Månad: juli 2022

Russian economy is more resilient than was perceived and Putin, instead of being paralysed by Western sanctions, is inflicting pain on the West in return.

Speaking at the European Parliament, European Union’s climate chief Frans Timmermans recently admitted that “the risk of a full gas disruption is now more real than ever before”, adding that “all this is part of Russia’s strategy to undermine our unity.”

Well, who would’ve thought that Russia would retaliate?

Europe’s economic powerhouse, Germany, is beside itself with worry. Vladimir Putin’s move to cut gas supplies to Europe has hit Germany — that had grown reliant on cheap Russian energy — the hardest. Germans across the board, from industrialists to politicians, are panicking that factories will be shuttered, industries will collapse, and the country’s growth engines will come to an abrupt halt. Europe is staring at a recession. Winter is coming. There is now a very real fear that it would be among the harshest in recent memory. […]

During the first two months of the war, according to research by Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) released in April, Russia nearly doubled its revenue by selling fossil fuels worth 58 billion euros, 70% of which was shipped via pipelines to the EU. If we stretch the period to first 100 days, CREA report released in June says fossil fuels are continuing to fund Putin’s war chest with Russia earning 93 billion euros in revenue from exports in February 24 to June 3. The largest importers were China, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey, Poland, France and India. The report also reveals that despite offering a discount, Russia is still selling at 60% higher prices than last year. Läs artikel

Regeringen har i dag, den 14 juli, beslutat att en särskild utredare ska förbereda och genomföra bildandet av en ny myndighet för uppföljning och utvärdering av totalförsvaret, Myndigheten för totalförsvarsanalys.

Is the U.S. done sending $40 billion plus aid packages to Ukraine? Maybe so. But as the public begins to sour on America’s involvement in the war, the Biden administration and Congress have adopted a more piecemeal approach to dispensing aid to Ukraine, military or otherwise. A billion here, another there, and maybe two if they ask nicely. The money and equipment gets harder to trace and track, but it still goes out the door.

Over the weekend, an unnamed senior defense official said the Biden administration is set to provide the Ukrainians with four more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), additional munitions for those systems, 1,000 rounds of 155 mm artillery ammunition, demolition munitions, counter battery systems, as well as three tactical vehicles, spare parts, and other equipment. The U.S. has already provided the Ukrainians with eight similar HIMARS, bringing the total to twelve. […]

The rocket systems, munitions, and other supplies in the package amount total about $400 million in aid. But Biden will not need the approval of Congress to get the proposed material to Ukraine, as Biden is using Presidential Drawdown Authority funding to bankroll the package, meaning the U.S. is dispensing with more of its weapons stockpiles to further its efforts to assist the Ukrainians. […]

How, then, is the Biden administration getting away with providing $400 million in aid in one fell swoop? Congress has increased the Presidential Drawdown Authority cap by 110 times, from $100 million to $11 billion, for each fiscal year; it did so through the May 2022 supplemental appropriations bill to support Ukraine, according to Gomez. Läs artikel

NATO is currently focused on providing military aid to Ukraine, not on its accession to the alliance, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday, speaking at the meeting of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs and subcommittee on defense.

”The main focus now on Ukraine is to provide support to help Ukraine prevail as an independent sovereign nation, that’s the main focus, the focus is not on the membership now,” he said. ”But of course everything we do to help and support and also modernize Ukrainian defenses and security institutions will also move them closer to [NATO] membership.”

He underscored that NATO is actively working on supplying more modern heavy weapons to Ukraine. He noted that the US, the UK and other NATO allies have ensured shipments of such weapons, including the long-range M142 HIMARS missile systems.

Meanwhile, Stoltenberg underscored that NATO does not consider itself a side of the conflict in Ukraine. Läs artikel

[…] In terms of sheer numbers of troops and weapons, NATO’s European members plus the U.S. troops presently stationed in Europe have a considerable edge. In 2021, the active ground forces (not counting reserves) of NATO’s five main European members numbered more than 500,000 troops, compared to Russia’s 280,000; and most of the latter are currently pinned down in Ukraine (or in tens of thousands of cases, dead or wounded). The United States has six combat brigades stationed in Europe; far smaller than overall Russian forces, but enough to seriously stiffen European resistance.

On paper, Russia has 22,000 armored vehicles compared to NATO’s 16,000. However, the evidence of the Ukraine war suggests that a great many of these Russian vehicles held in storage have in fact deteriorated to the point that they cannot be effectively deployed; and Russia’s remaining superiority in armor over Ukraine has been largely nullified by a combination of Ukrainian courage and NATO anti-tank weapons. The same has been true of Russia’s even more overwhelming superiority in the air when faced with U.S. anti-aircraft missiles. […]

A Russian invasion of the Baltic would, in any event, be a deeply irrational act in purely military terms; and while Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was utterly criminal, it was not insane — after all, as noted, Moscow’s assumptions of an easy short-term victory were shared by Western intelligence. The one circumstance in which Russia might feel compelled to invade Lithuania would be if Lithuania were to blockade access to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad; which is why the EU would be wise to follow Germany’s lead exempting Kaliningrad from EU sanctions. Läs artikel

On Wednesday, delegations from Ukraine, Russia, and Turkey met with United Nations representatives in the Turkish city of Istanbul to seek ways to export Ukrainian grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports to the world market. It was later reported that substantive progress was made.

In the last few months, global food prices have soared sparking concerns about food shortages due to the conflict in Ukraine.

Speaking in New York, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed what he called ‘substantive progress’ in Istanbul describing it as a critical step forward in ensuring the safe and secure export of Ukrainian food products through the Black Sea.

Guterres said the news was a ray of hope to ease human suffering and alleviate hunger around the world and bring a measure of much-needed stability to the global food system.

He thanked the Turkish government for its efforts to organize the talks and its vital role going forward.

”The United Nations pledges to do our full part to support the follow-up,” he said. ”Today is an important and substantive step, a step on the way to a comprehensive agreement. We must also do more for struggling people and developing countries getting pummeled by a food, energy, and financial crisis not of their making. We must do more to help all those living on the margins around the world — countries on the brink of bankruptcy, families on the edge of famine.” Läs artikel

Kommittén för förbättrat skydd för totalförsvaret lämnade i maj 2019 slutbetänkandet Förbättrat skydd för totalförsvaret (SOU 2019:34). I betänkandet föreslår kommittén ett system med möjlighet för staten att granska och ytterst villkora eller förbjuda överlåtelser och upplåtelser av viss utpekad egendom som är av väsentligt intresse för totalförsvaret.

Det kan till exempel gälla försäljning av viktig infrastruktur som flygplatser och hamnar

Nu har regeringen beslutat ett kommittédirektiv om att ge en särskild utredare i uppdrag att analysera om och i så fall hur förslaget till kontrollsystem bör genomföras. Utredaren har ännu inte utsetts. Läs pressmeddelande

NATO will add missile defense assets along the alliance’s eastern borders to guard against any potential threats that arise from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, U.S. Air Force and NATO officials said Wednesday.

The strategy is called “air shielding,” an expression coined during last month’s meeting of NATO leaders in Madrid, said German Brig. Gen. Christoph Pliet, deputy chief of staff operations at NATO Allied Air Command headquarters at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

The idea is to “deter and shield against any possible Russian aggression,” Pliet said, going beyond what NATO already has employed on the eastern flank since the Feb. 24 invasion.

Additional assets will be deployed for four to six months at a time, shoring up an area from Turkey to the Baltic states, Pliet said, while speaking with reporters alongside Maj. Gen. Joel L. Carey, U.S. Air Forces in Europe — Air Forces Africa director of operations, strategic deterrence and nuclear integration. Läs artikel

Kan Japan med sin historie som brutale krigsforbrytere forsvare å bygge opp et sterkt forsvar de neste årene? Landets statsminister Fumio Kishida mener ja, til tross for sterk motstand i befolkningen.

– De fleste i Japan er imot oppbygging av forsvar og mener at det er viktig at Japan er anerkjent som et fredsland. Krigen i Ukraina kan ha vært en mulighet for de som ønsker en satsing på forsvarsevnen til å vise hvor viktig det er med et sterkere forsvar, sier Nupi-forsker Wrenn Yennie Lindgren til NTB.

– Japansk opptrapping av forsvaret i form av en grunnlovsendring kan på kortere sikt føre til økte spenninger, men på lengre sikt vil det gjøre Japan, USA og andre allierte i bedre stand til å forsvare sine interesser, sier Kristin Lerfald Grostad ved Forsvarets høyskole til NTB. […]

For første gang er det nå en majoritet i overhuset for å endre en paragraf i grunnloven som i praksis forbyr Japan fra å delta i krig, samt å bygge opp landets forsvar.

Paragrafen kom på plass i 1947 etter andre verdenskrig. […]

Grunnlovsparagrafen som begrenser landets forsvarsstyrke, tillater Japan å ha et «selvforsvarsforsvar». Bakgrunnen for paragrafens opprinnelse er Japans grove krigsforbrytelser i blant annet Kina og Sør-Korea på 1900-tallet. Läs artikel

Sverige behåller sin självbestämmanderätt – men omfattas fortfarande av Natos kärnvapendoktrin, det säger Utrikesdepartementet till SVT angående Ann Lindes brev till Natochefen.

”Sverige kommer som Natomedlem att bidra till säkerheten och till det kollektiva försvaret av samtliga medlemsstater”, skriver UD:s presstjänst i ett mejl till SVT Nyheter.

Nu säger utrikesdepartementet att Sverige behåller sin politiska självständighet och fattar sina egna beslut – men att man fortfarande omfattas av organisationens kärnvapendoktrin.

” Så länge kärnvapen existerar kommer Nato att förbli en kärnvapenallians. Medlemmar i Nato omfattas av organisationens kärnvapendoktrin, där kärnvapen utgör den sista och yttersta delen av alliansens avskräckningsförmåga. […] Nato är en försvarsallians. Ett medlemskap i Nato medför inte att Sverige måste placera kärnvapen på sitt territorium”, skriver UD till SVT. […]

I brevet framgick det bland annat att Sverige är berett att sätta in militära styrkor för ”alla alliansens uppdrag” och ”accepterar kärnvapnens avgörande roll”. Experten William Alberque, direktör vid International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) bedömde i samband med detta att brevet sannolikt kommer innebära att Sveriges stridsflygplan kan ge stöd åt andra Nato-länders stridsflygplan om de ska genomföra uppdrag med kärnvapen. […]

”Sverige kommer som Natomedlem att bidra till säkerheten och till det kollektiva försvaret av samtliga medlemsstater. Beslut om hur och var Sverige skulle bidra vid en kris kommer även fortsatt att fattas av Sverige. Sverige är ännu inte medlem i Nato och ingår inte i Natos gemensamma försvarsplanering. Hur svenska bidrag skulle komma att se ut kommer att diskuteras i ett senare skede”, skriver UD. Läs artikel

Läs också kommentar tidigare på den här sajten till utrikesministerns Letter of Intent till Nato.