New Nork Nuke Noodling

The Norks have supposedly set off a new underground nuclear test. CNN reports...

North Korea said Tuesday that it had conducted a new, more powerful underground nuclear test using more sophisticated technology, jolting the already fragile security situation in Northeast Asia and drawing condemnation from around the globe.
It is the first nuclear test carried out under the North's young leader, Kim Jong Un, who appears to be sticking closely to his father's policy of building up the isolated state's military deterrent to keep its foes at bay, shrugging off the resulting international condemnation and sanctions.
Although Pyongyang had announced plans for the test in recent, vitriolic statements, its decision to go ahead with it provided a stark reminder of a seemingly intractable foreign policy challenge for President Barack Obama ahead of his State of the Union address later Tuesday.
The test was designed "to defend the country's security and sovereignty in the face of the ferocious hostile act of the U.S.," the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, referring to new U.S.-led sanctions on Pyongyang in the wake of a recent long-range rocket launch.

Put on your predictor hats - what happens next?



By: Brant

Is China Finally Willing to Wrangle the Norks?

We know the Norks are prepping for another launch. Is China finally willing to get tough on their sidekicks?

North Korea said on Thursday it would carry out further rocket launches and a nuclear test that would target the United States, dramatically stepping up its threats against a country it called its "sworn enemy".
The announcement by the country's top military body came a day after the U.N. Security Council agreed to a U.S.-backed resolution to censure and sanction North Korea for a rocket launch in December that breached U.N. rules.
"We are not disguising the fact that the various satellites and long-range rockets that we will fire and the high-level nuclear test we will carry out are targeted at the United States," North Korea's National Defence Commission said, according to state news agency KCNA.
North Korea is believed by South Korea and other observers to be "technically ready" for a third nuclear test, and the decision to go ahead rests with leader Kim Jong-un who pressed ahead with the December rocket launch in defiance of the U.N. sanctions.
China, the one major diplomatic ally of the isolated and impoverished North, agreed to the U.S.-backed resolution and it also supported resolutions in 2006 and 2009 after Pyongyang's two earlier nuclear tests.
Thursday's statement by North Korea represents a huge challenge to Beijing as it undergoes a leadership transition with Xi Jinping due to take office in March.
China's Foreign Ministry called for calm and restraint and a return to six-party talks, but effectively singled out North Korea, urging the "relevant party" not to take any steps that would raise tensions.

By: Brant

Israel and Iran, Again

Yep, it's been awhile since we ran an article about Israel's concern with Iran's nuke program. Are we getting closer to open warfare? Or is Israel waiting for Assad to implode in Syria before doing anything so as not to give the world a distraction from what's happening there?

It is often hard for Americans to grasp the idea of an existential threat to a nation. While one existed for Americans during the Cold War, since then the notion that any single actor with any single act could effectively obliterate Americans or their lifestyle is very hard for many people to get their brains around. But that is exactly the threat that Israelis face from even a "limited" Iranian nuclear attack. And though it is reasonable to debate whether the Iranians would actually use such a weapon against Israel given the likely consequences for them, from the Israeli perspective, given Iranian threats and actions, the risks of guessing wrong about the intent of the leaders in Tehran are so high that inaction could easily be seen to be the imprudent path.

This summarizes the carefully worded case made last week in the Wall Street Journal by Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. His article was nothing less than a case for war, and, over lunch on Friday, Aug. 10, he underscored to me how much thought and care was put into its drafting. (Oren is, for the record, my longtime very good friend.) The response to the article included the unlikely endorsement of its core points by Khalid Al Khalifa, the foreign minister of Bahrain, who tweeted it with the words "Time Is Short For Iran Diplomacy." It also was seen as one of the most important of last week's signals that Israel's discomfort with the Iran situation is growing greater, signals that included on-the-record statements by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and off-the-record statements to journalist Ari Shavit (widely assumed to have been from Defense Minister Ehud Barak) that both underscored and amplified Oren's case for ramped-up pressure on Iran.

By: Brant

Paks Respond to India Missile Test With Own Launch

Yay! Dueling missile-launch arms race!

Pakistan successfully launched an upgraded ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead Wednesday, days after its neighbor and archenemy India conducted its own missile test, the Pakistani military said.
The Hatf IV Shaheen-1A missile was fired into the sea, the military said in a written statement.
It was described as an intermediate-range missile having a longer range than its predecessor, the Shaheen-1, which is believed to fly up to 750 kilometers (465 miles).
"The improved version of Shaheen-1A will further consolidate and strengthen Pakistan's deterrence abilities," said Lt. Gen. Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, who witnessed the launch and is responsible for the country's nuclear program.
Intermediate-range ballistic missiles have a range of 3,000 to 5,000 kilometers (1,865 to 3,110 miles), according to the website GlobalSecurity.org.
If the Shaheen-1A is indeed an intermediate-range missile, it would represent a quantum leap from the previous version. Pakistan's longest range missile before Wednesday's launch was believed to be the Shaheen II, with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles). That is far enough to hit targets anywhere in India.

By: Brant

Norks Rickety Rocket Ralphs; Nork Nuke Noogie Next?

So the rocket launch wasn't.

North Korea's satellite launch, planned as a celebration of the centenary of the birth of its founding President, Kim Il Sung, failed sometime shortly after 7:40 a.m. Friday when the first stage of the Unha-3 rocket dropped to the Yellow Sea about 165 km west of Seoul. After weeks of antagonism between North Korea and the U.S., South Korea and Japan, who said the launch was the equivalent of a ballistic missile test, the failure offered a moment of respite. "At no time were the missile or the resultant debris a threat," noted a statement from the North American Aerospace Defense Command. In a rare admission, North Korea's state-run news service acknowledged the satellite "failed to enter its preset orbit." It said technicians were investigating the cause.

But they may yet pop off a nuke, to try and show off.

The isolated North, using the launch to celebrate the 100th birthday of the dead founding president Kim Il-sung and to mark the rise to power of his grandson Kim Jong-un, is now widely expected to press ahead with its third nuclear test to show its military strength.
"The possibility of an additional long-range rocket launch or a nuclear test, as well as a military provocation to strengthen internal solidarity is very high," a senior South Korean defense ministry official told a parliamentary hearing.

By: Brant

Norks Already Defying Deal with US?

Looks like the Norks are already breaking the deal they made a few weeks ago.

North Korea announced plans Friday to blast a satellite into space on the back of a long-range rocket, a provocative move that could jeopardize a weeks-old agreement with the U.S. exchanging food aid for nuclear concessions.
The North agreed to a moratorium on long-range launches as part of the deal with Washington, but it argues that its satellite launches are part of a peaceful space program that is exempt from any international disarmament agreements. The U.S., South Korea and other critics say the rocket technology overlaps with belligerent uses and condemn the satellite program as a disguised way of testing military missiles in defiance of a U.N. ban.

By: Brant

An Inaccurate "Debate" About Iran?

Stephen M. Walt has an excellent article about the top ten media failures in the debate about a 'war' with Iran. I've excerpted the list here, but there supporting paragraphs are outstanding and well worth the read. In short, Walt's point is that the information we are being fed through virtually every news source is filtered through a group of assumptions that inherently skew the coverage.

The interview got me thinking about the issue of media coverage of this whole business, and I'm sorry to say that most mainstream news organizations have let us down again. Although failures haven't been as egregious as the New York Times and Washington Post's wholesale swallowing of the Bush administration's sales pitch for war in 2002, on the whole the high-end media coverage has been disappointing. Here are my Top Ten Media Failures in the 2012 Iran War Scare.

#1: Mainstreaming the war.

#2: Loose talk about Iran's "nuclear [weapons] program."

#3: Obsessing about Ahmadinejad.

#4: Ignoring Iranian weakness.

#5: Failing to ask why Iran might want a bomb.

#6: Failing to consider why Iran might NOT want a bomb.

#7: Exaggerating Israel's capabilities.

#8: Letting spinmeisters play fast and loose with facts.

9. What about the human beings?

10. Could diplomacy work?

h/t SO over at Defence & Freedom for the link to the article.

By: Brant

Israel Attacks Iran, and... ?

Foreign Affairs has an entire issue devoted to the Iranian nuclear standoff, sans Persian Incursion review. But one of the better articles is about "What Happens After Israel Attacks Iran". An excerpt:

Indeed, the analysis in Israel about the possible effects of a bombing campaign against Iran is limited to a small, professional elite, mostly in government and behind closed doors. This intimate circle that does consider scenarios of the “day after” concentrates almost exclusively on what an Iranian response, direct or through proxies, might look like. This is not surprising, given that Israel must worry first and foremost about the immediate military implications of an Iranian counterattack. But in doing so, Israeli policymakers are ignoring several of the potential longer-term aspects of a strike: the preparedness of Israel’s home front; the contours of an Israeli exit strategy; the impact on U.S.-Israel relations; the global diplomatic fallout; the stability of world energy markets; and the outcome within Iran itself. Should Israel fail to openly debate and account for these factors in advance of an attack, it may end up with a strategic debacle, even if it achieves its narrow military goals.

Israeli officials have thought extensively about how the first moves of a military conflict between Jerusalem and Tehran might play out. Ephraim Kam, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and deputy head of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), reflected the general consensus in the security establishment when he wrote in the Institute’s 2010 strategic assessment that Iran may respond in two possible ways to an Israeli operation: missile strikes on Israel, either directly or through allied organizations such as Hezbollah or Hamas; or terror attacks, likely on Israeli targets abroad by Iranians or those proxy groups.

A direct Iranian response would involve a missile barrage from Iran onto Israeli territory, similar to the volley of rockets launched at Israel by Iraq during the first Gulf War. Only one Israeli citizen died then, and it seems that Israeli officials estimate that the damage of a similar Iranian strike would be greater, but still limited. This past November, Ehud Barak, referring to possible direct and proxy-based Iranian retaliation, said that “There is no scenario for 50,000 dead, or 5,000 killed -- and if everyone stays in their homes, maybe not even 500 dead.” Barak’s calm also reflects Israel’s previous experience in preempting nuclear threats. Iraq did not respond when Israel destroyed its nuclear facility in 1981, disproving the doomsday predictions made by several Israeli experts prior to the strike, and Syria remained silent when Israel bombed its nascent reactor in 2007.

Israeli policymakers also do not seem particularly concerned about the prospect of a proxy response. They recognize that Hezbollah, as it did in 2006, can target Israel with a large number of rockets. Yet in an interview with Ronen Bergman in The New York Times late last month, several Israeli experts argued that, regardless of a potential battle with Iran, the probability of an extended conflict with Hezbollah is already high. According to this logic, an attack on Iran would merely hasten the inevitable and might actually be easier to sustain before, not after, Iran acquires nuclear weapons. In addition, the new constraints now operating against Hezbollah -- the ongoing revolt in Syria chief among them -- might even limit the ability of the organization to harm Israel in a future conflict. Indeed, over the past several months, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has emphasized the group’s independence, saying on February 7 that “the Iranian leadership will not ask Hezbollah to do anything. On [the day of an Israeli attack on Iran], we will sit, think, and decide what we will do.”

It's long, but a very, very good read.

By: Brant

NEWS: Breakthrough With Norks?

Wow - have the Norks come to their senses? Or is this just another false "breakthrough" that will end badly?

The United States announced a major diplomatic breakthrough with North Korea Wednesday.

Under an agreement reached in direct talks in Beijing last week, North Korea has agreed to allow the return of International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear inspectors, as well as to implement a moratorium on long-range missile tests, nuclear tests, and nuclear activities at Yongbyon, including uranium enrichment activities, the State Department said. In return, the United States will provide North Korea with a major food aid package.

"To improve the atmosphere for dialogue and demonstrate its commitment to denuclearization, the DPRK has agreed to implement a moratorium on long-range missile launches, nuclear tests and nuclear activities at Yongbyon, including uranium enrichment activities," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a press statement Wednesday. "The DPRK has also agreed to the return of IAEA inspectors to verify and monitor the moratorium on uranium enrichment activities at Yongbyon and confirm the disablement of the 5-MW reactor and associated facilities."

Despite the stunning breakthrough, "the United States still has profound concerns regarding North Korean behavior across a wide range of areas," Nuland's statement cautioned, but added that "today's announcement reflects important, if limited, progress in addressing some of these."

In return, the United States will "move forward with our proposed package of 240,000 metric tons of nutritional assistance along with the intensive monitoring required for the delivery of such assistance," she said.

Other headlines:
CNN: North Korea agrees to halt nuclear activities for food

MSNBC: US says North Korea agrees to nuclear moratorium

Fox News: North Korea Suspends Nuclear Activities, Takes Food Aid

Guardian (UK): North Korea agrees to suspend nuclear activities, US says


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Redux of Persian Incursion... With the US?

Time's BattleLand blog asks a necessary - but provocative - question: if Israel can't bomb the Iranians out of the nuke business, could the US?

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned that attacking Iran’s nuclear sites would, “at best, it might postpone it [Iran joining the nuclear-weapons club] maybe one, possibly two years.” If he’s right – and most U.S. experts concur with his view – the U.S. probably can wound, but not kill, Iran’s nuclear dreams with military force.

But U.S. military experts say Washington could do far more to damage Iran’s nuclear program than Tel Aviv. Israel “has a much smaller air force and further to fly,” says Michael O’Hanlon at the Brookings Institution. “I worry most about its ability to robustly deal with Iranian air defenses.”

Jeffrey White, a former analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency, says it’s not the initial punch that would set a U.S. attack apart from an Israeli one, but the ability to keep it going. “We have a lot more capability than Israel does, in terms of the number of aircraft, the kinds of attacks we could carry out, and the kinds of ordnance we could put on the targets,” says White, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies.

“But more important that anything is that we could sustain attacks. We’ve got B-1s, B-2s, carrier aviation, we might be able to launch out of the gulf states, we’ve got cruise missiles to knock down the air-defense system before we launch,” White says. “We have all kinds of capabilities that Israel doesn’t have.”

But an Israeli attack would not be puny — it could involve, as the Times noted, as many as 100 aircraft. “They could get enough aircraft up there to hit a number of targets,” White says, “but it would probably be a one-shot deal.”

That’s because its smaller military would have to dedicate itself to the blowback sure to come: “The Israelis are pretty creative, but my tendency is to think of it as a one-time event, and then the forces used in that operation would be reconfigured to prepare for anything coming out of Hezbollah or Hamas,” White says. “The real difference is our ability to sustain these attacks,” White says. “I’m thinking it would be an air campaign of attacks lasting days, versus a single operation.”

And it might – if the U.S. were serious about stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons – have to be repeated again and again.

Two things jump out at me here:
1. That repetitive strike paradigm sounds a lot like what we did to Iraq in the '90s.
2. Discussions about striking the nuclear infrastructure focus on how far back we can set them. Has anyone considered that a strike might stiffen the resolve of the Iranian people to complete the project and actually accelerate their progress?

By: Brant

Iran Flexing Muscles, World Flexing Back?

The US is reporting that Iranian meddling visible in Yemen.

Iran is becoming more active in Yemen and could pose a deeper threat to its stability and security, the U.S. envoy to Yemen said on Monday, highlighting what would be yet another layer of uncertainty in a near-failed state.
U.S. Ambassador Gerald Feierstein's warning is likely to reinforce long-held fears among Sunni Gulf monarchies that Shi'ite Muslim power Iran is trying exploit regional unrest.
"We do see Iran trying to increase its presence here, in ways that we believe are unhelpful to Yemen's stability and security," Feierstein said in an interview one day before Yemenis head to the polls to elect a new president to replace Ali Abdullah Saleh, ending his three decades in power.

Their ships have docked in Syria.

Meanwhile two Iranian naval ships docked at the Syrian port of Tartous on Saturday, Iran's state-run Press TV reported. The ships were said to be providing training for Syrian naval forces under an agreement signed a year ago.
Iranian Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi, quoted by the semi-official Fars news agency, said: "Our ships passed through the Suez canal and it is Iran's right to have a presence in international waters."

And now Israel is looking to solve the Iranian nuclear problem theirownselvesthankyouverymuch.

In their warnings, both the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, and British Foreign Minister William Hague said an Israeli attack on Iran would have grave consequences for the entire region and urged Israel to give international sanctions against Iran more time to work. Dempsey said an Israeli attack is "not prudent," and Hague said it would not be "a wise thing."
Both Israel and the West believe Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb — a charge Tehran denies. But differences have emerged in how to respond to the perceived threat.
The U.S. and the European Union have both imposed harsh new sanctions targeting Iran's oil sector, the lifeline of the Iranian economy. With the sanctions just beginning to bite, they have expressed optimism that Iran can be persuaded to curb its nuclear ambitions.
On Sunday, Iran's Oil Ministry said it has halted oil shipments to Britain and France in an apparent pre-emptive blow against the European Union. The semiofficial Mehr news agency said the National Iranian Oil Company has sent letters to some European refineries with an ultimatum to either sign long-term contracts of two to five years or be cut off. The 27-nation EU accounts for about 18 percent of Iran's oil exports.

By: Brant

Are Israelis Making Iranian Nukies Go "Boom"?

According to The Daily Beast, the Israelis have "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" (not) admitted to killing Iranian nuclear scientists.

Six weeks ago in Washington, on the sidelines of a major U.S.-Israeli meeting known as the “strategic dialogue,” Israeli Mossad officers were quietly and obliquely bragging about the string of explosions in Iran. “They would say things like, ‘It’s not the best time to be working on Iranian missile design,’” one U.S. intelligence official at the December parley told The Daily Beast.

Those comments were a reference to a string of explosions at a missile-testing site outside Tehran on November 12. The explosions killed Maj. Gen. Hassan Moqqadam, the head of the country’s missile program. But the manner in which the message was delivered—informally and on the sidelines of an official discussion—also speaks to how Israel appears to seek to create the impression of responsibility for acts of violence and sabotage inside Iran without quite taking formal responsibility.

What do you think?

poll by twiigs.com

By: Brant

Sound Off! Big, Ugly, Nasty Weapons

You're on the offense, do you want...

... nukes! Turn the enemy to radioactive sludge!

... chemicals! Make him choke to death and MOPP4 your way through the bodies!

Stake your claim in all its gruesomnicity below!


By: Brant

Russia's Military Concerned About War?

Is Russian concerned about conflagrations in the near-abroad growing into nuclear war?

Russia's chief military officer says the nation is facing an increased threat of being drawn into conflicts at its borders that may grow into an all-out nuclear war.
Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff, pointed at NATO's expansion eastward and said Thursday that the risks for Russia to be pulled into local conflicts have "risen sharply." He added, according to Russian news agencies wires, that "under certain conditions local and regional conflicts may develop into a full-scale war involving nuclear weapons."
A steady decline of Russia's conventional forces has prompted the Kremlin to rely increasingly on nuclear deterrent. Its military doctrine says it may use nuclear weapons to counter a nuclear attack on Russia or an ally, or a large-scale conventional attack that threatens Russia's existence.

A good site for tracking some of these developments is Russian Military Reform.

By: Brant

Persian Incursion Continues to Get Attention

Here's Michael Peck on NPR Weekend Edition with a short chat about the game.

By: Brant

New Iranian Threats

Seriously? The day after Michael Peck's article about Persian Incursion hit FP, we get the Iranian leadership threatening retaliation. Are they *trying*to generate scenarios for people?

Iran "will respond with full force" to any attack -- or even any threat of military action -- the country's supreme leader said on Thursday, after Israel warned the world must act to prevent Tehran getting nuclear weapons.
Iran "will respond with full force to any aggression or even threats in a way that will demolish the aggressors from within," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told students at a Tehran military college, according to his official website.
Khamenei said the message was directed at Iran's enemies, "especially America and its stooges and the Zionist regime (Israel)."
The supreme leader's forceful language followed threats last week from Israel that air strikes could be in the offing against Iran's nuclear sites. Israeli President Shimon Peres said last weekend that such action was becoming "more and more likely."
Rhetoric between Iran and its two principal foes, Israel and the United States, has risen since the release Tuesday of a UN report saying there was "credible" evidence suggesting Iran's atomic programme was being used to research putting nuclear warheads in ballistic missiles.

By: Brant

Israel's Submarines

A significant part of their nuclear deterrent, and what ensures their counterattack capability... and yet, does anyone out there know of any wargames in which the Israeli sub fleet is included?

Just like Israel’s submarine fleet is secretive, so are its commanders. Colonel Oded, 44, has recently completed his tenure as the fleet’s commander, ending a chapter of more than 20 years where he performed almost every command post in the fleet. “If a layman would see submarine troops from the side, he would not understand how we can withstand it,” Oded says in a rare interview. “It’s a group of people who perform missions at very certain locations and feel like home there. People wake up for their shifts, eat breakfast and follow a routine in the least trivial locations one can imagine.”

When I ask Oded whether his troops’ passports would be filled with stamps, had they theoretically stamped them at border control, he smiles and says nothing. Indeed, we can imagine that these virtual passports would have been full of stamps. The Navy’s submarines, as opposed to other vessels, never dock at foreign ports, including friendly ones. This is the nature of the service: The submarines only dock in Israel.

By: Brant

Cue the Updates to Persian Incursion!

Iran's got a new nuclear site! Someone update the target folders from Persian Incursion!

Iran is preparing to install centrifuges for higher-grade uranium enrichment in an underground bunker, diplomatic sources say, a development that is likely to add to Western worries about Tehran's atomic aims.
Preparatory work is under way at the Fordow facility, tucked deep inside a mountain to protect it against any attacks, and machines used to refine uranium could soon be moved to the site near the clerical city of Qom, the sources said.
The Islamic Republic said in June it would shift production of uranium enriched to 20 percent purity to Fordow from its main Natanz plant this year and triple output capacity, in a defiant response to charges that it is trying to make atomic bombs.
Tehran only disclosed the existence of Fordow two years ago after Western intelligence detected it and said it was evidence of covert nuclear activities. The facility has yet to start operating.

By: Brant

More Cuts Coming to US Nuke Arsenal? And Readers Pick Their Targets!

The administration is reviewing the nuclear arsenal, and the targeting lists, to see if further cuts can be made.

The Obama administration has begun examining whether it can make cuts to its nuclear weapons stockpiles that go beyond those outlined in a recent treaty with Russia.
The classified review is not expected to be completed until late this year, but some Republicans already are worried that it will go too far. On Tuesday, 41 Republican senators warned Obama in a letter not to make major changes in nuclear policy without consulting Congress.
Arms control advocates say the United States is mired in Cold War-era thinking about nuclear deterrence and are pressing the administration to use the review to rethink U.S. nuclear requirements. They say the decisions will be a test of President Barack Obama's commitment nearly two years ago to put the world on a path toward eliminating nuclear weapons.
Obama ordered the nuclear review early last year with an aim of shrinking the nuclear arsenal, but the work, led by the Defense Department, began recently, according to a department spokeswoman, Lt. Col. April Cunningham.
The review will look at issues such as what targets the U.S. would have to hit with nuclear weapons in a worst-case scenario and what kind of weapons it would need to hit them. Rethinking the requirements could open the way to cuts.

Now, what would really be fun is to be in the room for that targeting exercise. If we're getting to the "worst case" then what targets might we shoot?
Vladivostok?
Beijing?
Tehran?
Istanbul?

Nominate your targets in the comments!

By: Brant

The Mission in Afghanistan?

So I'm sitting here watching Morning Joe and they're talking to Senator Bennett of Colorado, asking about why we're still in Afghanistan. He gave the typical stock answer about "hunting al Qaeda" and then added a second mission that you almost never hear publicly admitted: we're there to help backstop the Pakistani military in dealing with any loose nukes.
Huh?!
Lemme get this straight... we're trying to rebuild villages and governance in Afghanistan in order to backstop the Pakistani military in dealing with potential loose nuclear weapons? Say that out loud and ask yourself how absolutely ridiculous that sounds.
Was Senator Bennett that far off-script? Or is the mission that far off-base?

Anyone want to take a whack at writing an actual mission statement for the war in Afghanistan? Put your best attempt in the comments below.

By: Brant



For comparison's sake, here's Ike's mission, pre-D-Day

You will enter the continent of Europe and in conjunction with the other United Nations undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the destruction of her armed forces.