Jerusalem News (3 February, 2015, 14 Shevet, 5775)
Contents:
1. A top US Navy intelligence official is warning of future China conflict by Bill Gertz
2. The 5 Most Dangerous Nuclear Threats No One Is Talking About by Zachary Keck
3. New details emerge in murder of Strasburg couple [Mr and Mrs Chumney] by Lydia Esparra
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1. A top US Navy intelligence official is warning of future China conflict
by
Bill Gertz, The Washington Free Beacon
Feb. 2, 2015, 4:53 PM
http://www.businessinsider.com/a-top-us-navy-intelligence-official-is-warning-of-future-conflict-with-china-2015-2
Extracts:
HONOLULU. China's ruling Communist Party is 'rejuvenating' and preparing for a military conflict in Asia, the outgoing intelligence chief of the Navy's Pacific Fleet is warning.
'The strategic trend lines indicate the Communist Party of China is not only 'rejuvenating' itself for internal stability purposes, but has been and continues to prepare to use military force,' Navy Capt. James E. Fanell said on Saturday during his retirement speech Saturday at Pearl Harbor.
Speaking on a pier across the harbor from the battleship USS Missouri, where Japan's surrender was signed ending World War II, and near the memorial over the submerged wreckage of the USS Arizona, sunk in 1941 during the Japanese attack, Fanell said he believes Beijing prefers not to use its growing military force for achieving regional dominance.
'But let's not deceive ourselves. The evidence I've been chewing on over the past 15 years is overwhelming,' he said. 'Beijing has prepared for military action and [Chinese] President Xi Jinping's 'China Dream' has a defined timeline to reach this 'rejuvenated' end state.'
On the Obama administration's policy of shifting forces to the Pacific, called the 'rebalance,' Fanell said the program is a good first step to counter the challenge of China.
'But it must be backed up with a real, tangible deterrent force and we must stand up to Beijing's propaganda and bullying campaign, especially those that come at the expense of our allies and partners,' he said.
The rebalance includes the shift of some troops, naval, and air forces to the region but it has been limited as a result of sharp defense cuts under the Obama administration and continuing U.S. military commitments in the Middle East.
In particular, the Chinese navy, Fanell said, is taking steps to achieve strategic objectives that include the restoration of what Beijing says is 'sovereign maritime territory,' specifically thousands of square miles of water inside the so-called first island chain, Â a string of western Pacific islands near China's coasts stretching from Northeast Asia through the South China Sea.
'For the past 90 days I have truly struggled to come up with the right words to wrap up 28 and a half years of service in the US Navy,' he said.
In often emotional farewell remarks, Fanell noted that an early intelligence innovator, World War II Navy cryptanalyst Joseph Rochefort pushed the envelope of using communications intercepts to target the Japanese fleet.
'Joe Rochefort came out of the disaster of 7 December [1941] with a firm resolve to provide the US Pacific Fleet the best assessed location of the Imperial Japanese navy's fleet,' he said.
'And Joe did this despite knowing that his 'masters' in Washington at OP-20-G/Navy Communications did not want Station Hypo to provide this intelligence directly to the Fleet. Joe knew he was bucking the system and it was something he would pay for dearly later on in 1942, but that is another story for another time.'
Rochefort, who died in 1976, helped break Japanese codes that were the key to locating, attacking, and ultimately defeating the Japanese fleet in the Pacific.
But Rochefort was twice denied medals by senior Navy officials who he had angered. In 1986 Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously.
Fanell's career was cut short after he made two speeches in San Diego in 2013 and last year bluntly describing the threat posed by China.
In February 2014, Fanell said that Chinese military exercises indicated Beijing was preparing for a 'short, sharp war' with Japan.
Tensions between China and Japan remain high over Beijing's efforts to claim the Senkaku Islands, Japanese islets located between the southern end of Japan and Taiwan.
China is claiming the Senkakus as its territory and last year imposed an air defense identification zone over the East China Sea that covers the uninhabited islands.
Both the United States and Japan announced they would not recognize the Chinese defense zone.
In 2013, Fanell, during a similar conference in San Diego, warned that China was escalating what he said was the bullying of regional neighbors.
The blunt comments by the captain triggered criticism from pro-China analysts in the US government and academic community.
In November, Fanell was removed from his post and assigned to another position after an anonymous complaint to the Pacific Fleet inspector general triggered an investigation.
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2. The 5 Most Dangerous Nuclear Threats No One Is Talking About
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-5-most-dangerous-nuclear-threats-no-one-talking-about-12160
by Zachary Keck , February 1, 2015
Extracts:
Asian MIRVs
... the most dangerous nuclear threat the world currently faces is the prospect of China and India acquiring multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs). MIRVs allow ballistic missiles to carry up to ten nuclear warheads each one of which can be aimed at a different target.
As we witnessed during the Cold War, the introduction of MIRVed missiles greatly destabilizes nuclear balances, by making nuclear arsenals more susceptible to being destroyed by an enemy first strike. Compensating for this greater danger requires states to build more nuclear weapons and disperse them to more and more places. This will be especially true for India and China, which have maintained extremely small nuclear arsenals relative to the U.S. and Russia
....Russia has increasingly relied on its massive nuclear arsenal to 'offset' its diminishing conventional military power. As China's military modernization continues, Moscow will become even more reliant on its nuclear weapons to deter the Chinese. Thus, it is absolutely crucial that Russia maintain a large advantage over China in the nuclear realm. A rapidly expanding Chinese nuclear arsenal would greatly jeopardize that. ...
Pakistan Tactical Nukes
... the decision to pursue nuclear weapons was made at a January 1972 meeting in Multan in south Punjab, Pakistan. The prior month, Pakistan's military had been badly humiliated in its war with India, which resulted in East Pakistan becoming the independent state of Bangladesh. This halved Pakistan and, as a result, widened the gap with India in terms of population (from 5:1 in India's favor to 10:1 in India's favor) and economic potential. It also shattered the prevailing belief in Pakistan at the time that its military was qualitatively superior to the Indian armed forces, and confirmed (in the minds of many Pakistanis at least) that Delhi was bent on dismantling Pakistan.
As a result, it is not altogether surprising that Pakistan is seeking tactical nuclear weapons to use on the battlefield against India, especially in light of Delhi's 'Cold Start' doctrine. After all, NATO deployed tactical nuclear weapons because it sought to use nuclear weapons to offset the Soviet Union's conventional superiority.
Usable Nukes
... the incredible accuracy of modern missile systems makes a successful first strike far more plausible. This is especially true against states not named Russia and the United States who have relatively small nuclear arsenals (at least for now).
However, after modeling a prospective first strike against Russia's strategic forces, Lieber and Press concluded that the U.S. could execute a successful first strike with a high degree of probability against even Moscow's massive nuclear arsenal. In fact, they claimed that U.S. policy makers had actually constructed America's strategic forces with the goal of strategic primacy (defined as 'the ability to use nuclear weapons to destroy the strategic forces of any other country') in mind. Furthermore, they later concluded that this effort extended beyond nuclear weapons
....the growing accuracy of modern missiles also potentially undermines the foundation of the tradition of non-use of nuclear weapons. This tradition was built in no small part on the notion that nuclear weapons were morally abhorrent because their massive destructive power and the corresponding radiological fallout would wipe out populations indiscriminately. However, accuracy is the most important determinate of a nuclear weapons lethality ... As one scholar explains: Making a weapon twice as accurate has the same effect on lethality as making the warhead eight times as powerful. Phrased another way, making the missile twice as precise would only require one-eighth the explosive power to maintain the same lethality.Â
All of this is to say that with highly accurate missiles, nuclear weapons become a viable weapon of war. As Lieber and Press put it, 'the revolution in accuracy permits planners to target an enemy's hardened nuclear sites using low-yield weapons, set to detonate as airbursts, thereby vastly reducing fallout and collateral damage.' Indeed, using a Pentagon computer model, experts estimated that a U.S. counterforce strike against China's ICBM silos using high-yield weapons detonated at ground blast would still kill anywhere between 3-4 million people. Using low-yield weapons and airbursts, this figure drops to as little as 700 fatalities!
China's military modernization
Still the greater nuclear threat posed by China's military modernization is hypothetical, albeit all too real. Specifically, as its conventional superiority grows, and its interests expand, China's military modernization will serve as a powerful motivator for its neighbors to build their own nuclear forces.
Indeed, the need to deter overwhelming conventional military threats has been the driving force behind many states' decision to go nuclear. For example, France made the decision to build nukes only days after NATO decided to rearm Western Germany. Given that its Arab enemies were much larger and more populated than Israel, and bent on the latter's destruction, David Ben-Gurion deemed nuclear weapons essential early on in the Jewish state's existence. As noted above, this logic was compelling for Pakistani leaders as well.
It's hardly unthinkable, then, that countries like Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan and even South Korea will feel the need to acquire nuclear weapons to offset China's conventional superiority, as well as the territorial disputes it maintains with most of them. Furthermore, South Korea, Taiwan and especially Japan have advanced nuclear programs that would make it relatively easy and cheap for them to build the bomb.
Global Zero
While nuclear weapons appear to have a very bright future, particularly in Asia, the nuclear-disarmament crowd will undoubtedly work tirelessly to prevent them. Indeed, in the decade plus since 9/11, the Global Zero cause has greatly expanded its ranks and won over key political leaders like President Obama.
Unfortunately, their cause, however noble, is dangerous. Thanks to their ability to deter great-power conflict, the only thing worse than nuclear weapons is a world without them. Consider that, a conservative estimate of World War II fatalities is 60 million people, or roughly 3 percent of the global population at the time. A non-nuclear world war today could therefore be expected to kill AT LEAST 210 million people (precision-guided munitions and greater urbanization would likely make a non-nuclear war today much more lethal than WWII, although advances in medicine would partially offset this).
This in itself would be a tragedy unprecedented in human history. The greater danger, however, is that such a conflict wouldn't remain conventional very long. ..
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3. New details emerge in murder of Strasburg couple [Mr and Mrs Chumney]
Monday, February 2, 2015 9:33 PM EST Updated: Feb 03, 2015 6:14 AM JST
By Lydia Esparra
http://www.19actionnews.com/story/28006884/new-details-emerge-in-murder-of-strasburg-couple
Extracts:
STRASBURG, OH (WOIO) - There has been a breakthrough in the murder investigation of an elderly couple from Strasburg, OH. One suspect is in custody and already faced a judge. Now, new surveillance video could lead police to a second suspect.
Officers with the Kanawha Sheriff's Department in West Virginia believe 29-year-old Robert Clark, a suspect in the murder of Doyle and Lillian Chumney, robbed the Little General BP store Saturday evening. Multiple sources at Kanawha told 19 Action News they're exploring the possibility that Clark and two other men robbed the clerk at gunpoint after attempting a purse snatching in the parking lot.
Over the weekend, police arrested 21-year-old Jeffrey Stewart for the murders of Lillian and Doyle Chumney. He implicated Robert Clark from Canton.
Clark has been on the run since the Chumneys' bodies were found in their burned car. Investigators say he has robbed stores in West Virginia, Georgia and South Carolina.
Police say two other Canton residents are traveling with Clark and can be seen in security video: 26-year-old Tabatha Hazel and 28-year-old Jeffrey Caley.Â