The arms business has stopped booming

Activity in the global arms trade declined 38 percent last year, according to a report released by the US Congressional Research Service.  Sales dropped from $65.2 billion in 2009 to $40.4 billion, the lowest level since 2003.

In spite of its financial crisis the US continues to lead the pack with 57.2% of the market, far ahead of second-place Russia with 19.3%.  The other top arms-exporting countries in descending order include France, United Kingdom, China, Germany and Italy.

The document, considered one of the most detailed reports available to the public, said that developed countries account for the majority of the global arms trade.  Developing countries that export the tools of war were led by India, followed by Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, Algeria, Syria, South Korea, Singapore and Jordan.

Author Richard Grimmett attributed the reduction to uncertainties in the global economy.

U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy navigating the Arctic Ocean (Photo Credit to Martin Jakobsson, Stockholm University)

Among the consequences of  global warming, the Arctic Ocean has become a more strategic region for the United States and Canada. Russian economic and military interests in the Arctic are common knowledge. They are neighbors up there, and the Arctic has strategic and security value for both Americans and Russians.

One of the U.S. protagonists in the protection of American interests in the Arctic Ocean is the United States Coast Guard (USCG).

The important role of the USCG will require higher budgets, more personnel,  better equipment  and more boats to patrol the area and respond to incidents, according to Coast Guard Commander Adm. Robert Papp, who testified Friday at a field hearing of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee in Anchorage, Alaska.

Admiral Papp  said the Coast Guard has been unable to run exercises inside the Arctic Circle due to a lack of suitable vessels that can sail those difficult waters.

Papp informed the Senate that the USCG conducted some limited coastal drills  during open water (ice-free) periods, but now Papp said in written testimony that  “the Coast Guard will require specialized vessels, aircraft, and crews trained to operate in extreme climates”.

As oil companies prepare to start exploratory drilling in the Arctic Ocean, the Coast Guard has been conducting exercises with skimming systems and oil recovery systems around Alaska  to avoid a new environmental disaster like the one in the Gulf of Mexico.

However, no exercises have occurred north of the Arctic Circle to date, Papp informed to the Senate, as oil recovery systems cannot operate in areas with too much ice.

Admiral Papp defended the White House fiscal 2012 budget´s  request for more funding of research and development on oil detection and recovery in icy water, in order to extend the U.S. capability for skimming and recovery systems.

Papp said the USCG is interested in regularly transitting ice-laden waters,  opening seasonal bases for air and boat operations in the Arctic and developing a force structure that can operate in extreme cold and ice.

The Coast Guard only has one active boat that can sail through icy seas — the Healy, a medium icebreaker, which is used for scientific research.  The USCG now plans to bring a heavy icebreaker, the Polar Star, back into service by 2013 after a major refurbishing.

Investment in more resources for the USCG is very important as oil companies are increasingly moving into the Arctic, Papp said. Shell  has submitted a plan to start exploring wells in the Arctic in the spring of 2012,  and other companies like ConocoPhillips and Statoil may soon follow.

The Pentagon-Ministry of Defense of the United States of America

The White House already has ordered the Pentagon to come up with about $ 400 billion in defense cuts over the next 12 years, a reduction that would slow the growth in defense spending to about the current rate of inflation.

There is another plan waiting in the “stove”: an additional defense cut of $600 billions, totalizing 1 trillion in defense cuts for the next 12 years.  These larger and more painful cuts of an additional $600 billion would be triggered only if Republicans and Democrats cannot come to an agreement on a second round of spending cuts in the next four months.

To find $1 trillion in savings, the White House would have to make major changes to its current global military strategy.

President of Peru Ollanta Humala announced his policy on security, public safety, drug trafficking, corruption and armed forces

In his inaugural speech to the nation, the new President of Peru, the leftist nationalist Ollanta Humala described his goals during his administration. Besides issues like foreign policy, health, education, economic development and such, President Humala described his policy on security and public safety.

In that sense, President Humala announced the following policies and guidelines for his administration:

- Humala will preside a new institution, a National Council to fight Crime and for Citizen Security Policy.
- will gradually increase the salaries of the police

- to  implement the physical labor for convicts of serious crimes

- higher penalties to deter the use of firearms in the commission of crimes of any kind

- tougher measures against rapists, or for any crime committed against a child or a child

- will fight gender violence against women and will propose a revision of the legislation
-  to execute a drug policy that strengthens the Peruvian model of comprehensive and sustainable alternative development to convert the coca farmer

- will fight to control the “alarming” increase in drug use among adolescents and youth

- oppose the legalization of drugs consumption nor illicit crops and will instead fight against illegal drug trafficking

- will have a dialog with the illicit drugs consumer countries in order to share responsibility, and will control the use of chemicals for the production of cocaine and will fight against drug gangs

- reduce the area of ​​illegal crops of coca, he will not allow the extent of illegal crops

- will take the initiative of a Regional Drug presidential summit
- considers that corruption is an element that weakens the peruvian state and affects its development and therefore corruption is a security problem. Humala will promote the applicability of corruption offenses against the State and the perpetual disqualification against the perpetrators or accomplices to the future exercise of any public function . Humala propose the elimination of conditional sentences in corruption convictions and imprisonment must be enforced effectively, and advocate the elimination of prison benefits in cases of corruption.

- regarding national defense, Humala will improve the equipment of the armed forces, will increase the payment of conscripts and installing the Armed Forces Institute of Technology for teaching specialists to graduate from military service.

Mexico police present Jesus E. Aguilar alias El Mamito. Allegedly connected to killing of U.S. ICE agent, he was member of Mexico Army and Zetas cofounder. Photo Credit AP Alexandre Meneghini

Mexico: The alleged Zetas drug cartel leader suspected of killing a U.S. customs agent has been captured. His name is Jesús Enrique Rejón Aguilar, alias “el Manito”. He is believed to be the third in command of the criminal organization founded by former elite soldiers.

Over the course of a decade, it went from being the military arm of the Gulf Cartel to its own drug-trafficking organization. Now, the Sinaloa cartel and the Zetas are the two most powerful cartels in Mexico. The Zetas control the east of the country, and the Sinaloa gang controls the west and center.  The west and center of the U.S. Mexico border is controled by the Sinaloa group, and the east border by the zetas and also by a weakened Gulf cartel.

Rejón was one of Mexico’s most-wanted men and the U.S. State Dept had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest. There is a possibility that the U.S. wants to extradite Rejón, but it will take time.

Mexican federal police said he was captured “without gunfire” outside Mexico City in the town of Atizapan on Sunday, on his way from Guatemala, which is now the center of all Zetas strategy in the south.  Rejon Aguilar was detained as he was traveling to visit his mother in his home state of Campeche, according to Mexican authorities.

Rejón is allegedly culpable of the killing of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE  agent Jaime Zapata, who was shot to death in February while driving on a highway in San Luis Potosi state.

The first statements of Rejón alias el Manito to the mexican police revealed the current strategy of Zetas in order to smuggle u.S. weapons into Mexico.

The captured Mexican crime boss said his gang purchased weapons in the United States and smuggled them across the Rio Grande river due to increased security at international crossings.

“All the arms are bought in the United States… Before we would transport them over the bridges, but now we transport them across the river, with difficulty,” he said, according to the mexican public security ministry.

The Rio Grande — known as the Rio Bravo del Norte in Mexico — forms the 1,200-mile (2,000 kilometer) border between Mexico and the US state of Texas.

“El Manito”  was one of the founders of the Zetas cartel, an Army gang of former elite soldiers who use of military tactics and weaponry, have a military organization like organized in batalions, and the Zetas worked first as hitmen in the service of the Gulf cartel, and after a few years became independent. This group is the bloodiest of all mexican criminal groups. They have also a “broad portfolio” of criminal activities, drugs, kidnappings, human smuggling, weapons, etc.

The Zetas are accused of two mass killings, one in Mexico’s northeast and one in a Guatemalan border province.

Computer Hackers Cyber Attacks and United States Defense Dept DARPA. Photo Credit to Defense Tech

The U.S. government is spending about $500 million on “cyber technologies” to fight back. A portion of this is set aside for a virtual firing range of sorts to test out what they develop.

This would also allow military personnel to simulate attacks in order to train security personnel to be ready for when an attack actually occurs. The effort is being led by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency DARPA , which was the defense department division and Pentagon’s advanced research arm , that was credited with developing the forerunner of the Internet in the 1960s

All in all, it would essentially be a mini Internet. This system called National Cyber Range NCR, is building a virtual firing range in cyberspace — a replica of the Internet on which scientists can test how successfully they can thwart feared foreign- or domestic-launched attempts to disrupt U.S. information networks.

Starting in late 2012, the NCR will also help the U.S. government to train cyberwarriors mainly in the U.S. military’s Cyber Command  also the NCR will develop advanced technologies to guard information systems.

DARPA is also working with Johns Hopkins University as well as government defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Lockheed, the U.S. government’s top information technology provider, was awarded a $30.8 million contract in January 2010 to continue to develop a prototype. Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory won a similar deal at that time.

That half billion dollars isn’t just going to this project, but also to developing defensive and also offensive cyberwar technologies.

The Pentagon considers cyber attacks such as the ones of LulzSec as potential “acts of war”.

The virtual firing range is expected to be operational by the end of this year.

It will also apparently help train cyberwarriors.

The Defense Dept and DARPA are also working on other plans to advance cyber defense, like:

a)         a program known as CRASH  that seeks to design computer systems that evolve over time, making them harder for an attacker to target.

b)       the Cyber Insider Threat program, or CINDER, would help monitor military networks for threats from within by improving detection of threatening behavior from people authorized to use them, like spies, traitors or defectors.

c)        the “Cyber Genome,” aimed at automating the discovery, identification and characterization of malicious code, which could help figure out who was behind a cyber strike.

d)       an expanded pilot program called “DIB Opt-In” , in order to boost the sharing of cybersecurity information with the U.S. defense industrial base DIB, that are companies that provide arms, supplies and other services to the U.S. Defense Dept.

Some countries are already nervous about the new cyber program of the United States, like the Chinese.

The Chinese military has a well developed cyber spy program, but want to develop it even further, now for defense purposes.

“The U.S. military is hastening to seize the commanding military heights on the Internet, and another Internet war is being pushed to a stormy peak,” the Chinese military wrote in its official newspaper, Liberation Army Daily. “Their actions remind us that to protect the nation’s Internet security, we must accelerate Internet defense development and accelerate steps to make a strong Internet army.” The daily reflects also the official opinion of China’s ruling communist party.  China is also afraid of receiving hacking attempts like the recent ones on U.S. corporations and government organizations.

CIA Director Leon Panetta testifies at his Senate confirmation hearings to become U.S. Secretary of Defense on Capitol Hill Washington, June 9, 2011. Photo Credit to REUTERS/Jim Young

“The next great battle America faces is likely to involve cyberwarfare, the next Pearl Habor that we confront could very well be a cyberattack that cripples America’s electrical grid and its security and financial systems” said Mr. Panetta , the CIA  Director, who was appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee in a confirmation hearing for the post of secretary of defense, and added “it’s going to take both defensive measures as well as aggressive measures to deal with that,”

Before Panetta´s nomination as Defense Minister is approved, the Pentagon already is working on a new cyber doctrine of  national security.

According to the Defense Department new cyberwarfare policies that have yet to be officially unveiled,  any computer-based attack by an adversary nation that damages US critical infrastructure or  US military readiness could be considered as an “act of war.”

The Pentagon worries about a  cybersabotage  in order to attack US infrastructure or military systems. This “cyber doctrine” could trigger an american “use of force”, that means a response in terms of bombs and bullets.  Recently a  Wall Street Journal article revealed the existence of the cyber doctrine document.

The article does not specify if the Pentagon document does indeed lay out what the United States considers an “attack” worthy of an american military response.

It is also important to say that no all cyber attacks are going to be backed by enemy nations, but could be organized by more gray organizations, composed by an anonymous cohort of civilians around the world. Does attacks does not fit within the international Law of Armed Combat.  F.e. if  compared to what happened to Al Qaeda ten years ago, it was reasonably easy for the U.S. to define an enemy state, a casus belli, which was the Taliban regime in Afganistan, who gave shelter to Al Qaeda.  But in the case of a multinational and clandestine organization, the way to counterattack is not so easy to define.   What should the U.S. do in those cases? Black Ops? Should the intelligence community intervene? Or is it more a matter of cyber counter insurgence?

Who does the US retaliate against if an attack comes from a computer in Miami or Washington DC?

One thing is clear: the US are not just going to respond to cyberattacks with just cyber countermeasures. If somebody really cripples the US electric grid, a nuclear power plant, or starts to kill people with cyberattacks the U.S. will retaliate.

The Defense Department will submit this document to the review of Leon Panetta, as soon as he get appointed as the new U.S. Minister of Defense.

In the meantime, the US has created a new Cyber Command in 2010 to defend the nation and conduct offensive cyberattacks.

The twelve Defense Ministers of the UNASUR plus spanish representatives will have Security Summit in Quito June 7th Photo Credit Reuters

The 7th Ibero-American Security and Defence Summit will meet beginning next Tuesday June 7th in Quito (Ecuador) , where representatives from 11 countries will discuss multilateral relations in the context of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

The meeting will involve representatives from Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, Ecuador, Spain, Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.

The opening will be made by Ecuadorian Defense Minister Javier Ponce, the Director of Institutional Relations of the Ministry of Defence of Spain, Fernando Flores, and the director of the Institute “Gutiérrez Mellado” of Spain , Mr. Miguel Requena.

Participants will discuss different concepts of security, the European experience as a public safety project, the practical application of concepts of security in the governmental policies, and new hemispheric agenda for security and defense in the region.

Other topics on the agenda include security, military spending, organized crime, regional cooperation and regional initiatives.

Irans-President-Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-meets-Venezuelas-President-Hugo-Chavez-in-Tehran.

U.S. President Barack Obama hit Venezuela and its state-oil company PDVSA with sanctions for sending Iran two tankers of oil in defiance of U.S. sanctions against Iran.

There is a risk of escalation of the conflict between U.S. and Chavez.

If Chavez decides to keep sending the occasional oil tanker to Iran, or PDVSA carries out a plan to invest in an Iranian natural gas project, Obama could come under pressure to take substantive action, possibly excluding PDVSA from the U.S. financial system which would affect debt, or in the worst-case scenario, limiting imports from Venezuela.

Meanwhile, Chavez is due to reveal what action, if any, Venezuela will take in retaliation possibly…READ MORE HERE

Nine Bell 212 helicopters similar to this one, have been seized by Spanish police before being ilegally sold to Iran and Venezuela.

Spanish police stopped the illegal sale of nine military transport helicopters – Bell 212- to Iran and chopper spare parts to Venezuela.  The police operation, which took place simultaneously in Madrid and Barcelona, led to the arrests of five Spanish businessmen and three Iranian nationals, reports say. The five Spanish businessmen are suspected of trying to export the US-made aircraft, while the three Iranians are accused of negotiating the purchase of military material.

According to the Israeli news media Haaretz, the U.S. made helicopters were sold by Israel’s defense ministry to a Spanish businessman named Pedro Matorna, who intended to sell them for fire-fighting services in Spain.  The helicopters had been in storage after years of use by the Israeli Air Force. The Spanish businesspeople paid $20 million to the Israeli Defense Ministery, and the deal between Israel and the Spanish was made with U.S. government approval, given that the helicopters were manufactured in the U.S. The purchase was approved after Matorna’s company submitted documents declaring that the helicopters would be sold on for use in fire-fighting services.

When it turned out that the helicopters were unsuitable for this use, the Spanish company looked for another buyer in order to get rid of the stock, planning to sell them on to Iran.

The Spanish bought the helicopters for $20 million (according to israeli media Haaretz) and the sales price to the Iranians (allegedly Iran´s military) was $140 million (100 million euros) . A $120 million spread..  The difference in both amounts also show that the Spaniards allegedly knew they were doing something illegal, and the risk was priced in $120 million. And the iranians were buying very expensive, for sure…

Iran is banned from buying attack helicopters under UN sanctions.

In the operation, dubbed “Nam”, the police raided industrial warehouses in Madrid and Barcelona and snatched helicopters destined for Iran, and aviation spare parts allegedly destined for export to Venezuela.

The total value of the helicopters and spares to be paid by the Iranians was 100m euros ($140m), the police said.

The helicopters, which were used to transport troops and military equipment in Israel, and spares for these type of helicopters were being prepared for assembly and disassembly before export to Iran and Venezuela, police said. The choppers have a top speed of 230 kph (140 mph) and an average range of 600 kilometres (370 miles).

Police said they found out -allegedly from intelligence sources- about the arrival in Spain of the Iranian purchasers who had come to formalise the deal which led to their operation being launched.

The Spanish companies flouted export requirements, failing to obtain licences for the export of military materiel or so-called dual-use goods that can have military applications, police said.

Under UN sanctions adopted last year, Iran is banned from buying heavy weapons such as attack helicopters and missiles