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community.apan.org/wg/tradoc-g2/fmso/ Foreign Military Studies Office Volume 8 Issue #10 OEWATCH October 2018 FOREIGN NEWS & PERSPECTIVES OF THE OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT VOSTOK-2018 MANEUVERS EURASIA INDO-PACIFIC AFRICA 3 Reasoning for the Vostok-2018 Strategic Exercise 34 China Stands by Re-education Camps in Xinjiang 61 The African Union Diminishes Its Role in the Western Sahara 6 Vostok-2018 in the Arctic 35 China Building a Military Facility in the Wakhan Corridor: Crisis 9 Increasing Multi-Domain Capabilities: The Iskander draftFact or Fiction? 62 Mysterious Kidnappings in Lake Chad Region Engages the Sea 36 India to Use New Drones at Border with China 63 Violence in Africa: Trends and Drivers 11 Establishing the Gauntlet 37 India’s Appointment of the 14th Corps Commander 64 The ISIS-affiliated Boko Haram Faction Reclaims Territory 12 The Automation of Forward Air Control 38 “New Type” PLA Units Emphasize Mobility, Joint 65 Nigerian Navy’s Rapid Growth Includes Addition of More Fast 13 Current Lessons-Learned From the Battle of Kursk Operations Patrol Boats 14 Constructing Military Ideology... and a Military Church 39 Can China Produce Micro Precision Strike Weapons? 66 South Africa’s New Chief of Police: Concern of a “War Zone” 15 Connecting Slavic Brotherhood and the Russian Army 40 PLA Army Aviation Brigades’ Training Now Includes Urban 67 Eritrea: Why Peace with Ethiopia May Not Translate into 16 Revisiting Russia’s Seizure of Kosovo Airport Operations Domestic Reforms 17 Russian Pipeline Troops: Sustaining the Fight Across the 41 History of China’s Type 99 Main Battle Tank 68 Somalia: A Fractured Nation Might Fracture Further Land and From the Sea 43 Mianyang: The Bellwether in China’s Civil-Military 19 Time Management and Re-Enlistment Integration Initiative 20 Prime Training Time in Tiksi Bay 44 Indonesia Counters Street Gangs Before Asian Games LATIN AMERICA 69 Huge New Study of the Colombian War 21 Consolidating Naval Training at Kronshtadt? 45 Thailand Acquires Chinese Submarines 70 Armed Drones in Mexico 22 No Pirates in the Arctic 46 South Korea Launches New Submarine 71 Jalisco New Generation Cartel Announces Arrival in Salamanca 23 China Builds Icebreaker at Home 47 The Future of Korea’s Military 72 El Salvador Breaks Diplomatic Ties with Taiwan 24 Rising Russian-Ukrainian Tensions in the Sea of Azov 48 South Korean Special Forces in the UAE 73 China’s Growing Influence on the Latin American Economy 26 Prelude to Religious Conflict in Ukraine? 74 How Nicaragua’s Political Instability is Affecting Costa Rica 27 Georgia Seeks to Build a Reserve—Again 75 New FARC War Structure 28 The CSTO Factor in Armenian-Russian Relations MIDDLE EAST, NORTH AFRICA 49 Saudis Seek Pathway to the Arabian Sea 76 Spanish-Colombian Relations and Catalonia? 30 EU Holds 3rd Annual “Three Seas Initiative” Summit in 51 Iranian Private Sector to Assist in Rebuilding Syria? Bucharest 52 Deepening Russian Cultural Influence in Syria 31 Russian Influence Operations Target Swedish Elections 53 Normalization of Turkey and KRG Relations 32 Tajik-Uzbek Border Guards Conduct Joint Exercise 54 The Range of Iranian Missiles 33 Risky Business: A Case Study of PRC Investment in 55 Turkey to Establish Naval Base in Cyprus Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan 56 Commander of Iranian Armed Forces: Khamenei is the Ultimate Authority 57 Radicalization and “ISIS Networks” in Turkey 58 Turkish President Announced 48 Defense Projects 59 Morocco Grows Military, Reinstates Obligatory Service 60 Defense or Domination? Building Algerian Power With Russian Arms approved for public release; distribution is unlimited The Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is part of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command G-2, whose mission is to Understand, Describe, Deliver, and OEWATCH Assess the conditions of the Operational Foreign News & Perspectives Environment. For over 30 years, FMSO of the Operational Environment has conducted open source research Volume 8 | Issue 10 October | 2018 on foreign perspectives of defense and security issues, emphasizing those topics that are understudied or unconsidered. Regional Analysts and Operational Environment Watch Expert Contributors provides translated selections with background from a diverse range Eurasia Danny Anderson Chuck Bartles of foreign media that our analysts Dodge Billingsley and expert contributors believe will Matti Dimmick give security professionals an added Ray Finch Les Grau dimension to their critical thinking Robert Kurz about the Operational Environment. Andrew McGregor Matthew Stein Boris Vainer The views expressed in each article are those of Tom Wilhelm the author and do not represent the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department Indo-Pacific Cindy Hurst of Defense, or the US Government. Release of this Brent Stedry information does not imply any commitment or intent Matthew Stein on the part of the US Government to provide any Peter Wood additional information on any topic presented herein. Jacob Zenn The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the US Army of the referenced site Middle East, North Africa Ihsan Gunduz or the information, products, or services contained Michael Rubin therein. Users should exercise caution in accessing Lucas Winter hyperlinks. Africa Robert Feldman The Operational Environment Watch is archived Jacob Zenn and available at: https://community.apan.org/wg/ tradoc-g2/fmso/. Latin America Robert Bunker Geoff Demarest Brenda Fiegel Alma Keshavarz Catalina Wedman ON THE COVER: “Active phase of Vostok 2018 maneuvers.” Image Source: Russian Ministry of Defense, http://eng.mil.ru/en/multimedia/photo/gallery.htm?id=60528@ cmsPhotoGallery, CC 4.0. Editor-in-Chief Tom Wilhelm Editor Matthew Stein Design Editor Lucas Winter EURASIA Reasoning for the Vostok-2018 Strategic Exercise OE Watch Commentary: Russia conducted the Vostok-2018 strategic exercises 11-17 September 2018 and according to Defense Minister General Sergey Shoygu, approximately 300,000 servicemen (approximately one-third of the Ministry of Defense’s uniformed personnel); 36,000 tanks, armored personnel carriers, and other combat vehicles; more than 1,000 helicopters, aircraft, and drones; and ships and auxiliary vessels of the Northern and Pacific Fleets took part in the maneuvers. In addition, approximately 3,000 military personnel from the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) and several units from Mongolia also participated. The accompanying excerpted article from Svobodnaya Pressa, lays out some reasoning behind the exercise. The article points out that these annual major exercises shift on a yearly basis from military district to military district, and discusses parallels between Vostok-2018 and Vostok-1981. One commonality, from the author’s perspective, is that both exercises were conducted during particularly contentious relations with the West and were intended to deter (through their sheer size), but not provoke (due to them not being near a current hot-spot). The accompanying excerpted article from Vzglyad, lays out varying opinions regarding whether the Vostok-2018 exercise is Syria related. Prominent journalist and military expert Pavel Felgengauer is somewhat cynical of this view, pointing out: “It is difficult to use what was employed in Syria in the large-scale operations, which are being tested at the maneuvers.” The article from Gazeta.ru is perhaps the most interesting of the articles as it sheds some light on Russian terminology differences. In particular, strategic command-staff exercises [стратегические командно-штабные учения] are considered to be front-level operations occurring at the operational-strategic level of military activity, since they primarily involve just a single military district/joint strategic command, but maneuvers [маневры] are larger (strategic) in nature and involve multiple military districts and fleets in the context of a continental Theater of Military Operations (TVD) [театр военных действий (ТВД)]. Due to the scale of the Vostok-2018 exercise, it would be considered a ‘maneuver’ by this definition. End OE Watch Commentary (Bartles) “It is unlikely that 300,000 soldiers and commanders, off-shore ships, and Long Range Aviation will be involved to combat strictly terrorists, even international terrorists.” Vostok-2018 Strategic Exercise. Source: Russian Defense Ministry, http://мультимедиа.минобороны.рф/multimedia/photo/gallery.htm?id=60539@cmsPhotoGallery, CC 4.0. (continued) OE Watch | October 2018 3 EURASIA Continued: Reasoning for the Vostok-2018 Strategic Exercise Source: Sergey Ishchenko, “Восток-2018: Россия начинает репетицию Третьей мировой (Vostok-2018: Russia Is Beginning Dress Rehearsals for World War III),” Svobodnaya Pressa, 8 September 2018. https://svpressa.ru/war21/article/210128/ …In a word, what has already begun in Siberia, the Far East, and Arctic and Pacific waters is making an unprecedented impression on the whole world. For there has not been this scale of movement of troops in our country’s Armed Forces for almost four decades. Since the time of the Soviet Zapad-1981 exercises…the main narrative of the Zapad-1981 exercises was the start of a big war on the continent. What are we now about to rehearse at Vostok-2018? Both with us and in the West the majority of specialists are certain that today also we are, in actual fact, preparing for exactly the same thing. There was recently, for example, an article on the upcoming exercises in the German business newspaper Handelsblatt. The authors
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