Now Egypt joins the air fight against Islamic State – in Libya

Egypt goes kinetic against ISIS in Derna, Libya on 16 Feb. (Image via Twitter)

New post up at Liberty Unyielding.  Enjoy!

Peace in our time: ‘Game of carriers’ in Eastern Med

Vladimir Putin’s Russia has moved to clamp down on Ukraine in advance of the laughably rigged “referendum” scheduled for 16 March, when Crimeans will vote on which way to secede from Ukraine: either as an “independent” state or through annexation by Russia.  Crimeans who want to remain part of Ukraine are out of luck.

The battle for Crimea may be preordained; the battle for Ukraine underway.  There are also indications of a larger battle shaping up in the region, as the aircraft carriers of Russia and the United States perform an elaborate minuet in the Eastern Mediterranean.  If you weren’t convinced that the Russian move on Ukraine would rapidly destabilize the region, consider what has been going on in the last week west of Cyprus.

U.S. Navy assets update in Ukraine crisis

Reader “Your Opinion Please” posed questions to me on carrier movements at this earlier post, and I am copying the response here (see below) to provide a general update.

There is no change in the U.S. military posture in the Mediterranean or Black Sea.  That’s the basic point to take away.  The activities we’re seeing are routine and predictable.  Because of the geography of the Ukraine problem, no NATO naval power can realistically be brought to bear on it, and any signals sent with naval power will be political, collateral, and temporary.

As mentioned in the previous post, the carrier USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77) and her strike group are in the Mediterranean,

Peace in our time: Belarus, missiles, and the revenge of the “Reset”

For whatever reason, peace is not busting out at all over.  After months of coyness and denials from Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, Russia has deployed the first of what will reportedly be a full squadron of fighter jets to a base in Belarus, where they will remain deployed for defensive alerts against – well, NATO.  Hard as that is for members of NATO to believe, given the parlous state of our unity, purpose, and military readiness.

The former Soviet Union used bases in what was then a “federated socialist republic” in Belarus during the Cold War.  But the Russians will be using a different base this time.  Their Su-27 Flanker jets will operate out of Baranovichi, where the Belarusian Air Force has had its main base for the last two decades.

Bad tidings of sea and air space challenges

“History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.” — Ronald Reagan

It made the most news when China did it a few days ago.  But it’s been building for a while, and it’s not just off China.  As the holidays settle in on us, probes of other nations’ sea and air space are in the air.  Is war coming tomorrow?  No.  But whether it comes after tomorrow will depend on more than gestures from that shapeless blob of geopolitical potential that we may now, in a post-superpower world, call the “status quo powers.”  It will depend on the outcomes the status quo powers can secure.

The China Challenge