Pentagon defends NATO after Trump criticism

The Pentagon on Tuesday said NATO was "far from obsolete," defending the transatlantic alliance from Donald Trump's criticisms.

"NATO is far from obsolete. We think NATO is as relevant as ever right now in the current environment," said Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook. 

 

Trump, the GOP presidential front-runner, has criticized the 67-year old North Atlantic Treaty Organization" as unnecessary and expensive, arguing that the U.S. pays a disproportionate share of its cost. 

"I think NATO is obsolete," Trump told ABC News on Saturday. "NATO was done at a time you had the Soviet Union, which was obviously larger -- much larger than Russia is today." 

Trump said NATO should be "readjusted to take care of terrorism."  

His remarks came after the March 22 terrorist attacks in Brussels, where at least 35 were killed and more than 300 injured. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has claimed responsibility. 

Trump first called into question NATO's value during a interview with The Washington Post's editorial board a day before the attacks, saying NATO "as a concept is good, but it is not as good as it was when it first evolved." 

“I’m not even knocking it, I’m just saying I don’t think it’s fair, we’re not treated fair.”

Rival GOP candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has also criticized Trump for those remarks, saying that "abandoning Europe, withdrawing from the most successful military alliance of modern times makes no sense at all."  more

He added that withdrawing from NATO would "hand a massive victory to Putin" and a "massive victory" to ISIS.

"ISIS would be dancing in the street at the weakness and isolationism of Donald Trump," Cruz said.  

US Improving Accuracy of Airstrikes, Intel Against ISIS

As the White House mulls sending more troops into Iraq to support the fight against Islamic State fighters, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said existing efforts to counter the extremists, including airstrikes, were increasing in effectiveness.
Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford said better intelligence enabled U.S. forces to hit targets affiliated with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, with more accuracy than they had just a year and a half ago.
His remarks came days after he told reporters that more U.S. troops were likely headed to Iraq to support an effort to take back the ISIS stronghold of Mosul.
"As our intelligence has developed over time, we've been more effective in conducting strikes against [Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant] leadership as well as going after their resources, particularly in the north," he said, using another term for the extremist group. "Moving forward, we're going to look for ways to reinforce success as the Iraqi security forces and Peshmerga prepare for operations in Mosul, which we think is a strategically significant operation." more

Air Force Moves to Replenish Bomb Stockpile Drained by ISIS Fight

An Air Force official downplayed reports that the service is facing a shortage of missiles and bombs as a result of the air campaign against the Islamic State.
“We’re not concerned [about whether] we have the supplies to do what we need to do today,” Lt. Gen. Jay Raymond, deputy chief of staff for operations, told reporters Thursday morning. “But we’re making sure we request [additional supplies] to take care of future, or potential future operations.”
In December, Raymond’s boss, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh, made headlines when he said airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, were denting the service’s stockpile of AGM-114 Hellfire missiles used in drone strikes and GPS-guided bombs such as the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), among other munitions.
The Air Force has expended more than 20,000 missiles and bombs in Iraq and Syria since it began its campaign against ISIS in 2014. It reportedly burned through more munitions in recent months, though still reportedly has an estimated 142,000 smart bombs and 2,300 Hellfires in the inventory. more

More US Troops Headed to Iraq in Push to Retake Mosul

Joint Chiefs Chairman Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford said Friday that he expected more U.S. troops would be sent to Iraq in the coming weeks to support an offensive to retake the ISIS stronghold in Mosul.
Dunford said that he and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter "both believe that there will be an increase in U.S. forces in Iraq in coming weeks, but that decision hasn't been made" yet by President Barack Obama.
"We have a series of recommendations that we will be discussing with the president in the coming weeks to further enable our support for the Iraqi Security Forces," the chairman said.
Dunford did not say how many additional troops would be deployed, and he refused to say how many were now in Iraq beyond stating that the number currently exceeded the authorized level of 3,870 approved by Obama and agreed to by the Baghdad government.
However, Dunford denied published reports that the number of U.S. troops now in Iraq exceeded 5,000. He echoed previous remarks by defense officials who said that troop levels routinely went above the authorized 3,870 as troop rotations overlapped and troops were sent to Iraq temporarily on special assignments.
Dunford cited the deployment into Iraq of about 200 Marines from an artillery battery of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge as an example of the type of support the Iraqi Security Forces will need to retake Mosul in northwestern Iraq.

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In Syria, Militias Armed by the Pentagon Fight Those Armed by the CIA

Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter five-year-old civil war.
The fighting has intensified over the last two months, as CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones have repeatedly shot at each other while maneuvering through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo, U.S. officials and rebel leaders have confirmed.
In mid-February, a CIA-armed militia called Fursan al Haq, or Knights of Righteousness, was run out of the town of Marea, about 20 miles north of Aleppo, by Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces moving in from Kurdish-controlled areas to the east.
"Any faction that attacks us, regardless from where it gets its support, we will fight it," Maj. Fares Bayoush, a leader of Fursan al Haq, said in an interview.
Rebel fighters described similar clashes in the town of Azaz, a key transit point for fighters and supplies between Aleppo and the Turkish border, and on March 3 in the Aleppo neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsud.
The attacks by one U.S.-backed group against another come amid continued heavy fighting in Syria and illustrate the difficulty facing U.S. efforts to coordinate among dozens of armed groups that are trying to overthrow the government of President Bashar Assad, fight the Islamic State militant group and battle one another all at the same time.
"It is an enormous challenge," said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who described the clashes between U.S.-supported groups as "a fairly new phenomenon."
"It is part of the three-dimensional chess that is the Syrian battlefield," he said.

IS setbacks in Syria and Iraq

The Islamic State group, which came under attack this weekend by regime forces in Syria and Iraq, has faced major setbacks in the two neighbouring countries over the past year.
The latest offensives against IS, which has carried out brazen attacks in Europe, come as the jihadist group claimed suicide attacks on the Brussels airport and a metro station that killed 31 people."The more IS loses territory in Syria, the more they will export attacks," a senior French counter-terrorism official warned this week after the Belgium bombings.Here are the key IS losses since January 2015:

THAAD would greatly increase defense capability in South Korea

Right now, the United States and South Korea are in discussions regarding the feasibility of deploying a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD system there, along with its associated radar, while nearby China has voiced objections to the idea.

No decision has been reached, but earlier this week Lt. Gen. David L. Mann, commander of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command and Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense said such an emplacement would provide a "huge increase in capabilities," in South Korea to protect against threats posed by North Korea.

Mann is aware of China's concerns.

"This is a sensitive issue for the partners throughout the region, and we understand the sensitivities that are involved, especially when you look at South Korea is one of the largest trading partners to China in the region," Mann said. "We don't minimize the sensitivity of these discussions."

Right now, he said, discussions are about the feasibility of putting a THAAD battery in South Korea. The system is designed to strike down incoming missiles in their "terminal" phase. THAAD missiles don't carry warheads, but rather rely on their own weight combined with the speed at which they travel to strike down the missiles they target. A THAAD battery consists of launcher vehicles with each vehicle holding 8 missiles; a radar system; and a fire control system which serves as the communications and data-management backbone.

The THAAD system, he said, is designed to provide greater capability to address "more challenging threat vehicles that are out there." The THAAD system augments existing capabilities such as the Patriot Missile system and the Aegis Combat System.

"THAAD, if you look at its performance, especially in past testing, it's just remarkable what its capability has proven to be," Mann said, praising the system's capabilities.

Were such a system ever put into South Korea, Mann said, it would be focused not on China, but on threats coming from North Korea.

"That radar and that system is not looking at China," he said. "That system, if the decision is made to deploy it, would be oriented on North Korea, quite frankly, and threats posed by the North Korean military. It's a missile defense capability, to make sure we provide our South Korean partners as well as other partners in the region, with protection."

SABRE RATTLING

In recent months, North Korea has become more aggressive in testing potential weapons technology. In January, North Korea detonated what it claimed to be a hydrogen bomb. Last month, it launched an earth observation satellite into space. Mann said the North Koreans are making themselves a viable threat -- the kind of threat THAAD is designed to address.

"I think we need to take North Korea seriously," he said. Recent North Korean activity "shows that they have the capability for long-range flight. And so I would not minimize ... I think we need to take their capability seriously ... I think we need to take their developments very, very seriously."

Right now, the Army has a THAAD system in place in Guam, and Mann said that system is likely to stay there long-term. Were a decision to be made to place a THAAD system in South Korea, it could take several weeks to make happen, Mann said. While the system is mobile, site selection and site preparation will take some time.

The Army is looking at other locations for THAAD as well, Mann said. In addition to South Korea, he said, he believes Japan and other nations may also be interested in the system, but "to what degree I'm not prepared to say," he said.

Mann also said the Army is seeing a "demand signal' from other areas for such a capability, including from U.S. European Command, U.S. Central Command, and other areas

"If you look at their operation plan, they see a need ... for this capability," he said.

OVERTAXED PATRIOTS

The older Patriot Missile System has a mission similar to that of the THAAD system, though there are many more in the Army's inventory. The Army plans to have up to seven THAAD batteries, for instance, while it currently maintains 15 Patriot Battalions. Nevertheless, Patriot systems and crews are overtaxed, and Mann said it's not prudent to look to the THADD system to relieve that stress.

With just seven planned THAAD batteries, he said, "you have to be so judicious, so careful as to where you deploy THAAD, because you have so few ... of that defense system. It's complementary, but I don't think you are looking at THAAD necessarily as being able to alleviate the stress on Patriot, just by the sheer numbers and where we have Patriot located throughout the U.S., and the world."

Instead, he said, the Army is looking at other options that will enable it to more effectively use Patriot. One solution is purchasing a dismounted command and control system for the Patriot battery to allow for it to serve a wider area -- "instead of deploying a whole battalion we can maximize what that battalion brings to the table by not having to send the whole battalion, but by using the dismounted capability to take different components within the Patriot battalion to different locations and really kind of spread its capability ... on the battlefield."

Mann also said that instead of deploying an entire Patriot battalion -- including all the equipment that supports the launchers and missiles, "maybe we can take a Patriot battery to a location and augment its capabilities by leveraging an Aegis radar, or an Air Force radar, or a coalition radar, and really kind of componentize the Patriot unit and optimize its capabilities across a battle space. Leveraging networks to be able to get the best return on investment, in order to have the best sensor, best shooter mix to address a threat."