KGS NightWatch

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xpost from thread in FFYa i just made

are any of you subscribed to this nightly newsletter? it's pretty awesome, they send you a nightly email of the international events that went down. here's what they say about themselves

NightWatch is an internationally acclaimed nightly newsletter that tracks and assesses threats to US national security. It has an edgy, executive style unlike any other product of its kind.

more can found here

they write their main posts as objectively as possible, then separate a section to add a writer's comment at the end. they have writers on both sides of the political spectrum and always have some cool insight to offer when available.

the nightly reports vary in lengths, i'll post the most recent one below.

NightWatch

For the night of 25 July 2012


North Korea: For the record. North Korean official media clarified that Kim Jong-un is married to Ri Sol ju. She is the woman who has appeared in public with Kim.


Comment: The prominence given to the marriage of a Kim leader is refreshing, mainly because his father and grandfather were adulterers who hid their affairs. The deceased elder Kims had multiple girlfriends and wives and never gave prominence to any, except after they died.


The upside is that the new Kim leader appears more open than any of his forbears. The downside is that there probably will be more Kims to perpetuate a manifestly incompetent family dynasty.


Special Comment: The longstanding NightWatch position is that the North Korean people have deserved far better leadership than they have gotten from the Kim family. The achievements of the South Korean democracy and free market capitalism are the proofs of the concept. In other words, a democratically, capitalistic elected government would have outperformed the Kims exponentially, given the commitment to education, the work ethic and the energy of the North Korean work force.


North Korea-US: North Korea's Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling for the United States to end its historically hostile policies toward Pyongyang by signing a peace treaty, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). The statement added that both parties must be on an equal footing and stop antagonizing each other before dialogue can be effective.


Comment: The idea that the US and North Korea would ever be equal parties is preposterous from the start, but Republican and Democrat administrations have been willing to accept that contention just to talk with North Korean negotiators. The North understands the game and that US administrations do not last as long as North Korean governments.


Pakistan: The Ashraf government informed the Supreme Court of Pakistan that it would not re-open the corruption case against President Zardari, despite the Court's clear order last month. The Swiss have indicated they have no intention or re-opening the graft case against Zardari, which is now over a decade old.


Comment: The key issue is whether the Pakistan government will follow orders from the judiciary. The Gilani government fell because it refused, and the Ashraf government has put itself in the same quandary. Thus far, Pakistan does not appear to be a country that follows its own laws at the highest levels of government.


Ashraf, like Gilani, swore to enforce and uphold the laws. Ashraf is following Gilani in deliberately refusing to uphold the laws that their parties enacted in the Pakistani National Assembly. Ashraf is liable to be held in contempt of the Supreme Court and required to resign.


Greece: For the record. The head of Greece's joint chiefs of staff, Lt. Gen. Constantinos Ziazias, resigned from his post on 25 July. Ziazias resigned in protest at demands to shuffle top-level officers as a measure to create savings, unnamed sources said. Apparently few Greeks are prepared to accept any real cutbacks, including the armed forces.


End of NightWatch for 25 July.


NightWatch is brought to you by Kforce Government Solutions, Inc. (KGS), a leader in government problem-solving, Data Confidence® and intelligence. Views and opinions expressed in NightWatch are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of KGS, its management, or affiliates.

here is their main page for subscriptions and more info and archived posts if you are interested

tell me what you guys think~

[Wayward Vagabond]

This is interesting I'll check out their archive before making any decision regarding subscription though.

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do it brah

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tonight's NightWatch:

NightWatch

For the night of 27 July 2012


Russia: For the record. The Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, Vice Admiral Chirkov said today that Moscow is involved in talks toward establishing naval bases in Cuba, Vietnam and the Seychelles.


Comment: This is the first public notice of any plan to build more bases.


Iran-Syria: The Deputy Commander of the Revolutionary Guards, a general, said today, "Neither the friends of Syria nor the (anti-Israel) resistance movement (comprising Iranian, Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanon's Hezbollah forces) have yet entered the scene… If they do, they will deliver decisive blows to the enemy front, in particular to the despised Arabs."


Comment: This is the third high-level Iranian official to threaten expansion of the conflict. Apparently the Iranians judge there are good Arabs and despised Arabs. A consistent theme of all recent statements is Iranian understanding that the fight is between them and Saudi Arabia, as much as between Shiites and Sunnis.


Syria-Turkey-Kurds: Special comment. An ominous side bar. On 23 July, the day after the bombing in Damascus that killed senior defense and security officials, Syria police and security officers left at least six small towns populated mostly by Syrian Kurds. The forces ostensibly were needed elsewhere. The Kurds are as oppressed by Arabs in Syria as they are in in Iraq and by the Turks, so they took over the towns.


There are two versions of what happened in the media. One is that Syrian President Asad deliberately granted semi-autonomy to the Syrian Kurds as a means of putting counter-pressure on the Turks who are backing the Syrian opposition.


The other version is that Syrian government forces left and the local Syrian Kurdish leaders, primarily belonging to the Democratic Union Party (PYD), just took control of Kobane, Derek, Amude, Efrin, Sari Kani and Girke Lege. No deal was struck.


Syrian forces still control the largest Kurdish town in Syria, Qamishli, a town of 185,000, but reportedly are working with the PYD. Overall, the evidence favors a deliberate Arab decision in Damascus to use the Kurds against the Turks.


Syrian Kurds are spread out and intermixed with Assyrians in northeastern Syria. There are less than 2 million Syrian Kurds, far fewer than the Kurds in Turkey or Iraq. Nevertheless, they share the fantasy of a Kurdish independent homeland.


The Syrian Kurds are fractious, but lately have received moral, political and probably economic support from Iraq's Kurdish Autonomous Region government. One rumor is that 600 Syrian Kurds received military training by the Iraqi Kurds and have returned to Syria to defend the towns. The Syrian Kurds in the PYD are affiliated with the PKK, the longstanding secular and socialist Kurdish armed insurgency that has fought for Kurdish independence against Turkey for over 20 years.


The Syrian Kurds have tended to remain neutral in the fighting. While they oppose the Asad regime, they distrust the Sunni opposition, whose titular leader, ironically, is an ethnic Kurd. Sunni leaders already have said the Kurds would be afforded no autonomy in a new Syrian regime. The Syrian Kurds said they would not allow the opposition to operate in their area.


Turks near panic

The most interesting development is Turkey's extreme reaction to the idea of a second region in which Kurds are running their own government. Iraq's is the first. The Turks interpret whatever is happening among Syrian Kurds as a direct threat to Turkey.


Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that "if the PKK and PYD, in solidarity with one another, take even a single further step by drawing other formations to their side, it is not possible for us to look on with tolerance in this regard, and merely watch this. All precautionary measures are being taken in connection with this issue. Both our armed forces and our other relevant units on this issue are continuing their work." Turkey sent armored reinforcements to the border this week.


Erdogan also said, "There can be no question of our permitting a terrorist organization to set up camp in northern Syria or this to become an element of threat for our country." Prime Minister Erdogan was responding to questions from journalists at Ankara Airport prior to departing for Great Britain in order to attend the opening of the London Olympics.


The threat to Turkey is that northern Syria could become a safe haven for anti-Turkish Kurdish militia fighters from which to stage raids into southern Turkey, as they have done for years from northern Iraq. If Turkey intervenes with military force, the risk for Turkey is that it will appear to be a villainous, covetous country that is exploiting the Syrian fighting for its own parochial interests.


Final thoughts

The key points are that all allegiances in the current fight are based on expediency and are temporary. For example, the Syrian militants might ultimately find Iran to be an effective counterweight to Saudi Arabia, the Turks and the US, as long as their long term goal was to defeat Israel.


The ripple effects of the Syrian fighting are unpredictable and uncontrollable. Now that the Western states, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have unleashed the most ancient poisons in Syria, the ethnic and sectarian side effects easily can extend into Turkey, Iraq and far beyond.


Iran, for example, almost certainly would help the Syrian Kurds if that helped hobble the Turks and the American/Saudi-backed opposition. The statement by the Deputy Chief of the Revolutionary Guards signals that the Qods force and the Guards are ready for action, anywhere in the world, but specifically in the Arab states.


Al Maliki in Iraq must help Syria or risk an escalation of the new Sunni uprising in Iraq. Hezbollah and Hamas also will have a role in undermining the western support operations for the Syrian opposition.


Turkey will be tempted to send special forces units into Syrian Kurdistan, as it has done for years into Iraqi Kurdistan.


In the past 30 years the strategic foundation of the Middle East rested importantly on a relatively predictable Syria as well as on a strong Israel. The organizational skills of Islamists and the inept meddling of outside powers have undermined that foundation in the past two years and the next stable set of conditions is not foreseeable. The turmoil and forces now in motion are much more dangerous than any previously seen in two generations.


If the Alawite government falls, all the Arab governments will be at increased risk. The outlook for the security of Israel is growing darker.


End of NightWatch for 27 July.

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NightWatch

For the night of 30 July 2012


China-North Korea: Senior Chinese and North Korean party officials met in Pyongyang on Monday, according to official North Korean media outlets. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Wang Jiarui, head of the Communist Party of China's International Department, arrived in Pyongyang on Monday and later held talks with Kim Yong Il, a secretary of the Korean Workers' Party's Central Committee.


The two officials "informed each other of their party activities and exchanged views on boosting the traditional friendly and cooperative relations between the two parties and countries and on other matters of mutual concern," KCNA said without providing further details.


Comment: The Chinese delegation might be arranging a visit to Beijing by young Kim, as suggested in some South Korean analyses, but the Chinese certainly want to learn more about the political situation in North Korea. An exchange of high level military delegations is the next likely step.


Syria: The US warned Syrian opposition forces not to completely disband Syrian President Bashar al Assad's security and government apparatus if al Assad is killed or forced from power, according to U.S. officials.


Comment: Those formulating policy on Syria hope to avoid the administrative disaster in Iraq that followed from the dismantling of the Ba'ath Party government in Baghdad. Syria is not Iraq and the two situations are not even remotely comparable. The US has no forces in Syria so the Syrian opposition will do as it chooses.


Egypt: Update. Newly appointed Prime Minister Hisham Qandil stated on Monday that he has filled 70 per cent of Cabinet seats, and would present his list to President Mursi. He also said he would announce his new cabinet on 2 August.


Spain: For the record. According to data released by the National Statistics Institute on 27 July, unemployment levels in Spain rose to 24.63 percent of the workforce in the second quarter, rising from 24.4 percent. The figure amounts to more than 5.7 million people without jobs.


The unemployment figure for people under the age of 25 rose to 53 percent, from 52 percent in the previous quarter. The unemployment figure is double the EU's average and the highest reported across the euro area.


Comment: The youth unemployment rate is such that Readers should expect public disorders. It will take Spain half a generation to make up for the lost jobs.


End of NightWatch for 30 July.

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