Latest news with #USDefenseDepartment
Asharq Al-Awsat
5 days ago
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Iraq Reiterates Need for Int'l Coalition Forces to Remain
Iraq's security and defense committee announced on Sunday that 'the need still stands' for the US-led anti-ISIS international coalition to remain in the country. It made its announcement days after Defense Minister Thabet al-Abbasi made similar remarks. In televised statements, he stressed that the international troops were still needed in Syria, adding that 'Iraq and Syria's security are indivisible.' Security and military coordination with the coalition continues, he said. Baghdad has not received any official notice about the withdrawal of the forces from Syria or Iraq, he revealed. Iraq had in 2024 held three rounds of dialogue with the United States about organizing the presence of the coalition after the completion of the pullout of remaining American forces. Pro-Iran factions in Iraq, which had for years demanded the withdrawal, have so far not commented on the latest statements about the coalition. Abbasi added that the American and coalition forces were necessary in Syria to maintain the fight against ISIS remnants, which continue to be a cross-border threat. The US Defense Department recently said that American troop movement from northern and eastern Syria to more secure locations in Iraq was part of a calculated, safe and professional redeployment plan aimed at consolidating the successes against ISIS and cementing regional stability. It does not mean the end of the coalition's mission in Syria, it added. A Pentagon official said local partners remain in the field in Syria and are an effective force against ISIS. The US will continue to empower those partners in performing most of their remaining counter-terrorism duties, including guarding ISIS detainees, he went on to say. ISIS is seeking to exploit any instability in the area, but the US efforts to deter its resurgence cannot be underestimated. The coalition remains committed to achieving the permanent defeat of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, he vowed. Member of the security and defense committee Yasser Iskander Watout said on Sunday that Iraq needs major logistic and aerial support since the means at its disposal were not enough to control borders with neighbors. The continued deployment of the international coalition forces is 'necessary and realistic', he said. The Interior Ministry and border and security forces have secured the border with Syria, but members of the committee said the need remains for aerial support to bolster stability in the area, he revealed. Watout agreed with Abbasi on the need for the international forces to remain given that it boasts air forces that have effectively secured Iraq's skies. He noted that recent government contracts for the purchase of 14 modern jets 'were not enough to cover all our needs.' The coalition currently has 2,500 forces deployed in Iraq to counter ISIS and offer Iraqi forces logistic support. Pro-Iran factions that have long been opposed to the international troops have not commented on the recent statements on their continued deployment given the Israeli threats against Tehran and US President Donald Trump's urging of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against carrying out attacks against the factions themselves.
CNN
30-05-2025
- Business
- CNN
China snubs Asia's largest defense forum as tensions with US simmer
China will not send its defense minister to this year's Shangri-La Dialogue, shunning a chance for a high-level meeting with US and Asian counterparts as tensions simmer with Washington. China announced Thursday it will instead be represented by a delegation from the People's Liberation Army National Defense University, marking the first time in five years a high-level delegation from Beijing will miss Asia's largest defense and security summit. The United States will be represented by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the event, which often provides opportunities on the sidelines for rare face-to-face meetings between top generals and defense officials from the US and China. Last year then-US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Minister of National Defense Adm. Dong Jun on the sidelines of the event and the two pledged to continue a US-China dialogue amid simmering military tensions over Taiwan and Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. Beijing's decision not to send Dong this year throws into question whether there will be any meeting between the US and China at a time of heightened tensions between the two. China has railed against America's efforts in recent years to tighten its alliances and defense posture in Asia, while economic frictions rose to historic levels earlier this year after US President Donald Trump's imposition of tariffs on China sparked a tit-for-tat between the two countries that saw duties rise to more than 100% on each other's goods. While the two sides announced a temporary tariff truce earlier this month, tensions flared against this week. On Wednesday, two days before the forum's opening, the US aimed a shock double punch targeting software exports to Chinese tech companies and study visas granted to Chinese students, risking a fragile trade war truce between Washington and Beijing. At a Chinese Defense Ministry press conference on Thursday, a spokesperson ducked a question on why Beijing was not sending its defense minister to the Singapore forum, expected to be attended by defense chiefs from around Asia, including many more closely tied to Washington than Beijing. China was 'open to communication at all levels between the two sides,' a ministry spokesperson said when asked about a potential sidelines meeting with the US delegation. China's downgrading of its Shangri-La delegation showed Beijing was not happy with Washington, a US defense official told CNN on Thursday. 'They're torqued at us,' the official said. 'It's a signal that they are concerned about the level of engagement, specifically with the United States, to send a message that everything is not completely normal within that and there's probably some other underlying reasons about just uncertainty about what Shangri-La is intended to accomplish,' the official said. China has traditionally had few friends at Shangri-La and its speakers face real-time, unscripted questioning from journalists and academics attending the conference. Last year, Defense Minister Dong faced tough questions after, in a Friday note keynote speech, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. denounced illegal, coercive and aggressive actions in the South China Sea in an apparent allusion to China. China's military has also been in the spotlight in recent years as its top ranks have been roiled by a sweeping corruption purge, with more than a dozen high-ranking figures in China's defense establishment ousted since 2023. Analysts said the absence of a high-level Chinese delegation at the defense summit may signal Beijing is emphasizing economics and trade over military relations in its foreign affairs at this time. 'While surely security engagements such (the Shangri-La Dialogue) … do matter in the broader scheme of geopolitics, at this juncture it seems regional governments are perhaps even more concerned about the tariff impact on their economies,' said Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore Ahead of the weekend conference, much attention has focused on how US-led alliances across the region that grew during the Biden administration would hold up under Trump's second term. There was broad consensus among analysts that unlike the turmoil Trump has caused in Europe – with threats to pull back from NATO and abandon Ukraine in its fight against Russia's invasion – the US role in Asia has largely been consistent, centered on a policy to counter Chinese influence and back Taiwan. Hegseth's first trip to Asia as Defense Secretary began in the Philippines – on the front lines of China's increasingly aggressive posture in Asia – where he said the US would work with allies to 'reestablish deterrence' to counter 'China's aggression' in the Indo-Pacific. On Friday, during an early morning workout with sailors aboard a US Navy ship in Singapore, he had a similar message: 'We send the signal to our allies and partners, hey, here in the Indo Pacific, America's here, and we're not going anywhere. We're here to deter adversaries who would seek us harm.' Analysts noted that US-led military exercises, especially those involving key allies Japan, Australia, the Philippines and South Korea, have continued or even been bolstered in 2025. A US Pacific Command spokesperson told CNN there would be 120 bilateral or multilateral exercises involving US forces in the Indo-Pacific this year. But while increased US involvement is welcome by those participating in such exercises, Washington must be careful they don't aggravate China so much that new tensions threaten the security of regional nations that are not US treaty allies, said Evan Laksmana, editor of the 2025 Asia Pacific Regional Security Assessment compiled by the International Institute of Strategic Studies. 'The deepening of US security engagement is welcome but not so far on the strategic side that it raises tensions,' he said. On Thursday, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang said China 'attaches great importance to the military relations' with the US, but warned Washington against 'conjuring up a powerful enemy for itself whether intentionally or unintentionally.' 'Such imagination is not rational and extremely dangerous,' Zhang said. CNN's Haley Britzky and Simone McCarthy contributed to this report.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Europe's existential choice
For years, I have taken every opportunity to urge the European Union and its member states to invest more in defense. When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I repeatedly asked (as a member of the European Parliament) what further proof we would need to recognize the threats facing all of Europe. What would we – as Europeans – do if our security was threatened while our closest ally, the United States, was otherwise engaged? Today, we confront that very situation. US officials are openly stating that they do not intend to devote most of their time or resources to dealing with what they deem European issues. According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the US has "other priorities to focus on." I agree. The global superpower has global responsibilities, and the number of flash points that might demand the US government's attention seems only to be growing. In addition to challenges in the Western hemisphere, instability in the Middle East, and severe tensions between two nuclear powers – India and Pakistan – there is also the paramount goal of redefining relations with China. Moreover, according to the official US Defense Department planning doctrine, the US can no longer fight more than one major war at a time. The new US administration has been communicating its position plainly. "We're here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced in Brussels this February. And US Vice President J.D. Vance was even more direct, stating that "Europe's entire security infrastructure … has been subsidized by the United States of America," even though it is neither in Europe's nor America's interest "for Europe to be a permanent security vassal of the United States." President Donald Trump himself has repeatedly accused Europe of "freeloading" and "taking advantage" of the US. Europeans may not like what we hear, but we cannot pretend not to hear it. We must be prepared for the US to wash its hands not only of Ukraine, but even of Europe. Le Monde's Sylvie Kauffmann recently argued, "Preparing for the worst is a safer bet than hoping for the best." We can and should do both – hope and prepare. Trust but verify. Ever since Trump announced his presidential candidacy back in 2015, there have been two schools of thought on interpreting his words. Some argue that we should take him seriously but not literally, whereas others urge us to do the opposite: treat him literally but not always seriously. I believe that the most reasonable and respectable approach is to treat whatever the US president says both literally and seriously. Given the current state of the world, this implies that Europe faces an existential choice. We can enter the global game united, as a heavyweight competitor, or we can condemn ourselves to marginalization. Much has been done already to become a heavyweight contender. Since 2016 – just before Trump's first term – NATO members, excluding the US, have increased their annual defense spending by 98%, from $255 billion to $506 billion. Moreover, after three years of Putin waging war on Ukraine, the EU and its member states have proven willing to spend even more and to embrace a more cooperative, rational, and effective approach to defense planning and procurement. The new joint defense agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom is another step demonstrating this new strategic solidarity. Deterring Russia is not beyond our means. We don't need to match US military capabilities; rather, we just need enough to force Putin to reconsider his chances of winning in a confrontation with a united European community of democratic nation-states. The people of Europe are clearly demanding that we develop a revitalized European defense posture. According to the European Commission, 71% of EU citizens believe that the bloc must strengthen its ability to produce military equipment, while 77% support a common defense and security policy. This gives European leaders a mandate to think and act boldly. But how long will it take to restore peace to Ukraine and stability to Europe? I believe we must act on the basis of three assumptions. First, we should view this as a war of a former imperial metropole against what it regards as a mutinous colony. History suggests that colonial wars usually take about a decade to end. Anything less than that should be considered a bonus. Second, we should accept that for the invading country to start negotiating in good faith, it must conclude that the invasion was a mistake. It must acknowledge that the costs of war, and of keeping the former colony subjugated, are greater than whatever benefits the colony can possibly yield. Third, given the above, we should remember that colonial wars are usually finished by a different group of leaders than those who started the fighting. Yes, boosting European defense capabilities while supporting Ukraine will cost money. Since the start of Russia's war of aggression, the EU and its member states have provided more than $165 billion in support for Ukraine and its people. That is a significant amount, but it is still less than 1% of the combined GDP of the EU's member countries (some $19 trillion). We can certainly do more. And as we reinvigorate Europe's defenses, we must not lose sight of why we are doing it: we are acting for our own safety, not to undermine transatlantic relations but to improve them. To avoid a strategic dilemma, we Europeans must be able to help the US defend its allies by taking on our fair share of the security Project Syndicate/ImpactCEE, 2025
Forbes
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
Ukraine's Latest Drone-Killer Is A Truck Firing Surplus Air-to-Air Missiles
Raven air defense vehicles. Given the scale of Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and bases—thousands of strikes a month all across Ukraine—Ukrainian forces need all the surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs, they can get. The latest system, the Raven, is a strange one: a medium truck armed with surplus dogfighting missiles. The Raven's weirdness is by design. 'It's an amazing system which combines the HMT 600 Supacat vehicle with an advanced short-range air-to-air missile, the ASRAAM missile,' said Royal Marines Col. Olly Todd from the British military's Task Force Kindred, which develops weapons for Ukraine. The U.K. has shipped eight Ravens to Ukraine; five more are on the way. The type has been shooting down Russian drones since at least 2023 but only recently made its public debut in official videos. The eclectic mix of sensors, launchers and missiles that the Ukrainian military inherited from the Soviet Union, acquired locally or received as donations from its foreign allies posed a problem as Russia widened its war on Ukraine in 2022. The various components weren't always designed to work together. A particular radar might not be compatible with a particular missile, which in turn might not work with a particular launcher. The U.K. Defense Ministry got to work kluging together the disparate hardware as early as 2022. In 2023, the U.S. Defense Department followed suit with its 'FrankenSAM' initiative, a nod to Doctor Frankenstein's pieced-together monster. The Ukrainian defense ministry also runs a parallel effort. The challenge is integration: getting mismatched sensors, missiles and launchers to work as one system. To produce the Raven, British engineers yanked old missile rails off retired Royal Air Force fighter jets and bolted them to the Supacat trucks. Simple camera gimbals on the trucks' tops, controlled by modified video game controllers, point the launch rails and their 200-pound ASRAAM missiles toward incoming targets. Once launched, an infrared-guided ASRAAM steers itself toward a nearby heat source. The missile ranges as far as 15 miles. Todd declared the Raven 'one of the most effective short-range air-defense systems in use in Ukraine at the moment.' There are many other FrankenSAMs in Ukrainian service, including Soviet-made vehicles firing old American-made infrared- and radar-guided air-to-air missiles, as well as Soviet vehicles firing Soviet air-to-air missiles that no one thought to launch from the ground until the current war. The proliferation of FrankenSAMs has mostly produced shorter-ranged air defenses, however—and that makes sense, as the most abundant air-to-air missiles range just tens of miles. Ukraine's most urgent need is for long-range surface-to-air missiles that can protect cities and bases from the most powerful Russian ballistic missiles. Only two systems, the American Patriot and the European SAMP/T, fit this bill. While a few Patriot missile launchers may have been integrated with old Soviet radars, almost all of Ukraine's eight or so long-range SAM batteries are purebred designs, not FrankenSAMs.
Asia Times
18-04-2025
- Politics
- Asia Times
US should look before it leaps into South China Sea
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took a trip across the Pacific recently and it came at an uncertain time. This awkward situation is due to the Signal chat controversy that's engulfed Washington but also as many allies in the Asia-Pacific are concerned about their relationship with the US. Following Hegseth's trip, China launched large-scale military drills around Taiwan, underscoring the tensions which characterize this region. Hegseth visited Hawaii, Guam and Japan, but his most significant stop was the Philippines, a country that has experienced very significant tensions with China in recent years. That's especially true of contested claims in the South China Sea, a domain of growing military rivalry that encompasses a variety of issues, including maritime law, crowded sea lanes, drilling for hydrocarbon resources, fisheries, large new Chinese 'reef bases' and even the deployment of nuclear weapons. The key to understanding this volatile issue is to comprehend the overlap between the South China Sea and the Taiwan question. Taiwan is the world's most dangerous powder keg, given Beijing's avowed intention to achieve 'unification.' Luzon, one of the main Philippines islands, is less than 200 miles (322 kilometers) from Taiwan. Basing in the Philippines would be essential in plans for an American intervention in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. On a recent trip to Manila, I was made aware of the increasing security linkages between the Philippines and Taiwan. One strategist told me that many of his countrymen view Taiwan as a 'strategic buffer' against China. He explained that Taiwan strategists were cheered by the recent deployment of US medium-range land-based Typhon missiles into the Philippines. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Manila. Image: US Defense Department Another influential security thinker there explained to me that the Filipino 'general public hates China,' though they have also deplored the 'double-speak' from Washington on the matter of their bilateral security treaty. I was told that former secretary of state Mike Pompeo is regarded as a hero in the Philippines for helping to clarify the Mutual Defense Treaty, which underscored the nation's alliance with the United States. A third Filipino defense strategist proclaimed confidently that his country could use the 'Ukraine playbook' and that China would be defeated in the event of a military clash. I hastened to point out that Pompeo's approach was not welcome in the second Trump administration and that the 'Ukraine playbook' of major US support against great power bullying might no longer be viewed as sound strategy. Traveling to China on the same Asia trip this winter, I found Chinese strategists to be in a similarly bellicose frame of mind. One Chinese expert explained that Washington has 'crossed the line' with respect to both Taiwan and the South China Sea. Another dismissed the deterrent value of the Typhon missile deployment, stating that Manila has 'revisionist ambitions' and is 'gambling.' Consistent with such a warning, a Chinese newspaper editorialized in early March, 'Ukraine and Europe went from 'diners' at the table to 'fish' on the menu. Will Philippines [be] the next dish…?' Unfortunately for Manila, the comparison has some logic. To be sure, the Philippines is a formal treaty ally of the US, whereas Ukraine is not. And the Philippines has no land border with China, while Ukraine has a front extending 2,600 miles (4,184 kilometers) with Russia. Yet both are cases of a smaller country confronting a revisionist great power. Kyiv and Manila have witnessed significant internal turmoil. Substantial disagreement exists in Washington over how to approach the security of these two nations. It must also be noted that Chinese conventional firepower may far outstrip that of Russia. For the Philippines, its proximity to Taiwan is simultaneously a blessing and a curse. Pentagon planners see an ideal staging area in the circumstances of a Taiwan scenario. It is, therefore, not surprising that the Philippines has seen a dramatic surge of US military forces rotating through in the last few years. The rise in cross-Strait tensions is not simply coincidental. Nor has growing attention from the Pentagon necessarily brought Manila greater security. On his visit to Manila, Hegseth promised new support to the Philippines, including an agreement to conduct 'advanced' bilateral special forces training operations on Batanes, the Philippines' northernmost island, which lies roughly halfway between Luzon island and Taiwan. In keeping with the agenda of the so-called 'prioritizers' in the Trump administration, such actions might assist Manila in order to balance against Chinese pressure, but this new initiative has substantial risks as well. Hegseth should be mindful that many 'America First' supporters are leery of showering resources on another foreign dispute with the propensity to develop into a forever war. Moreover, the close linkage between the Taiwan and Philippines issues suggests this situation could escalate into something far worse. Wonder weapon: US and Philippine forces operate the Typhon midrange capability missile system on June 27, 2024, in Laoag, Ilocos Norte. Photo: US Army Pacific In April 2023, the US Army set up a demonstration test for Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos Jr of a vaunted HIMARS system to illustrate its ability to sink Chinese vessels. The system failed in six out of six test firings of the missiles against a ship target. This incident implies that a few 'wonder weapons' are not likely to change the overall situation of imbalance that requires skillful and flexible diplomacy rather than bombastic rhetoric and largely symbolic arms. Before blundering into the cauldron of the South China Sea, Washington must 'look before it leaps' and adopt a far more cautious approach. Pentagon leaders should also bear in mind that Trump is no more eager for World War III over the reefs of the South China Sea than he is over the beaches of Crimea. Lyle Goldstein is director of Asia engagement at Defense Priorities.
