication, chances are that you have come across the word “isolationist or “isolationism” at some point. If you’re a regular reader of the commentariat, it’s highly likely that you have scanned over the word at least once a week. Headlines like “US isolationism leaves Middle East on edge as new decade dawns” or “Donald Trump’s isolationism is a gift to America’s enemies,” are commonplace, sound frightening, and fuel a popular narrative that the United States is withdrawing from the planet, pulling up the drawbridge to insulate itself, and ceding influence to the Vladimir Putins and Xi Jinpings of the world. It’s as if Americans have traveled in time to the 1920s, where overseas engagement was generally viewed with wary eyes. Läs artikel

President Donald Trump promised to put America first in his foreign policy. He hasn’t had much success—U.S. forces are still fighting every “endless war” he promised to stop—but at least he theoretically has his priorities right. In contrast, Congress appears to hate America. Legislators of both parties consistently put other nations first. […]

Moscow has treated its neighbor badly, but imagine how the grandees of Capitol Hill would have reacted were the situation reversed: Russia sponsored a street putsch against a democratically elected, pro-American government in Mexico, and offered the new regime membership in the Warsaw Pact. Lindsey Graham and his fellow ultra-hawks would be doing the Maori Haka down Pennsylvania Avenue, demanding war. […]

The Kurds are a sympathetic people, though hardly as angelic as portrayed. They fought ISIS out of interest, not charity, and such battlefield cooperation does not yield any duty to protect them thereafter. Their best strategy always was to make a deal with Damascus, allowing the latter to retake the border and exclude Turkey.    Läs artikel

 […] 2019 innebar även att EU firade att det passerat 10 år sedan Lissabonfördraget undertecknades. De senaste åren har för EU som organisation inneburit en turbulent tid, med ökade nationalistiska strömningar, skepticism gentemot EU o.dyl. Varvid EU förefaller minskat i styrka trots sin potential och blivit en allt mer marginaliserad säkerhetspolitisk aktör under det senaste decenniet. Där Kina, Ryssland och USA i en allt större utsträckning förefaller kunna utmanövrera EU, ofta på grund av att de europeiska politikerna inte kan eller vill agera och sträva mot en gemensam målbild samt intresse.50 Vilket å andra sidan t.ex. olika former påverkansoperationer hos ett antal aktörer har som målsättning, varvid del av denna oförmåga möjligen går att finna i det. Hur Brexit slutligt kommer påverka EU som aktör återstår att se, möjligen blir processen klar under nästa år. Läs artikel

[…] But it turns out that in the 1950s, the United States considered deploying nuclear weapons in Iceland without telling the Icelanders, according to declassified documents published by the watchdog organization National Security Archive.

“At the end of the 1950s the U.S. Navy ordered the construction of a facility for storing nuclear depth bombs, an Advanced Underseas Weapons (AUW) Shop at the outskirts of Keflavik airport,” the National Security Archive wrote. “The AUW facility was built by local Icelandic workers who thought its purpose was to store torpedoes.”Läs artikel