25 Feb 1966 - USS Queenfish (SSN 651) is launched

USS Queenfish (SSN-651), a Sturgeon-class attack submarine, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the queenfish, a small food fish found off the Pacific coast of North America.

The contract to build Queenfish was awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Newport News, Virginia, on 26 March 1963 and her keel was laid down there on 11 May 1964. She was launched on 25 February 1966, sponsored by the Honorable Julia Butler Hansen (1907–1988), U.S. Representative from Washington's 3rd Congressional District (1960–1974), and commissioned on 6 December 1966 with Commander Jackson B. Richard in command.

Queenfish was launched one day ahead of the lead ship of her class, the Sturgeon, despite being laid down 18 months later, and as a result of a multi-million dollar bonus offered by the Navy to the Newport News shipyard.

Queenfish was deactivated on 21 September 1990, decommissioned on 8 November 1991 and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 14 April 1992. Her scrapping via the Nuclear-Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton, Washington, began on 1 May 1992 and was completed on 7 April 1993.

Thanks to Stephen Hallquirst

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NATO Plans More Visible Presence in Eastern Europe

Caught off guard by the crisis in Ukraine, NATO plans to create a “spearhead” rapid deployment force and a “more visible” presence in Eastern Europe to assuage concerns about Russian intentions, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the alliance’s secretary general, was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

 

The United States, Germany and other key alliance members have signaled that they have no plans for any substantial new NATO military presence in the region and have been careful to avoid escalating military tensions with Moscow. But with NATO leaders scheduled to meet next week in Cardiff, Wales, the alliance appears eager to show a united front and to demonstrate the ability to respond quickly at a time when Russia stands accused of menacing Ukraine.

 

The plans described by Mr. Rasmussen seemed an attempt to balance those pressures.

 

In an interview with correspondents from six European newspapers, he said that while the proposal anticipated the prepositioning of supplies and equipment at new bases, it would not infringe on the alliance’s agreements with Russia, which have prevented substantial NATO buildups in the lands that joined the alliance after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

 

NATO’s strategy in response to Russian pressure on Ukraine has been to conduct more exercises, aircraft patrols and the like. Mr. Rasmussen suggested that the alliance now plans to augment those measures by increasing its preparedness to send more troops to Eastern European bases if necessary.

 

“We will adopt what we call a readiness action plan with the aim to be able to act swiftly in this completely new security environment in Europe,” he said. “We have something already called the NATO response force, whose purpose is to be able to be deployed rapidly, if needed. Now it’s our intention to develop what I would call a spearhead within that response force at very, very high readiness.”

 

He continued: “In order to be able to provide such rapid reinforcements, you also need some reception facilities in host nations. So it will involve the prepositioning of supplies, of equipment, preparation of infrastructure, bases, headquarters. The bottom line is, you will, in the future, see a more visible NATO presence in the east.”

 

“It can be on a rotation basis, with a very high frequency,” he said.

 

Mr. Rasmussen added that the plan was designed to address the fears of newer NATO members that Russia might intervene militarily to protect large ethnic Russian minorities, such as those in the Baltic states. Along with Poland, the Baltic countries — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — have indicated that Russia’s recent maneuvers in support of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine have left them feeling vulnerable.

 

“The point is that any potential aggressor should know that if they were to even think of an attack against a NATO ally they will meet not only soldiers from that specific country but they will meet NATO troops,” Mr. Rasmussen said. “This is what is important.”

 

The notion of new permanent facilities would be certain to draw fierce protests from the Kremlin.

 

The Guardian, one of the newspapers that published the interview with Mr. Rasmussen, quoted unidentified NATO sources as saying the Cardiff summit meeting next week would seek a compromise formula, avoiding the word “permanent.”

 

Asked whether NATO would permanently deploy forces under its flag in Eastern Europe, Mr. Rasmussen was quoted as saying: “The brief answer is yes. To prevent misunderstanding I use the phrase ‘for as long as necessary.’ Our eastern allies will be satisfied when they see what is actually in the readiness action plan.”

 

Mr. Rasmussen, a former prime minister of Denmark, became NATO secretary general in 2009. In October, he is to step aside and Jens Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, will take over.

Most of Mr. Rasmussen’s tenure was focused on the war in Afghanistan, rather than the alliance’s original role: the defense of Europe against a potential Soviet attack. But with Russia’s seizure of Crimea and its support for separatists in Ukraine, the alliance is now struggling to return to its earlier roots.

 

Since Mr. Putin’s strategy for Crimea and Ukraine began to unfold in February, however, the alliance has been casting about for a response in a new era in which, Mr. Rasmussen said in an interview in Washington in July, “Russia doesn’t consider NATO a partner; Russia considers NATO an adversary.”

 

In the interview published on Wednesday, Mr. Rasmussen said: “Russia is a nation that unfortunately for the first time since the Second World War has grabbed land by force. Obviously we have to adapt to that.”

 

“It is safe to say that nobody had expected Russia to grab land by force. We also saw a remarkable change in the Russian military approach and capability since, for instance, the Georgian war in 2008. We have seen the Russians improve their ability to act swiftly. They can within a very, very, short time convert a major military exercise into an offensive military operation.”

 

In the latest crisis, he said, “we have reports from multiple sources showing quite a lively Russian involvement in destabilizing eastern Ukraine.”

 

At a time when defense budgets are shrinking and Western appetites for military campaigns have been blunted, Mr. Rasmussen seemed to acknowledged the limits of NATO’s role.

 

“You see a sophisticated combination of traditional conventional warfare mixed up with information and primarily disinformation operations,” he said of the most recent Russian operations. “It will take more than NATO to counter such hybrid warfare effectively.”

Russia Playing Politics With Alleged Submarine Confrontations

Confrontations—and alleged confrontations—between the Russian armed forces and those of the United States, Europe and Japan have been on the uptick in recent weeks. The encounters have paced a general decline in relations between Russia and the West over events in the Ukraine.

 

This month Russian media have reported two alleged anti-submarine warfare operations undertaken against American and Japanese submarines. The confrontations are reminiscent of similar events during the Cold War, in which submarines of the Soviet Union, the United States and her allies played a constant cat-and-mouse game against one another.

 

This time however, the rationale behind the incidents appears more complex, undertaken by Russia as often for internal reasons as for making a larger point to the international community.

 

According to Russian state media, on Aug. 7 a foreign submarine was allegedly expelled from Russian-controlled waters in the Barents Sea. A Northern Fleet spokesman stated that Russian anti-submarine forces, consisting of surface ships and an Ilyushin Il-38 Maymaritime patrol aircraft had chased off what was presumed to be a U.S. Virginia-class attack submarine.

 

A spokesman for European Command later denied that the event took place, saying that no U.S. submarines had been operating in the area.

 

The incident—as well as an incident a week earlier, in which a U.S. Air Force RC-135 V/W Rivet Joint aircraft was harassed in international airspace over the Baltic Sea—appears meant to send a message to Russia’s neighbors. The message to pro-NATO countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, is that Russia is more than capable of successfully confronting the U.S. presence in Europe and ejecting American forces if necessary.

 

Meanwhile, on the other side of Russia came a report last week about a similar incident involving a Japanese submarine. A report in the Russian business daily Kommersant, citing a source in the Defense Ministry, said Russian anti-submarine warfare units had forced a Japanese Oyashio-class submarine to cut short a patrol near the border between the two countries.

 

The alleged incident occurred in the La Perouse Strait, known to Japan as the Soya Strait, a narrow passage between the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido and the Russian island of Sakhalin. The La Perouse Strait is a mere 43 miles across, and depth at the strait is approximately 60 meters. Japan claims an international water boundary of a mere three miles at the strait, instead of the usual 12, allegedly to allow nuclear-armed American warships crossing the strait to skirt and not enter Japanese waters.

 

The La Perouse Strait has been an important defensive bastion for Japanese submarines since the Cold War, when it was feared that Soviet forces would launch an invasion of Hokkaido from Sakhalin. In wartime, two or three Maritime Self-Defense Force submarines would guard the strait to prevent an amphibious invasion.

 

The Oyashio-class diesel attack submarines are older members of Japan’s submarine fleet, having been superseded by the newer Soryu class. The submarine involved would have been from the Maritime Self Defense Force base at Yokosuka.

 

On Wednesday, according to ITAR-TASS, the Russian government took the unusual step of denying a confrontation had actually took place. “The Japanese submarine detected in the La Perouse Strait on Wednesday did not violate international law and did not cross the Russian state border,” a source at the Russian General Staff reported. Why the story of a confrontation came to light in the first place is unknown.

 

The incident took place while Russian forces, including 1,000 ground troops, five Mi-8AMTSh armed transport helicopters, and 100 military vehicles staged an exercise on the Russian-held southern Kuril Islands. The southern Kurils, four islands seized from Japan by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II, are still claimed by Japan. Japan, where the islands are known as the Northern Territories, has tried to get Russia to return the islands for decades without avail. Japan protested the exercises, calling them “totally unacceptable.”

 

Japan also recently imposed sanctions on Russia for its part in events in the Crimea. The exercise, as well as the reported encounter with the Japanese submarine, are likely signals to Japan that Russia is still in control of the southern Kurils and can be a complicated neighbor, to put it mildly.

 

Another, more direct reason for these events is to divert attention within Russia from negative news harmful to the government of Vladimir Putin. Unlike the Cold War, in which the Soviet government did not have to compete internally with the Western narrative of world events, the Russian government must do so. The controlling relationship between Russian state media and Moscow makes it possible for the Putin government to promote alternatives to negative news and events.

 

The alleged expulsion of the Virginia-class submarine from the Barents Sea likely had another purpose as propaganda. The news broke in Russia on a Saturday, when it could dominate Russian news for the weekend. The following Tuesday, 12 August, was the 14th anniversary of the sinking of the Russian cruise missile submarine Kursk. Kursk sank with all 118 hands aboard in the Barents and the rescue effort by the government of then-president Putin was later criticized by many as inept. The anniversary was marked in Murmansk, Kursk, and several Northern Fleet bases with commemorative events.

 

Russia Today, in reporting the alleged expulsion, said “Such actions by the NATO undersea fleet have led to a number of navigation incidents in the Arctic”and then quoted a source in the Russian navy as stating that that, “A collision with (sic) U.S. nuclear submarine, Toledo, was one the main explanations of the Kursk submarine tragedy in 2000.” The net result was that the anniversary of the Kursk sinking was overshadowed by an incident that illustrated Russian strength.

 

Similarly, the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 17 by Ukrainian separatists—and likely Russian complicity in the event—must now compete for attention against news reports of Russian forces defending their borders against American intruders. Creating incidents in which Russian strength is on display, offers a more positive alternative to reports of Russian ineptitude and involvement in the Crimea.

 

Confrontations between Russian and U.S., NATO and Japanese forces at sea will likely continue for the duration of the Putin administration. A major concern is that, aside from projecting the bellicosity of the Putin regime, such a confrontation could spark a major incident at sea. However, in an ironic twist, such events provide the West with an opportunity to study Russian military forces and detect strengths and weaknesses, as well as collect technical information on Russian equipment.

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The Dangerous Degradation Of The U.S. Nuclear Arsenal

Nuclear war seems so passe. The Soviet Union collapsed nearly a quarter-century ago. The war in the shadows of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism has defined a generation of combat. Yet earlier this month, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel convened the nation’s senior military leaders for an emergency meeting on America’s nuclear force. Firings, cheating and drug scandals, and continued inspection failures have resulted in a crisis for what once was the symbol of U.S. strength.

 

Even more worryingly, just as America’s nuclear warriors struggle to regain the confidence of the country’s civilian leadership, our two-decade nuclear holiday is ending. Contrary to President Obama’s dream of a “global zero” future without nuclear weapons, proliferation of the world’s most dangerous weapons is increasing. The Pentagon must revitalize its strategic forces or face the dangers of becoming increasingly unable to respond to a more unstable world of nuclear powers.

 

Even as America’s strategic force took second place to nation building and Middle East wars in recent years, the global nuclear balance shifted permanently. Though Washington refuses to admit it, North Korea became a nuclear-capable state that also obtained long-range ballistic missile capability. Despite the assurances of the Obama Administration, Iran has secured for itself a breathing space while international negotiations allow it to continue building its nuclear program largely unmolested from the world community.

 

China, meanwhile, has just tested a mobile long-range ballistic nuclear missile that can hit U.S. targets, which is just part of their expanding nuclear capability. They also have begun building a ballistic missile submarine force. India and Pakistan continue to earn analysts’ predictions that their border is the most likely spot on earth for a nuclear exchange. Each recently has fielded new missiles for their nuclear forces. To top it off, Vladimir Putin is modernizing Russia’s massive nuclear and missile force as he regains Moscow’s influence in Europe and Asia.

 

Yet while the world has been embracing the atomic bomb, the U.S. nuclear mission degraded. Only the U.S. and UK, among all declared nuclear powers, are not currently modernizing either their weapons inventory or delivery systems. Standards in the U.S. nuclear force have also fallen. The Air Force suffered a series of embarrassing mishaps in the 2000s, for example, mistakenly ferrying live nuclear weapons across the country and shipping nuclear triggers to Taiwan. The deputy commander of U.S. Strategic Command, the successor to the Cold War Strategic Air Command, was relieved of duty in October 2014 for using fake poker chips at a casino, which is a criminal offense. A week later, the Air Force very publicly fired the two-star general in charge of America’s 450 ICBM’s for personal misconduct while on an official visit to Moscow. In January, the news came that dozens of ICBM launch teams cheated on tests.

 

Now, the specter of a beleaguered U.S. nuclear force facing a world with stronger nuclear powers and more proliferation is causing a mini-renaissance of the nuclear mission. There is no question that the country’s senior nuclear leaders are committed to revitalizing their mission and instilling the “exemplary leadership and personal conduct above reproach” needed to operate the world’s most dangerous weapons, as current Deputy Commander of U.S. Strategic Command Lieutenant General James Kowalski recently told me.

 

Yet the Obama Administration must move more quickly to plan for a future in which nuclear weapons are likely to play a greater role in national defense. Hard as it may be to accept, Dr. Strangelove is back.

 

The Air Force is only just beginning developing a next generation bomber to replace its half-century old B-52s, 1980s-era B-1s, and tiny force of 20 B-2’s from the 1990s. While bombers evoke Cold War images, they will be increasingly important in the coming decades. Unlike missiles, bombers can be recalled, which is a vital part of America’s response to the proliferation of nuclear capabilities to rogue regimes like Iran, as well as a flexible deterrent to major nuclear powers such as China. It needs to be remembered that we have no effective hotline with Beijing or other types of understanding such as existed between Moscow and Washington even in the dark days of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

 

The U.S. Navy is beginning work on the successor to its 14 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, which carry roughly half of America’s operationally deployed nuclear forces, and are the most survivable of all U.S. nuclear forces. The SSBN(X) will need to have a 40-year service life starting around 2030, but with an estimated cost of $6-8 billion each, the program will face budget battles. Even America’s land-based nuclear missiles are being eyed for replacement, given that the Minuteman III ICBM entered service beginning in 1970 and finished production in 1978. Our nuclear weapons, too, need updating, since our current warheads were designed and built from the 1960s (for the gravity dropped bombs) to the 1980s (for the latest land-based ballistic missiles).

 

As this nuclear renaissance gains steam, funds for nuclear modernization and upkeep must not be reduced, despite budget cuts affecting the overall military. There must remain a full commitment to the Long Range Strike Bomber and SSBN(X), in particular, as well as to extending the life of the warheads. The expense of the nuclear enterprise, expected to cost $132 billion over the next decade, is daunting in an age of austerity, but the specter of more nuclear weapons in the hands of aggressive or unstable regimes around the globe is a reminder that security never comes cheaply.

 

In conjunction with modernization, stressing the importance of nuclear weapons will help reduce the low morale and cheating among missile crews. More robust intellectual engagement is also needed. In December, Air Force Global Strike Command ran its first nuclear wargame, codenamed Strategic Vigilance, in response to the new threat environment. This is the right approach. To it should be added the encouragement of a new generation of civilian nuclear thinkers with insight into political and economic factors that can be embraced by U.S. Strategic Command and its subordinate nuclear commands.

 

While the days of the iconic SAC may be over, the nuclear triad is sure to become far more important over the next twenty years than it has been for the last twenty. The dramatic uncertainty that will result from an Iranian nuclear capability or a North Korean weapon, not to mention fears about a stronger nuclear China and Russia, will make strategic vulnerability at home once again at the forefront of security planning. Political leaders today must start thinking again how nuclear weapons fit into the larger mosaic of America’s security plans in an increasingly uncertain future.

India-Pakistan; Terrorists Win A Big Election

China recently released an unclassified analysis of the Indian military situation. This is a first for China, which has, in the last decade, increasingly come into conflict with India over where the Tibetan border should be and whose fleet should be dominant in the Indian Ocean. The last time China and India fought was in 1962, when China won a brief battle to decide a dispute over where the Tibetan border really should be. All has been quiet since then, mainly because of Cold War politics (Russia and China began feuding and India became a Russian client while still maintaining ties with the West). After 1991, with the Soviet Union gone, Russia and China became the best of pals (despite dormant Chinese claims on Russian territory) while India drew closer to the West and remained the largest customer for Russian weapons. The big change has been the huge growth in the Chinese economy, which is now the second largest in the world. China spends three times as much as India does on defense. Chinese leaders are not elected (the country is still a communist police state) and have used nationalism (rebuilding the old Chinese empire) to maintain power. This means adjusting the Tibet border (which a temporarily independent Tibet adjusted in India’s favor in 1914) and moving the rapidly growing Chinese fleet into the Indian Ocean (to safeguard vital Chinese trade routes). Despite all this, the Chinese analysis still sees Pakistan as India’s major military threat, despite India officially shifting its effort to confront China in the last few years. Pakistan has attacked India several times in the last half century and lost every time. The Pakistani military is poorly equipped and really only good for fighting Pakistanis. It’s not very good at that either and India has decided the Chinese are more of a threat. The new Chinese study is apparently an effort to make the Pakistanis feel better, if only because Pakistan is a major customer for Chinese weapons.

In southwest Pakistan (Baluchistan) a terrorist truck bomb was used against a police station, killing five policemen. 

 

May 11, 2013: National elections were held in Pakistan, despite Islamic terrorists and tribal rebels trying to halt the process. Over a thousand casualties (including at least 200 dead) were suffered by candidates, voting officials and civilians in the last month. There’s always some of that, but it was worse this time because each new government is expected to do something about Islamic terrorism and tribal unrest and they don’t. 

 

Nawaz Sharif and his party (the Moslem League) won the election. This returns Sharif to power after being ousted by the military in 1999. Five years ago Nawaz Sharif, who tried to remove Pervez Musharraf as head of the armed forces in 1999, and was himself removed by the army in turn, tried to return Pakistan (from exile) and overthrow Musharraf. He was arrested at the airport. Many of Sharifs followers had earlier been rounded up. Sharif had earlier agreed to stay out of the country for ten years (until 2010). This was partly to avoid going to prison for corruption. Sharif eventually got in and established himself and his party as a viable contender. 

 

While Musharraf was disliked for being a dictator, the political parties don't offer much of an alternative. The Islamic parties fear they are losing support, because of the continuing Taliban and al Qaeda violence. Musharraf had ordered elections when he saw rising popular anger against him and the military. He lost power in the 2008 elections. He has since been arrested for corruption and abuse of power. Musharraf is unlikely to make a comeback. Nawaz Sharif, on the other hand, belongs to a powerful family from Punjab and has temporarily made the corruption charges go away. The wealthy feudal families dominate the economy, politics and the military in Pakistan and less than a hundred of these clans control about half the economy. They are very powerful and determined to keep things that way.

 

The corruption is still there but Sharif, who got his start working for military dictator Muhammad Zia who ruled from 1977 until his death in 1988). Zia was notable for establishing Islamic terrorism and Islamic radicalism as official state policy, along with being the longest lasting military dictator in Pakistani history. In effect, Zia is most responsible for the mess Pakistan is currently in but is considered a national hero because he was in charge during the 1980s as billions in American and Saudi money poured in to sustain Afghan refugees from the war with Russia in neighboring Afghanistan. Those refugees supplied tribal warriors who kept fighting the Russians until the Russians tired of the enterprise and left in 1989. Pakistanis officers and officials stole lots of that money and infected the refugees with Islamic radicalism, which led to Pakistan creating the Taliban in the 1990s. With that as a background, Nawaz Sharif now has to deal with the growing threat (to Pakistan) of Islamic radicalism and the Pakistani military (to depose him once more). The corruption in the economy and politics makes it difficult to rule Pakistan but there is the hopes that Nawaz Sharif might get it right the second time around. That’s no guarantee of success, especially since Sharif and his clan still wallow in corruption, but in Pakistan hope is often the only thing you’ve got. 

 

Sharif’s party did surprisingly well, gaining 46 percent of the seats in parliament. Sharif has said nice things about Islamic radicalism and advocates yet another attempt to make peace with the Pakistani Taliban (which has been at war with Pakistan for most of the last decade). With all that Sharif says he wants to maintain good relations with the United States while reducing Pakistani efforts against Islamic terrorism. That is something that is unpopular with America, India and China. Many Pakistanis see the Islamic radicals not as potential saviors but as another bunch of criminals plundering the country. It is a fact that the Taliban often steal and have made a lot of money extorting ransoms and protection money from the military. The Islamic terrorist assassins know where officers and their families live and have powerful branches in major cities (especially Karachi). While many Taliban are intent on turning Pakistan into a religious dictatorship, many others have tasted the good life all this extortion cash can bring. This terror campaign has caused the military to back off on its efforts to shut down the Islamic terror groups (mainly the Taliban) at war with Pakistan. Can Sharif turn this around? Probably not, but the hope is that he can. In one sense hope has been fulfilled because this election marks the first time in Pakistani history that one elected government has followed another without being interrupted by a period of military dictatorship. 

 

May 10, 2013: A long time British reporter (Declan Walsh) in Pakistan (who has worked for major British and American newspapers) was expelled. This was apparently the military expressing its displeasure at his stories revealing how the military tried to blame some of its air strikes on American UAV operations. Walsh was lucky, for his Pakistani counterparts are often murdered for saying things the military does not want said. 

 

May 9, 2013: In northeast India (Assam) police arrested a senior Maoist leader (Anukul Chandra). Police are not sure if Chandra (and two less senior Maoist leaders arrested in the area last month) are simply trying to escape the increasingly effective anti-Maoist campaign in eastern India, or are in the northeast to help with the Maoist effort to expand their operations into the tribal territories of the northeast. There, tribal separatists have been fighting the government for decades but in the last few years most of them have made peace. 

 

May 7, 2013: For the first time since the Taliban declared war on polio vaccination a year ago, there has been a case of polio in the tribal territories. It occurred in North Waziristan, an unofficial (but very real) sanctuary for Islamic terrorists where resistance to vaccination has been most effective. Polio can only exist in a human host and one case means there will be others.

 

In Bangladesh two days of violence by Islamic religious (madrassa) students, demanding the imposition of Islamic law led to 28 deaths, most of them Islamic radicals. Islamic radicalism is growing in popularity in Bangladesh but is still very much a minority activity. Incidents like this, and the mess Islamic radicals have made in Pakistan, make it difficult for Islamic radicals to expand their base of popular support.  

 

May 6, 2013: More gunfire on the Afghan border although this time Pakistan insists the Afghan’s fired first. Last week an Afghan policeman was killed in a similar incident. This violence is all about an ongoing dispute about exactly where the international border is. Recently Pakistan built some new border posts forward of previous ones but still, according to Pakistan, on Pakistani territory. This has led to shooting between Afghan and Pakistani border guards. There’s also a tribal rivalry element to all this. Most of the Afghan-Pakistani border is occupied by Pushtun tribes. This frontier, still called the “Durand Line” (an impromptu invention of British colonial authorities) was always considered artificial by locals, because the line often went right through Pushtun tribal territories. However, the Afghans are more inclined to accept the Durand Line, and fight to maintain it. The Pakistanis believe absolute control of the border is impossible, and their attempts to stop illegal crossings cause additional trouble (as tribesmen do not like excessive attention at border crossing posts). This recent violence is also linked to years of anger over Afghan Taliban and other terrorists hiding out in Pakistan and Islamic terrorists (fighting the Pakistani government) hiding out in Afghanistan. This has led to regular Pakistani shelling of suspected terrorist camps in Afghanistan, which often kills innocent (or semi-innocent) Afghan civilians. The Afghans protest and the Pakistanis refuse to halt the shelling and rocket fire or even admit that they are doing it.

 

May 5, 2013: Indian and Chinese officers met to resolve yet another border dispute and a bit of Chinese aggression. China agreed to withdraw its intruding troops while India agreed to remove some border posts that had annoyed the Chinese. Both nations declared victory, but the Chinese got more out of the deal. It was all about twenty or so Chinese troops who have been camped out 19 kilometers inside Indian Kashmir since April 15^th. China said their troops were not inside India, something India disputed. Neither country seemed eager to escalate this, or resolve it. China said it would withdraw if India would abandon an observation post in the mountains that overlooked Chinese positions. The Indian outpost was in Indian territory but the Chinese don’t like being watched. The Indians refused and pointed out that there had been three other Chinese incursions recently, but these troops did not linger. India sees all this as the Chinese way of applying pressure on India to withdraw from territory claimed by India. Once more, this tactic worked.

 

Heavy fighting continues in the Pakistani tribal territories (near the Khyber Pass). The most recent battles today left 16 Islamic terrorists and two soldiers dead in the Tirah Valley. This time troops overran a major camp and captured a lot of weapons, ammo and equipment. Pakistani troops have spent six weeks fighting Taliban gunmen there. The army has been using regular troops as well as SSG commandos and pro-government tribesmen. So far nearly 150 terrorists have been killed along with about 40 soldiers and tribal allies. The army has been trying to clear the Taliban from this border area since 2009, but have been unable to keep the Taliban from returning. When pressed hard enough, the Taliban retreat across the border into camps and villages in Afghanistan. They are sometimes attacked there, but because the Pakistani Taliban are not attacking anyone in Afghanistan, the local security forces concentrate on those who do (mainly the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network, which is based in North Waziristan, an official terrorist sanctuary the Pakistani government refuses to shut down.)

Cold War Shadows In The Indian Ocean

Since the end of the Cold War in 1991 there has been a major shift in naval power in the Indian Ocean. With the demise of the Russian fleet (seen as an Indian ally) and the rise of Chinese naval power, India has sought cooperation from a growing U.S. Navy presence in the area. This is all about keeping Indian naval power supreme in the Indian Ocean. The rising Chinese threat is seen as more than India can handle alone. With Indian inability to expand, or even maintain their current naval power more help has to come from somewhere.

 

While India was technically neutral during the Cold War, India was generally hostile to the United States and quite cozy with Russia. India still has good relationships with Russia, but the Russians have no fleet to speak of these days and suddenly the Americans are seen as potential allies. In part this is because the anti-American slant was more the product of Indian post-colonial nationalism (that was generally anti-Western) and infatuation with socialism. Both those policies proved failures and, while many Indian politicians do not accept the shift to a market economy and better relations with the West, these changes have happened anyway. 

 

But above all this there is China, which has already taken some disputed territory on the Indian border and claims still more. Chinese ships (both commercial and military) are more frequently seen in the Indian Ocean. Chinese shipping firms have refurbished ports throughout the region and manage them to handle growing Chinese trade with the countries where these ports are located. The Chinese presence cannot be ignored and the Indians are now welcoming the Americans.

 

Yet there won’t be a lot of Americans. The U.S. defense budget is declining and so is the size of the American fleet. Most of the U.S. naval presence in the Indian Ocean is in and around the Persian Gulf and is there mainly to curb growing Iranian aggression. The only major American base actually in the Indian Ocean is Diego Garcia (a 44 square kilometer island 4,700 kilometers south of Afghanistan). 

The U.S. Navy maintains a base in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf and several Gulf states host American warplanes. What India wants is some American warships closer to the Indian coast. That does not seem to be happening soon enough to influence the Chinese fleet moving into the region.

Ghost Boat

The Thursday Documentary - Cold War: The Strangelove Factor

Secrets of War: Cold War: The Strangelove Factor

How Castro recruited former members of the Nazi SS to train troops during Cuban Missile Crisis

Two former SS officers trained Cuban troops during the Cold War.

Fidel Castro also bought arms from weapons-traffickers linked to the German extreme-right

Fidel Castro recruited former members of the Nazi SS to train Cuban troops during the Cold War, newly released German secret service files have revealed.

The then Communist President of Cuba also bought Belgian-fabricated arms from two middle-men who had strong links to the extreme German right.

It sheds light on the extent Castro, who in public was stringently committed to socialism, was willing to go in order to further his grip on the island nation and prevent an invasion from the U.S.

Bodo Hechelhammer, historical investigations director at German foreign intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) said: 'Evidently, the Cuban revolutionary army did not fear contagion from personal links to Nazism, so long as it served its objectives.'

The documents, released by the BND and published online by German newspaper Die Welt, show a series of plans developed in October 1962 - at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

They reveal that two of the four former SS officers invited to La Havana had taken up the offer - and that they would receive 'substantial wages' of more than four times the average German salary at that time.

And regarding the purchase of right-wing linked arms, they show how Castro had dealt with two traffickers - Otto Ernst Remer and Ernst Wilhelm Springer - in buying 4,000 pistols.

The conclusion drawn by German secret service officials was that the Cuban regime wanted to lessen its dependence on buying Soviet-produced arms.

Right-wing weapons: Fidel Castro, seen here giving a speech in Cuba in October 1962, also bought 4,000 pistols from men with links to the German extreme-right

 

Right-wing weapons: Fidel Castro, seen here giving a speech in Cuba in October 1962, also bought 4,000 pistols from men with links to the German extreme-right

October 1962 was the month that the U.S. and the USSR came close to going to war over Russian missiles stationed on the Caribbean island.

The 13-day confrontation, between October 16 and 28, ended when a secret deal was reached between U.S. President John F Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

Publicly, the Soviets agreed to dismantle the weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification.

In turn, the U.S. agreed to declare that it would never invade Cuba. Secretly, the U.S. also agreed it would dismantle all U.S.-built Jupiter IRBMs deployed in Turkey and Italy.

This comes as thousands of documents authored by Robert F Kennedy during the years 1961-1964 were made public, including plans to assassinate Fidel Castro.

Training for war: Fidel Castro, center, speaks with ally Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, right, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 1960 as the Cold War gripped the world

 Training for war: Fidel Castro, center, speaks with ally Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, right, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 1960 as the Cold War gripped the world

During these years Robert F. Kennedy was the closest advisor to his brother John  and the 2,700 pages offers an insight into U.S. government’s decision-making during the Cold War.

One CIA document offers a profile of Castro: It calls him intelligent but 'not very stable' and 'touchy, impatient and rash,’ whilst another one outlines a 1964 plan to assassinate the Cuban leader using ‘the mafia’.

The mob and 'patriotic Cuban exiles' eventually settled on a payment of $100,000 for assassinating Castro, $20,000 for his brother Raul and $20,000 for revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, plus $2,500 for expenses.

Another prominent thread throughout the documents is the 13-day missile stand-off.

On one white page from a meeting on Oct. 16, 1962, the first day of the crisis, Kennedy wrote out two columns: proponents of a blockade against Cuba and supporters of a military strike.

Cuban missile crisis: Really touch-and-go?

Source - By Rick Hanson - USA Today

The forgotten man of the Cuban missile crisis was once its hero — the only American to perish in a conflict that could have killed millions.

Maj. Rudolf Anderson was “the martyr who died for us all,” said Eric Sevareid, the CBS Evening News analyst. Future generations would lay flowers at Anderson’s grave, he predicted, in thanks for the “hosts of others who did not die.”

The crisis, the closest the planet has come to nuclear war, took place over 13 days — Oct. 16-28, 1962. It started after aerial photos showed the Soviet Union was deploying nuclear missiles in Cuba in order to bolster its communist ally, Fidel Castro, and its own ability to strike the United States.

Armed only with a camera, Anderson flew an unescorted U-2 spy plane over the island more times in the crisis than any other pilot. He and his comrades took the photos that the U.S. used to show the world the Soviets had nuclear missiles 90 miles from Florida.

After Anderson was shot down by a Soviet missile — without permission from leaders in the Kremlin — President Kennedy and his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev realized they had to end the crisis before their underlings pushed them into war. Within 24 hours, they did.

Yet 50 years later, Anderson’s memory has faded, along with that of the crisis itself.

There are unforgettable moments — Kennedy on TV telling the nation about the missiles and announcing a quarantine around Cuba; U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson unveiling photos of the missile sites and offering to wait “until hell freezes over” for a Soviet response; Soviet ships in the Atlantic turning back from the quarantine line.

But the crisis that historian James Blight calls “the most dangerous moment in modern history” is hazy to young Americans and widely misunderstood by their elders.

Despite revelations since the end of the Cold War, the crisis is encrusted by myth: of a cool, hard-line Kennedy, a bellicose Khrushchev and a resolution in which the Americans stood firm and the Russians backed down.

Alice George, author of a social history of the crisis, says its memory was diminished by subsequent traumas, especially the assassination of Kennedy a year later. And the end of the Cold War two decades ago deprived the crisis of its doomsday context.

“If you were alive in 1962, you have a story about the crisis,” George says. “If you weren’t, you have no clear idea what happened.”

Here in Anderson’s hometown, however, some people want to change that. One is Jack Parillo, a retired architect who learned of Anderson only when he stumbled on his memorial. “People don’t realize Rudy’s importance to history,” he says. “Without him, there might not be any history.”

‘A taste of death row’

By 9 a.m. on Sept. 27, 1962, Rudolf Anderson was 72,000 feet above Cuba, on the blue-black edge of space, snug in a pressurized flight suit, flying an aircraft that did not officially exist. In addition to the top-secret target list, he carried photos of his two sons and his wife, two months’ pregnant with what he was hoping would be a girl.

The U-2 was one of the most exotic aircraft ever made. Fly too fast at this altitude (twice that of a commercial jetliner’s) and the wings and tail break off; fly too slow, and the engine stalls. The difference between the two extremes: 7 mph.

It was Day 12 in the crisis. With the Soviet missiles in place, says Alice George, “everyone in America got a taste of death row.” The nation’s southeastern quarter, including Greenville, was in range of warheads 70 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

Day and night, U.S. military forces moved toward Florida. The Strategic Air Command, which controlled the nation’s nuclear arsenal, moved to DEFCON2, one alert level short of war. It dispersed 183 B-47 bombers to 33 civilian and military airfields and kept 60 B-52 bombers, most carrying atomic bombs, aloft at all times. About 130 long-range nuclear missiles were ready to be fired; their silo hatches were open, and the Soviets could see it.

Americans reacted with a mixture of anxiety and resignation. Some hoarded canned food and built fallout shelters. Millions of city dwellers decided it was a good time for a trip to the country. In Memphis, a man told police who found him lifting a manhole cover that he was seeking a bomb shelter for his family.

Bunkers outside Washington were readied for government officials, and federal agencies made plans for emergency wage-price controls, rationing and censorship.

Anderson’s hometown was jittery, especially after the state civil defense director told local officials there was emergency shelter space for only 7% of the population.

A 16-year-old called the Marine recruiter in Greenville to ask whether the president had lowered the enlistment age. Ed Smith, American Legion district commander, said he had volunteered for World War I and was ready again.

No one knew that Greenville already was represented by Rudy Anderson.

He’d always wanted to fly. As a kid, he built model airplanes, and once got in trouble in school for using his pencil to trace in the air the flight of a fly.

He was something of a daredevil. At Clemson, he was so intent on catching a pigeon that had gotten loose in his dorm that he chased it down a hallway and out a second-story window, breaking a few bones in the fall. Later, his buddies would call it “Rudy’s first flight.”

As an officer, he was both top gun and by-the-book, a pilot’s pilot who was selected to evaluate his peers. All agreed he’d make general. “He wanted to keep climbing the wall to be the leader,” recalls Jim Black, a fellow Korean War reconnaissance pilot. “He was strong-headed. It was his way or no way.”

He wanted as many flights as he could get, even if it created jealousy in the competitive U-2 brotherhood. “Hot to go all the time,” Black says. “He was bent on being in the middle of whatever was going on.”

He’d jockeyed for this flight over Cuba, his sixth in the crisis, even though two days earlier another pilot reported being fired on by Soviet surface-to-air missiles — the first time any of the U-2 flights had drawn fire.

He didn’t seem worried. The night before, he called his mother in Greenville and told her not to worry, he was doing what he loved.

After 10 a.m., Anderson completed his pass over the eastern end of Cuba — his plane’s camera clicking, Soviet radar watching — and turned toward Florida. But a Soviet general, absent his commander and for reasons still unclear, ordered two surface-to-air missiles fired at the U-2.

One exploded behind Anderson, sending shrapnel into the cockpit and through his pressurized suit. He probably was dead before the plane hit the ground, 13 miles below. He was 35.