Category Archives: NATO

Britain, Iraq, Islamic State, NATO, Syria, United States

A bloodbath on Europe’s and NATO’s doorstep…

KOBANI

David Cameron’s vow that Britain and its allies would not allow Islamic State (IS) to form a caliphate on Europe’s doorstep is difficult for the besieged people of Kobani to accept.

Huge plumes of black smoke have billowed over the pivotal border town as jihadi fanatics – some of whom claim to be British – have launched a terrifying onslaught.

Kobani, which lies just inside Syria on the border with NATO member Turkey, has been described as the town the world “cannot afford to lose” to the terrorists.

If they succeed in taking it, IS will control an unbroken 125-mile stretch of frontier with our Turkish allies.

Kobani is barely more than 200 yards from Turkey, which wants to join the EU, and for the past two weeks it has been possible for observers to stand on a Turkish hillside and watch as the jihadis under their black-flag tighten their stranglehold on the Syrian town. A massacre beckons, and nobody seems capable of stopping it.

Inside Kobani, populated by Syrian Kurds, fires rage as artillery shells rein down and thump in to densely-packed neighbourhoods.

On Sunday, at least 25 mortar rounds rained down on a hopelessly outnumbered army of resistance, a Dad’s Army style force that has come to be symbolised by a band of gun-toting grandmothers intent on protecting what they have.

A picture of the women, brandishing Kalashnikov assault rifles, was retweeted around the world by those anxious to raise awareness of the plight of the people of Kobani.

Outgunned, they respond only with occasional rocket-propelled grenades and bursts of rifle fire. They have also converted tractors and other farm equipment into armoured vehicles fitted with ageing Soviet-era guns.

Stopping towns like this falling was the reason the US launched a campaign of airstrikes – backed by the RAF in Iraq.

Yet, they have failed to stem IS’s brutal advance and a bloodbath seems horribly likely.

Seven men and three women from Kobani have already been beheaded by the jihadis, with the women’s heads placed on a macabre display in Jarabulus, a nearby IS stronghold. A gruesome and graphic photograph uploaded to Twitter purported to show a grinning IS fighter clutching the decapitated head of a girl. And there are sickening reports of women and girls being raped.

Over the weekend, too, a British jihadi taunted the people of Kobani by posting another image showing his terror gang was within sight of their homes.

The siege has forced some 160,000 people to flee across the frontier. Some sit weeping on hilltops on the Turkey side of the border, watching helplessly while their homes go up in smoke.

Fleeing families have told of unspeakable horrors. One young father, Mostafa Kader, who fled almost two weeks ago, revealed how the body of his sister-in-law and eight-year-old niece were found in a pool of blood. Mr Kader said that they had been raped and that their hearts had been cut out. He buried them with his own hands.

Islamic State is using captured US-made tanks and other military hardware which had been left in the hands of the Iraqi army, whole regiments of which have simply fled from IS.

The RAF cannot intervene because it has no mandate to bomb in Syria, despite British Tornados flying right overhead to conduct bombing raids in neighbouring Iraq. American warplanes have been bombing around Kobani, and 16 IS militants have been declared dead from airstrikes and ground attacks since Monday. But there are tens of thousands of IS fighters. These terrorist fatalities will hardly be enough.

The Turks have promised to ‘do whatever we can’ – a stray mortar even landed a mile inside Turkey wounding five people in a house near the town of Suruc. Convoys of lorries carrying Turkish tanks have been driven south to the border.

On social media, tech-savvy IS has been crowing that no one can stop it fulfilling its dream of carving out a medieval caliphate, in which anyone not adhering to its arbitrary strictures is beheaded or crucified, or has limbs chopped off.

It has been reported that some British jihadists have found it too much. Up to 100 are believed to have defected and are stranded in Turkey because they fear imprisonment if they return to the UK. Yet an estimated dozen or so would-be holy warriors from Britain are still joining the warped cause every month.

Mr Cameron warned last month of the ‘poisonous’ threat of jihadis returning to the UK, and said the world had to deal with IS.

He said: ‘If it succeeds, we would be facing a terrorist state on the shores of the Mediterranean and bordering a NATO member.’

But the ease with which British and other fanatics slip between Turkey and Syria, under the noses of border guards, makes a mockery of claims Turkey is cracking down on its label as a ‘gateway to jihad’.

People living in the frontier town of Akcakale say they never see the recruits – they cross at night and are smuggled illegally under a fence – but they do see their bags, which the smugglers transport separately. Every two or three days, some 50 or 60 Western rucksacks come through the official border crossing, and their luggage tags are easily identifiable – British Airways, Air France, Turkish Airlines.

What appears to be happening is that the smugglers arrange for their rucksacks to follow them. A Turkish porter might be used to carry them through the Turkish border gate and leave them in ‘no-mans-land’. A Syrian porter then comes from the other side and picks them up. It means the jihadists are reunited with all their belongings.

There are dozens of border towns strung along the 560-mile frontier where potential recruits can simply melt away until it is time to cross into Syria.

In the next few days, if Kobani does fall, Downing Street and the White House will face plenty of questions about whether their strategy to deal with Islamic State is working.

For the people of Kobani, it seems certain it will be too late.

Map of affected region:

Terrorist group Islamic State (IS) have launched attacks against the strategic Kurdish town of Kobani in Syria, forcing thousands of civilians to flee north to Turkey.

Terrorist group Islamic State (IS) have launched attacks against the strategic Kurdish town of Kobani in Syria, forcing thousands of civilians to flee north to Turkey.

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for a ground offensive to prevent the Syrian border town of Kobani falling under the control of the Islamic State. Such a call implicitly highlights the limitations of the West’s reliance on air power alone to defeat a determined and resilient foe. While US warplanes have carried out several air attacks against IS positions in and around Kobani, IS fighters have nevertheless succeeded in flying their menacing black and white banner from the rooftops of captured buildings. IS’s continuing advance against Kurdish-held positions in Kobani has prompted Turkey to deploy large numbers of tanks to protect its side of the border.

But while Mr Erdogan, like General Lord Richards, a former head of the British Army, is right to argue that air strikes alone are unlikely to defeat IS, the use of ground forces – or ‘boots on the ground’ – remains contentious and deeply problematic. For example, any attempt by Turkey to move its forces into Syrian territory in support of those defending Kobani, would likely be firmly resisted by Damascus. Such a situation developing might even lead to a further escalation in hostilities. The prospect of Western troops being deployed against IS, on the other hand, remains only a remote possibility, as politicians on both sides of the Atlantic remain determined to avoid the use of their ground forces at all costs. The high cost of human sacrifice and enormous sums expended in two recent costly wars will be high on the minds of our politicians. That leaves, then, the poorly equipped Kurdish fighters and their allies to defend the town against the formidable might of IS forces.

Mr Erdogan’s attempts to persuade the West to adopt a more realistic approach to the conflict might carry more weight if Ankara was able to provide more clarity about its own objectives. Turkey’s long-standing refusal to tolerate Kurdish independence has led some to suspect that Ankara has turned a blind eye to IS fighters regularly crossing its open and porous border. Turkey’s recent hostage swap with IS, for instance, in which Ankara reportedly freed a number of IS fighters in return for the release of Turkish diplomats taken hostage during the summer, suggests Turkey’s approach is very different to that of its NATO allies, who refuse to negotiate with terrorists.

Rather than cutting deals with IS, Mr Erdogan would be better to concentrate his efforts on helping the beleaguered Kurds. The Kurds are in desperate need of arms and reinforcements, but these are being denied because Turkey refuses to open its border.

But in supporting the Kurds, the West also needs to raise its game in terms of supporting the Kurds’ ground effort. To date, all Britain has offered the Kurds is a paltry sum of £1.6 million in military aid – miniscule when compared to the vast resources at IS’s disposal. If the West really does want the Kurds to defeat IS, we must give them the proper means to do so.

 

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Britain, Economic, Europe, European Union, Government, National Security, NATO, Politics, Society

NATO, its purpose and the wider meaning of ‘security’…

QUESTION OF ‘SECURITY’

NATO’s main role during the Cold War was to counter Soviet expansionism. That stand-off ended 25 years ago. As military budgets started falling following the end of the Cold War, and with less political and public appetite for military confrontation, the organisation was beginning to look irrelevant in today’s world. Questions have been continually asked of its modern-day role and purpose.

NATO certainly faces a renewed challenge on its eastern European border from an increasingly hostile and belligerent Russia. In the long-term this may even herald a reboot in Russian expansionism. Further afield, the insidious threats of Islamic State terrorists and continuing instability in the Middle East cannot be ignored either.

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When NATO talks in terms of security, it should be imperative that also includes the security of energy supplies. Currently, we depend on both Russia and the Middle East for much of our energy. Recent events serve to highlight the vulnerability of our energy supplies and the political constraints that results from our wholesale dependence on fuel imports from these volatile regions. Without political stability in those regions, there can be no energy security at home.

One immediate question that should come to mind is whether Russia might choose to use its energy exports to the EU as a political bargaining tool. The threat that it could happen is starting to be taken seriously. Reports that the EU is drafting emergency plans that would impose rationing on industry this winter, has serious economic repercussions.

Secure, sustainable and predictable supplies of energy are essential for economic growth and prosperity. A $20 rise in the price of oil for two economic quarters is likely to reduce global GDP by 0.5 per cent.

Stability in the price of oil is also important. Price volatility is an ongoing risk for all sectors of the economy. The armed forces, for example, consume large amounts of fuel. Rapid and unexpected increases in the price of oil can disrupt the capacity of our forces’ to operate effectively, be it through less time at sea for training or fewer hours flown in helicopters and jets.

The economic and supply disruption risks are especially acute in those countries with a high dependency on imported energy. The EU, for instance, imports 53 per cent of the energy that it consumes. The UK sources about 40 per cent of its coal imports from Russia.

The political corollary of dependence on energy from unstable and unsavoury regimes is that it constrains the response that the UK, Europe and NATO are able to give when faced with aggression. Whilst Germany has been more active of late in calling for sanctions, its stance towards Russia is partly determined by the continuing need to keep Russian gas flowing.

More troubling, though, and looking further ahead, how would we deal with a situation in which the Islamic State became established as a permanent presence, including control of oil and gas exports?

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The quickest and most effective form of energy security is to use less.

Lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan suggests that energy efficiency is embedded in military thinking on both sides of the Atlantic. Not only does it improve military effectiveness but it reduces risk and saves money.

The same needs to happen with national energy strategies. There needs to be a comprehensive programme of energy efficiency measures across all sectors – particularly across utility companies, transportation and the need to improve energy usage in both domestic and commercial buildings. The programme should be demanding, for only when the full benefits have been delivered can we be sure of relying less on energy imports. The wider gains from improved air quality and reduced greenhouse emissions would be presumptive in any such programme.

More important still is that it makes economic sense for Europe to be at the forefront of energy efficiency measures as this will improve competitiveness with the US and China, both of whom enjoy the benefits of scale and low cost energy.

EU ministers are currently debating whether to approve a target of improving energy efficiency by 30 per cent (from 2005 levels) by 2030. The Ukraine crisis has indicated that this has to happen. Some analysts believe that 40 per cent energy efficiency targets could be met without incurring any unnecessary economic penalties.

Alongside this, continuing to invest in domestic sources of energy, particularly established ones such as wind, solar and nuclear, and new entrants such as wave and tidal power, is crucial. We cannot always rely on imported energy, but the tide will always flow and ebb twice a day.

NATO should become a powerful platform for promoting this change, by explicitly articulating the threat that we face. Efficiency and diversity in domestic energy generation are not issues that should be seen as just part of the ‘green’ agenda. They are vital to our national and regional security.

The challenges posed by increasing geopolitical instability and the threats to our energy security are only like to grow. Reducing energy consumption and investing in new forms of energy is a strategy that simultaneously defends against international volatility, improves our economy and liberates our response to aggression from the stranglehold of dependency.

NATO has a role to play in reducing our vulnerability.

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Britain, Defence, Europe, European Union, Government, Islamic State, Military, National Security, NATO, Politics, Russia, Society, United States

NATO requires direction and purpose…

NATO

The two-day NATO summit in Newport, Wales, represents a key and defining moment in the organisation’s 65-year history. More recently it has become apt to question whether the post-war transatlantic alliance even has a future, particularly when NATO ends combat operations in Afghanistan at the end of the year. Defence budgets among the leading European powers have been severely cut and, coupled with the crippling lack of political will to reach consensus on vital security issues, critics of this Western alliance have been able to make a convincing case that the organisation is in real danger of becoming obsolete.

NATO’s future continuity and preservation as a global entity for good will now depend to a large extent on how leaders of the 28-nation alliance respond to the alarming array of new challenges that threaten not only the security of Europe, but the wider world.

The horrific and gruesome murders of two American journalists by Islamic State terrorists in Iraq, and the imminent possibility that a British hostage could soon suffer a similar fate, has highlighted in graphic and disturbing detail the very serious threat to Western security posed by radical militants associated with the self-proclaimed Islamic State – one that has taken root in lawless areas of northern Syria and Iraq. Then there is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s blatant and ruthless military intervention in Ukraine, actions which have led to Russia brazenly supporting rebel and pro-militia groups loyal to the Kremlin in maintaining the tempo over the challenge to Ukraine’s territorial integrity and encroachment of a sovereign state. The true extent of the rebel support was realised earlier this week when a Russian tank column was identified as being in support of capturing Luhansk airport. As if to confirm his disregard for Western attempts to rein in Mr Putin’s new-found spirit of adventurism, Moscow even boasted that it could take Kiev in just two weeks if it wanted to.

When considering too the continuing threats posed by al-Qaeda, the uncertain fate that awaits Afghanistan when the US-led NATO mission completes its withdrawal later this year, and the endemic lawlessness in other parts of the Middle East and North Africa, it is clear that the West is facing its most difficult period since the end of the Cold War.

NATO’s ability to provide an effective response to these multifarious threats will depend ultimately on whether it can summon the collective political will and leadership to take decisive action against its enemies. For an organisation whose decision-making process requires consensual agreement, attempts to find a common policy amongst all the nations of the alliance have all too often been hampered by deep political divisions. Most recently these have surfaced in the way the major European powers have sought to respond to Russian aggression in Ukraine, with countries such as Germany and Italy unwilling to back the more robust stance favoured by Britain and the U.S. But neither has the NATO cause been helped by President Barack Obama’s reluctance to become involved in overseas conflicts. Mr Obama’s detached approach was evidentially confirmed in the last few days when the president admitted ‘we don’t have a strategy yet’ for dealing with Islamic State militants: this, despite their murderous assaults on American citizens.

There are some encouraging signs that NATO is preparing to rise to Mr Putin’s bellicosity in eastern Europe. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the outgoing NATO secretary-general, has already announced the establishment of a new, 4,000-strong rapid-reaction force capable of reacting to any future crisis in eastern Europe with just 48 hours’ notice. Many European member states will also come under pressure to honour the NATO commitment of spending 2 per cent of their GDP on defence. The decision to establish new logistics centres along the Russian border to enable the rapid provision and requisition of military equipment in the event of a crisis is also another welcome indication that NATO’s members are not prepared to tolerate any further territorial incursions by the Kremlin. Whilst encouraging that there are signs the alliance has rediscovered a real sense of purpose, effective political leadership is now urgently needed.

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