26 AUG 2011 Notes with USMC

26 AUG 2011 Notes with USMC

Deliverable (Paper)

-Preparation for Gen Stewart

-Relevant to Marine issues (forecast for Marine leaders)

-To help with Title 10 responsibilities- manning, training, equipment- because USMC currently has no forecasting capability

-Short, succinct doc- 10 pages, 1 and 1/2 space exec summary style over 36 months (wanted a little over a year and little less than 5 years- for commandant who has 3 more years)

-Timeline of a month and a half

-Internal STRATFOR deadline is Sept 15 for follow up meeting September 23 and polish by Oct. 1

-Start with open source and build net assessments with that

-Include opportunity analysis- Tell commandant what risks and opportunities are- beyond just describing and getting insight

-Marine attaches, key countries being wined and dined, who gets their attention and influence

-Opportunity- ensure that the Black Sea ops continue or add Balt ops

-1/3 attaches move every 3-5 years

-Useful to know things like blowback- If we really get active with Visegrad and Nordic group there could be blowback from Russians

-Knowledge for equipment, training, repositioning of assets

-Model: making case that 80% of real knowledge is in open and classified is not the place to start

-Structure- tiered and essay form…3-tier and explain elegantly in a paragraph and we can provide more later if there are questions

-We need substantial justification in house but present an exec summary

-Cover brushfires- in places such as Liberia, Latam, Haiti, Bangladesh. Must have a section that talks about unexpected situations. Higher degree of unexpected at a lower level of intensity. Look at the “shatter belt”

Regions:

East Asia (Rodger)

-North Korea prepped to do an explosion when needed. Recent meetings with Russia and China. South Koreans begging US to restart talks. (George) Impressive strategy for North Korea at center of US, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea

-China- economic strains overwhelming political framework and countries on periphery economically exploiting- Vietnam

-Potential deployment- Philippines and Vietnam

-Issue with China forecast- Chinese manages to hold things together by changing internal social structure- push interior to manufacture for the coast- able to mess with South China Sea

-Other places to look- Melanesian group, Irian Jaya

Europe (Lauren)

-Nordic battle group is formed by 2014

-(George) For Europe we need to cover elections held, impact of those elections, our forecasts, and change in European structure

-Elections 2012-2013 Germany (Green Party or SPD?) and France (Le Pen's group- Front National)

-SPD Schroder is on board of Gazpromand close to Putin

-Ultra-nationalists in France are doing well and they all hate NATO

Russia (Lauren and George)

-Russia is picking up assets in Europe

-Russia can break Latvia to make it pro-Russian

-Russian troops in Belarus, treaty signed and ratified to put troops on border any time

-Poles will be going nuts

-Russia-Belarus (and Ukraine might be joining) exercise to invade Poland and Baltics

-Look at Visegrad and Nordic groups

-Visegrad 2016- Hungary, Czech Rep, Slovakia, Poland will form but already informal ties

-Practical matter- Poles done with NATO and looking at Visegrad

-Baltics will have significant exercises

-Russians will take another bite out of Georgia

-Black Sea- Russian military expanding Black Sea from 2013-2018 and first subs arrive in 2013

-Chatter to build second navy in Novorossiysk

-Opportunities for unexpected conflict in Baltics/Black Sea

Af/Pak (George)

-US is trying to leave Afghanistan- talks opening and closing between US and Taliban

-Pak says no troops behind- does pres control what happens in Afghanistan anyways?

-Reduced US footprint dramatically, coalition gov't that is unraveling and much nicer Pakistan with Afghanistan

Middle East (Reva and George)

-Major increase in Iranian power and Marines will be called to Persian Gulf in various points outside Iran

-Higher degrees of US cooperation with Turkey

-Instability in Syria plays into Iraq and Lebanon

-Chance for a new civil war in Lebanon

-Israel has had it's fill of Lebanon- why would US get involved?

-Interesting question for the Turks. Could see more US training assignments in Turkey

-Increased Iranian presence in Syria and Lebanon

-Egypt- crisis between Egypt and Israel- we see signs that Hamas is looking to create a situation where Israel has to look at going back in to Sinai under preemptive condition. Israel accepted Egypt putting forces in Sinai but that causes remilitarization in Sinai

-What if mil gov't falls in Egypt?

-Look at Yemen disintegration

Africa

-Nigeria- 2014 blowing up pipelines possibility with election (US buys 1mbd from Nigeria) Significant (1/2) output from Nigeria but there are others like Angola to supply (low probability intervention)

-What does US need to do to provide energy security in region?

-Somalia can be contained by contracting Ethiopians- listening post in Ethiopia- Addis Ababa- in order to know what the Somalis, Ugandans and Eritreans are thinking

-Angola- energy security- 2 million bpd- wound up regime with some anti-government forces and history of change through violent conflict

Latin America and Mexico (Karen and Stick)

-Venezuela and Cuba- Chavez's illness is not stopping him (another election)

-Venezuela subsidizes Cuba

-Problems in Cuba- will have a transition in next three years but Raul can take over for Fidel

-Could see an outflow of immigrants or European style uprising and request for intervention if there are succession issues

-Cuba-Venezuela crisis together is bad. Double crisis.

-Mexico in 2013- Don’t see violence continuing to escalate and critical HVTs are taken down

-If they cannot take out HVTs from Zetas then Mexican public opinion will finally agree for more US intervention as in Colombia

-Intervention is dangerous with sanctuary in US and we don’t have the forces

-If we got the green light we could rapidly take out HVTs- if you know who they are

-Quality of intel is poor and ID of who HVTs are is urban legend

-Enemy is not going to stand inside the border but there is the question of if they can do more along lines of what we saw in Colombia

2012-2013 The big years for elections

-Chinese

-Russian

-French

-Americans

-Germans

-South Koreans

-Indonesians

-More elections (will have intern put together list)

-These elections will cause fundamental shifts in internal politics and strain on NATO

-Have had a period of stability in leadership, especially in Europe, China and Russia

-American foreign policy is built on relationshipsthat are impacted by elections

Two types of crises the USMC could be involved in: Systematic and Contingent

Systemic crisis-South China Sea, Persian Gulf, Suez, Sinai

Contingent crisis- West Africa, Latin American

Sandbox

1. Drawdown Afghanistan
2. Iran as conventional power- Persian Gulf ops
3. Suez Op
4. Beirut/Levant

Europe

1. Visegrad/Nordic/Baltic Interventions
2. Georgia/Black Sea

Asia

1. South China Sea
2. Phillipines

Africa

1. Nigeria

Latam

1. Venezuela
2. Cuba (higher probability than Ven)

Mexico

Weapons/Military(Nate)

-Review future technologies such as hypersonics, G-RAM (?), Adversaries have guided missiles- precision

-China and diffusing g-rams (expensive)

-Amphibious capability- killed strategic vehicle for USMC(5th generation fighters vs amphibious ops)

-We need to emphasize that amphibious ops are necessary (come to conclusion on our own, which we’ve already done)

-Emerging weapons threats

-Hypersonic, space and other weapons systems that could proliferate to low tier activities

-Also cover- What does the adversary look like?

-How to control the Israelis is the important thing- using weapons for leverage

-Iran- capable covert actions, special ops, effective at supporting indigenous armies, access to great training, all resources, weakness is forces they support

-Egypt- what is the state of the Egyptian army at that time? Don’t come in on amphibious craft, choppers, and Egypt has good artillery

-We are now used to non state actors

-We need to draw conclusions about what type of enemy we are facing

-We need to study the force they are fighting and look at it from the point of view of the military guy rather than a political guy

-Build a model and really look at the enemy and ID what he is really like

-Also need to integrate tactical knowledge on Mexico

About USMC:

-SDO and service attaches… SDO is colonel (coveted position) and then there are the USMC attaches. Currently only 3 USMC SDOs

-Marines can go to all meetings so get the full picture and get access to everything. They can immediately rise to the top in those countries.

-Key places for attaches (we won’t provide a list but the conclusions will be made based on our forecast) Pakistan, Turkey, Kuwait, UAE, Egypt, Israelis, Lebanon, Turkey is key, Philippines, Taiwan, Australians, Indonesia, Nigeria, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia