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Afghanistan – This Is The End …
This was fast. The Taliban have as of now 18 of 34 province capitals (province) under there control.
- August 6 – Zaranji (Nimruz)
- August 7 – Sheberghan (Jowzjan)
- August 8 – Kunduz (Kunduz)
- August 8 – Sar-e Pol (Sar-e Pol)
- August 8 – Talquan (Takhar)
- August 9 – Aybak (Samangan)
- August 10 – Farah (Farah)
- August 10 – Pul-i Khumri (Baghlan)
- August 11 – Faizabad (Badakhshan)
- August 12 – Ghazni (Ghazni)
- August 12 – Kandahar (Kandahar)
- August 12 – Herat (Herat)
- August 12 – Qala-e-Naw (Badghis)
- August 13 – Lashkar Gah (Helmand)
- August 13 – Tirin kot (Uruzgan)
- August 13 – Chaghcharan (Ghor)
- August 13 – Pul-e Alim (Logar)
- August 13 – Qalat (Zabul)
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Only three of the bigger cities, Kabul, Jalalabad and Mazar-i-Sharif, are not yet in Taliban hands.
Jalalabad and the eastern provinces near the border to Pakistan are Taliban heartland. They will fall automatically. Mazar-i-Sharif, home of the brutal warlord 'General' Dostum, may decide to fight to the end. The fate of Kabul is still open.
The other still yellow provinces will likely change hands with little or no fighting.
Paktﻯawal @Paktyaw4l – 9:06 UTC · Aug 13, 2021
My province has just announced they are surrendering to the Taliban without a fight, Gardez city will be spared from fighting. Scholars and tribal elders are telling government forces that the government is no more, no more fighting.
The U.S. is sending 3,000 soldiers to Kabul to secure the evacuation of its embassy. 650 soldiers are already there. A reserve of 5,000 is kept on bases near the Persian Gulf. Britain will send 600 soldiers. The U.S. will have to evacuate at least 4,000 'embassy' staff of which 1,400 are 'diplomats'.
The AP summarizes the situation:
Cont. reading: Afghanistan – This Is The End …
There Is No Will To Fight Climate Change
The recently published report, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is grim:
B.1.3. Global warming of 1.5°C relative to 1850-1900 would be exceeded during the 21st century under the intermediate, high and very high scenarios considered in this report. Under the five illustrative scenarios, in the near term (2021-2040), the 1.5°C global warming level is very likely to be exceeded under the very high GHG emissions scenario, likely to be exceeded under the intermediate and high GHG emissions scenarios, more likely than not to be exceeded under the low GHG emissions scenario and more likely than not to be reached under the very low GHG emissions scenario.
The global reductions of Green House Gases (GHG) which are required to fit even the intermediate scenario are unlikely to be reached with the current policies:
The time has come to voice our fears and be honest with wider society. Current net zero policies will not keep warming to within 1.5°C because they were never intended to. They were and still are driven by a need to protect business as usual, not the climate. If we want to keep people safe then large and sustained cuts to carbon emissions need to happen now. That is the very simple acid test that must be applied to all climate policies. The time for wishful thinking is over.
The reasons are of course political. There is a lot of lobbying for policies which continue the output of GHG while there is little immediate interest in reducing them. A decade ago Peter Lee had already done the math. Looking back at what happened since he lays out a list of failures:
The United States under Joe Biden has doubled down on the absurd narrative that the United States has the national capacity and moral stature to lead the world’s response to climate change.
Let me dismiss this claim in a few words.
First, the doom of the climate change regime was sealed when the United States refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in 1998.
It was double doomed when the United States under Barack Obama imposed a successor regime that eliminated legally binding caps for anyone.
It was triple doomed when Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement.
It was quadruple doomed when the United States under Joe Biden decided that its highest priority and organizing principle of policy was to treat the People’s Republic of China as America’s prime geopolitical adversary.
Doom doom de doom doom doom. You get the picture.
It is not only the U.S. which is guilty here. All political system seem to prefer short term rewards over avoiding future pain., especially when others can be plausibly blamed for the outcome. The U.S. is just the most hypocritical actor here.
That Joe Biden is still playing nice with the fossil fuel industry demonstrates the mechanism:
Cont. reading: There Is No Will To Fight Climate Change
Open Thread 2021-61
Sick Leave
My stomach is upset with whatever I offer it. On top of that I have a toothache which, my dentist says, will stay for a few more days.
Writing while in pain does not work well. I'll thus take a few days off.
I'll leave an open thread so the regulars in this bar can continue to have their talks.
b.
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-060
Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:
> While China has not publicly released a new nuclear posture statement that supersedes the 2006 White Paper, the construction of new missile silos configured to hold solid-fuel ICBMs possessing multiple warheads changes the nuclear posture options for China. The most likely change is to transition from a pure retaliatory strike capability (“counterattack in self-defense”) to a launch-on-warning posture, which means the Chinese missiles would leave their silos when an attack was detected instead of waiting for a nuclear attack to actually occur. Given China’s declared nuclear policy, a launch-on-warning posture allows China to retain its no-first-use policy while simultaneously ensuring the survivability of its nuclear forces. <
> Although Joe Biden has set a deadline for withdrawal of August 31, American defense sources told The Times that there was every intention to continue with the airstrikes after that date. <
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> The taking of province capitals continues. On August 6 the Taliban took Zaranji (Nimruz province). Yesterday they took Sheberghan (Jowzjan). Today Kunduz (Kunduz) and Sar-e Pol (Sar-e Pol) have fallen though fighting on their peripheries continues. Fighting is currently ongoing within Taloquan (Takhar), Fayzaabd (Badakhshan) and Mazar-i-Sharif (Balkh).
The first thing the Taliban do in every large city they capture is to free prisoners and to seize truckloads of weapons from police and military headquarters before the U.S. can bomb those. They can thereby increase their numbers even while taking casualties. – b. <
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Su-57 5th Gen Fighter @5thSu – 10:30 UTC 8. Aug 2021
So taliban will be the second largest “military force” in the world to operate #Oshkosh JLTV after #American forces😜😜
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Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-060
From The Periphery To The Core – Taliban Capture First Provincial Capital
With regards to Afghanistan the Russian Foreign Ministry seems to be a tad too optimistic:
MOSCOW, August 5./TASS/. The offensive by the Taliban movement (outlawed in Russia) in Afghanistan is losing steam and it has no resources for seizing major cities, including Kabul, Russian Foreign Ministry Deputy Spokesman Alexander Bikantov told a briefing on Thursday.
"The Taliban has no resources to capture and hold the major cities, including the country’s capital city Kabul. Their offensive is gradually running out of steam," he said.
Government troops have managed to regain control over the lost districts in some provinces, the diplomat stressed.
As of July 26 the Taliban controlled 223 districts and contested another 110. The government controlled 74 districts.
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That some district centers change hands more than once does not say much about Taliban resources. They certainly seem to have all they need and are gaining more with each district and province they take.
As for Mr. Bikantov's claim that the Taliban can not gain and hold major cities: The Taliban are currently contesting Lashkar Gar, the capital of Helmand province and also Kandahar. The recent attacks on those cities only slowed down because the U.S. has broken its agreement with the Taliban and is bombing their positions around those cities with B-52 bombers.
But the U.S. can not bomb everywhere and so today the first province capital, Zaranji of Nimruz province at the Iranian border, fell without much resistance. As of 2015 the city had some 160,000 inhabitants. It is not a big one but certainly significant.
Cont. reading: From The Periphery To The Core – Taliban Capture First Provincial Capital
Open Thread 2021-059
‘Maximum Pressure’ Against Iran Has Failed. What Will Biden Do Next?
A week ago I wrote about Biden's failing foreign policy. With regards to the nuclear agreement (JCPOA) with Iran I remarked:
During his campaign Biden had promised to rejoin the nuclear deal with Iran. But no action has followed. Talks with Tehran started too late and were filled with new demands that Iran can not accept without diminishing is military defenses.
The arrogance of the Biden administration is at full display in its believe that it can dictate the terms to Tehran:
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It is not Iran that left the UN endorsed JCPOA deal. It was the U.S. which went back on it and re-introduced a 'maximum pressure' sanctions campaign against Iran. Iran has said it is willing to again reduce its nuclear program to the limits of the JCPOA deal if the U.S. removes all sanctions. It is the Biden administration that is unwilling to do so while making new demands. That is obviously not going to work.
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If the U.S. does not come back into the JCPOA deal, without any further conditions, Iran will eventually leave the deal and proceed with its nuclear program as it wants. That would be an utter failure of Biden's hardline tactics. One wonders what the Biden administration has planned to do when that happens.
The Biden administration thinks it can tighten sanctions on China's oil business with Iran:
Cont. reading: ‘Maximum Pressure’ Against Iran Has Failed. What Will Biden Do Next?
How AKP Cronyism Let Turkey’s Forest Fires Get Out Of Control
Some 100 large fires are causing heavy economic damage at Turkey’s southern coast:
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Firefighters have been forced to work in impossible conditions, combating fires in mountainous areas that only airplanes or helicopters can reach. At least two have died. At the same time, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, which has preached a mantra of Turkish self-sufficiency, has faced intensifying anger after conceding it did not have any of its own firefighting aircraft to deploy, leading to complaints that it was unprepared for the crisis and its response was delayed.
Whole towns have burned down, thousands of animals have been killed, tourists had to be evacuated. Inhabitants flee from the fire (vid). Tourist havens areas near Bodrum and Antalya get robbed of their scenery (vid).
Until two years ago Turkey had a decent fleet of some 9 Canadair CL-215 firefighting airplanes. These can skim up to 5 tons of water from the sea, a lake or a river and drop them onto the fire without having to land in between. With such planes Cycle times of five to ten minutes are achievable for fires near a coast.
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That Erdogan now has to admit that Turkey has no firefighting planes to deploy is a consequence of Islamist cronyism in his government that let to the systematic looting of the organization which for decades had fought such fires.
Cont. reading: How AKP Cronyism Let Turkey’s Forest Fires Get Out Of Control
Why Hypersonic Missiles Are Real Game Changers – by Gordog
A Technical Look at the Science Behind the Headlines
by Gordog
The Americans are now crying ‘uncle’ about Russia’s hypersonic weapons. After the most recent flight test of the scramjet-powered Zircon cruise missile, the Washington Post on July 11 carried a Nato statement of complaint:
"Russia’s new hypersonic missiles are highly destabilizing and pose significant risks to security and stability across the Euro-Atlantic area," the statement said.
At the same time, talks have begun on the ‘strategic dialog’ between the US and Russia, as agreed at the June 16 Geneva Summit of the two presidents. The two sides had already agreed to extend the START treaty on strategic weapons that has been in effect for a decade, but, notably, it was the US side that initiated the summit—perhaps spurred by the deployment of the hypersonic, intercontinental-range Avangard missile back in 2019, when US weapons inspectors were present, as per START, to inspect the Avangard as it was lowered into its missile silos.
But what exactly is a hypersonic missile—and why is it suddenly such a big deal?
We all remember when Vladimir Putin announced these wonder weapons in his March 2018 address to his nation [and the world]. The response from the US media was loud guffaws about ‘CGI’ cartoons and Russian ‘wishcasting.’ Well, neither Nato nor the Biden team are guffawing now. Like the five stages of grief, the initial denial phase has slowly given way to acceptance of reality—as Russia continues deploying already operational missiles, like the Avangard and the air-launched Kinzhal, now in Syria, as well as finishing up successful state trials of the Zircon, which is to be operationally deployed aboard surface ships and submarines, starting in early 2022. And in fact, there are a whole slew of new Russian hypersonic missiles in the pipeline, some of them much smaller and able to be carried by ordinary fighter jets, like the Gremlin aka GZUR.
The word hypersonic itself means a flight regime above the speed of Mach 5. That is simple enough, but it is not only about speed. More important is the ability to MANEUVER at those high speeds, in order to avoid being shot down by the opponent’s air defenses. A ballistic missile can go much faster—an ICBM flies at about 6 to 7 km/s, which is about 15,000 mph, about M 25 high in the atmosphere. [Mach number varies with temperature, so it is not an absolute measure of speed. The same 15,000 mph would only equal M 20 at sea level, where the temperature is higher and the speed of sound is also higher.]
But a ballistic missile flies on a straightforward trajectory, just like a bullet fired from a barrel of a gun—it cannot change direction at all, hence the word ballistic.
This means that ballistic missiles can, in theory, be tracked by radar and shot down with an interceptor missile. It should be noted here that even this is a very tough task, despite the straight-line ballistic trajectory. Such an interception has never been demonstrated in combat, not even with intermediate-range ballistic missiles [IRBMs], of the kind that the DPRK fired off numerous times, sailing above the heads of the US Pacific Fleet in the Sea of Japan, consisting of over a dozen Aegis-class Ballistic Missile Defense ships, designed specifically for the very purpose of shooting down IRBMs.
Such an interception would have been a historic demonstration of military technology—on the level of the shock and awe of Hiroshima! But no interception was ever attempted by those ‘ballistic missile defense’ ships, spectating as they were, right under the flight paths of the North Korean rockets!
The bottom line is that hitting even a straight-line ballistic missile has never been successfully demonstrated in actual practice. It is a very hard thing to do.
Cont. reading: Why Hypersonic Missiles Are Real Game Changers – by Gordog
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-058
Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:
> This system of governance and oversight transcends the law. In that sense, laws and regulations are only tools and means to reach regulators’ goals in terms of governance, norms, and ethics. The law per se is not the end, merely the tool. This contrasts starkly with the rule of law concept in the West. While it is comprehensible to Chinese, it is difficult for Westerners to understand. <
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Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-058
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