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Foreign Military Studies Office community.apan.org/wg/tradoc-g2/fmso/ Foreign Military Studies Office Volume 9 Issue #3 OEWATCH March 2019 FOREIGN NEWS & PERSPECTIVES OF THE OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT EURASIA AFRICA 3 Military District Reform Rumored 22 China Reacts to South China Sea Report 47 Russia Makes Strategic Inroads into Africa 4 Private Security and the Russian National Guard 23 PLA Army Air Defense Brigades Now Able to Share 48 With Russian Help, A Fragile Peace Agreement in the Central 5 Bolstering the Russian Ground Forces, the Cossack Way Information with Air Force African Republic 7 Russian Anti-Satellite Technologies as a Response to the US 24 Report Indicates China Moving Toward Sixth-Generation 49 Is Boko Haram “in Charge” of Baga, Borno State? Ballistic Missile Defense System Fighter 50 Kenya’s Homegrown Terrorists 8 Importance of Space-Based Intelligence, Reconnaissance, 25 Dedicated OPFOR Unit Helps PLAAF Improve Skills 51 Operation Targets Purported “Katiba Serma” in Mali and Surveillance 26 India’s Ongoing Problems with Fighter Aircraft 52 Mali Releases Militant Reintegration Policy 9 Revelations of a Russian Mercenary in Syria 27 Indonesia and the Philippines Investigate Jolo Cathedral 53 South Africa Looks to Increase UAV Exports 10 Controlling the Kremlin’s Narrative Bombing 54 As Economy Sinks, Military Discontent Rises in Zimbabwe 11 Reassessment Needed of Soviet-Afghan War 28 Singapore Reports Positively on Counter-Piracy 55 Kidnapping in Nigeria: An Underreported, Multifaceted, 12 Arctic Tank Modernization Continues Criminal Enterprise 13 Have Power, Will Travel 14 A New Turn in Armenian-Russian Relations? MIDDLE EAST, NORTH AFRICA 15 Campaign Sparks Division Between Ethnic Russians and 29 Iranian Army Shifts from Defensive to Offensive Posture LATIN AMERICA 56 Convoy of Armed CJNG Survey Neighborhoods in Zacatecas Estonians 30 Iran Builds Up Syrian Proxies on the Western Banks of the 56 The Gulf Cartel’s Armored Vehicles 16 Anti-Chinese Sentiment in Kyrgyzstan Euphrates 32 Moscow Disapproves of Erdogan’s Plans in Syria 57 Salvadorans Elect Nayib Bukele 34 Iran’s Strategic Shift to China and Russia 58 Focus on Cuba INDO-PACIFIC 35 Houthi “Re-Engineering” of Yemeni Society 59 Germans in Bolivia 17 Chinese Views on How Artificial Intelligence Will Change 36 Turkey’s Position on Venezuela 60 Brazil’s Migrant Problem Ways to Win Wars 37 The UAV Threat to Turkish Security 62 Paraguay Announces Plan to Reinforce Security along its 18 PLA Stratagems for Establishing Wartime Electromagnetic 38 The Latest “Houthi Drone” Border with Brazil Dominance: An Analysis of “The Winning Mechanisms of 39 Ukraine to Buy Combat Drones from Turkey 63 Changing Brazilian-Chinese Trade Relations? Electronic Countermeasures” 41 Iranian Forces Test Night Vision Cameras 64 Will Haiti Break Ties with Taiwan in 2019 and Opt for China? 20 China Accelerates Chip Design to Overcome Strategic 42 IRGC Air Force Unveils New Ballistic Missile 65 Police Dismantle Largest Cocaine Processing Laboratories Ever Vulnerability 43 Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum Threatens Turkey Discovered in Spain 21 Russia May Begin Purchase of Chinese-made Drones, 45 Privatization of Turkish Military Factory Draws Different Engines Reactions 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 9 | Issue 3 March | 2019 on foreign perspectives of defense and security issues, emphasizing those topics that are understudied or unconsidered. Regional Analysts and Expert Contributors Operational Environment Watch provides translated selections with Eurasia Chuck Bartles background from a diverse range Matti Dimmick Ray Finch of foreign media that our analysts Les Grau and expert contributors believe will Matthew Stein give security professionals an added dimension to their critical thinking Indo-Pacific Cindy Hurst Matthew Stein about the Operational Environment. Peter Wood Zi Yang Jacob Zenn The views expressed in each article are those of the author and do not represent the official policy or Middle East, North Africa Robert Bunker position of the Department of the Army, Department Ihsan Gunduz of Defense, or the US Government. Release of this Karen Kaya information does not imply any commitment or intent Alma Keshavarz on the part of the US Government to provide any Michael Rubin additional information on any topic presented herein. Lucas Winter The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute Robert Feldman endorsement by the US Army of the referenced site Africa Jacob Zenn or the information, products, or services contained therein. Users should exercise caution in accessing Dodge Billingsley hyperlinks. Latin America Robert Bunker The Operational Environment Watch is archived Geoff Demarest and available at: https://community.apan.org/wg/ Brenda Fiegel tradoc-g2/fmso/. Alma Keshavarz Catalina Wedman ON THE COVER: Foreground: Editor-in-Chief Tom Wilhelm Iranian micro UAV, unidentified model, at an Armed Forces Editor Matthew Stein presentation (9/2018). Source: Mehr News Agency [CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], Design Editor Lucas Winter https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iranian_micro_UAV.jpg. Background: Iranian Flag over Archaeological Site - Bishapur - Southwestern Iran. Source: Adam Jones Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/adam_jones/7424861282, CC 2.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/. EURASIA Military District Reform Rumored OE Watch Commentary: The accompanying excerpted article from Svobodnaya Pressa discusses recent rumors that the Russian Federation is considering creating more military districts. The original intent of combining military districts after the collapse of the Soviet Union and during the 2008 New Look reforms was to reduce the size of the Russian military bureaucracy. Any creation of new military districts would obviously require a large staff increase. Russia’s most recent addition to the military district system was the creation of the Northern Joint Strategic Command (OSK) in 2014. Even in this case, Russia did not choose to set up a fully manned military district headquarters to provide command and control, but instead simply chose to augment the Military districts of Russia since 2016. Northern Fleet for this purpose. If new military Source: By AlexWelens - Министерство обороны Российской Федерации Военные округа, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50166964. districts are added in the future, the borders of these new districts would likely align with the borders of the eight National Guard regions, as currently the National Guard and military district borders do not overlap. These spatial relationships are almost certainly maintained to facilitate command and control during times of crisis; National Guard formations and units would be subordinated to the Ministry of Defense during large-scale warfare, while Ministry of Defense formations and units would be subordinated to the National Guard during domestic insurgencies (like the Chechen conflict). End OE Watch Commentary (Bartles) “Rumors have circulated throughout the country about the latest change of the model of the military- administrative division of Russia’s territory…” Source: Sergey Ishchenko, “Тень Сердюкова: Хождение по военному округу (Serdyukov’s Shadow: Wandering Through a Military District),” Svobodnaya Pressa, 9 February 2019. https://svpressa.ru/war21/article/224083/ Rumors have circulated throughout the country about the latest change of the model of the military-administrative division of Russia’s territory…As far as one can judge from the information, which has already been made public by the mass media, the marked aggravation of the military-political situation along the entire perimeter of our borders simply compels Moscow to return to the already Soviet military district structure…It was thought that no serious invasion whatsoever threatens precisely Russia from any strategic axis in the foreseeable future. We, even if we were not embracing NATO and the US by that time, but we had still found a common language on the main global security issues. Exercises, if they were conducted, then under the guise of armed combat only with international terrorists. And isn’t it true that the fronts, into which the military districts had to be restructured with the initiation of a war, are not needed to repel terrorists? But Shoygu will not resolve the matter with the simple signing of the latest directive. Because now simply mind-boggling expenditures are required for the recreation of at least some of the long since destroyed military districts. Really each new military administrative unit of the Armed Forces of that type requires not only a headquarters with hundreds of experienced and trained officers-managers. From where do we also need to take dozens of additional formations and military units of a military district set – engineer, signals, command and control, radiological, chemical, and biological defense, missile, air defense missile, and others. And therefore – much will have to be reformed from the ground up and some will have to be redeployed hundreds and thousands of versts from other cities and villages… Already this year, they claim that a
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