Observer: Top British commander says West must see job through in Afghanistan

The Observer today broadcasts the opinion of the ranking UK commander of British armed forces working with ISAF regarding the West's Afghan encounter:

The most senior British commander in Afghanistan says the Taliban cannot "assassinate their way to power" and too many lives have been lost over the last 10 years for the west to flinch in its campaign against the insurgents.

In an interview with the Guardian, Lieutenant General James Bucknall said the UK had made "an investment in blood" and that now was not the time for western nations to turn their back on the country.

He claimed that the Taliban had been pushed back everywhere and that relentless special forces operations are killing 130 to140 insurgent leaders every month. He conceded that too often over the last decade the military had "over-promised and under-delivered". Bucknall said he understood why politicians, the public and the armed forces themselves felt war-weary. Mistakes, he admitted, had been made.

"We almost owe it to those who have gone before to see the job through," he said. "Having made this investment in blood, I am more determined. If I didn't think we could do this I would take a very different view but I am confident we can do it."

Bucknall's comments come on the eve of an international conference in Bonn to discuss the future of Afghanistan. There is mounting concern about the amount of aid that Afghanistan will receive and a growing political clamour in the US and UK for western forces to speed up their withdrawal. But Bucknall said critics of the military campaign should ask whether the Taliban leader Mullah Omar had been able to achieve any of his goals over the last two years.

"Let's mark [his] work. If he was serious about overthrowing the government and grabbing a portion of Afghanistan for his own, you have to do three things. You have to secure your own heartland in Kandahar and central Helmand. Is he doing that? No. They lost their safe havens around Kandahar in 2010 and they didn't take them back in 2011. They are not holding their own heartland.

"Secondly, you have to spread your influence around other areas. There is absolutely no evidence anywhere in Afghanistan that they are doing that. Thirdly, you have got to affect the seat of government. There have been lots of headlines, but Kabul has about 20% of the population and less than 1% of total violence in the country. Not only is the seat of government unaffected, but Kabul is a flourishing capital city that is much safer than Karachi."

The Taliban had been reduced to a terrorist group, adopting terrorist tactics, said Bucknall.

"I have not seen any insurgents who have assassinated their way to power. One hundred and forty [Afghans] have been assassinated this year. In the press that is painted as the government cannot survive this. But we are taking out 130-140 mid-level Taliban leaders every month. Sometimes it is worth turning the egg-timer on its head. They have been driven to this much vaunted tactic of assassinations."

He said that the idea the Taliban would sit and wait until western forces had left suited Nato well because it would allow Afghan police and army more time to get up to strength.

Bucknall has just finished an 18-month tour in Kabul, during which he was in charge of all British forces, and second in command of the International Security and Assistance Force – the military coalition now commanded by the American general, John Allen. Bucknall oversaw the "surge" last year in which an extra 30,000 American troops began an offensive to push back the insurgency – a tactic that reduced attacks in some areas, but raised questions about whether progress could be sustained by Afghan police and army when NATO forces began to pull out.

The West has said none of its forces will be fighting after 2014.Bucknall admitted that Afghanistan's security was still fragile and expressed frustration that certain factors that would determine Afghanistan's future – such as diplomatic efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table – were out of the military's control.

The western coalition had to stick together over the next two years during the pull-out – a coded warning to countries that might want to "run for the exit door". Pakistan had to be "part of the solution in one way or another", said Bucknall.

"These are the two top ingredients. We have to stick together. We went in together, and we go out together. Managing a coalition in a draw down requires an awful lot more work than managing a coalition during a surge."

UK recognises Libyan rebels, expels Gaddafi's London staff

The Guardian is just one of several newspapers today that carries the lead UK story regarding the ongoing conflict in Libya. This article reports on a significant shift in recognition by HM Government, with no small significance for Gaddafi's legitimacy and Libyan sovereignty:

Britain is expelling the Libyan chargé d'affaires and all eight remaining Libyan embassy staff in London after David Cameron and William Hague ruled that Libya's national transitional council (NTC) was now the "sole governmental authority" in the country.

The chargé was summoned to a meeting at the Foreign Office, where he was given three days to leave Britain. Other diplomats at the Libyan People's Bureau, in Knightsbridge – which has been under heavy police guard since the launch of the military campaign in March – have been told to leave over the course of the summer.

Hague announced the expulsions at a Foreign Office press conference on Wednesday as he invited the NTC to nominate an ambassador and other diplomats to take over the Libyan mission. The foreign secretary said: "The prime minister and I have decided that the United Kingdom recognises and will deal with the national transitional council as the sole governmental authority in Libya.

"This decision reflects the national transitional council's increasing legitimacy, competence and success in reaching out to Libyans across the country.

"Through its actions, the national transitional council has shown its commitment to a more open and democratic Libya, something that it is working to achieve in an inclusive political process. This is in stark contrast to Gaddafi, whose brutality against the Libyan people has stripped him of all legitimacy."

Hague said Britain – which has temporarily closed its embassy in Tripoli – now runs its largest diplomatic mission in north Africa after Cairo in the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi. This will be designated as an embassy if the NTC requests an upgrade.

The decision to recognise the NTC as sole governmental authority led to the unfreezing of £91m in UK assets belonging to the Arabian Gulf Oil Company, a Libyan oil firm under the NTC's control. Foreign Office sources said the assets were unfrozen after the NTC gave assurances that the funds would be used to purchase fuel and not arms, which would be illegal under UN security council resolutions.

There's a video of the announcement as well...

Guardian: Counter-terrorism strategy driven by 'cyberjihad'

The Guardian reports today on the Home Secretary's latest announcement regarding the UK's approach to counter-terrorism:

Home secretary Theresa May promises new generation of technology to tackle extremists' rapidly changing strategies

A new generation of scanning technology, watchlists, no-fly lists and databases to track terrorist travel was promised by the home secretary, Theresa May, on Tuesday as she published the government's new counter-terrorism strategy.

She indicated that the Home Office will no longer rely on seeking "difficult to negotiate" general agreements of no torture and no ill-treatment with countries such as Algeria in order to deport foreign terror suspects, but instead will try to strike individual deals in each case.

The updated strategy will try to improve the chances of prosecuting terror suspects arrested in Britain by bringing into force powers to allow suspects to be questioned after they are charged.

The home secretary said this would allow police and prosecutors to build a more robust case against suspects where further substantial evidence emerged after the 14-day limit within which those arrested for terrorism must be charged or released.

A fresh effort is to be made by a Privy Council group to find a practical way of enabling intercepted evidence from calls and emails to be put before a jury without compromising intelligence sources.

May said a combination of factors – including the Arab spring and the death of Osama bin Laden – has reduced the immediate threat from al-Qaida. But she said there remained a serious threat to Britain from associated groups based in countries such as Yemen, Somalia and Nigeria and from "lone wolves" backed by substantial computer attacks – known as "cyberjihad".

The new strategy identified the rapidly changing technological environment in which terrorism is operating. May, in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute, said online technology, such as Google Earth and Street View, was increasingly being used for attack planning.

"Ahead of its attempted aviation attacks, al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula used commercial systems to allow air mail to be tracked in real time – we can speculate that this was to detonate a device over a particular city, to maximise casualties, or perhaps over a particular country, to maximise the political fallout," she said of the Christmas day Detroit-bound airline attack in 2009.

She added that "peer to peer networks" were being used to distribute files and information rapidly and securely. Cloud computing, which allows material to be encrypted and configured to work with mobile devices, offered a new means of distributing information and left little or no trace of the data.

The new document confirms the government's intention to bring forward new legislation to regulate the ability of the security services and the police to access such communications data and track the use of mobiles, email and other such data transfers.

But the home secretary confirmed in a Home Office briefing that the legislation to introduce what has been called the "interception modernisation programme" would not be introduced this year. She said the parliamentary timetable was already crowded. This meant that this particular ambition of the Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism, based in the Home Office, will remain a medium-term rather than an immediate objective.

May said: "We will also respond to recent threats to aviation security with new scanning technology, new watchlisting, new non-fly procedures and a new push, which I am leading within Europe, to use passenger name records to track terrorist travel."

The home secretary has persuaded EU home affairs ministers to back her over Europe-wide plans to track and store the travel details, including credit cards, of all passengers on "high-risk" routes within and to and from Europe.

She has been involved in similar agreements to track and store for up to 15 years such personal travel details of those flying to and from the US and Australia. The civil liberties implications have provoked strong protests from the European parliament.

BBC News: UK terror threat level reduced to 'substantial'

BBC News reports on a significant announcement made today by the Home Office:

The UK terror threat level is being reduced from "severe" to "substantial", the home secretary has announced. The new alert level means the risk of a terrorist attack is considered to be a "strong possibility" and "might well occur without further warning".

Theresa May said: "The change in the threat level does not mean that the overall threat has gone away.

"There is still a real and serious threat to the UK and I would ask the public to remain ever vigilant."

She said the decision to downgrade the terrorist threat level was made independently of ministers by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) and was based on the very latest intelligence, considering factors such as "capability, intent and timescale".

The threat level last changed in January last year where it was raised to "severe". The threat level is under constant review and can change quickly in response to events.

UK terror threat levels

• Critical - attack expected imminently
• Severe - attack highly likely
• Substantial - attack a strong possibility
• Moderate - attack possible but not likely
• Low - an attack unlikely

Source: Home Office

It was first made public on 1 August, 2006, when it was set at "severe". The level was then raised to critical ten days later after a series of arrests over an alleged plot to blow up a transatlantic aircraft. It was lowered to "severe" again the following week.

The threat level was last set at critical in June 2007, following the attack on Glasgow Airport and the failed car bombings in central London.

BBC home affairs correspondent June Kelly said the threat to the UK comes from both Islamist extremists and Irish dissident groups.

BBC News: Argentine leader says UK 'arrogant' over Falklands

The president of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, has called Britain "arrogant" for refusing to negotiate on the Falklands.

She was speaking a day after UK Prime Minister David Cameron said the issue of sovereignty was non-negotiable. President Fernandez called his refusal to hold talks on the sovereignty of the Falklands, or Malvinas, arrogant and bordering on stupidity.

Britain defeated an Argentine invasion of the islands in 1982. The Falklands are at the centre of a territorial dispute dating back to the 19th Century. Argentina has repeatedly requested talks on the islands' future sovereignty.

But most Falkland islanders wish to retain British sovereignty and 14 June is marked as Liberation Day in the capital, Port Stanley. In the House of Commons on Wednesday Mr Cameron said "as long as the Falkland Islands want to be sovereign British territory, they should remain sovereign British territory - full stop, end of story."

President Fernandez described his comments as an "expression of mediocrity, and almost of stupidity". She said the British "continue to be a crude colonial power in decline".

But during Wednesday's Prime Minister's Questions Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell urged Mr Cameron to remind President Barack Obama that "the British government will never accept any kind of negotiations over the South Atlantic archipelago".

Earlier this week a British man became the first Falkland islander to choose Argentine citizenship. James Peck was handed his national identity card by President Fernandez, during a ceremony to mark the 29th anniversary of the end of the Falklands War. Mr Peck's father Terry was a member of the Falkland Islands Defence Force and died during the conflict.

Sandy Woodward, the retired admiral who led the British taskforce which set sail for the Falklands in 1982, told a newspaper earlier this week he feared the islands were "now perilously close to being indefensible".

He told the Daily Mail: "Twenty-nine years ago today, we re-claimed the Falklands for Britain in one of the most remarkable campaigns since the Second World War.

"The simple truth is without aircraft carriers and without the Americans, we would not have any hope of doing the same again today."

Obama: Now is time for US and West to lead

BBC News reports on the content of US President Barack Obama's speech today to UK parliamentarians in Westminster Hall, revealing that the President appears to have been reading our exam syllabus (!):

In his speech, Mr Obama... :

• Acknowledged differences in the US and UK approach to deficit reduction but said their end goal was the same
• Insisted the allies were preparing to "turn a corner" in Afghanistan - allowing Afghans to take the lead against the Taliban and stopping the country from becoming a haven for terrorists
• Warned North Korea and Iran against flouting their obligations on nuclear weapons
• Vowed to worked for a resolution to long-running conflicts like that in Sudan, and in supporting a "secure Israel and a sovereign Palestine"
• Defended action in Libya - saying the intervention had "stopped a massacre"

The report also outlines the setting and summary of the President's historic speech:

President Obama has told British politicians that, despite the rise of new global powers, the time for US and European leadership "is now".

He said the influence of the US, UK and allies would remain "indispensable," in a speech in Parliament on the second day of his UK state visit.

But he said that leadership would need to "change with the times" to reflect economic and security challenges.

He is the first US president to address MPs and peers in Westminster Hall.

Rows of the UK's most senior politicians and other prominent figures lined the historic building to hear the US president talk about the history of the UK's relationship with the United States and its shared values - and outline some of the future challenges facing the world.

Former British prime ministers Sir John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown sat next to each other in the packed hall - the oldest part of the Houses of Parliament - which fell silent as the US president began his 35-minute speech.

As he began, Mr Obama joked that with an "especially active press corps", the relationship between the UK and US was forever being "over analysed".

But he added: "There are few nations that stand firmer, speak louder and fight harder to defend democratic values around the world than the United States and the United Kingdom."

 The Guardian, like most other newspapers, also covered the speech—and included a convenient video summary:

WSJ: Sun Setting on British Power (?)

The Wall Street Journal reviews the ramifications of decisions taken by the UK's Coalition government to cut back on defence spending (excerpt follows):

The UK is in the midst of the most aggressive fiscal tightening since World War II—a process that US defense officials are watching with concern. In October, following a strategic review, Prime Minister David Cameron announced plans to cut the military budget by 7.5% and the head count by 10% over five years, and to retire lots of equipment, leaving the armed forces with 40% fewer tanks and 35% less heavy artillery. The planned cuts will come on top of an 8% reduction in personnel during the 13-year tenure of the former Labour Party government.

At a hearing Wednesday before a Parliamentary defense committee, the heads of Britain's army, navy and air force said the U.K. would no longer be a "full spectrum" military force—one capable of both low-intensity combat such as counterinsurgency and the kind of major operations required for state-on-state combat.

Air Chief Marshal Stephen Dalton, head of the air force, said simultaneous battles in Libya and Afghanistan have taxed the military. "There are times and there are phases on the operations where we have stretched the capabilities absolutely to the point where we find it very difficult to do anything else at that particular time," he said.

The three service chiefs said that the U.K. will still be able to project power on the international stage. The government has said that the cutbacks won't undermine the nation's ability to support its allies in places like Afghanistan, although they will result in a smaller military that the nation will be "more selective" in using. The U.K. will still have the world's fourth-largest military budget, Mr. Cameron has said.

The cutbacks come as broad geopolitical forces are reshaping the global military landscape. The U.S., which also is trying to curtail military spending, remains the world's dominant military power. China is engaged in a military buildup that has alarmed many of its Asian neighbors. And other NATO members are grappling with budget constraints while keeping a wary eye on Russia and the Middle East.

Do take the time to read the entire article.

Is Britain to blame for many of the world's problems?

David Cameron has suggested that Britain and the legacy of its empire was responsible for many of the world's historic problems. But is that view fair?

Answering questions from students in Pakistan on Tuesday 5 April, the prime minister said: "As with so many of the problems of the world, we are responsible for their creation in the first place."

In an article published today, BBC News outlined the views of two academic historians on the controversy (Nick Lloyd, lecturer in defence studies, King's College London and Andrew Thompson, professor of imperial and global history, University of Leeds), as well as opening the debate to readers' comments.

Royal Navy minesweepers patrol the Gulf

BBC News Online thin morning profiles the long-established and largely unsung role of Royal Navy (RN) minesweepers in providing military and economic security within the Arabian / Persian Gulf—like it or not (from an environmental perspective, if nothing else), one of the world's key resource supply routes...

Away from the headlines, the Royal Navy is carrying out a key security task in the Gulf.

For the last few years, four small UK minehunters have been maintaining a valuable if unsung presence in the waterway. It is one that Britain's allies value very highly, according to the Navy. We joined one of the ships, HMS Middleton, as she headed out to sea from her base in the port of Bahrain. As we set sail, the international significance of the Gulf was evident.

As well as the four British minehunters, a frigate and a patrol craft from the Bahraini navy, dotted around the port were a French naval support ship, a US amphibious assault ship, some American minehunters and perhaps most intriguingly, a US Coastguard cutter. There was also a huge British amphibious support ship, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Lyme Bay, another of the total of a dozen British naval vessels in the region. Lyme Bay acts as a mother ship for the minehunters.

Those minehunters themselves are hardly the biggest or most glamorous of warships. HMS Middleton is just 645 tons, with a crew of just 46. But their potential value massively outweighs their size. If the Gulf were to be mined, the bigger ships - even the mighty US Navy aircraft carriers - would be relying on them to carry out their task.

None of the Royal Navy personnel in the Gulf will point a direct finger, but one of the West's nightmare scenarios is that the Gulf could be mined as part of a confrontation with Iran. That could shut off the source of 40% of the world's oil shipments by sea and have a devastating effect on the world economy.

Worth reading the whole thing as a key to understanding this country's contribution to maintaining world / Western economic and political security by military means.

Anglo-French armed forces plan greater military co-operation

The Guardian (amongst others) brings news that the UK and France are currently destined for greatly enhanced military co-operation—the respective governments insist that sovereignty will be retained nonetheless...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/27/britain-france-plan-military-cooperation

Britain and France are putting the finishing touches to plans for unprecedented co-operation on defence across all three branches of the armed forces, ranging from military operations to simulated nuclear tests.

What is described as a "whole package" of measures, including a major army exercise in Flanders, will be unveiled at a summit meeting between David Cameron and France's president Nicolas Sarkozy in London on 2 November, top officials say.

The two countries account for what one senior diplomat called a "critical mass" of Europe's military capabilities, including 45% of all EU military spending, half the total number of armed forces, and 70% of military research and development in the EU.

...

The extraordinary tempo and detail of work carried out by senior British and French military staff has been triggered in part by similar financial pressures facing the two countries and the realisation that their forces will be much more effective acting together.

The two governments are acutely aware of the political sensitivity of military co-operation. They will insist that national sovereignty will be preserved and there will be no question of "sharing" weapons systems, including aircraft carriers.