FRIDAY FOTO (June 22, 2018)

Dark Confetti.

(U.S. Army photo by Specialist Hubert D. Delany III)

Polish army Rak 120 mm self-propelled mortar systems fire for effect during a lethality demonstration for Exercise Puma 2 at Bemowo Piskie Training Area, Poland, June 15, 2018, as part of Saber Strike 18.

Saber Strike is a multinational military exercise held annually since 2010. This year’s exercise included approximately 18,000 participants, including the United States, Britain, Germany and Norway. The exercise was hosted by NATO members Poland, Lithuania,  Latvia and Estonia.

In all, units from 19 allied and partner nations participated. The lead components were U.S. Army Europe and the Lithuanian Armed Forces.

For more photos and information click here for Poland, here for Lithuania. and here for Latvia.

Russia has complained that such beefed up NATO exercises close to its borders are provocative. However, Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the intrusion of Russian aircraft and naval vessels into its neighbors’ territorial waters and airspace has prompted concerns among Nordic, Baltic and Balkan states.

“Transparency is central to lowering tensions and open dialogue. Saber Strike 18 is not a provocation of Russia but an exercise with our allies. This is what normal deterrence business looks like,” according to the U.S. Army Europe website.

NATIONAL SECURITY:

European Reassurance.

The Pentagon is seeking $2.8 billion in the next budget cycle for Army training and preparedness missions in Europe, to reassure U.S. allies worried about the activities of a resurgent Russia.

Soldiers of the U.S. 3rd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment take part in a live-fire exercise in Konotop, Poland last month. They were conducting squad-level training alongside Polish troops in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve, a multinational demonstration of continued U.S. commitment to security of NATO. (Army photo by Sergeant Paige )

If approved by Congress, that money will go to continued rotations of Army Brigade Combat Teams in and out of Europe, as well pre-positioning equipment stocks in Europe, so they don’t have to be shipped over during a crisis.

In introducing the Defense Department’s $582.7 billion budget request for the Fiscal Year starting October 1st, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said Tuesday (February 9) that the United States is facing what military planners consider “the most significant shift in the future security environment — and that is a return to an era of great power competition.”

Work added: “Today, we are faced by a resurgent, revanchist* Russia and a rising China.  Both are nuclear-armed powers.  Both are fielding advanced capabilities at a rapid rate.  Both are permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.”

Russia, in particular has been more aggressive on western borders abutting NATO, Work said. And that has made many of Russia’s neighbors, particularly in Scandinavia and the Baltics region, very nervous.

The Baltic Sea region via Wikipedia

To ease those worries the Obama administration has created the European Reassurance Initiative. As Russia has seized parts of Ukraine and tried for more, threatened Poland and the Baltic states and recklessly pushed its bombers and fighter jets through Scandinavian airspace the military reassurance has gone up, from $444 million in Fiscal 2015, $509 million last year to this year’s $2.8 request.

 

It’s all part of the part of the $523.9 billion budget request, plus an additional $58.8 billion for overseas contingency operations (OCO). That contingency request is way down from the years when U.S. troops were engaged in combat operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army’s part of the OCO request is $23 billion, up $2 billion from last year.

In addition to Russia and China, the United States must also deal with “a more unpredictable and dangerous North Korea,” said Work, adding that North Korea is already a nuclear-armed regional power.  North Korea is pursuing advanced ballistic missile capabilities that Work said “already threaten our Allies and the broader stability of the Asia-Pacific region.” Other challenges include Iran, which is trying to the regional super power of the Middle East and the campaign against global terrorist networks, which Work said “will be an enduring condition for much of the next 25 years.”

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*  A person who seeks retaliation or revenge; spec. a person who advocates or fights for the return of a nation’s lost territory-Oxford English Dictionary.

 

 

HIGH NORTH: Latvian MoD Says NATO Base Needed in Baltic Region

Baltic to Potomac.

Latvia’s Minister of Defense Raimond Vejonis (left) arrives at the Pentagon to discuss matters of  mutual importance with Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work April 23, 2015.
(Photo by Master Sgt. Adrian Cadiz)

It seems like nearly every day Russia is doing something new to provoke, irritate or worry its Western neighbors, from flying combat aircraft dangerously close to Swedish and Finnish airspace to a senior Moscow official’s recent unannounced and uninvited visit to one of Norway’s Arctic islands.

In response to the potential threat, several Scandinavian nations are planning to increase their defense spending and reaching out to their neighbors across the Baltic Sea for mutual security exchanges. All three of the so-called Baltic states — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — as well as Poland are NATO members.

Latvian Minister of Defense Raimond Vejonis was in Washington this week, speaking at a think tank and meeting with Pentagon officials. According to a Pentagon spokesman, Vejonis met for about 30 minutes with Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work (Defense Secretary Ash Carter was out of town) to discuss “the importance of clear NATO unity against Russian aggression, continued presence of U.S. forces in the region, and ways to work together to better support NATO deterrence measures.”

Work also praised the Latvian government for committing to raise its defense spending to 2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (an agreed upon, but sparsely reached, NATO target for member nations) and to increase the size of Latvia’s armed forces from 15,000 to 17,000 by 2018.

Paratroopers with the 173rd Airborne Brigade during a training exercise with Latvian troops to show commitment to NATO obligations as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve.
(U.S. Army Photo by Sergeant Michael T. Crawford)

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington policy institute (April 21), Vejonis said having U.S. and other NATO troops in Latvia for exercises like Operation Atlantic Resolve was helpful but to effectively deter further Russian aggression “we really need a visible NATO presence in the region … on a rotational basis.”

Such a strategy, he said, will keep Moscow from making a dangerous miscalculation because they think NATO is weak after President Vladimir Putin successfully annexed  Crimea from Ukraine without a NATO military response. (Ukraine is not a NATO member nation). He noted Russia’s economy “totally depends on its raw materials, especially energy.” And with oil prices slumping, “there is a requirement to deliver military victories to the Russian public to cover [the] economic gap.”

Vejonis added that Russia rebuilt a former helicopter base less just 15 miles from Latvia’s eastern border to house Moscow’s newest combat helicopters. Finland, which also borders Russia, has reported Russia is building new bases and conducting large training activities near the Finnish border.

Countries bordering the Baltic Sea.
(Map via wikipedia)

DEFENSE: UK Defence Secretary Worried About Rising Instability in Africa, Middle East

Failing States.

UK Secretary of State for Defence Michael Fallon
(Ministry of Defence photo)

Since he became Britain’s Secretary of State for Defence last July, Michael Fallon has seen Libya dissolve into chaos and threaten southern Europe with waves of refugees and potential terrorist attacks. There’s also been the shootdown of a Malaysian airliner carrying many Europeans over Ukraine … the rising threat of the Islamic State to Syria, Iraq and the West … and continued Russian aggression in Ukraine and the Baltics.

But the thing that has most surprised him so far is “the number of states that look to be on the brink of failing,” he told a Washington think tank audience Wednesday (March 11).

Fallon, a member of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron’s cabinet, said he’s worried about “the instability across great swathes of Africa and the Middle East.”

Nearly four years after a NATO air campaign led to the overthrow of Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddaffi, the country has been torn by civil war, become a training ground for insurgents across North Africa and the Levant and also served as a haven for terrorists — including those that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in 2012.

Fallon said Western governments and their partners in the region have got to “redouble efforts to drive some sort of political settlement” among Libya’s warring factions.

On other security issues, Fallon said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression toward former Soviet Union states that are now NATO members — like all three Baltic countries, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — have left those governments feeling “very exposed.”

Last week (March 6) the Defence Ministry announced it was sending a shipment of non-lethal equipment to Ukraine, including helmets, first aid kits GPS units and helmet-mounted night vision goggles. “NATO needs to make clear to President Putin that we will react … to defend any member of NATO that is attacked,” Fallon said.

On the pro-Russian insurgency in Ukraine, Fallon reminded the audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that the former Soviet republic is not a NATO member. There “can’t be a military solution” alone for this crisis, Fallon said. But for a political solution to work “we need reassurances” from Russia and Russian-backed rebels that they will honor the ceasefire terms of the Minsk agreement, Fallon said.

A Russian Bear long-range bomber photographed from a Royal Air Force jet off the coast of Britain in October 2014.
(Sac Robyn Stewart/British Ministry of Defence photo)

He was asked about numerous Russian military flights — including the flight of two Russian bombers over the English Channel — that have led the Royal Air Force to scramble jets to escort the Russian planes away from Britain.

While none of those Russian jets have actually entered UK airspace, there has been no response from the Russian pilots, no radio or transponder communication at all. “We see that as Russia’s testing our response,” said Fallon, adding the radio-silent flights are “provocative and frankly, they’re dangerous.”

Fallon and new U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter will be meeting for the first time later in the day at the Pentagon.