All posts tagged: U.S. military

Philippines says it will not grant US access to more bases

Philippines says it will not grant US access to more bases

Published by skeptic

The Philippines says it has no plans to give the United States more access to military bases in the Southeast Asian country, putting a cap on the current total number of nine sites. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told foreign correspondents in Manila Monday that the country’s decision last year to increase the number of sites agreed upon under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement or EDCA was a response to aggressive actions by China in the South China Sea. China has accused the Philippines of triggering confrontations by encroaching into what China asserts as its territorial waters. The deepening dispute between China and the Philippines has created issues for the Philippines’ exploration of oil and gas in the region, despite an agreement between the two nations to restart discussions on joint exploration. However, China had previously asserted that the Philippines was “stoking the fire” by allowing the U.S. access to more bases close to potential flashpoints. “These are reactions to what has happened in the South China Sea, to the aggressive actions that we have …

Trump’s dangerous January 6–pardon promise

Trump’s dangerous January 6–pardon promise

Published by skeptic

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Donald Trump’s plan to pardon people in prison for their crimes on January 6—people he now calls “hostages”—is yet another dangerous and un-American attack on the rule of law. First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic: A Loyal Cadre in Waiting This past weekend, Donald Trump stirred up one of his usual controversies by declaring that there would be a “bloodbath” if he isn’t elected. Trump’s supporters played a game of gotcha with outraged critics by claiming that Trump was merely describing an economic meltdown in the auto industry. Unfortunately, Trump decided, as he so often does, to pull the rug out from under his apologists by defending bloodbath as a common expression and clarifying that he meant it to refer to “getting slaughtered economically, when you’re getting slaughtered socially, when you’re getting slaughtered.” Oh. So much …

US military notifies 20,000 of data breach after cloud email leak

US military notifies 20,000 of data breach after cloud email leak

Published by skeptic

The U.S. Department of Defense is notifying tens of thousands of individuals that their personal information was exposed in an email data spill last year. According to the breach notification letter sent out to affected individuals on February 1, the Defense Intelligence Agency — the DOD’s military intelligence agency — said, “numerous email messages were inadvertently exposed to the Internet by a service provider,” between February 3 and February 20, 2023. TechCrunch has learned that the breach disclosure letters relate to an unsecured U.S. government cloud email server that was spilling sensitive emails to the open internet. The cloud email server, hosted on Microsoft’s cloud for government customers, was accessible from the internet without a password, likely due to a misconfiguration. The DOD is sending breach notification letters to around 20,600 individuals whose information was affected. “As a matter of practice and operations security, we do not comment on the status of our networks and systems. The affected server was identified and removed from public access on February 20, 2023, and the vendor has resolved …

Bolton pushes US to strike Iran directly to ‘send a message’

Bolton pushes US to strike Iran directly to ‘send a message’

Published by skeptic

Former national security adviser John Bolton urged the Biden administration to authorize strikes in Iran directly, so it can “send a message.” In an interview with CBS News’ Catherine Herridge, Bolton said the retaliatory strikes fired by the U.S. military on Friday were the “right thing to do” but also said he doesn’t “think it will be enough.” “They have declared a red line against any targets inside their borders,” Bolton said. ” Well, they crossed an American red line by killing Americans and until we cross their red lines, they will not view this as a serious problem.” “I’m not saying this first attack has to be regime threatening. There are lots of targets inside Iran, Quds Force bases, air defense systems and others that would be a good thing to destroy and which would send the message,” he continued. “If the Iranian government doesn’t get it, we can send more messages.” U.S. Central Command said it began airstrikes on Iranian-backed groups in Syria and Iraq around 4 p.m. EST Friday against Iran’s Islamic …

What Happens to War When AI Takes Over

What Happens to War When AI Takes Over

Published by skeptic

War is a fearsome accelerant of arms races. Before Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago, the ethics of using land mines and cluster munitions were the subject of heated debate, and many states had signed agreements not to use either. But once the desperate need to win takes over, governments can lose their qualms and embrace once-controversial technologies with gusto. For that same reason, the war between Russia and Ukraine has banished any misgivings either country might have had about military use of artificial intelligence. Each side is deploying millions of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, to conduct surveillance and attack enemy positions—and relying heavily on AI to direct their actions. Some of these drones come from small, simple kits that can be bought from civilian manufacturers; others are more advanced attack weapons. The latter category includes Iranian-built Shaheds, which the Russians have been using in great numbers during an offensive against Ukraine this winter. And the more drones a nation’s military deploys, the more human operators will struggle to oversee all of them. The …

Military Emissions Are Too Big to Keep Ignoring

Military Emissions Are Too Big to Keep Ignoring

Published by Sam

For as long as the world’s diplomats have gathered to talk about slowing the march of climate change, the one institution pointedly missing from the agenda has been the military. This has been by design: At the behest of the U.S., reporting military emissions was largely exempted from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the document that set binding emissions targets for nations that signed. The 2015 Paris Agreement overturned the old exemption but still did not require reporting of military emissions. Data remain stupendously spotty. Only late last year, in the lead-up to the COP28 United Nations climate meeting in Dubai, was the connection between the military and climate change brought up in brief mentions in a key report. Perhaps this was because, in some cases, militaries themselves have begun announcing programs to “green” their operations. Or because the nations at COP28 gathered against the backdrop of two active wars. Or because the climate situation has become dire enough that the world can no longer afford to ignore any major source of emissions. Maintaining a military …

Extremism in the military is a problem

Extremism in the military is a problem

Published by skeptic

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. The United States has long been blessed with a civil-military relationship that is a model of democratic and civic stability. Extremism in the ranks, however, is growing—and dangerous. First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic: Small but Growing Last month, the U.S. Department of Defense finally released a report on extremism in the American military after a long delay. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had commissioned the study in early 2021, four months after the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, and a contractor, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), completed its work in the spring of 2022—but the report wasn’t published for more than a year. The study wasn’t much of a bombshell. It confirmed what many observers of the military—including me, based on decades of teaching military officers—already knew: that political extremism in the U.S. …

Biden Can’t Avoid the Suez Canal Problem

Biden Can’t Avoid the Suez Canal Problem

Published by skeptic

An Iranian-backed group is attacking an essential shipping route. The U.S. will have to step in. Amr Abdallah Dalsh / Reuters / Redux December 24, 2023, 6 AM ET The sooner President Joe Biden acknowledges that Americans will likely be drawn into a fight to protect shipping traffic through the Suez Canal, the more time the U.S. military has to plan, and the less severe the harm will be to the global economy. For months, ever since a deadly Hamas incursion into Israel triggered a massive Israeli military campaign in Gaza, the United States has sought to deter Israel’s enemies, most notably Iran and its proxy Hezbollah, from spreading the conflict to other fronts in the Middle East. The administration’s fears are warranted but also moot. The war is already expanding in a way that endangers the global economy—specifically, through attacks by Iranian-backed forces on the crucial shipping lane from the Indian Ocean through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea. Whereas the U.S. military need not play any substantial role …

The Israeli Military Wasn’t Ready for This

The Israeli Military Wasn’t Ready for This

Published by skeptic

Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel has laid bare an uncomfortable truth: The fearsome reputation of the Israeli military, like that of Israeli intelligence services, may be overdue for a revision. Israel has an excellent air force and elite special-operations units, but its conventional line units—made up mostly of conscripts—are neither particularly well trained nor well disciplined by American standards. These units are still demonstrably superior to those of Israel’s adversaries from wars gone by, such as Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. But today Israel faces highly disciplined and motivated nonstate foes in southern Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, and its military does not seem to have a clear advantage over them at the unit level. The United States provides Israel roughly $3.8 billion a year in military assistance. (Last year, only Ukraine received more.) That money allows Israel to purchase expensive weaponry, such as F-35 aircraft, that it would otherwise struggle to afford. The two countries review and agree on the amount of aid every 10 years; when we signed our most recent memorandum of understanding …

The Hard Lesson of Mogadishu

The Hard Lesson of Mogadishu

Published by skeptic

Thirty years ago today, the U.S. military was involved in a brief but brutal battle in Somalia. In a series of firefights over two bloody days, 18 members of America’s most elite Special Forces and hundreds of Somali militiamen were killed. This was the Battle of Mogadishu, which the journalist Mark Bowden (now an Atlantic contributing writer) famously reported for The Philadelphia Inquirer and later adapted as the book and the film Black Hawk Down. Although the American units involved fought courageously, and inflicted heavy losses on their adversaries, the Battle of Mogadishu exposed significant weaknesses in U.S. Special Operations Forces’ capability. The televised images of dead Americans being dragged down dusty streets were scarring not only for the Clinton administration, and the American public viewing them on the evening news, but also for the units themselves. As painful as defeats are, lost battles can end up being the greatest teachers for military organizations. The battle marked an important waypoint in the evolution of our Special Operations Forces, and to this day carries important lessons …