Advanced Technology Warships....[ 1297 ]

DDG 1000 Zumwalt Class - Multimission Destroyer, Advanced Technology Surface Combatants, USA

DDG 1000 design features and systems. The Zumwalt Class will be multi-mission vessels tailored for land attack and littoral dominance. 

Back to the Battleship Pt 1

Russian Battle Cruiser "Peter the Great" 

Author-Digitaldarkroomcreator via Wikimedia Commons.

The US Navy is expected to launch the next-generation DDG-1000 Zumwalt class stealth destroyers in 2013 as it seeks to use cutting-edge technology to reintroduce the overwhelming firepower capabilities of a battleship on the much smaller and more agile platform of a destroyer.

While the three vessels of this line are likely to be the most sophisticated warships ever built, their unconventional design and unusual stealth appearance makes them seem more like iron-clad behemoths from the pre-Dreadnought days of the late 19th century.

Indeed, many of the firepower requirements that the US Navy has – coupled with the development and production of the Zumwalt class – are reminiscent of tactical battleship parameters from the first half of the 20th century, which later went out of fashion after World War II. 

Note that in each paragraph reference is made to the most  powerful gun armed and armored warship ever to sail the seas, the dreadnought battleship of the 20th Century. 

The attraction such giant and awe inspiring surface vessels made on a generation can be glimpsed in these words, as they continue to fascinate years after the last one plied the waves.

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National Guard troops to U.S.-Mexico border..[ 1296 ]

President Obama to send more National Guard troops to U.S.-Mexico border

Video

Immigration video: Obama to send 1,200 troops to U.S.-Mexico border

President Barack Obama will deploy 1,200 National Guard troops to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border. But Sen. John McCain of Arizona says that is not nearly enough.

» LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER

By Michael D. Shear and Spencer S. Hsu

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 26, 2010

President Obama will deploy 1,200 National Guard troops and request an extra $500 million to secure the Mexican border, his administration said Tuesday, a move dismissed by Republicans as insufficient to win their cooperation on an overhaul of the nation's immigration system.

This Story

By reinforcing the 340 Guard members already monitoring border crossings and analyzing intelligence, the initiative echoes 2006's Operation Jump Start, in which President George W. Bush devoted 6,000 guardsmen to a two-year commitment in support of the Border Patrol.
Then, as now, the troop deployment was fueled by heightened concerns about lawlessness -- then it was illegal immigration, now it is drug traffickers -- as well as political maneuvering in Washington to lay the groundwork for an effort to change immigration policy. But the issue remains bitterly contentious, with increasing pressure on Obama and lawmakers from both Latino supporters and conservative activists.

The March 27 killing of Robert Krentz, a prominent Arizona rancher who had reported drug-smuggling activity on his land, has galvanized political anger toward illegal immigration in that state, although the identity of Krentz's assailant remains under investigation. In Mexico, more than 22,700 people have died in drug-related violence since the battle with cartels was joined in 2006. Although U.S. officials say there has been little spillover violence, Arizona has seen high-profile busts of drug- and human-smuggling safe houses, a rise in extortion-related kidnappings and other disruptions.

White House officials called the Guard troops a "force multiplier" on the U.S. side of the border and said some would engage in counternarcotics missions. In a statement, the Mexican ambassador to the United States praised the "additional US resources to enhance efforts to prevent the illegal flows of weapons and bulk cash into Mexico, which provide organized crime with its firepower and its ability to corrupt."
Clash with McCain

Obama's proposal came after a testy, closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill in which the president clashed with his 2008 campaign rival, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), according to people present. The two sparred over creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants -- something McCain previously supported -- and a new Arizona law that requires police to identify illegal immigrants.

"I said we needed to secure the border first," McCain recounted after Obama's visit to the GOP luncheon. On the Arizona law, McCain said, "I pointed out that members of his administration who have not read the law have mischaracterized the law."

Obama told the Republican lawmakers during the hour-long session that he was committing greater resources to border security than Bush did, but he stressed that enforcement alone will not solve the country's immigration problems. He urged the lawmakers to join a bipartisan effort to revamp the system, according to White House officials and Senate aides.
But senators appeared underwhelmed. "I don't think that's the point," Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) said of Obama's boast about outdoing Bush. "The point is, how much do we need to get the job done?"

Quickly upping the ante, Senate Republicans offered an amendment to an emergency war spending bill to provide an additional $2 billion in border funding -- four times the size of Obama's proposal. McCain also introduced an amendment to send 6,000 troops to the border. Lawmakers could consider both proposals this week.

"The violence has crossed the border and escalated to a point where many Arizonans do not feel safe within their own homes or on their own property," McCain and fellow Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl (R) wrote last week in a letter to Obama. "It would be irresponsible not to do everything we can to stop the escalating violence along the border with Mexico."

In a letter to the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, national security adviser James L. Jones and White House terrorism adviser John O. Brennan strongly opposed efforts to force the president's hand on sending more troops to the border, saying that "there is no modern precedent for Congress to direct the president to deploy troops in the manner sought." They called it an "unwarranted interference" with Obama's role as commander in chief.

The Islamic Republic's provocations against the West [ 1295 ]

Iran: Reckless or Rational?

Detail of a carpet depicting Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khāmene’i

The Islamic Republic's recent political provocations against the West have left observers wondering: Is such behavior the result of careful calculation or messianic madness?

This Special Report contains the following content, easily navigated along the tab structure above:

An Analysis by Philip McCrum about Iranian President Ahmadinejad's fragile hold on power five years after his contested election win.

A Podcast interview with Dr John Mueller on the Iranian nuclear threat - or lack thereof.

ecurity Watch articles on Iran's struggling Jewish community, the nuclear question and much more.

Publications housed in our Digital Library, including recent US Congressional Research Service analyses on US foreign policy toward a nuclear hungry Iran.

Primary Resources, including last week's joint declaration By Iran, Turkey and Brazil on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Links to relevant websites, such as the ArmsControlWonk blog published by Dr Jeffrey Lewis of the New America Foundation.

Our IR Directory, featuring the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.

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Islamic Center Near Ground "Zero"..[ 1294 ]

Muslim Prayer Center Near Ground Zero (ανάρτηση στα Ελληνικά , παρακάτω)

Here’s an item we nearly missed, buried as it was in the ‘New York Region’ section of the New York Times:

Worshipers exit the old Burlington Coat Factory near ground zero, which now houses a prayer space.

Muslim Prayers and Renewal Near Ground Zero

By RALPH BLUMENTHAL and SHARAF MOWJOOD

On that still-quiet Tuesday morning, the sales staff was in a basement room eating breakfast, waiting to open the doors to the first shoppers at 10 a.m.
There was no immediate sign of the fiery cataclysm that erupted overhead starting at 8:46. But out of a baby-blue sky suddenly stained with smoke, a plane’s landing-gear assembly the size of a World War II torpedo crashed through the roof and down through two empty selling floors of the Burlington Coat Factory.

The Sept. 11, 2001, attack killed 2,752 people downtown and doomed the five-story building at 45 Park Place, two blocks north of the World Trade Center, keeping it abandoned for eight years.
But for months now, out of the public eye, an iron gate rises every Friday afternoon, and with the outside rumblings of construction at ground zero as a backdrop, hundreds of Muslims crowd inside, facing Mecca in prayer and listening to their imam read in Arabic from the Koran.
The building has no sign that hints at its use as a Muslim prayer space, but these modest beginnings point to a far grander vision: an Islamic center near the city’s most hallowed piece of land that would stand as one of ground zero’s more unexpected and striking neighbors.
The location was precisely a key selling point for the group of Muslims who bought the building in July. A presence so close to the World Trade Center, “where a piece of the wreckage fell,” said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the cleric leading the project, “sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11.”
“We want to push back against the extremists,” added Imam Feisal, 61.
Although organizers have sought to avoid publicizing their project because they say plans are too preliminary, it has drawn early encouragement from city officials and the surrounding neighborhood.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said through a spokesman that Imam Feisal told him of the project last September at a celebration to observe the end of Ramadan. As for whether Mr. Bloomberg supported it, the spokesman, Andrew Brent, said, “If it’s legal, the building owners have a right to do what they want.”
The mayor’s director of the Office of Immigrant Affairs, Fatima Shama, went further. “We as New York Muslims have as much of a commitment to rebuilding New York as anybody,” Ms. Shama said. Imam Feisal’s wife, Daisy Khan, serves on an advisory team for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, and Lynn Rasic, a spokeswoman for the memorial, said, “The idea of a cultural center that strengthens ties between Muslims and people of all faiths and backgrounds is positive.”
Those who have worked with him say if anyone could pull off what many regard to be a delicate project, it would be Imam Feisal, whom they described as having built a career preaching tolerance and interfaith understanding.
“He subscribes to my credo: ‘Live and let live,’ ” said Rabbi Arthur Schneier, spiritual leader of Park East Synagogue on East 67th Street.
As a Sufi, Imam Feisal follows a path of Islam focused more on spiritual wisdom than on strict ritual, and as a bridge builder, he is sometimes focused more on cultivating relations with those outside his faith than within it.
But though the imam is adamant about what his intentions for the site are, there is anxiety among those involved or familiar with the project that it could very well become a target for anti-Muslim attacks.

Oh, yes. That must be a real concern. Given how many thousands of anti-Muslim attacks there have been over the years.

Joan Brown Campbell, director of the department of religion at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York and former general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ U.S.A., who is a supporter of Imam Feisal, acknowledged the possibility of a backlash from those opposed to a Muslim presence at ground zero.
But, she added: “Building so close is owning the tragedy. It’s a way of saying: ‘This is something done by people who call themselves Muslims. We want to be here to repair the breach, as the Bible says.’ ”
The F.B.I. said Imam Feisal had helped agents reach out to the Muslim population after Sept. 11. “We’ve had positive interactions with him in the past,” said an agency spokesman, Richard Kolk. Alice Hoagland of Las Gatos, Calif., whose son, Mark Bingham, was killed in the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, said, “It’s quite a bold step buying a piece of land adjacent to ground zero,” but she said she considered plans for the site “a noble effort.”
On a recent Friday, worshipers in the old Burlington Coat Factory heard Imam Feisal’s call for spiritual purity during the time of the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
“We like Imam Feisal, the way he presents the philosophy of the true Islam that I call it,” said one of the congregants, Mohammed Abdullah, an investment banker who traveled from Washington for the service.
The location is not designated a mosque, but rather an overflow prayer space for another mosque, Al Farah at 245 West Broadway in TriBeCa, where Imam Feisal is the spiritual leader…
“It’s really to provide a place of peace, a place of services and solutions for the community which is always looking for interfaith dialogue,” said Sharif El-Gamal, chairman and chief executive of Soho Properties…
With 50,000 square feet of air rights, Imam Feisal said, the location, with enough financing, could support an ambitious project of $150 million, akin to the Chautauqua Institution, the 92 Street Y or the Jewish Community Center.
Joy Levitt, executive director of the Jewish Community Center, said the group would be proud to be a model for Imam Feisal at ground zero. “For the J.C.C. to have partners in the Muslim community that share our vision of pluralism and tolerance would be great,” she said.
Mr. El-Gamal agreed. “What happened that day,” he said, “was not Islam.”

Sorry. We are not convinced.
Still, it will give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his pals a handy place to worship at during his show trial.

Ισλαμικό κέντρο κοντά στο «Σημείο Μηδέν»

ΑΝΤ1-

πρίν 1 ώρα & 45'

Ένα αμφιλεγόμενο σχέδιο κατασκευής ισλαμικού πνευματικού κέντρου ενέκρινε την Τετάρτη το δημοτικό συμβούλιο της Νέας Υόρκης σε πολύ μικρή απόσταση από το «Σημείο Μηδέν», θέατρο των τρομοκρατικών επιθέσεων της 11ης Σεπτεμβρίου.

Η ψηφοφορία, η οποία είχε συμβουλευτικό χαρακτήρα, υπερψηφίσθηκε με μεγάλη πλειοψηφία 29 ψήφων έναντι μίας, ενώ υπήρξαν δέκα αποχές.

Οι υποστηρικτές του σχεδίου υποστηρίζουν πως ο «Οίκος Κόρδοβα» θα συμβάλλει στο ξεπέρασμα των αρνητικών στερεοτύπων, τα οποία εξακολουθούν να πλήττουν την μουσουλμανική κοινότητα της αμερικανικής μεγαλούπολης μετά τις επιθέσεις κατά των Δίδυμων Πύργων του Παγκόσμιου Κέντρου Εμπορίου, από τις οποίες έχασαν τη ζωή τους 3.000 άνθρωποι. 

«Πιστεύω πως ήρθε η ώρα που ορισμένα συναισθήματα αρχίζουν να υποχωρούν», εκτιμά μία από τις συνηγόρους του σχεδίου.

Σύμφωνα με τους αντιπάλους του όμως, η κατασκευή ενός τεμένους τόσο κοντά στο «Σημείο Μηδέν» συνιστά προσβολή για τη μνήμη των νεκρών.

Εν τούτοις ο πρόεδρος του προαστίου του Μανχάταν Σκοτ Στίνγκερ επισημαίνει πως «το να υποστηρίζει κανείς πως ένα τέμενος δεν ταιριάζει στην Νέα Υόρκη αποτελεί αντιαμερικανική στάση. 

Θα κάνω ό,τι περνά από την αρμοδιότητά μου για να λειτουργήσει ένα τέμενος και να έχει ο κόσμος το δικαίωμα να συναντάται και να εξασκεί τη θρησκεία του», τόνισε ο ίδιος στην εφημερίδα «Daily News».

Το ισλαμικό κέντρο θα περιλαμβάνει μία αίθουσα αθλοπαιδιών, ένα θέατρο και ένα τέμενος.

Russian armed forces... [ 1293 ]

Russia's Red Herring

Members of the Russian army

ISN/ETH Zurich., 25 May 2010.,Russia should tackle negative socio-economic and demographic trends in the Far East and Siberia instead of reacting to China's continuing rise if it wants to head off the chances of conflict in the region, writes Simon Saradzhyan for ISN Security Watch.

By Simon Saradzhyan for ISN Security Watch

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Next month will see the Russian armed forces stage an operational-strategic exercise dubbed "Vostok-2010" (East-2010), called “the main event of the combat training” in 2010 in a press release by the Russian Defense Ministry.

Thousands of soldiers from the army, including the CBRN Protection Forces, the navy, air force, airborne troops and other elements of the Russian armed forces will participate in the joint exercise of the Far Eastern and Siberian Military districts in mid-June. 

East-2010 will also involve forces and assets from other military districts and all of Russia’s four fleets, including submarines. The country's long-range aviation and the Interior Ministry Affairs troops will also participate in the war game.

According to a 14 May 2010 report in Russia’s leading defense weekly, Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozrenie,  East-2010 will exceed in scale even the Zapad (West) war games,  during which Russian forces simulate a major conflict with NATO, including a nuclear strike. East-2010, which, according to this daily, is designed to test the new organizational structure of the armed forces, will feature landing of troops from air and sea,   crossing of Siberian rivers and seizure of potential foe’s headquarters and rocket positions.

Top Russian commanders would not publicly identify either potential foes or the overall scenario for East-2010. One unnamed, but obvious foe to prepare for is Japan.  The Russian leadership is also concerned about the unpredictability of the nuclear-armed North Korean regime.

However, there is one more potential foe in the east whose growing military might require counteraction strategy on the scale of East-2010: China.

Russian officials have in the past avoided explicitly referring to China as a potential foe, perhaps, in order not to anger the eastern neighbor and buy time to prepare for its further rise.

What's left unsaid

More recently, however, the Defense Ministry top brass have begun to edge closer toward acknowledging the obvious.

During a press conference presentation by Chief of the Russian General Staff Nikolai Makarov in July 2009 a reporter for the Defense Ministry’s newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda pointed out that one of the slides in the commander’s presentation “show that it is, after all, NATO and China that are the most dangerous of our geopolitical rivals.”

Two months later Chief of the Ground Forces Staff Lt General Sergei Skokov made what leading Russian military expert Alexander Khramchikhin described as an “epochal statement.” When describing what kind of warfare the national armed forces should prepare for Skokov said the following in September 2009: “If we talk about the east, then it could be a multi-million-strong army with traditional approaches to conducting combat operations: straightforward, with large concentrations of personnel and firepower along individual operational directions.

“For the first time since the early days of Gorbachev, a high-ranking national commander has de facto acknowledged officially that the PRC is our potential enemy,” Khramchikhin wrote of Skokov’s statement in his 16 October 2009 article in the Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozrenie.

A military conflict between China and Russia seems very unlikely in the short-to-medium term.  As renowned expert on Asia former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew noted in an October 2009 interview with US broadcaster PBS: “China wants time to grow.  If there is going to be any conflict, they’ll postpone it for 50 years.” And before thinking of any conflict with Russia, China will of course want to regain Taiwan and establish its dominance in Southeast Asia.

However, should such a conflict between Russia and China eventually break out, the former should not hope that the conventional component of its 1-million-strong armed forces will be able to stop the 2.8 million-strong People’s Liberation Army.  As said above Russia has simulated a limited nuclear strike in a conventional conflict in the West during the Zapad exercises and one may deduce from that that Russian generals have also developed similar plans for conflicts in the East.

While a powerful deterrence tool, nuclear weapons cannot be viewed as a panacea.  First of all, even selected limited use of nuclear weapons, which Russian generals hope will demonstrate resolve and de-escalate the conflict, can actually increase risk that the foe may also choose to retaliate with nuclear weapons rather than sue for peace. Even the selective first use of nuclear weapons by Russia may prompt China to respond by launching its intercontinental ballistic missiles out of concern that Russia’s nuclear strike may destroy most of its nuclear arsenal.

And the 2003 Urgent Tasks of the Development of the Russian Armed Forces report rightly notes: “When we speak about the nuclear deterrence factor, especially when this notion is applied to the deterrence of threats associated with the use of conventional forces by the enemy, we should also take into account that under contemporary conditions such deterrence can be effectively carried out only if highly equipped and combat ready general-purpose forces are available.”

As important, neither nuclear nor conventional weapons will be very effective in reducing such risk factors that increase the likelihood of conflict, such as the growing demographic and economic disparity between China and Russia, which is all more evident when one takes a look at the macroeconomic and social data of Russia’s Siberia and Far East.

Economic and demographic disparities

China already has a population of 1.32 billion and its GDP totalled $4,326 billion in 2008, the third highest in the world overall, according to the World Bank. Russia’s population totals some 141 million and its GDP totalled $1,601 billion in 2008, ranking ninth in the world, according to the same source. 

As of the early 2000s Russia’s Far Eastern and Siberian districts had a total population of 27 million and their combined gross regional products totalled $110 billion per year, according to then-governor of Krasnoyarskii Krai Alexander Khoponin’s 2006 speech at the Baikal Economic Forum in 2006.  In comparison, some 100 million people live in three Chinese provinces that abut the Russian Far East, according to a May 2010 article by Robert Kaplan in Foreign Affairs.  The population density on the Chinese side of border is 62 times greater than on the Russian side, according to this renowned expert on China.

China is most likely to continue growing at rates unattainable for Russia while the latter can count only on migration to prevent further depopulation.  Therefore, it comes as no surprise that in his 2008 speech Khloponin identified the fast growth of countries of the Asia-Pacific region, which includes China, as the main challenge for Russia.

Russia should use the next several decades to pursue military reform until it produces a conventional force capable of deterring military threats along Russia's perimeter and on par with China’s PLA, while also maintaining a robust nuclear deterrent. Russian authorities should also allocate resources and introduce incentives to reverse depopulation in the Far East and Siberia and facilitate the region’s socio-economic growth to prevent the further deepening of the non-military disparities that increase the likelihood of a crisis in relations with China that may ultimately escalate into an armed conflict

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Simon Saradzhyan is a research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. He is the author of several papers on security and terrorism.

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The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author only, not the International Relations and Security Network (ISN).

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