Against Islamic State, airstrikes may not suffice | Carter latest Pentagon chief to put Obama on defensive - Stars And Stripes
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It's the modern era's military strategy of choice: overwhelming air power delivering precision-guided punishment. Seductive though it is to governments with war-weary publics, the approach has limits — and these are on display in Syria and Iraq.
Two of his defense secretaries wrote books critical of his administration after they left office, and his third was essentially fired. On Tuesday, the White House scrambled to clarify remarks by Obama's fourth defense secretary, Ashton Carter, who said over the weekend that Iraqi forces who collapsed in their defense of Ramadi lacked the "will to fight" Islamic State militants.
The debate over whether to provide lethal defensive aid, such as anti-tank missiles, to Ukraine is "worth having," Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday.
France's foreign minister wants European countries to do more to fight the Islamic State group, and is seeking support from Russia in international talks about defeating the group.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to make losses of Russian troops in peacetime a secret.
At least nine people died over the last day in fighting that has flared in eastern Ukraine as both sides appear to be ignoring a cease-fire proclaimed more than three months ago, news reports from the embattled region said Wednesday.
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Leon Nathan Davis had a family and a sales job - and says he left them behind last fall with a one-way ticket overseas and a plan to join the Islamic State group.
Israel's defense minister is blaming Islamic Jihad — a smaller Palestinian militant group in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip — for the latest rocket fired at Israel that drew retaliatory airstrikes overnight.
What would success look like for the Islamic State? Essentially, it would amount to the group holding, for the foreseeable future, the core of what it has conquered — roughly half of Iraq and Syria — and exercising a rudimentary sort of governance there, in what it calls its “caliphate.”
A judge has set a new trial date for an Ohio man charged with plotting a U.S. attack after receiving overseas terrorism training.
So far, relatively few people have seen the winning Prophet Muhammad cartoon from the Texas contest that provoked an attack by would-be jihadists this month. Soon, commuters and tourists in the nation’s capital may be unable to avoid it.
In contrast to the Iraqi army's failures, Kurdish fighters in Syria are on the march against the Islamic State group, capturing towns and villages in an oil-rich swath of the country's northeast under the cover of U.S.-led airstrikes.
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Lithuania's foreign minister says his government wants a NATO battalion deployed permanently in the country as a "security guarantee" — not a provocation against Russia which has stepped up military action in the Baltic states.
A recently fired nuclear power plant employee upset with his union was arrested last week with leg irons, igniter fluid, propane, explosives and 500 rounds of rifle shells in his car, according to charges.
The Army chief of staff said Thursday the United States must respect the Iraqi government’s decisions on deploying thousands of its U.S.-trained troops, even if those forces are not sent to key battlegrounds such as Ramadi.
Authorities in Iraq say two separate car bombs in parking lots of two hotels have killed 10 people in the capital Baghdad.
Authorities in Iraq have raised the death toll from bombings that targeted two top hotels in Baghdad to 15 people, with another 42 wounded.
Two large artillery vehicles were detected on one of the artificial islands that China is creating in the South China Sea, U.S. officials said Friday, underscoring ongoing concerns that Beijing may try to use the land reclamation projects for military purposes.
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A Libyan militia spokesman and a militant group say the local Islamic State affiliate has taken control of a civilian air base in the central city of Sirte —the group's stronghold in the North African country.
The military says two speeding vehicles entered Fort Benning in Georgia, and at least one shot was fired before some of the occupants fled into the woods.
Deep inside a four-story marble building in St. Petersburg, hundreds of workers tap away at computers on the front lines of an information war, say those who have been inside.
For 33 years, Cuba has occupied a spot on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism — a place reserved for nations that repeatedly provide support for international acts of premeditated, politically motivated violence against non-combatants.
For years, Brett Jones lived a double life. He was a Navy SEAL, a muscular M-60 gunner trained to kill and survive in enemy territory. He was also gay.
U.S. forces continue to work alongside their European counterparts at a number of training exercises throughout Europe.
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Osan Air Base halted operations at its laboratory biological defense program this week after 22 people were possibly exposed to live anthrax spores, U.S. military officials said Friday.
Moscow — Russia's largest grassroots election watchdog, Golos, has been almost driven out of existence by a law passed three years ago that saddled it with a "foreign agent" label – which connotes "spy" in Russian. Since then, the organization has been subject of an ongoing wave of tax and criminal investigations, including an official ban on carrying out its primary mission of monitoring elections.
Now a new law could finish Golos off.
The legislation, signed by President Vladimir Putin last weekend, criminalizes any contact with "undesirable" nongovernmental groups or individuals – as determined by a blacklist compiled by Russia's chief prosecutor – no matter where in the world they might be. Violation would lead to closure of local offices and up to six years in prison for any Russian cooperating with the group, and will not be subject to appeal.
This may not just shutter Golos, but could silence a whole range of Russian civil society for merely communicating with groups that the prosecutor feels pose a threat to Russia's constitutional order, defense, or national security. The draft blacklist prepared by the State Duma last week includes a who's who of major international nongovernmental institutions, including the Moscow Carnegie Center, the corruption watchdog Transparency International, the New York-based Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International.
"If any Russian is invited to a conference abroad, authorities can scan the list of sponsors and block that person if an 'undesirable' group is involved," says Nikolai Petrov, a professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. "Any foreigners trying to come to Russia for any reason can be refused if they have links to such groups."
"This law is much more dangerous, and has far wider applications, than the previous ones," he says. "It's not just aimed at shutting up people inside the country, but anyone, anywhere."
For Golos, the new law appears to threaten prison time for its leaders if they attempt to communicate any findings on Russian elections to an "undesirable" group, or seek advice or assistance from one.
Golos was one of the first targets of the "foreign agent" law because of its role in identifying and publicizing alleged electoral fraud in Russia's 2011 Duma elections. The elections triggered a wave ofenormous street demonstrations by mostly middle-class people calling for greater electoral transparency and democratic reform.
Now, with 2016 Duma elections looming, some experts say the Kremlin is taking steps to prevent any repeat of that upheaval. The main pro-Kremlin party, United Russia, is sagging in opinion polls. This week it suffered a crushing defeat in local elections held in Russia's westernmost region of Kaliningrad.
"Putin's popularity may hold up well amid the current nationalist moods, but the party of officialdom that enforces his rule around the country is in deep trouble," says Dmitry Oreshkin, head of the Mercator Group, a Moscow media consultancy. "The only thing authorities know how to do in this situation is to eliminate competition and all sources of alternative information. They see everything as a threat."
The Kremlin narrative is that Western intelligence agencies are actively working, mainly through friendly NGOs, to overthrow pro-Moscow governments throughout the former Soviet Union. It alleges that they have enjoyed considerable success in staging "colored revolutions" in countries such as Georgia, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, and particularly Ukraine over the past decade.
Every Russian who watches state-run TV is aware that in 2013, just before the Maidan revolution in Kiev overthrew pro-Moscow Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said that the US had spent $5 billion in the past two decades to help "secure a prosperous and democratic Ukraine."
Mr. Putin has repeatedly claimed that regime change is the hidden goal of Western-backed "democracy promotion." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov defended the new law this week, suggesting that the "foreign agents" law did not go far enough in protecting Russia's national security.
"An organization is deemed undesirable if it poses a threat to Russia's national security and national interests, as formulated in the law," he said. "'[Foreign] agents' do not necessarily pose a threat. No one forbids these organizations from doing what they are doing."
But the "foreign agent" label certainly makes existence difficult for groups like Golos. It has since rejected all foreign funding – the main criteria for being declared a "foreign agent" – and has tried to subsist on volunteer support. But with the new law, even that might not be enough.
"We can prove that we now exist only on Russian money, but we are still on the list of 'foreign agents,' and all we still face all sorts of official interference," says Grigory Melkonyants, deputy director of Golos. "I guess we have to wait and see how this new law will be applied. But it looks like nobody is safe anymore."
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