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07 Oct 22. Bosnia-Herzegovina: Protest over election results in Republika Srpska highlights ongoing corruption, civil unrest risks. On 6 October several thousand people protested in Banja Luka, the capital of Republika Srpska, against the result of the 2 October presidential election in the ethnic Serb entity. Protesters alleged that Milorad Dodik – the pro-Russian and outgoing Serb member of the country’s tri-partite inter-ethnic presidency – rigged the election to become president of Republika Srpska. Supporters of Dodik’s main rival, Jelena Trivic, allege that over 65,000 ballots were invalid. As of 6 October, preliminary results by the state election commission showed that Dodik was leading with 48.18 per cent of the vote and Trivic held 43.43 percent based on over 97 percent of ballots counted. Electoral irregularities and corruption are persistent problems which discourage foreign investment in the country. Further protests are highly likely ahead of the official election result in the coming days and there is a low-to-moderate risk that protests will escalate. (Source: Sibylline)
07 Oct 22. European Union-Norway: Oslo, Brussels agree on energy cooperation, raising prospect of improved energy security, socio-economic outlooks. On 6 October, Olso and Brussels agreed to ‘jointly develop tools’ aimed at reducing gas prices in Europe at the European Political Community summit in Prague. Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store stated that Oslo would continue to boost production and take steps to reduce ‘excessively high prices’ in both the short and long terms. The summit of 44 leaders in Prague – an initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron – focused on boosting European energy cooperation and showing a united front against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, divisions persisted over a proposed price cap on wholesale gas prices. Several EU member states remain deeply concerned that the measure would drive away LNG suppliers from Europe. Oslo’s pledge to boost production could help to slightly lower gas prices and in turn improve the socio-economic outlook in Europe. (Source: Sibylline)
06 Oct 22. US Army activates new unit to control air and missile defenses in Europe. A new headquarters unit was activated in Sembach, Germany, on Thursday to provide command and control for all Army air and missile defense forces within U.S. European Command, according to a statement from U.S. Army Europe and Africa.
The 52nd Air Defense Artillery Brigade headquarters will report directly to the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command.
“I’m very excited to be taking command of the Army’s newest air defense brigade,” said Col. Bruce A. Bredlow, the 52nd ADA’s first commander, in a prepared statement.
“Our mission here in Europe is uniquely rewarding thanks to our ability to work closely with NATO on a regular basis,” Bredlow added. “We’re looking forward to building new connective tissue at the tactical level with our Allies and partners and expanding our combined capacity through interoperability.”
The new air defense brigade was first announced by President Joe Biden at the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, in June. He said that the Pentagon was stationing more air defenses in Germany and Italy.
The 52nd ADA will assume responsibility for the 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, near Ansbach, Germany; the future 1st Battalion, 57th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, which will also be based near Ansbach; the 5th Battalion, 7th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, based in Baumholder, Germany; the 11th Missile Defense Battery, based in Turkey; and the 13th Missile Defense Battery, based in Israel.
The Army has been gradually expanding air defenses in Europe since about 2019, when the 10th AAMDC was upgraded to a one-star command.
Previously, the role of brigade headquarters over the air defense battalions in Europe was filled on a rotational basis by Army National Guard units.
“Adding the active-duty brigade headquarters along with the new 1-57 short-range air defense regiment to theater adds significant capacity to the U.S. contribution to the Alliance’s ground-based air defense in EUCOM,” the U.S. Army Europe and Africa statement reads. (Source: Army Times)
06 Oct 22. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Dr. Colin Kahl’s Travel to Paris for U.S.-France Strategic Dialogue, European Quadrilateral Meetings. Department of Defense Spokesman Lt. Col. David Herndon provided the following release:
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Dr. Colin Kahl will depart for Paris this week to participate in a U.S.-France Strategic Dialogue and European Quadrilateral counterpart engagements with France, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
Under Secretary Kahl will be hosted by French Ministry of the Armed Forces Director General for International Relations and Strategy Alice Guitton. Strategic Dialogue sessions will reinforce the United States’ commitment to its oldest ally through focused discussion on bilateral defense, security cooperation, and transatlantic security.
UK Ministry of Defence Director General Security Policy Paul Wyatt and German Federal Ministry of Defense Director General for Security and Defense Policy Jasper Wieck will join Under Secretary Kahl and Director General Guitton for quadrilateral engagements focused on a range of security challenges facing the NATO Alliance.
The leaders will preview the NATO Defense Ministerial and underscore the importance of Alliance unity and continued support to Ukraine’s sovereignty, mutual security interests, and discuss combined approaches to issues spanning the Middle East, Africa, and Indo-Pacific region.
Kahl’s trip reaffirms the Department of Defense’s deep commitment to working in lockstep with our closes Allies to advance a shared vision for a secure and prosperous globe. (Source: US DoD)
06 Oct 22. Denmark: Early elections increase risk of government instability. On 5 October, centre-left Prime Minister Frederiksen called for early elections set for 1 November in an attempt to establish a broader coalition and prevent a no-confidence vote by the Social Liberals, the ruling Social Democrats’ former ally in parliament. PM Frederiksen is currently leading a one-party minority government that has been losing support from its allies since the beginning of the pandemic when she approved the mass culling of minks. She said she would like to establish a broad governing coalition including centrist parties from across the political spectrum, nevertheless, major opposition parties have already indicated they are not interested in forming a government with the Social Democrats. While Frederiksen’s centre-left alliance leads the polls, the Conservative-Liberal alliance has gained popularity recently, threatening Frederikssen’s future government. As such, government instability in Denmark will remain elevated, and even if reelected, the Social Democrats will likely struggle to push their policy proposals through parliament. (Source: Sibylline)
06 Oct 22. European Union: Brussels approves new round of Russian sanctions with likely negative impact on shipping and oil industries. On 5 October, the EU approved a new, eighth round of sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. The package extends a ban on imports of steel, wood pulp, machinery and appliances. It also prohibits the export of EU goods used in aviation and extends a ban on the export of electric components, including certain semiconductors. The key measure is a price cap on the maritime transport of Russian crude oil to third countries. Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak repeated a warning that Moscow would not sell oil to countries that adopt the cap. The sanctions are likely to have a dampening impact on trade in countries with large shipping industries such as Greece, Cyprus and Malta. While further EU sanctions are highly likely, member states are expected to remain divided on a proposed price cap on Russian gas imports. (Source: Sibylline)
04 Oct 22. Drone-loaded seabed ship is latest weapon in Royal Navy’s arsenal to counter Russian threat. Modified vessel signed off immediately after Ben Wallace said he ‘needed it now.’
A new ship that can launch drones to keep the seabed under surveillance for threats to underwater cables and pipelines will be purchased for the Royal Navy immediately because “I need it now”, the Defence Secretary has said.
The “seabed warfare ship” will be specially modified to counter the increased threat from Russia in the wake of a suspected sabotage attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline to Germany.
Ben Wallace stopped short of blaming Russia for the attack in an interview with The Telegraph, but said it was clear that it was a “deliberate act”.
Drones and other undersea technology will be launched from the ships, in a bid to better protect critical national infrastructure. Design work on a second, bespoke vessel will start in 2023.
Ben Wallace said: “Britain [is] deeply vulnerable because we are so dependent on our internet cables.
“We will have to do a lot more work to look at those infrastructures to satisfy ourselves that there is no more vulnerability.”
On Monday night, the Royal Navy moved a Type-23 frigate to the North Sea to work with Norwegian counterparts, providing security to workers on gas pipeline infrastructure.
HMS Enterprise, an Echo-class survey vessel, is already patrolling the area following concerns about Russian naval activity.
The first of the two ‘Multi-Role Ocean Survey Ships’, to be known as the Seabed Warfare variant, will be operational by the end of next year.
This vessel will be specifically equipped with underwater drones and other sensitive technology similar to the Russian micro spy submarine Losharik, which is thought to be capable of tapping or destroying internet cables.
The second ship, to be used for “deep water military data gathering”, will be a longer programme and built in the UK.
The Defence Secretary said the reason for buying and modifying an existing vessel from the open market was that “I need it now”.
He said the world is “too vulnerable” to take the risk of delaying the purchase to design a ship from scratch.
“We’ll commission a second one with slightly different functions.
“We often see – and have done over months and years – suspicious activity by Russian spy ships and Russian vessels doing things in the region of our cables and pipelines.
“It’s not uncommon [to see] Russian spy ships.”
He said it was “no secret” the Russian Navy’s Special Mission Submarine programme, run by GUGI (the Main Directorate of Deep Sea Research) and based in Olenya Bay on the Kola Peninsula on the coast of the Barents Sea, was targeting critical national infrastructure in the North Atlantic.
Investigations are still ongoing into the blasts on the Nord Stream pipelines on Sept 26, for which western countries had no warnings, Mr Wallace said.
“We didn’t have any direct warning that this was going to happen, I don’t think anyone did.”
Although no country has yet been blamed for the explosions, Mr Wallace said “it looks like a deliberate act” which could draw a response from Nato.
“If it was a deliberate and malicious act by a hostile state [the response] would probably be planned through NATO,” he said on a visit to British troops in Poland.
“Nato would have to think about how it would respond.
“In parallel, depending on how the pipeline was damaged, there would be work for all of us to check our own infrastructure and protect it.”
Mr Wallace said the pipeline attack was being treated as a crime by Danish and Swedish authorities.
“The legal status is that it’s in the economic zone of both Sweden and Denmark but is in international waters,” he said, cautioning “if the Russians wanted to turn up and investigate – to help – there’s nothing you can do to stop them.
“They could just turn up and do it, so it’s important we keep an eye out.”
However, the Defence Secretary said any potential offer of help from Russia during the ongoing investigation would not be taken up.
“I always think it’s best to keep the fox away from the chicken coop,” he said. (Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/)
04 Oct 22. Landmark agreements strengthen UK-Poland defence relations. The UK will enhance Poland’s military capability and strengthen the defence relationship between the two countries, following the signing of two major defence equipment agreements.
• Defence Ministers sign agreement to work closely on Air Defence Complex Weapons
• UK confirms long-term support for Poland’s rapid air defence modernisation programme following the first delivery of Narew
• Nations agreed to collaborate on Poland’s procurement of three Arrowhead-140 frigates
At the Zamość Military Base in Poland today, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence Mariusz Błaszczak signed an Air Defence Complex Weapons Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). This enables the UK and Poland to cooperate in the development and manufacture of current and future complex weapons, further strengthening the relationship built through the Defence and Security Cooperation Treaty (2017) and deepening the interoperability of our Armed Forces.
The Ministers also signed the Arrowhead-140 Statement of Intent which provides a framework for the UK Government and The Government of Poland to collaborate on the procurement and operation of three Arrowhead-140 frigates. The Polish Frigates will be a variant of the Arrowhead-140.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said:
I’m delighted to be in Zamosc today with my friend and close defence partner Marius Balszczak.
We have had a close defence alliance with Poland for over 150 years and as we face the threat from Russia, we need the equipment and the capabilities to safeguard our people and preserve European stability.
Our new agreements demonstrate that commitment and the UK’s support for Poland’s defence modernisation plans.
Today’s signing took place alongside a ceremony marking the first delivery of air defence equipment, Narew, to Poland produced in partnership with MBDA UK and Polish industry.
The complex weapons MOU provides UK support for Poland’s Short-Range Air Defence programme Narew, a key component of Poland’s rapid air defence modernisation programme, enabling further co-operation agreements in the future.
Through the MOU, the two nations will strengthen industry and government links, and support Poland in establishing sovereign capabilities for missile manufacture, providing a framework for industrial cooperation and co-development.
Managing Director of MBDA UK Chris Allam said: “To deliver Small Narew to Poland in such an extremely short timeframe is a remarkable achievement, and we’re proud that this has been accomplished through our very close partnership with Polish Grupa Zbrojeniowa and thanks to strong support from the UK government. Today’s agreements launch the next step in Polish-UK missile co-operation and underpins the PGZ-MBDA technology transfer proposal on Narew, while also supporting Pilica+, Miecznik, Tank Destroyer, and other vital projects.”
The two ministers also agreed a new working group, which will explore the potential for the UK and Polish Armed Forces to cooperate on the development of a Future Common Missile. Though requirements for the missile are still in development, it is envisioned to be a medium-to-long range, surface launched missile that can be used in both Land and Maritime environments and will be a development of the CAMM family of missiles.
Following the signing, the Defence Secretary met UK personnel deployed in Southern Poland operating Sky Sabre Air Defence systems and Challenger 2 Tanks.
During his trip to Poland, the Defence Secretary also attended the Warsaw Security Forum where he took part in the future of the Transatlantic Alliance panel discussion. (Source: https://www.gov.uk/)
03 Oct 22. Bulgaria: Government stability risks remain elevated following general election. On 2 October, general elections took place in Bulgaria, with the centre-right GERB party expected to win the most votes – around 25.4 percent –, according to preliminary results on Monday morning. Final results of the election will be announced on 6 October. GERB’s main opponent, the We Continue the Change party whose coalition collapsed this summer secured 20. 2 percent of the votes. It is almost certain that GERB will have to try and form a coalition government which will likely prove challenging considering that many opposition parties heavily criticised GEBR’s leader, former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov who previously ran the country for more than 10 years, for alleged corruption and close ties to Moscow. As such, it is highly likely that government stability risks will remain high in the country in the short to near term. (Source: Sibylline)
30 Sep 22. Nordic countries draft new playbook for defending NATO’s north. Sweden and Finland poised to join NATO, countries in the region are debating ways of more effectively defending the alliance’s northern flank, putting new divisions of labor on the table for connecting forces from the Baltic Sea to the North Sea.
The discussions are expected to culminate in a revamped military exercise in 2024, for which planning has already begun. The Norway-hosted drill, dubbed Cold Response, is a recurring exercise involving cold-weather operations. It is slated to see elevated Finnish and Swedish roles along with a name change to Nordic Response, a Norwegian defense official accompanying Defence Minister Bjørn Arild Gram to Washington told reporters earlier this month.
Central to the new thinking is a desire to view the territories of Norway, Sweden and Finland — and to some extent the other two countries considered part of the Nordic region, Denmark and Iceland — more holistically in defense plans.
While such thinking has been in the works for a while, prospective membership of all five Nordic nations in NATO has spurred new ideas.
“We already have a good cooperation on [a] broad basis, also on defense, but still: All in the same alliance will be something different,” Gram told reporters Sept. 21 following a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
There is still an awareness of different regional priorities across the contiguous land mass forming the Scandinavian Peninsula, Gram said. So casting Finland as the leader on land forces, owing to its long border with Russia, while having Norway focus on naval capabilities would be too simplistic of a view, he added.
But a cross-cutting view of the geography could highlight second-order effects previously not seen, he argued. “What happens in one area can affect the other,” he noted, citing as examples Sweden’s and Finland’s Baltic Sea orientation as well as Norway’s long western exposure to the North Atlantic’s waters.
Such an event entered global attention this week, days after Gram’s trip to Washington, as several sections of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines through the Baltic Sea sprung leaks from what NATO has labeled sabotage. Analysts now wonder if oil and gas infrastructure in the North Sea could be targets next.
The government in Oslo announced on Sept. 30 that the military would increase its readiness around critical energy installations in Norway’s water. “Norwegian Armed Forces are present and conducting patrols with assets on land, in the air, at sea, under water and in cyberspace,” reads a statement.
“The Royal Norwegian Air Force is conducting frequent patrols with F-35 fighter jets, both from Ørland Air Base and the Quick Reaction Alert out of Evenes Air Base,” the statement adds, noting that giving too much detail about defensive measures would compromise sensitive information. On Friday, aircraft were patrolling Norwegian territory, including the oil and gas facilities at the Draugen and Heidrun Oilu fields west of the country, the Norwegian Armed Forces said.
As countries in the region examine their infrastructure networks and military-basing layouts, linking air operations more closely may be one of the lower-hanging fruits. “It’s a very good example because we see that we can integrate and share infrastructure, share a common air picture and so on, Gram said. “We can cover each other, cover the whole area.” (Source: Defense News)
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