World War III

This is stolen from behind The Times paywall . Quite worrying from an NZ perspective , Oceania is left wide open if a European war breaks out and the US is occupied fighting there . It doesn’t look like they have the resources to be in Europe and the pacific at the same time .

Will they have qualified heads of agencies capable of running the military at the level needed ? The current generals and advisors and a whole lot more who have established working relationships with NATO countries during the Ukraine conflict will probably be thinking about personal exit strategies right now . I’m not sure the US has two sets of upper tier military management to draw upon and the incoming Sec of Defence doesn’t inspire confidence .

The emerging axis of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea has created “the most serious and dangerous challenge” for the West since the Second World War, a former top US military chief has told The Times.

General Jack Keane, a retired four-star general and former vice-chief of the US Army, is one of the most influential military figures in Washington. Everyone seeks his advice, Democrats and Republicans, including the man who is to be the 47th president.

They go way back. When Donald Trump won the election in 2016, he wanted Keane to be his defence secretary. But Keane’s wife had just died, and he reluctantly declined the job.

Jack Keane says the arrival of 10,000 North Korean troops in Ukraine is the biggest escalation of the war
Jack Keane says the arrival of 10,000 North Korean troops in Ukraine is the biggest escalation of the war
RICK WILKING/REUTERS
Now with Trump about to return to the Oval Office, Keane has been laying out the challenges ahead. The war in Ukraine is top of the list of dangers for Trump’s administration.


“China, Russia. Iran and North Korea are working effectively together. What has happened is that they have perceived us, the US, to be weak and that we have lost the political will to confront them,” he said.[/i]



[/i]He warned that the danger will have to be rapidly addressed when Trump takes power in January. It will mean a comprehensive change to rebuild the military, fix the ossified business practices and replenish the defence industrial base, he added.
Nowhere is the axis of China, Russia and North Korea more clearly defined than in the war in Ukraine, where thousands of troops from Pyongyang are now fighting alongside Russian soldiers against Ukrainian forces who seized territory in western Russia’s Kursk region in August. Iran has supplied drones.
“At the moment there are 10,000 North Korean troops who have joined the Russians,” Keane said. “But do we have the beginnings of a pipeline of North Korean troops coming to support Russia, another country fighting alongside Russia to try and overthrow Ukraine? This is the biggest escalation of the war.”
Ukrainian forces seized territory in western Russia’s Kursk region in August — but Russia has since gained reinforcements
Ukrainian forces seized territory in western Russia’s Kursk region in August — but Russia has since gained reinforcements
MAKSYM KISHKA/REUTERS
This week’s launching by Ukraine of the US Atacms long-range missile and Britain’s Storm Shadow cruise missile into Russia for the first time, and President Putin’s firing of an experimental intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile against Ukraine in retaliation, have raised the danger levels of a potential global war.
Could there be a peace settlement, promised by Trump, with such an inflammatory atmosphere increasing by the day? “Putin is accelerating things. I’m in favour of negotiating with Putin when it is in Ukraine’s best interest. But I don’t think he wants to negotiate a deal. He would rather take the whole country,” Keane said.
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“However, he has significant challenges. He’s been trying to take the whole Donbas region in the east for eight months,” he added. “But he has had only small successes, no major gains, and he’s suffering 30,000 casualties every month. In October it was 57,000. That’s staggering.”
President Xi and President Putin at the Brics meeting in Russia last month. Keane says the axis believes the US has lost the political will to confront them
President Xi and President Putin at the Brics meeting in Russia last month. Keane says the axis believes the US has lost the political will to confront them
MAXIM SHEMETOV/REUTERS
Keane suggested that Putin could struggle to increase the number of troops on the front line. “He doesn’t want to go for another mobilisation because of the fear of stirring up protest. He won’t go to recruit in western Russia where the educated live, he goes to the rural areas and poor communities and gives them money to join up. He’s avoiding a national call-up because he knows it will be resisted.”
When the soldiers from these poor families are killed, Keane said, they received the equivalent of $150,000 for every dead body. “For people in impoverished communities, it’s a huge figure and it buys their silence,” he said.
“He also has significant equipment problems. Russia has lost so many tanks and other armoured vehicles his industrial base can’t keep up. Thousands of vehicles have been destroyed.”
Jack Keane in Iraq as a military adviser in 2007. Donald Trump wanted him as his defence secretary in 2016 but he was unable to take up the job
Jack Keane in Iraq as a military adviser in 2007. Donald Trump wanted him as his defence secretary in 2016 but he was unable to take up the job
PETER NICHOLLS FOR THE TIMES
He said drones had changed the face of war in Ukraine, moving away from Russia’s traditional strength, tanks. “It was always said that the best way to destroy a tank was with another tank. But that’s not the case anymore. Drones and anti-tank weapons and anti-tank mines have taken over.”
Will Trump do as he pledged and start to end the war on his first day in office?
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“I think there’s a difference between what has been said in the campaign and what is now being discussed among the people with the responsibility for dealing with the war,” Keane said. “These people are all getting classified briefings and they know that what is needed is a favourable outcome for Ukraine, at a minimum, when negotiations begin.
“The pressure on [President] Zelensky is enormous. This is not about giving up the 18 per cent of territory the Russians have seized, it’s about human lives. The Ukrainians living in these areas will be subjugated under Russian domination. This is what Zelensky cannot allow to happen. He needs leverage so that he gives up less territory. That’s why we have to give him everything he needs.”
To meet the growing threat from the new anti-West axis, Keane envisages significant changes at the Pentagon. As co-chairman of a congressional commission which examined every facet of President Biden’s defence strategy, Keane gained unique insight into the way the Pentagon appears to have failed to adapt to meet the new security challenges.
• Will Russia use nuclear weapons? Putin’s options explained
“Our assessment was that the DoD [Department of Defence] challenges were more formidable than at any time in eight decades,” he said. “In the last four years we haven’t increased our defence budget because of inflation. It has been flat under Biden. This was irresponsible and reckless.”
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He contrasted this to the “extraordinary” acceleration in China’s defence spending. “The acceleration in their defence capabilities has been extraordinary and they outgun us in every platform except submarines. Meanwhile our army is the smallest it has been since prior to the Second World War, the air force is the smallest for 40 years and our navy, which needs 360 ships, is something in the low 290s and there is no hope of getting even close to the number we need for ten to 15 years.”
All this, he said, may have left the West, and America in particular, ill-prepared to fight a global conflict.
“The Trump team has got decisions to make and they are going to have to be made pretty soon. We have war in Europe and war in the Middle East and President Xi threatening war. There is the potential for the first time since the second world war of another global war.
“We were prepared when we had the Soviet Union but are we prepared now to confront a global war? The Pentagon has a lot of work to do.
“One of the problems is that our defence industrial base is depleted. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union we had 55 Tier 1 defence companies [biggest and best]. Today we have just five, such as General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin. That gives you a sense of how the industry has collapsed.
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Kim Jong-un has provided boots on the ground for Putin’s forces
Kim Jong-un has provided boots on the ground for Putin’s forces
STR/KCNA VIA KNS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
“The war in Ukraine has been a major learning lesson. We have raided our war stocks to send weapons to Ukraine. When we do war games now with China in mind we find that the key weapon systems run out after two weeks or at least in several weeks. We could lose. That needs to be fixed.
“The war in Ukraine has been a major learning lesson. We have raided our war stocks to send weapons and munitions to Ukraine and it forced us to come to grips with what the stockpiles should be for our use. When we conduct war games now with China in mind we find that some key weapon systems run out after two weeks and others in several weeks, which means we could lose. That needs to be fixed.”
He continued: “We have to reach out to the commercial non-defence sector to purchase items they can produce very rapidly. At the moment we can’t just go out and buy 8,000 drones. Compare this with Ukraine. By the end of this year they will have developed in Ukraine 1.4 million drones with some the help from US and European companies operating in Ukraine. Next year they aim to have five million. We build a few at best hundred drones a year. The Pentagon is trying now to turn this around.
He said he would urge Trump to lobby Congress to provide “more agility so that we can buy drones off the shelf and get them into operation”. He added: “We have to change the Pentagon’s business practices. We have thousands of civilians involved with these weapons programmes but it’s all about cost and performance.”
He said defence procurement was “risk-averse”, adding: “We test, test, test everything and it drags on. It takes too long. If we don’t change the business practices in the Pentagon any increase in the defence budget in the next administration will just be squandered.
“Again, look at Ukraine. They have managed to do serious damage to the Russian navy just by developing and deploying weapons such as underwater drones and they have done it over a very short time. We need to buy weapon systems in bulk. We can’t wait years to get them through Congress.”
Keane suggested the president-elect could change the status quo which is “no longer viable”. He added: “The Trump team are coming up with names; the sort of people who will turn things round.”