Russia has declared that it may put a halt to the S-300 sale it had promised Iran. The Jerusalem Post reported that Medvedev may “reconsider the planned delivery of S-300 air defense missiles to Iran.” Israel and the United States must welcome this as an exciting development on halting Iran’s nuclear program. The S-300, also known as the SA-10 Grumble is one of the most sophisticated Surface to Air Missile systems in the world. Israel has proved it is able to beat less advanced soviet anti aircraft technology and Iran knows its nuclear facilities are vulnerable to Israeli or U.S. attack.
SA-10 Grumble Specifications:
Length (m) 7.5 m Weight (kg) 1,800 kg Diameter (m) 0.50 m Propulsion Single Stage Solid Fuel Rocket Range (km) 150-200 km Altitude (m) 27,000-30,000 m Speed 2.0 km per second Warhead 145 kg HE Guidance Radar Source FAS
If the sale of S-300s from Russia does not go through, Iran is left with three options for the protection of their nuclear and military facilities.
1. Iran will go through a third party broker to obtain the S-300 2. Iran will further develop their nuclear and military technologies underground. 3. Iran will continue the status quo.
Iran will likely take one of these three measures in order to counter an Israeli or U.S. attack.
Look for a more detailed analysis of this topic tomorrow morning, as well as possible Israeli countermeasures tomorrow afternoon.
Sorry for not posting a more significant article, but I spent 10 hours on the road today. So not to leave today empty I will provide you with initial questions I plan to answer for my second intelligence analysis series, "Airpower During the Second Lebanon War: Israel's Air Superiority and Future Implication." I would like to invite you to comment with any questions you might like to see answered in this analysis. All I ask is that you have the questions posted within a two week period before the projected date of Spetember 20, 2009.
Questions:
IDF Use of Airpower
What information was available to the IDF before the 2006 kidnappings ? Was the information better about long-range missiles compared to short-range rockets? If so Why? Why did airpower fail for Israel during this war? What did the IDF learn from the Second Lebanon War? What was Israel's avg./expected kill chain? How many missiles could be salvoed in this time? Total number of rockets Israel destroyed?
Hezbollah Denial
How was Hezbollah able to fortify and dig out bunkers? How was Hezbollah able to continue salvoing missiles? Where did their resupply come from? Who was resupplying Hezbollah and what were they supplying them with? What routes were taken for resupply? Why were Hezbollah's long-range missiles so vulnerable to Israeli intelligence? What did Hezbollah learn from the Second Lebanon War? How will Hezbollah likely adapt? What was the average number of Hezbollah missile salvos during the second Lebanon war? Total number of rockets fired by Hezbollah?
Lebanon has been plagued by war throughout the last 3 decades. It now suffers from extreme poverty. Some 28 percent of people live below the poverty line in Lebanon. Also eight percent of the population lives in extreme poverty (Visit Source here). People suffering the most from an ailing economy in Lebanon are Shiites, living in Southern Lebanon (Visit Source here). Because Shiites are suffering so drastically Hezbollah has a drastically larger population to influence. While Hezbollah does help the Shiite cause in some ways it only manipulates this population to further its political and military causes.
Today in the Daily Star Carla René Saadé reported:
The failure to adapt economic policy to the radical change in surrounding conditions has undermined the private economy’s competitiveness and potential for growth.
On no less than five major counts, the out-of-synch economic policy held back the economy and worsened both fiscal and social conditions.
For one, the uncontrolled growth of the public debt has done away with the option of using the instruments of fiscal policy to influence the pace of economic activity. This disadvantage is at present laid bare by the government’s inability to use fiscal policy to help the economy to ride out the secondary effects of the unfolding global economic crisis on investment and growth.
Second, by relegating monetary policy instruments to the task of achieving fiscal objectives, the current economic policy relied on maintaining inordinately high rates of interest, therefore directly restraining private investment spending.
Third, excessive public borrowing further restricted access to loanable funds to finance private investments, thus retarding growth and undermining competitiveness.
Fourth, over the past decade, fiscal stress has undermined the government’s ability to attain a level of social spending that would meet its obligations and the aspirations of the citizenry. This aspect of the failure in governance is the root cause of the financial shortfall at the National Social Security Fund and, more seriously, growing poverty.
Finally, the crushing weight of the public debt is dragging down country rating and by association the credit rating of otherwise solid business ventures.
While Saadé makes several great points in her article, she does not attribute another important factor into the lack of investment in Lebanon, stability. In order for the Lebanese economy to flourish, the government and military must provide some counterweight to Hezbollah’s dominance. This will provide some stability, not only to the Lebanese people, but to the Levant as a whole.
Three weeks ago Haaretz reported an explosion of a Hezbollah Kyatusha warehouse. The explosion provides another piece of data in the long list of evidence that Hezbollah is preparing for war. While this may simply be a deterrent factor, Hezbollah knows their activities within Lebanon and outside of Lebanon could spark Israeli retaliation at any point in time. Tensions have only grown between the two enemies with Israel's poor execution of the war in 2006 and the assassination of Imad Mughniyah. In order for Lebanon’s economy to garner foreign investment and prosper, it needs a long break from war.
If the United States does not begin to reign in war lords making money from illicit drug trade, the US will suffer consequences much like the consequences it has suffered from al Qaeda over the last decade. Tribal war lords will be heavily armed with advanced weapons and a network of mujahidin that potentially could have a global reach. At the very least the mujahidin, if felt threatened by the United States, could prolong the war against terrorism in South East Asia. Providing more forces to Afghanistan may spread the United States Military too thin and hinder the Global War on Terrorism. Drug money leading to the funding of al Qaeda may enable terrorists around the world new capabilities to conduct their operations.
The United States may be empowering groups that could carry out future Jihad against the United States. Our previous experience in Afghanistan helped enable Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda organization commit the atrocities of 9/11 and other attacks against the United States. The Karzai government will also have this ability once the Afghan military is powerful enough to take out these warlords. Not only is this causing destabilization in Afghanistan it could cause terrorism in the future.
US’ dependence on the warlords and their militias to further its political and military agenda has been detrimental to the disarmament and the weaponisation programme; creation of a national army and the police force; anti narcotics operations and, above all, building institutions of governance and extending Kabul’s authority in the provinces (Chandra 2006).
The United States must break away from the idea that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. While Afghan warlords are playing an essential role in reigning in al Qaeda members, the United States and the people of Afghanistan can not afford these people to turn on them once their means to collect funds is taken away. The United States pulled funds from earlier Mujahidin fighters in Afghanistan which was one of the reasons Osama bin Laden created al Qaeda. Tribal warlords are already armed to fight an insurgency; they may enable the organizations to morph into terrorist organizations. The same ramifications may arise if the United States and other forces are able to eliminate the drug trade in Afghanistan
Unfortunately, the United States has let the drug trade in Afghanistan spiral out of control to the point that tribal war lords and their Mujahidin have the capability of creating an insurgency against the United States. War lords in Afghanistan possess weapons similar to those being found in Iraq. The use of IED’s, Shape Charges, and anti aircraft weaponry has wreaked havoc on Coalition Forces in Baghdad and elsewhere around Iraq. Modeling their insurgency after Iraq would cause difficulties for United States forces in the region. This would cause the US, NATO, and a newly formed coalition to allocate more resources to the region spreading their militaries thin. A weak United States military would not only embolden global terrorist organizations, but also states seeking regional dominance and destabilization.
A weak United States military would embolden Iran to further its nuclear armament program. A nuclear Iran would destabilize the whole Middle East which may cause conflict with Israel or surrounding Arab countries. Further nuclear programs may pop up throughout the Middle East especially in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. These two countries are current power brokers, along with Iran, in the Middle East and want to maintain their dominance of the region. Israel has said it will not accept a nuclear armed Iran. Further military action carried out by Israel may further destabilize the Middle East causing retaliation by Hizbullah and HAMAS both terrorist organizations funded by Iran. This could possibly lead to a full occupation of the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon. This may lead to a further weakening of the West which would embolden al Qaeda and its affiliates.
Al Qaeda is reaping financial benefits from the drug trade in Afghanistan; if current trends continue, their organization may witness a weaker America more susceptible to attack. Al Qaeda is not only weakening the people of the United States by providing them dangerous drugs, but also destabilizing the military through the drug trade. If al Qaeda is successful at destabilizing military forces in the United States, they will have the capability to attack the United States more easily than currently.
The United States must find a way to eliminate poppy production in Afghanistan. Otherwise, the dynamics of the Middle East and South East Asia will change dramatically. However, procedures can be taken to reduce Afghan poppy production. These recommendations must be implemented immediately. Soon Afghanistan will resemble Columbia but with drastically greater consequences.
Sources:
Chandra, VIshal. 2006. “Warlords, Drugs and the ‘War on Terror’ in Afghanistan: The Paradoxes.” Strategic Analysis 30(1).
United States and NATO Forces at the Center of the Cycle:
The United States military and NATO forces are at the center of another cycle that is permitting the war lords to achieve power in Afghanistan. While achieving stability is the job of coalition forces in Afghanistan they are actually promoting the opposite. By empowering regional war lords, they are weakening the reach of the Karzai government. On the contrary, regional war lords have been successful at eliminating the al Qaeda threat in Afghanistan. However, this is a driving factor in the amount of poppy that is produced in these Afghan tribal regions.
NATO forces are currently taking a two pronged approach to eliminating al Qaeda in Afghanistan. First, they are engaging terrorists militarily through their own missions in accordance with the Afghan National Army. Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan has produced the arrest of thousands of terrorists and has unfolded an unknown number of terrorist plots. Second, coalition forces are using tribal war lords to fight al Qaeda in their provincial regions. The war lords have been quite successful at eliminating al Qaeda. “Special operations forces work closely with the [warlords] to coordinate OEF air and fire support, conduct tactical training, and provide advice when required” (Maloney 2004). Tribal warlords know their region, and more importantly the people living in that region, well. They are more capable of gathering information from locals and locating individuals suspected of terrorism. Through NATO support the warlords are able to maintain power which provides for greater poppy production in Afghanistan.
Tribal warlords feel empowered by NATO’s willingness to use them as an ally in the Global War on Terrorism. This type of empowerment enables warlords to encourage and even coerce Afghan farmers to grow poppy. As stated earlier, warlords need cash to ensure their ability to purchase weapons on the black market. The United States, NATO, and Coalition Forces are directly feeding the Afghan drug trade through their alliance with the war lords.
Poppy grown in Afghanistan is distributed to the West and poisons the people who abuse it. However, the amount of money made by tribal warlords is estimated to be around three billion dollars annually. This money goes to weapons and is also re-invested in the drug trade. Like any business, you treat it with respect, which means re-investment in the proven methods which work. Because of this cycle; if the United States military and NATO forces do not engage tribal warlords Afghanistan will soon become a narco-state that will result in extreme global consequences.
War Lords and Terrorists at the Center of the Cycle:
Today, over 100 countries are participating in the Global War on Terrorism. The majority of their actions focus on closing down financial networks of organizations deemed to be terrorist in nature. “This crackdown in terrorist financing has led some terrorists to transform their organizations by creating ‘in house’ criminal capabilities in order to generate revenue” (Sanderson 2004). Terrorist organizations are now seeking creative ways to raise money. The drug trade is an obvious choice as many terrorist organizations are already involved with the black market weapons trade.
While Hezbollah has been involved with methamphetamine labs and cigarette smuggling in the United States and Canada, al Qaeda has well-developed connections with criminal syndicates in central Asia that include Pakistani and Afghani opium traffickers (Sanderson 2004).
These networks are extremely harmful to the United States public as well as Europeans. Al Qaeda could coerce Afghan farmers to grow even more poppy in the coming years. This would be detrimental to the war on terrorism. Terrorist organizations are in dire need of funding for their activities and drug money allows them the ability to gain funds by the millions of dollars.
Warlords and drug traffickers are coercing farmers into growing more poppy than normal. Warlords make billions of dollars yearly from poppy production. “The 2006 harvest was valued at 3.1 billion dollars, nearly a third of Afghanistan’s total national product including both legal and illegal activities…” (Milliken 2007). Ninety percent of heroin produced in Afghanistan is funneled to the West. The majority of the drugs end up in Europe and Russia, but some of the supply can be found in the United States. The trail of money is easy to follow throughout a simple flow chart. Drug lords, forcefully coerce or provide cash to farmers who grow poppy. As poppy production increases, a larger supply of heroin is created. The Heroin is then distributed and consumed in the West. Finally narco-dollars end up back in the pockets of tribal war lords, which allows them to maintain control of their region.
While there is corruption in the Afghan government, legitimate military sources are using the Afghan drug trade to not only fund operations against the Taliban and al Qaeda but also to fund global Jihad in Kashmir.
It is widely believed that profits from the drug trade provide the Pakistani intelligence agencies (notably the Inter-Services Intelligence Unit, or ISI) with vast sums of money with which to finance the war in Afghanistan and to continue operations in Kashmir and elsewhere. As a result, the ISI has greatly increased the role it plays among a wide variety of groups, from Afghan refugees in the northwest frontier region to Islamist political parties in Pakistan proper and the mujahideen themselves-who, over the years, have sold, bartered, and stashed away large quantities of weapons and narcotics (Kartha)
Pakistani intelligence services fund their operations through narcotics sales in the West. They are able to generate large amounts of revenue that not only fund these legitimate actions but fund global Jihad in the conflict between India and Pakistan over the area of Kashmir. Afghan war lords and terrorist organizations also profit economically from Western consumption of Heroin.
Post 9/11, the United States and Coalition forces have used warlords to isolate and eliminate al Qaeda. However, using these warlords to the advantage of military forces in the country carries a heavy price.
Tribal warlords use the proceeds from poppy production within their area of control to…maintain their power base through weapons acquisitions. Similarly, remnants of the Taliban are using their drug profits to acquire weapons and attempt to reestablish power in the southern regions of Afghanistan. They are also using opium as a means to retaliate against the Untied States (Hueg 2004).
Afghan war lords, Taliban members, and al Qaeda acquire weapons through an extensive black market trade in the Southeast Asian region. Afghanistan is feeding the global illicit arms trade in the region because it continually draws in more weapons and mujahidin (holy warriors or fighters) than its neighboring countries. Narcotics production in Afghanistan leads to the “so-called weapons and drugs-nexus” (Kartha). Regional war lords maintain their power through coercion and force. Afghan farmers (as stated above) are, sometimes, forced to grow poppy by war lords. In turn war lords fund their weapons caches through drug money provided to them through global drug dealers. Large weapons caches and a seemingly endless supply of cash enable these regional powerhouses to maintain their power grip causing instability in Afghanistan and throughout the world. Weapons and cash also allow war lords to recruit other mujahidin. They are able to pay them competitive wages to protect the areas that they control. Weapons and finances could enable warlords to advance their power grip outside their region. This could result in regional conflicts between opposing tribal leaders, as well as a global conflict with neighboring countries and terrorist actions. Tribal war lords not only maintain power through coercive force but through bribing leaders throughout all levels of government.
Afghan government officials, throughout all levels of government, are contributing to the drug trade through taking bribes. High ranking government officials are thought to be participating in drug trafficking. At the very least the bribes are causing them to turn a blind eye to what is happening in their region. “Western aid officials and several European diplomats named the same high-ranking politicians and officials, including one with close links to Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's President, as drug lords” (Harnden 2006). Simply turning a blind eye to the drug trade in Afghanistan would be an underestimate of what is actually happening throughout the spectrum. In reality, several officials are actually drug traffickers themselves. They provide the logistics for their staff to carry out narcotics trafficking throughout Afghanistan.
Abdul Karim Brahowie, Afghanistan's minister of tribal and frontier affairs, says that the government has become so full of drug smugglers that cabinet meetings have become a farce. "Sometimes the people who complain the loudest about theft are thieves themselves," he says (Baldauf and Bowers 2005).
While there are provincial leaders who are legitimately cracking down on poppy production some are only conducting anti-narcotics operations to line their own pockets. It makes logical sense to put your competitor out of business. The fewer people competing for poppy supply, the more money an individual will make. While this may eliminate a substantial amount of drug traffickers from the region, it does not eliminate the supply of heroin introduced to the global drug market.
Corruption in the government, due to narco-dollars, has limited the eradication effort within Afghanistan. Provincial leaders receiving millions of dollars yearly have no reason to stamp out poppy production. They also have no reason to provide Afghan farmers with economic incentives to grow alternative crops. Corrupt leaders fuel the global heroin market because it creates a demand for poppy production. The full outline of this section is outlined in chart number three in the appendix in order to understand the section revolving around the drug lords and terrorist groups. The next section will revolve around engagement by the United States Military and NATO forces.
Sanderson, Thomas N. 2004. “Transnational Terror and Organized Crime: Blurring the Lines.” SAIS Review XXIV(1). Milliken David. 2007. Washington (AFP). Kartha, Tara, “Controlling the Black and Gray Markets in Small Arms in South Asia.” Lt. Col. Hueg, Thomas H. 2004. “Afghanistan and Opium: Breaking the Habit.” U.S. Army War College. Baldauf, Scott, and Faye Bowers. 2007. “Afghanistan Riddled With Drug Ties.” The Christian Science Monitor. Harnden, Tobel. 2006. “Drug Trade ‘Reaches to Afghan Cabinet.’” Telegraph United Kingdom.
War lords and terrorist organizations, providing security, and coercing farmers to grow poppy in Afghanistan are fueling the drug-terror cycle. The United States Military and coalition forces also affect the drug-terror cycle. The cycle is part economic and part military. Governments are contributing to the cycle as well as individuals. Depicted in chart number one in the Appendix is a flow chart that outlines the drug-terrorism cycle. This flow chart will be thoroughly explained throughout the next section and will portray the problem Afghanistan faces in its future war against terrorism and narcotics. There are two separate parts to this flow chart. It will be broken down into two sections throughout this segment. A simpler chart will be provided at the end of each section that will provide information that is more easily interpreted.
I am a recent Masters of Science graduate of Michigan State University's law enforcement intelligence and analysis program. This blog will include intelligence analyses on Middle East politics, terrorism, and news updates in the area.
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