Månad: januari 2021

President Trump’s decision to order a drone strike that killed Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, has rekindled debates in Washington about the role of the U.S. in the Middle East. Many Republicans have called for more aggressive action against Iran, while the Democratic Presidential candidates have generally pleaded for restraint and a foreign policy that avoids future wars in the region. But Democrats have tended to get the U.S. embroiled in military conflicts, too, which has led to critiques by Bernie Sanders and others that the Party needs to reorient its foreign-policy views. Läs artikel

Summan tio miljarder spökade också 1992 vid anskaffningen av de gamla Hornet-planen, men då talade man om mark. Den summan höll inte alls, då affärens slutsumma uppgick till minst 16 miljarder mark. […]

Försvarsmyndigheterna i vårt land idiotförklarar oss skattebetalare då de hävdar att prislappen för jaktplansaffären rör sig kring tio miljarder euro plus de årliga driftskostnaderna på 300 miljoner euro. Vederhäftiga beräkningar visar att enbart de årliga driftskostnaderna kan uppgå till cirka en miljard euro, vilket ger en summa på 30 miljarder euro för jaktplanens livscykel. Här är det verkligen inte fråga om att ”byta ut gamla diskmaskiner”.

Försvarsmyndigheterna hävdar att driftskostnaderna begränsas till 10 procent av den årliga försvarsbudgeten. Det skulle innebära att de dyra planen tvingas stå oanvända i hangarerna då luftförsvaret knappast kommer att ha råd att använda dem efter den för samhällsekonomin förödande pandemin. Läs artikel

People in the Netherlands and five other NATO states overwhelmingly reject the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons and support the Treaty to Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). In fact, according to polls, support for the Dutch joining the nuclear ban continues to increase.

In the new YouGov poll released today, the results are clear: 78% of Dutch people want the government to join the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In fact, 68% said the Netherlands should be among the first members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to join, even if the country were pressured by the United States of America not to do so.

A similar poll was conducted in 2019, at which time only 62% of people wanted the Dutch government to join the ban. These new numbers reflect a growing understanding that there are no safe hands for the world’s worst weapons. […]

Currently, there are about 20 nuclear weapons stored at the Dutch airbase at Volkel. While the official policy is not to confirm or deny their presence, NATO and Dutch leadership have both implied that the weapons are there during a series of nuclear weapons exercises this past October. At the time, Dutch Defence Minister Ank Bijleveld said that “if you practice it, you must also have the weapons there”, prompting questioning from parliament. Läs artikel

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