U.S. Navy to christen its newest Independence-variant littoral combat ship

The Navy will christen its newest Independence-variant littoral combat ship (LCS), the future USS Mobile (LCS 26), during a 10 a.m. CDT ceremony Saturday, Dec. 7, in Mobile, Alabama.

U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, representing Alabama’s first district, will deliver the christening ceremony’s principal address. His wife, Rebecca Byrne, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of South Alabama, will serve as the ship’s sponsor. In a time-honored Navy tradition, Rebecca Byrne will christen the ship by breaking a bottle of sparkling wine across the bow.

”USS Mobile is a marvel of engineering,” said Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly. ”She will extend our capabilities for any mission, from the middle of the ocean to the shallowest of waters, enhancing our ability to project power ashore and at sea. This Independence-class LCS will extend the maneuverability and lethality of our fleet to confront the many challenges of a complex world.”

LCS is a highly maneuverable, lethal and adaptable ship designed to support focused mine countermeasures, anti-submarine warfare and surface warfare missions. The ship integrates new technology and capability to affordably support current and future mission capability from deep water to the littorals. Using an open architecture design, modular weapons, sensor systems and a variety of manned and unmanned vehicles to gain, sustain and exploit littoral maritime supremacy, LCS provides U.S. joint force access to critical areas in multiple theaters.

The LCS class consists of two variants, the Freedom variant and the Independence variant, designed and built by two industry teams. The Freedom variant team is led by Lockheed Martin in Marinette, Wisconsin (for the odd-numbered hulls). The Independence variant team is led by Austal USA in Mobile, Alabama (for LCS 6 and the subsequent even-numbered hulls).

LCS 26 is the 13th Independence-variant LCS and the 26th in the class. It is the fifth ship named in honor of the port city on Alabama’s Gulf Coast. The first Mobile was a side wheel steamer that operated as a Confederate government operated blockade runner. It was captured by U.S. forces at New Orleans in April 1862, commissioned as Tennessee and later renamed Mobile. The second Mobile was a passenger liner operated by Hamburg Amerika Lines between Germany and the United States until the outbreak of World War I. It was taken over by the Allied Maritime Council and assigned to the United States after the Armistice and commissioned March 1919. The third Mobile (CL 63) was commissioned March 24, 1943. It participated in numerous campaigns in the Pacific during World War II and received 11 battle stars for her service by the time she was decommissioned May 1947. The fourth Mobile (LKA 115) was an amphibious cargo ship that served from September 1969 until decommissioning in February 1994.

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source : https://defence-blog.com/news/u-s-navy-to-christen-its-newest-independence-variant-littoral-combat-ship-2.html

A Mexican cartel gun battle near the Texas border leaves 21 dead

At least 21 people have died due to a battle between Mexican police officers and cartel gunmen, just days after President Donald Trump said that he planned on labeling Mexican drug cartels as terrorists.

Armed gunmen stormed Villa Union, a town near the Texas border with Coahuila state, on Saturday and attacked local government offices, including that of the mayor. Security forces responded, and 10 gunmen and four policemen were killed during the resulting shootout in the village. Seven additional cartel members were killed by security forces after the attackers fled.

The attack will likely fuel Trump’s argument for categorizing drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations,” just as groups like al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Boko Haram are classified. He has a history of seeing drug cartels as a major threat, and he often cites the cartels in stump speeches when speaking about the need to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. Trump’s latest position on the cartels, however, has alarmed a number of experts because it could give the president license to use US military force against the groups without authorization from the Mexican government.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has made it clear that he will not allow foreign intervention, and has offered to increase cooperation with the US on fighting drug gangs instead, according to Al Jazeera. His government already works with the US intelligence community and drug and law enforcement officials from the State Department to combat cartel violence.

“Since 1914, there hasn’t been a foreign intervention in Mexico and we cannot permit that,” Lopez Obrador said at a regular news conference on Friday. “Armed foreigners cannot intervene in our territory.”

Things, however, aren’t looking great for Lopez Obrador, who was elected into office in 2018 in part on a platform of cracking down on cartels. Murders are at a record high rate, according to the Los Angeles Times: there have been 29,414 homicides so far this year in comparison to 28,869 in the same period of 2018 — which was already considered an all-time high.

Attorney General William Barr is supposed to visit Mexico next week to discuss joint security efforts. With these numbers, Trump’s plan, and the most recent gun battle in Villa Union fresh in everyone’s memory, all eyes are on what will come out of his meeting with Mexican officials.

Trump wants to categorize Mexican drug cartels as terrorists

Although Trump has long pointed to Mexican drug cartels as a problem, they resurfaced as a key issue for him after gang members killed and ambushed a US Mormon family traveling northern Mexico on November 5. Six children and three mothers died.

“This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth,” Trump tweeted following news of the ambush.

Trump was also likely encouraged to intervene after the Mexican government failed to detain El Chapo’s son, Ovidio Guzmán López. Although the notorious drug lord’s son was captured on October 17, the police released him shortly after they were ambushed by other gang members.

By categorizing drug cartels under “foreign terrorist organizations,” the US will be able to sanction those who support the groups, deport members in the US, and bar associates from entering the country. It could also open doors to the US military using force against the cartels. And although reclassifying cartels as terror organizations doesn’t automatically authorize the president to launch overseas military operations, many are worried that Trump could attempt to push the limits.

It’s also unclear how effective this designation actually would be. The cartels are well funded and well established, and as Vox’s Alex Ward reported, many Mexicans see cartel violence as a problem created by US policy:

“There is no political will in Mexico to invite US troops in. It is both an issue of nationalistic pride and an understanding in Mexico that what fuels drug cartels are weapons sold to them in the United States and drugs consumed by Americans,” Jana Nelson, a Mexico expert at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington, DC, told me. “From the Mexican perspective, the root cause of violence is on the other side of the border.”

“Cutting the cartel’s access to military-grade weapons, bought in the United States and smuggled into Mexico, is an effective way to limit the their firepower,” Nelson continued. “Intelligence coordination between the Mexican and the American government for operations against the cartels is also effective, especially when using the Mexican Navy for operations, which is less likely to tip off drug cartels.”

It is unlikely that Lopez Obrador will ever be on board with a US military intervention, partially because it would mean the death of his political career. With rising homicide numbers in Mexico and the issue of border security being one that animates his base, it also seems unlikely that Trump will back down anytime soon.

 

source : https://www.vox.com/world/2019/12/1/20990250/mexico-cartel-gun-battle-attack-union-villa-texas-border

Highlights: Experts discuss the first-ever US military intervention in the Middle East

political and military engagement in the Middle East has for decades seemed an integral component of American foreign policy, as experts discussed at Brookings at an event on November 13. However, today, U.S. engagement in the Middle East is under intense scrutiny. According to experts, recent events like the muted U.S. response to the Iranian-orchestrated attacks on Saudi Arabia’s Aramco facilities, as well as the blunt withdrawal of American troops from Syria demonstrate the long-assumed commitment to the Middle East may no longer be the case. In order to understand how we got here, it is important to examine the beginnings of U.S. engagement in the region.

 

At the event, Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel and Senior Fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy and Deputy Director of Foreign Policy Suzanne Maloney discusses his newest book, “Beirut 1958.” The book examines the factors that contributed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s momentous decision in July 1958 to send U.S. Marines to the Middle East, focusing especially on the roles that political upheavals and influential individuals played in the buildup and eventual resolution of the crisis. Introducing the event, Senior Fellow Tamara Wittes reiterated the importance of examining past policy decisions and their results in order to inform decisions going forward.

Riedel provided an overview of events in the Middle East leading up to Eisenhower’s decision to launch Operation Blue Bat, and described the complex political landscape of the region at the time. Following his remarks, he and Maloney discussed in more detail the lessons that policymakers can take from examining this first U.S. military engagement in the Middle East. They noted the impact of ideologies, especially the oft-forgotten ideology of Arab nationalism that played such a defining role in the 20th century, as well as the implications of diminished U.S. involvement in the region today. They also grappled with the difficult line between patience and apathy in foreign policy decisionmaking. Riedel emphasized the importance of level-headedness when dealing with a tumultuous and unpredictable part of the world.

 

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