Month: May 2022

This War Still Presents Nuclear Risks – Especially in Relation to Crimea

As Russia’s offensive in Ukraine stalls, there is a real risk that it could escalate its nuclear threats if faced with the potential loss of Crimea.

Explaining Nuclear Peace

The Cold War saw many armed interventions by the two superpowers – by the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, Africa and Afghanistan, and by the US in Korea and Indochina. The frequency of such interventions increased after 1990, with wars fought by the US in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, and by Russia in Georgia, Ukraine and (other parts of) Syria. In several cases, one of these powers sought to undermine the other through arming its military opponents, often on a considerable scale. But none of these wars saw direct conflict between their armed forces. This is one of the main reasons why no nuclear weapon has been used since August 1945.

A UK Joint Methodology for Assuring Theatre Access

This Whitehall Report outlines a joint methodology for the targeting of A2/AD systems.

The British military is expeditionary and seeks to confront adversaries abroad before they pose a threat at home. Theatre entry is therefore a precondition for the utility of the British military. Adversaries are fielding increasingly capable and integrated anti-air and anti-ship complexes that threaten the viability of theatre entry. These complexes differ from older systems in their level of integration, redundancy and consequent resilience. To assure the future relevance of the UK’s military instrument, it is necessary to have a methodology for breaking through these systems.

Turkey looks to extract concessions from West over Nordic NATO bids

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s brinkmanship over Finland and Sweden’s bid to join NATO has put Turkey back at the top of the news. I provided some background, including a scoop on Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s bullying of his Swedish counterpart Anna Linde over her support for the US-backed Syrian Kurdish group which Turkey labels terrorist during a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Berlin.

Reality Check #12 — Russia, the West, and the rest: The hard choices the US must make to reinforce its global leadership

Key points

The Biden administration is confronting Russia’s naked aggression against Ukraine without direct military engagement, but a triple threat of inflation, starvation, and a coalition that is not sufficiently global promises trouble ahead for the United States and its position in a global order that is suddenly on an accelerated path to change.

NATO Forward Forces Tracker

In the lead-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and particularly since the outbreak of hostilities, the United States and NATO allies have taken numerous steps to bolster allied force posture in Eastern Europe, enhancing deterrence against further Russian aggression and demonstrating the Alliance’s ability to defend its eastern flank. The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Transatlantic Security Initiative has been tracking it all, as visualized in the animation, graphs, and table below.

Iran Trying to Force the US to Meet All Its Demands

Iraqi writer Farouk Yousef pointed out that after the US gave Iran $90 billion following the signing of the nuclear agreement with the Obama administration in 2015… the bulk of the money… was spent on terrorist groups run by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria, as well as terrorist groups run covertly in other Arab countries.