Defence`s Feeds

will take place on Monday, 24 September, 15:00-16:00 in Brussels.

Organisations or interest groups who wish to apply for access to the European Parliament will find the relevant information below.

Further information
watch the meeting live
Access rights for interest group representatives
Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP

The crash landing has caused some 2M USD damage to the UAVs (unmanned Aerial Vehicles). An MQ-4C Triton experienced a technical failure that forced it to perform a gear up landing at Naval Base Ventura County (NBVC) at Point Mugu on Sept. 12, the U.S. Navy confirmed “The Navy says as a precautionary measure, the […]

Hollywood Gossip Site Leaks Photo of F/A-18F With Special Markings. Even though all of us feel the need for speed to get the new Top Gun sequel, “Top Gun: Maverick” released it sounds like Paramount Pictures has requested another flyby even as photos of a newly painted U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornet that may be linked […]

This time the Bear bombers were escorted by Su-35 jets. On Sept. 11, at approximately 10 PM EDT, two U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter jets “positively identified and intercepted two Russian Tu-95MS A“Bear-H” bombers west of Alaska. Nothing special then, considered that a similar intercept had occurred on Sept. 1. However, this time the Russian […]

Spectators Are Not Allowed to Touch F-35 Jets, But Some in Belgium Got a Lucky Chance. If you are among the millions of people to see a Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter at an airshow since its first public appearance at Joint Base Andrews in the U.S. in 2011, you know there […]

Looks like two F-16s from Aviano were involved in a somehow “mysterious” mission over the Mediterranean Sea during last weekend. As the overnight trilateral strike on Syria on Apr. 13 and 14 has proved, an OSINT (Open Sources Intelligence) analysis based on flight tracking websites ADS-B, Mode-S and MLAT and other information shared via social media, may provide a clear […]

I have an explainer article about the Vostok exercise on the Washington Post Monkey Cage blog today. Here’s a sampler…

Military analysts around the world are keeping a close eye on Russia’s annual fall military maneuvers, as this year may turn out to be the largest post-Cold War show of force. Vostok-2018 kicks off this week in Russia’s Far East and the Pacific Ocean, along with auxiliary exercises before and after the main event.

The big news this year is the addition of joint exercises with China. What do these military exercises entail, and what do you need to know?

1. What are these war games?

The Vostok exercise is part of an annual rotating series of large-scale exercises that serve as the capstone to the Russian military’s annual training cycle. The series rotates through the four main Russian operational strategic commands (Eastern, Caucasus, Central and Western) that give name to the exercises. “Vostok” means east; last fall’s Zapad-2017 took place along Russia’s western border.

Similar major strategic operational exercises took place each fall throughout the Soviet period as well. However, unlike past military readiness drills, the Defense Ministry has billed Vostok-2018 as a strategic maneuver exercise, in which the forces are divided into two groups that engage each other rather than fighting against an imaginary opponent, as was the case in all previous iterations.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

EDA’s Cyber Ranges Federation project, in which 11 Member States will federate their national cyber ranges and improve their respective Cyber Defence training capabilities, reached an important milestone with the completion of its first development phase (‘Spiral one’). With several EU Member States developing their own national cyber ranges, this project aims at developing a system to interconnect and federate them into a highly effective European network that benefits from the strengths of each participant. 

The objective is to develop a more sophisticated and powerful platform enabling exercise and training planners to design more realistic scenarios relying on existing and interconnected capabilities. At the same time, it will allow users to improve their Cyber Defence skills by relying on an extremely effective environment. In addition to training and exercise support, the federated capability will also be beneficial for other activities such as research, modelling, simulation and testing. The sharing of knowledge and best practices is another objective of the project. 

The Cyber Ranges Federation will be supported by a web-based Cyber Defence Training and Exercise Coordination Platform (CD TEXP), an EDA product currently in a test phase, whose capabilities will be extended to support the project. The EDA also provides expertise and support in Cyber Defence and other areas.

The first phase of the project, led by The Netherlands, was focused on developing formal requirements and a draft high level technical architecture to interconnect national cyber ranges. The requirements were produced leveraging knowledge and experience from all participant Member States, including military and academia representatives. NATO was involved in the first phase as an observer. In light of the 2016 EU-NATO Joint Declaration, additional ways for cooperation and coordination with NATO’s own capabilities will also be investigated by the project team in the next phase.
 

Second phase launched on 5 September

The second phase of the project (‘Spiral two’), led by Finland, kicked off on 5 September 2018 at a meeting in Helsinki (picture above). It will mainly focus on taking up the afore-mentioned requirements and implement them. The outcome will include the creation of a Community of Interest in which Cyber Defence training and exercise specialists will collaborate and improve the pooling & sharing of resources in this highly demanding domain. 

Earlier this year, six Member States signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) confirming their intent to contribute with their respective cyber range assets to the project; other Member States are expected to join the MoU before end of 2018.
 

Background

The success of military operations, including EU-led operations, is increasingly dependent on the availability of, and access to, cyberspace. The EU Cyber Security Strategy 2013 recognizes Cyber Defence as one of the strategic priorities of the EU and Heads of State and Governments decided in December 2013 that Cyber Defence should be one of four key areas for capability development.  An essential element of EU cyber defence capability is highly skilled and well-trained personnel. Enhancing awareness and education of technicians, operators and decision-makers is urgent. Cyber ranges to support training and exercises are both essential and scarce. In the 2014 Capability Development Plan, the scarceness of cyber range facilities in support of Training and Exercises was recognized as an important capability gap that urgently needs resolution. The now established project serves to close this capability gap. Pooling & Sharing projects are an integral means for closing capability gaps in the cyber domain.
 

More Information:

• Six Member States agree to pool & share cyber ranges capabilities (EDA news June 2018)
• Cyber Ranges: EDA’s First Ever Cyber Defence Pooling & Sharing Project Launched By 11 Member States (EDA news May 2017)
• EDA Cyber Defence project page
• EDA Cyber Defence factsheet

 

 

Some 200 experts, stakeholders, industry representatives and political/military decision-makers from the European, transatlantic and international Air-to-Air Refueling (AAR) community gathered today in Brussels for the 1st AAR Conference in Europe organized by the European Defence Agency (EDA).

The event was opened with speeches and presentations by the Belgian Minister of Defence, Steven Vandeput,  the Assistant Secretary General for NATO Defence investments, Camille Grand, the chairman of the Aerial Refueling Systems Advisory Group (ARSAG), General John Sams, as well as the EDA Chief Executive, Jorge Domecq. Subsequent high-level speakers included the Commander of the European Tactical Airlift Centre (ETAC), Maj. Gen. Laurent Marboeuf, the Mobilization Assistant to the Commander US Air Forces in Europe, Maj. Gen. John B.Williams, the Director of the Dutch Military Aviation Authority, Cdre. Jean-Paul Apon, the Chairman of the Multinational Multi-Role Tanker Transport Fleet (MMF), Cdr. Dick Kreiter, NATO Director Armament & Aerospace Capabilities (Defence Investment Division), Dr Giorgio Cioni, General Vincenzo Camporini from the Instituto Affari Internazionali as well as EDA Capability, Armament and Technology (CAT) Director, Martin Konertz.

The conference discussed the current state of play (notably Europe’s shortfall in this domain) as well as the future opportunities and challenges of Air-to-Air Refuelling from a European, transatlantic and international perspective. In successive sessions and panels, the political, operational and regulatory aspects and problems were analysed and possible solutions discussed.    

In his speech, EDA Chief Executive Jorge Domecq praised AAR as a domain in which Europe is catching up on its shortfall in full complementarity with NATO. Even though Europe is still heavily dependent on US AAR assets, “it is slowly but surely catching up thanks to national and multinational Air-to-Air Refuelling initiatives which aim to develop a future capability that meets our operational requirements”, Mr Domecq said. The aim is not to duplicate NATO efforts but for Europe to be able to act and to become credible partners, he stressed. “I very much welcome our NATO partners to this conference. The work we do together in AAR is exemplary for how we promote close EU-NATO cooperation. The joint political commitment complemented by the excellent staff-to-staff cooperation led to a synchronized and harmonized approach towards dealing with the AAR shortfall, both on the NATO and EU side”. The EDA’s AAR activities are fully synchronized with the NATO’s roadmap on AAR improvements. “This prevents unnecessary duplication but more important creates opportunities for more collaboration (…) By increasing the European AAR capability, the participating nations also strive to meet their NATO Defence Planning Process (NDPP) targets”, Mr Domecq stated. “The MMF is a perfect example on how to get from the shortfall to a capability”.
 

Way ahead

Conference participants widely agreed that considerable work still lies ahead as Europe’s remaining 30% AAR shortfall, especially during operations, cannot be fixed overnight. Discussions pointed at a variety of complementary steps that should be taken to fill the gap in the comping years, in particular:

• promote and further expand the Multinational Multi-Role Tanker Transport Fleet (MMF) beyond the five current participating countries (Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Norway, Belgium). To date, the fleet has ordered eight A330 MRTT aircraft the delivery of which is expected between 2020 and 2022. There are currently three options for additional aircraft in place (potential increase to 11 aircraft in total);
• encourage European countries with national AAR programmes in place to procure more assets, especially Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) aircraft;
• increase the procurement of A-400M wing pods to be pooled and shared;
• improve the standardization and streamlining of the international tanker clearance process.
  
  

Background

In December 2013, EU Heads of State and Government acknowledged AAR as a key capability shortfall and tasked the EDA to work on it. AAR subsequently became one of the Agency’s Key Capability Programmes and the subject of an EDA Pooling and Sharing initiative which eventually led to the creation of a Multinational Multi-Role Tanker Transport Fleet (MMF). OCCAR, Europe’s organization for the management of cooperative armament programmes, manages the MMF acquisition phase whereas the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) will be responsible for the complete life-cycle management of the fleet (A330 MRTT). The fleet is funded by the participating nations who will also have the exclusive right to use these NATO–owned aircraft which will operate in a pooling arrangement. The aircraft will be configured for inflight refuelling, the transport of passengers and cargo, and medical evacuation flights.
 

More information:

• Jorge Domecq speech at AAR Conference
• Speech Belgian Defence Minister Steven Vandeput
• Speech NATO ASG DI Camille Grand
• EDA AAR project page  

 

President Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton, has made a withering attack on the International Criminal Court (ICC), threatening prosecutions against personnel and retaliation against any country cooperating with the Court if it ‘goes after’ America. Bolton’s intervention comes as the judges of the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber weigh up whether or not to authorise a full investigation into war crimes committed in Afghanistan. The alleged perpetrators include not only the Taleban and Afghan government forces, but also the United States military and CIA over their use of torture. If an investigation is authorised, says AAN Co-Director Kate Clark (with input from Sari Kouvo and Ehsan Qaane), the Afghan government would be put in an impossible position, legally obliged to cooperate with the Court and now threatened by its main financial and military backer if it does so.

John Bolton’s speech (read the full text here) on 10 September 2018 – what he called“a major announcement on US policy toward the International Criminal Court” – was excoriating. He singled out the Court’s possible investigations into United States and Israel, (1) castigating it as a “supranational tribunal” that trampled national sovereignty, a “free-wheeling global organization claiming jurisdiction over individuals without their consent.” Individuals, of course, are not able to choose a jurisdiction when it comes to criminal law and, in this case, Afghanistan is one of the 123 countries that has ratified the Rome Statute. The Court does, therefore, have jurisdiction in Afghanistan. It also has jurisdiction over anyone of any nationality committing war crimes on Afghan soil, including nationals of non-state parties, such as Americans. Washington has always vehemently disagreed with this stance (more on which later).

Bolton called the Court’s claim to hold perpetrators of the most egregious atrocities to account theoretical only:

In practice… the court has been ineffective, unaccountable, and indeed, outright dangerous. Moreover, the largely unspoken, but always central, aim of its most vigorous supporters was to constrain the United States. The objective was not limited to targeting individual US service members, but rather America’s senior political leadership, and its relentless determination to keep our country secure.

Bolton’s tirade comes as the judges of the Pre-Trial Chamber are weighing up whether or not to launch a full investigation into the war crimes allegedly perpetrated in Afghanistan since May 2003 when the Rome Statute setting up the Court came into force in Afghanistan. It is almost one year (November 2017) since ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda requested that full investigation (see AAN reporting here). Her preliminary examination had indicated that war crimes and crimes against humanity had taken place, were grave enough and of a scale to merit the Court’s attention, and that domestic courts were either unwilling or unable to take action. In February 2018, victims of war crimes who were asked for their views and experiences, “overwhelmingly” backed an investigation (read AAN reporting here). The court received 1.7 million victim’s representations on a range of crimes:

[M]urder; attempted murder; imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty; torture; rape; sexual violence; persecution; enforced disappearance of persons; other inhumane acts; attack against civilian population; attack against protected objects; destruction of property; pillage; forced displacement; outrages upon personal dignity; and denying a fair trial

Since February, everyone has been waiting for the Pre-Trial Chamber’s decision, to authorise an investigation or not. The decision was expected in the spring but was delayed after a new panel of judges took over in April. The new panel had to consider the case from scratch. However, as Bolton has said, “any day now,” it should announce their decision.

If the Pre-Court Chamber does authorise an investigation, the main task of the team of investigators will be to collect victim and witness statements and other evidence to build cases against specific individuals that could lead to their prosecution. This is necessary as the ICC can only prosecute individuals; it cannot prosecute governments or institutions.

The ICC has been robustly defended by the President of the Assembly of States Parties to the ICC, the oversight and legislative body of the Court, South Korean Judge O-Gon Kwon. Without referring to Bolton’s remarks directly, Kwon described the ICC as independent and impartial, “crucial for ensuring accountability for the gravest crimes under international law” and mandated to “put an end to impunity for the most serious crimes.” He stressed that the Court was only complementary to domestic jurisdictions. “The Court is encouraged,” he said, “by the strong support and cooperation, not only of the 123 States Parties to the Rome Statute, but also by the support it has received from other States and international organizations and civil society in carrying out its mandate.”

Elsewhere, France has said the ICC “must be able to act and exercise its prerogatives without hindrance, in an independent and impartial manner, within the legal framework defined by the Rome Statute.” The German Foreign Ministry tweeted: “We are committed to the work of the ICC – in particular when it comes under fire.” Backing has also been voiced by Liechtenstein, Austria and the United Nations.

The allegations against US personnel

In November 2017, the Office of the Prosecutor decided that, along with credible evidence against the Taleban, other insurgent groups and Afghan government forces,(2)there was also a “reasonable basis” to believe that, during interrogations of security detainees and in conduct supporting those interrogations, members of the US armed forces and the CIA:

… resorted to techniques amounting to the commission of the war crimes of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, and rape… Specifically:

Members of US armed forces appear to have subjected at least 61 detained persons to torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity on the territory of Afghanistan between 1 May 2003 and 31 December 2014. The majority of the abuses are alleged to have occurred in 2003-2004.

Members of the CIA appear to have subjected at least 27 detained persons to torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity and/or rape on the territory of Afghanistan and other States Parties to the Statute (namely Poland, Romania and Lithuania) between December 2002 and March 2008. The majority of the abuses are alleged to have occurred in 2003-2004.

Crucially, the Office of the Prosecutor found that these “alleged crimes were not the abuses of a few isolated individuals” but rather were part of a policy:

The Office considers that there is a reasonable basis to believe these alleged crimes were committed in furtherance of a policy or policies aimed at eliciting information through the use of interrogation techniques involving cruel or violent methods which would support US objectives in the conflict in Afghanistan.

National Security Advisor Bolton has accused Bensouda of making an unfair and biased attack on America. A full ICC investigation, he said, would be

… against these American patriots, who voluntarily went into harm’s way to protect our nation, our homes, and our families in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The ICC prosecutor has requested to investigate these Americans for alleged detainee abuse, and perhaps more – an utterly unfounded, unjustifiable investigation.

Yet, the publically available evidence of the deliberate and systematic use of torture by the CIA and US military and the rendition of individuals to and from Afghanistan during the early years of the ‘war on terror’ is abundant. What the US administration euphemistically called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ included waterboarding, where a person is strapped head downwards on a sloping board with their mouth and nose covered and large quantities of water are poured over their face; this subjects the person to the experience of drowning.The techniques used also included being forced to stand for many hours, being put in painful stress positions, suspending people again in painful positions, making threats to family members, preventing individuals from sleeping for as long as a week and ‘rectal feeding’ where officers gave detainees nutrients through a tube into the anus. A December 2014 US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report said officers considered this practice “a means of behavior control.”

There has been a wealth of investigations into this authorised use of torture by the media, human rights groups and lawyers, as well as official reports by the US government (3) including the US Senate report (read the report here and AAN analysis here). The CIA, the Senate Intelligence Committee found, built its own facilities so that it could evade visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross which it thought likely to happen if detainees were housed on military bases; the report described conditions at one facility in Afghanistan (probably the one known as the Salt Pit) as follows:

CIA detainees at the COBALT detention facility were kept in complete darkness and constantly shackled in isolated cells with loud noise or music and only a bucket to use for human waste. Lack of heat at the facility likely contributed to the death of a detainee. The chief of interrogations described COBALT as a “dungeon.”  Another senior CIA officer stated that COBALT was itself an enhanced interrogation technique. At times, the detainees at COBALT were walked around naked or were shackled with their hands above their heads for extended periods of time. Other times, the detainees at COBALT were subjected to what was described as a “rough takedown,” in which approximately five CIA officers would scream at a detainee, drag him outside of his cell, cut his clothes off, and secure him with Mylar tape. The detainee would then be hooded and dragged up and down a long corridor while being slapped and punched.

Crimes not prosecuted

Part of Bolton’s attack is based on his claim that the ICC is an unfair ‘supranational’ institution. He accuses it of denying the authority of the US courts and government and ignoring the ‘complementarity principle’ whereby it should only act where domestic courts are unwilling or unable to.

The International Criminal Court is superfluous, given that domestic US judicial systems already hold American citizens to the highest legal and ethical standards. US service members in the field must operate fully in accordance with the law of armed conflict. When violations of law do occur, the United States takes appropriate and swift action to hold perpetrators accountable. We are a democratic nation with the most robust system of investigation, accountability, and transparency in the world. We believe in the rule of law, and we uphold it. We don’t need the ICC to tell us our duty or second-guess our decisions.

…

If the ICC prosecutor were to take the complementarity principle seriously, the court would never pursue an investigation against American citizens, because we know that the US judicial system is more vigorous, more fair, and more effective than the ICC.The ICC prosecutor’s November 2017 request, of course, proves that this notion, and thus the principle of complementarity is completely farcical. The ICC prosecutor will pursue what investigations it chooses to pursue, based upon its own political motives, and without any serious application of the complementarity principle.

However, Bensouda requested a full investigation precisely because US administrations and courts have repeatedly chosen not to prosecute alleged torturers. President George W Bush himself authorised the methods used and although President Obama banned torture as soon as he took office in 2009, his administration decided not to prosecute. “We tortured some folks,” said Obama (quoted here). “You know, it is important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had. And a lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots.”

Individuals have tried to use US courts to seek redress,(4) but almost all have failed when judges dismissed their lawsuits in the initial stages after the US government argued that prosecutions would reveal state secrets. The one exception was a private claim brought by two survivors of CIA torture and the family of a third man, the Afghan Rahmat Gul who was killed in CIA custody in 2002, against the two psychologists who designed the agency’s torture programme. The Department of Justice did not try to derail this lawsuit and it was settled out of court in August 2017 (read details here). (5)

Very few individual American citizens have been held to account for torture, even through disciplinary measures, and those that have faced sanctions have tended to be of the lowest rank, rather than people in positions of authority or those making policy – as AAN commented in a major report on transitional justice and reconciliation in Afghanistan:

The US military seldom publicizes the results of investigations into specific abuses, including torture, deaths in detention and indiscriminate or disproportionate use of force during ground operations. In the majority of cases, there is little indication that anyone has been held accountable for these abuses.

In recommending a full investigation, Bensouda considered the US choice not to prosecute its own nationals for war crimes and crimes against humanity and the lack of any recourse to justice in US courts for victims. For example, she said the Department of Justice’s preliminary review (August 2009 to June 2011) of allegations of CIA abuse of detainees “appears to have been limited to investigating whether any unauthorised interrogation techniques were used by CIA interrogators, and if so, whether such conduct could constitute violations of any applicable criminal statutes.” (emphasis added). She pointed to the lack of criminal investigation into the use of authorised torture techniques, quoting the US Attorney General:

“…the Department of Justice (DOJ) will not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees.” (6)

Bolton’s threats

The US has always vigorously disagreed with the Court having jurisdiction over its nationals when they are on the territory of a state party to the Rome Statute.(7) In response to the ‘ICC threat’, President Bush signed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act in 2002 (read the text here). Colloquially known as the ‘Hague Invasion Law’, it authorises the use of military force to liberate any American or citizen of a US-allied country being held by the Court in The Hague and bans the US even from voluntarily cooperating with the ICC to prosecute US military personnel or elected and appointed officials. It is in this context that Bolton’s threats against Court personnel and states cooperating with the Court were made:

If the court comes after us, Israel or other US allies, we will not sit quietly. We will take the following steps, among others, in accordance with the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act and our other legal authorities: 

• We will negotiate even more binding, bilateral agreements to prohibit nations from surrendering US persons to the ICC. And we will ensure that those we have already entered are honoured by our counterpart governments.
• We will respond against the ICC and its personnel to the extent permitted by US law. We will ban its judges and prosecutors from entering the United States. We will sanction their funds in the US financial system, and we will prosecute them in the US criminal system. We will do the same for any company or state that assists an ICC investigation of Americans.
• We will take note if any countries cooperate with ICC investigations of the United States and its allies, and we will remember that cooperation when setting US foreign assistance, military assistance, and intelligence sharing levels. 
• We will consider taking steps in the UN Security Council to constrain the court’s sweeping powers, including ensuring that the ICC does not exercise jurisdiction over Americans and the nationals of our allies that have not ratified the Rome Statute.

Looking in detail at those four threats, Indiana University Associate Professor David Bosco writing on the US website Lawfare, which deals with legal and national security issues, commented that Bolton had chosen to “engage publically with the court” in a way “that was maximally offensive to the court, often inaccurate, but also hollow at its core.” Bolton’s threat to sign “even more binding, bilateral agreements,” says Bosco, is unlikely to yield much: “those countries that have not signed immunity agreements to this point, including European Union states, are highly unlikely to do so with the Trump administration.” As for prosecutions of ICC officials, that would need a change in US law. It is “extremely unlikely,” he writes, that Britain and France (or the requisite number of non-permanent members) on the UN Security Council “will support general anti-ICC resolutions.” He concedes the Security Council could vote for a year-long delay in the investigation under Article 16 of the Rome Statute, “[b]ut that also seems like a longshot in terms of Security Council politics.” He also dismisses the linking of aid to non-cooperation with the ICC: “It’s a tactic beloved by conservatives working in the U.N. system. But it’s also a threat much easier to make than to put into practice. Anti-ICC animus will contend with many other national security priorities when actual foreign aid choices are made.”

Although questioning the practical implications of Bolton’s speech, Bosco does recognise its possible “second-order effects”, for example, that states already sceptical or lukewarm about the Court may be encouraged to withdraw their support. He also thinks Bolton’s remarks “could actually boost the court’s legitimacy as it tangles with a wildly unpopular American administration.” Nevertheless, for Afghanistan, at least, Bolton’s threats feels much more serious and much more real.

If an investigation is authorised, those Rome Treaty member states most likely to be asked to cooperate would be Afghanistan, Lithuania, Poland and Romania. The three European countries were part of the network of black sites to and from which the CIA rendered detainees and tortured them; the Officer of the Prosecutor believes that war crimes allegedly committed there could be investigated because there was a ‘nexus’ between them and the Afghan conflict. Out of all four countries, however, Afghanistan is the most vulnerable to pressure.

Without US military and financial support, the Afghan state would struggle to survive. Most of its civilian budget and almost all of its military spending comes from external funds, primarily American. US support on the battlefield is also crucial for holding ground against the Taleban. Both the Karzai and Ghani administrations signed Status of Forces Agreements with the US in 2002, 2003 and 2014, which ban it from surrendering US personnel to any international tribunal or to a third state. (3) (See analysis here and here). Even so, Afghanistan is obliged under the Rome Statute to “fully cooperate” with the Court (article 86). The Statute details possible action as ranging from adopting national legislation for cooperation with the Court to actual cooperation on collecting evidence, protecting victims and witnesses and when the investigation is done arresting suspects. If the Office of the Prosecutor were to conduct investigations in Afghanistan, it would rely on the Afghan government to facilitate its mission and ensure security.

The Afghan government has stressed that it will cooperate with the Court, but at the same time has underlined that its primary concern – also when seeking justice – is national stability.(8) In practice, it has been slow and reluctant to cooperate; it only really started to communicate with the ICC in the final stages of the Preliminary Examination, and then mainly to ask the Court to delay its decision on whether to investigate or not. However, even the mere show of cooperation undertaken to fulfil Kabul’s legal duties under the Rome Statute would be enough – if Bolton’s speech is anything to go by –­ to enrage Washington. Given that the Afghan state is utterly reliant on American largesse, the Kabul government would be in an impossible position.

Moreover, already Bolton’s remarks have had other repercussions. They appear to have emboldened those in the Afghan government who deny the existence of torturers in their own ranks. President Ashraf Ghani’s deputy spokesman, Shah Hussain Murtazawi, for example, speaking to the Associated Press, dismissed ICC allegations that the Afghan National Police and NDS routinely use torture and said “government forces are always trying to save the people. It is the insurgents who are the killers of civilians.” Prosecutions or even disciplinary measures of torturers are also rare in the Afghan system, although the government has tried to argue that it does take this issue seriously – and therefore the ICC should not investigate (see, for example, its statements to the committee of experts meeting under the auspices of the Convention Against Torture in April 2018). Yet, UNAMA, in its latest monitoring of security detainees found that 39 per cent gave “credible and reliable accounts” of having been tortured. That proportion rose to 45 per cent of juvenile security detainees. UNAMA described a “pervasive culture of impunity.”

Conclusion: what about the victims’ voices?

Bolton’s attempt to browbeat the court and state parties to the Rome Statute has sharpened the significance of the Pre-Trial Chamber’s decision to investigate or not. An investigation would bring the ICC into conflict with the pre-eminent power in the world and a potentially dangerous enemy. Practically speaking, if the judges do authorise an investigation, they would be committing ICC personnel to operating in an extremely difficult and dangerous working environment where state cooperation would be vital for any hope of success. Bolton’s speech will not have made that task any easier. If the judges decide not to authorise, they will open the Court up to fresh criticism that it bows to big state pressure and only investigates Africans.

As for Afghans, the untold number of people who suffered war crimes and crimes against humanity in the years between 1978 and 2003 would find an ICC investigation bringing no hope of redress; the Court can only investigate crimes which happened after Afghanistan became a state party to the Rome Statue. Indeed, some of the alleged war criminals from this period are in power and at least through the ICC process are untouchable – unless they can be held responsible for war crimes since 2003. However, for the many who have suffered since 2003 from a variety of armed actors, an ICC investigation would bring the hope of justice, or at least some truth-telling. In this context, the chair of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Simar Samar, told the Associated Press, Bolton’s remarks were unfortunate. Victims need more than human rights defenders, she said. They need a court which can prosecute. “My concern,” Samar said, “is that to deny justice is to deny a basic human right and human dignity.”

 

 

(1) In the same speech, Bolton announced that the Palestinian Liberation Organisation office in Washington DC would be closed because it had called for an ICC inquiry into alleged Israeli war crimes against Palestinians.

(2) The Office of the Prosecutor found evidence that torture had been committed by government forces and a wider range of war crimes by the Taleban and other insurgent groups, including murder and intentionally attacking civilians (see AAN’s analysis about the alleged groups here).

(3) See US government reports up to 2008 listed here by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), Research Brief: Selected examples of Defence, Intelligence and Justice Investigative Reports into detention and interrogation practices, 2 November 2008. They include the United States Senate Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody, Committee on Armed Services, 20 November 2008.

Other non-governmental reports include: Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition, Open Society Foundations, February 2013; Enduring Freedom Abuses by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch, March 2004; Scott A Allen, M D, The Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights, Josiah D Rich, MD, MPH, Robert C Bux, MD, Bassina Farbenblum, Matthew Berns, Physicians for Human Rights, and Leonard Rubenstein, Physicians for Human Rights, “Deaths of Detainees in the Custody of US Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan From 2002 to 2005” 5 December 2006, Medscape General Medicine2006 8(4): 46; Hina Shamsi and Deborah Pearlstein (Ed) “Command’s Responsibility: Detainee Deaths in U.S. Custody in Iraq and Afghanistan”, February 2006, human rights First.

Accounts looking specifically at the torture of Afghans include: Kate Clark “Kafka in Cuba The Afghan Experience in Guantánamo”, AAN, November 2016; Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living: American, the Taliban and the War through Afghan Eyes, New York, Metropolitan Books Henry Holt and Company; Abdul Salaam Zaeef, My Life with the Taliban, London, Hurst 2011, Craig Pyes and Kevin Sack, ‘Two Deaths Were a “Clue That Something’s Wrong”’, The Los Angeles Times, 25 September 2006 and, ‘U.S. Probing Alleged Abuse of Afghans’; The Los Angeles Times, 21 September 2004; Adam Goldman and Kathy Gannon ‘Death Shed Light on CIA Salt Pit near Kabul’ The Associated Press, 28 March 2010.

(4) In May 2006, a US court turned down a claim against the former director of the CIA, George Tenet, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a German-Lebanese man, Khaled El-Masri. He was kidnapped in Macedonia in December 2003 and rendered to Afghanistan. He was drugged, beaten, stripped and given “putrid water” to drink (read here). El-Masri was held for five months even after his innocence became clear and then, said the ACLU, “deposited at night, without explanation, on a hill in Albania,” without apology or the means to get home. Nevertheless, the court accepted a US government intervention in the case which argued that allowing it to proceed would jeopardise state secrets.

A second case was also dismissed, in February 2008. This was against a subsidiary of Boeing, Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc, which had been used by the CIA to render detainees. The ACLU which filed the lawsuit argued on behalf of five detainees that “Jeppesen knowingly participated in these renditions by providing critical flight planning and logistical support services to aircraft and crews used by the CIA to forcibly disappear these five men to torture, detention and interrogation.” Three of the five plaintiffs were flown to Afghanistan where they were tortured (see details in footnote 1). Again, the court accepted a government intervention asserting “state secrets privilege” and claiming that further litigation would undermine national security interests.

(5) Some victims of the CIA have sought other avenues to get justice. Two men still held in Guantanamo Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri and Abu Zubayda sued Poland at the European Court of Human Rights. It ruled on 24 July 2014 that Poland had violated the European Convention on Human Rights when it co-operated with the CIA in their renditions, allowing the unlawful detention and torture of the two men on its territory in 2002–2003. The court ordered the Polish government to pay each of the men 100,000 Euros (118 USD) in damages (read here and here).

On 13 December 2012, the same court found in favour of Khaled El-Masri against the government of Macedonia which had aided the CIA in his rendition (see here and here). German authorities, though, terminated their inquest against 13 CIA staff accused of involvement in the case in April 2017. On 20 September 2012, the highest court in Italy upheld convictions against 23 CIA agents and a US air force officer, in absentia, over the abduction in February 2003 of an Egyptian imam, Abu Omar. Two Italians were also earlier convicted. Abu Omar was held in Egypt where he was tortured, including with the use of electric shocks, and held until February 2007 when he was released without charge.

Some countries have themselves compensated victims. They include the UK which chose to give the nine British nationals and six British residents released from Guantanamo around one and a half million dollars each, settling civil damages claims rather than, reported AFP, “contest in court allegations that Britain’s security services were complicit in what happened.”  One of the child prisoners at Guantanamo, Canadian Omar Khadr, was given damages by his government amounting to an equivalent of eight million US dollars.

(6) Bush ruled that ‘war on terror’ detainees should be treated not as criminal suspects to be put on trial, or as prisoners of war under Geneva Conventions rules, or to be awarded the minimum protections prescribed in common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Among other things, it bans torture, “degrading and humiliating treatment” and the passing of sentences unless “by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.” (See Presidential Memorandum ‘Humane Treatment of al-Qaida and Taliban detainees’, signed 7 February 2002) He also accepted legal advice that various practices, including waterboarding, did not amount to torture. See detail of the secret memorandums published here.

(7) The US representative at the ICC Assembly of States Parties (uploaded on the ICC’s website) said, on 8 December 2017, that “[T]he United States is not a party to the Rome Statute and has not consented to any assertion of ICC jurisdiction […].” The statement noted. “It is a fundamental principle of international law that a treaty is binding only on its parties and that it does not create obligations for non-parties without their consent. The Rome Statute cannot be interpreted as disposing of rights of the United States as a non-Party without U.S. consent.” The representative also made clear that the US would not cooperate, saying, “We will regard as illegitimate any attempt by the Court to assert the ICC’s jurisdiction over American citizens.”

(8) In late 2017, for example, the Afghan ambassador to the United Nations, Mahmud Saikal, in a speech to the Sixteenth Assembly of States Parties of the ICC observed that Afghanistan“stand[s] fully committed to the noble goals on which the ICC was established” and would continue its communication with the Office of the Prosecutor “on relevant issues, including on the investigation of acts that are perpetrated by terrorist groups, whose leadership are sheltered in the region.” Note that Saikal made no mention of allegations against Afghan or US forces of war crimes. The ambassador also noted that any approach which aimed at securing justice should “preserve the political stability which is fundamentally important in any post-conflict setting.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The footage, showing U.S. Army’s elite unit’s helicopters was filmed during the exercises carried out by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) last April. Last April, some MH-60s and MH-6s helicopters belonging to the 160th SOAR “Night Stalkers” carried out a series of exercises in New York City. As reported by Tyler Rogoway at the War […]

Americas

The US Air Force is ordering 18 additional KC-46A tanker aircraft from Boeing. The contract has a value of $2.8 billion and includes spares and support equipment for the Lot 4 aircraft. The KC-46A is a wide-body, multi-mission aircraft capable of transporting fuel, cargo, passengers and patients. The airframe is based on the KC-767 but comes with modifications like a cargo door, an advanced flight deck display and militarised modification ranging from an air refuelling operator station to threat detection and avoidance systems. Work will be performed at Boeing’s facility in Seattle, Washington and is expected to be completed by January 2022.

Lockheed Martin is being tapped to advance its development of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extreme Range (JASSM-XR). The cost-plus-fixed-fee contract is priced at $51 million and includes all all-up round level systems engineering and programmatic activities to align and phase the work necessary to design, develop, integrate, test, and verify component and subsystem design changes to the JASSM-XR baseline electronics, hardware, firmware, and operational flight software. Few details about the JASSM-XR are known to this date, however the missile will likely be a 5,000 pound-class weapon that can fly out to 1,000 nautical miles to deliver a lethal payload up to 2,000 pounds precisely on target. Work will be performed at Lockheed’s location in Orlando, Florida and is scheduled for completion by end of August, 2023.

L-3 Communications Vertex Aerospace is set to support the Navy’s fleet of T-45 Goshawk trainers. The $202.9 million contract modification provides for a mix of maintenance, logistics and engineering support operations needed to keep the trainer aircraft flying. The Goshawk is used to train US Navy and Marine Corps pilots for conversion into the F/A-18A-D Hornet, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet family, the AV-8B Harrier II Plus, and the EA-6B Prowler. And also serves as a lead-in fighter trainer (LIFT) aircraft to future platforms like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter variants. Work will be performed at multiple Naval Air Stations. They include NAS Kingsville, Texas; NAS Meridian, Mississippi; NAS Pensacola, Florida and NAS Patuxent River, Maryland. The contract will run through September 2019.

The new US Air Force’s combat rescue workhorse will soon make its first test flight. The HH-60W, or Pave Hawk II will soon replace the ageing HH-60G Pave Hawks. The Whiskey boasts longer range, and a specially-developed tactical mission kit that will give pilots and para-rescue crew information from an array of sensors. The HH-60W can be deployed in casualty evacuation, medical evacuation, non-combatant evacuation missions, civil search-and-rescue, humanitarian aid, disaster relief, and insertion or extraction of combat forces. The first two HH-60Ws are currently undergoing several months of instrumentation checks at Sikorsky’s West Palm Beach, Florida facility. The Pave Hawk II program calls for the delivery of 112 helicopters at a cost of $7.9 billion. The Air Force expects to fly its first helicopter by March 2020, and says that deliveries will likely run through 2029.

Middle East & Africa

The US government is releasing a $1.2 billion military aid package to Egypt. The money includes $1 billion for the current 2018 budget year and $195 million appropriated for 2017 that would have had to have been returned to the Treasury had it not been spent by end of September. The funds were initially withheld by formed Secretary Rex Tillerson due to Egypt’s poor human rights record. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, however is determined to continue with the obligations and expenditures of Foreign Military Funds as means to strengthen the US security cooperation with Egypt. Egypt has a variety of US-weapons in its inventory. They include F-16s, Apache helicopters, E-2C Hawkeye aircraft and the AGM-84 Harpoon. Egypt long has been a key US ally in the Middle East, receiving nearly $80 billion in military and economic assistance over the past 30 years.

Europe

UK defense company Meggitt is deepening its involvement in the South Korean KF-X fighter program. The company will supply Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) with engine vibration monitoring units (EVMUs) to be installed on KF-X prototypes. Meggitt already delivers fire detection and bleed air leak detection systems, produces wheels and brakes, and designs the jets sensors and displays. The South Korean Air Force plans to replace its ageing F-4D/E Phantom II and F-5E/F Tiger II aircraft once the production starts in the mid-2020s.

Asia-Pacific

The State Department is determined to approve a possible FMS to Japan. The Japanese government is requesting the purchase of up to nine additional E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft. The potential deal has a value of up to $3.1 billion. The purchase would also include information and communication terminals, APY-9 radars and a variety of other systems. The carrier-capable “mini-AWACS” aircraft, is designed to give long-range warning of incoming aerial threats. If the sale is approved Japan’s fleet of E-2Ds would increase to 23. Principal contractor will be Northrop Grumman.

A team of six Indian Air Force personnel is currently on a training mission in France. The team consists of a fighter pilot, an engineer and four technicians who are being trained on the Rafale jet, first of which will be introduced to the IAF in September 2019. The French-made jets were bought under a $8.8 billion emergency purchase to counter-weight a drop in IAF capabilities and fleet strength. Delivery of all 36 fighter aircraft is expected to be completed by end of 2022.

Today’s Video

Watch: US Navy Ships Sortie Out of Naval Station Norfolk Prior to Hurricane Florence

The Australian Department of Defence (DoD) has appointed a new head of its procurement division, the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG). The DoD said on 11 September that Anthony Fraser will take up the role in November. Fraser, who has previously served in the Australian Army and

FLIR Systems announced on 11 September that it has acquired Colorado-based Acyclica. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Acyclica is a developer of cloud-based software for data analytics covering the aggregation of data generated by visible and thermal cameras, radars, and intersection signals.

Japan and Malaysia have signed an agreement to expand defence co-operation, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) in Tokyo has announced. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed in Japan on 11 September during a meeting chaired by the countries’ defence ministers: Japan’s Itsunori

Thales has signed an agreement with Thailand’s Defence Technology Institute (DTI) to collaborate on providing communications systems for Thai military vehicles. Thales said on 12 September that the memorandum of agreement (MOA), which was signed with DTI and Thales’ in-country

The Yemeni rebel group Ansar Allah (popularly known as the Houthis) released aerial surveillance footage on 11 September that it said showed how its aviation and artillery units are working effectively together. Said to have been filmed on Yemen’s Red Sea coastal area, the footage showed

Afghanistan has received the first five of 30 new MD Helicopters Inc (MDHI) MD 530F Cayuse Warrior light attack and reconnaissance rotorcraft that were ordered 12 months ago, the manufacturer announced on 11 September. The helicopters, which are part of a wider US Department of Defense (DoD) order

China’s state-owned media have furthered the notion that the country’s aircraft carrier fleet will feature nuclear-powered support vessels. “China’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, which will definitely be built, will need nuclear-powered supply ships,” stated a 10

An Indonesian Navy (Tentara Nasional Indonesia – Angkatan Laut: TNI-AL) Dagger-class fast attack craft has sunk after succumbing to a shipboard fire on 11 September. The vessel, KRI Rencong (622), sunk at about 13:00 h local time in waters off the West Papuan city of Sorong, in Eastern