Gen. Milley says Taliban appear to have 'strategic momentum

Milley doing his fear mongering

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says the Taliban appear to have “strategic momentum” in the fight for control of Afghanistan

Via AP news wire2 hours ago

The Taliban appear to have “strategic momentum” in the fight for control of Afghanistan as they put increasing pressure on key cities, setting the stage for a decisive period in coming weeks as American forces complete their withdrawal, the top U.S. military officer said Wednesday.

“This is going to be a test now of the will and leadership of the Afghan people — the Afghan security forces and the government of Afghanistan,” Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told a Pentagon press conference.

The Pentagon says the U.S. withdrawal is 95% finished and will be completed by Aug. 31. And while the Biden administration has vowed to continue financial assistance and logistical support for Afghan forces after August, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the focus of U.S. military efforts there will be countering terrorist threats, not the Taliban.

Speaking alongside Milley, Austin said the U.S. will “keep an eye on” al-Qaida, the extremist network whose use of Afghanistan as a haven for planning the 9/11 attacks on the United States was the reason U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

“Our major focus going forward is to make sure that violence, terrorism, cannot be exported from Afghanistan to our homeland, and so we'll maintain the capability to be able to not only observe that but also address that if it does emerge,” Austin said, adding that the Taliban pledged in 2020 to not provide a sanctuary for al-Qaida in the future.

“We expect for them to meet that commitment. If they want legitimacy going forward, I think that's something they'll have to consider. That's one way to earn it, so we'll see what happens.” He reiterated his view that there is a “medium risk” of al-Qaida regaining within about two years of the U.S. departure the capability to launch attacks against the West.

“But, again, there are a number of things that could happen to speed that up a bit or slow it down,” he added.

Milley said the Taliban now control about half of the 419 district centers in Afghanistan, and while they have yet to capture any of the country's 34 provincial capitals, they are pressuring about half of them. As the Taliban seize more territory, the Afghan security forces are consolidating their positions to protect key population centers, including Kabul, he said.

“A significant amount of territory has been seized over the course of six, eight, 10 months by the Taliban, so momentum appears to be — strategic momentum appears to be — sort of with the Taliban,” Milley said.

Milley said that while the Taliban are attempting to create the impression that their victory over the U.S.-backed Kabul government is inevitable, he believes the Afghan military and police have the training and equipment to prevail. He said he would not rule out a negotiated political settlement with the Taliban, nor would he exclude “a complete Taliban takeover.”

“I don't think the end game is yet written,” he said.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/gen-milley-says-taliban-appear-to-have-strategic-momentum-taliban-afghanistan-lloyd-austin-washington-pentagon-b1888233.html

National Reconnaissance Office wants a more distributed architecture

Nathan Strout Wed Jul 21 2021 03:56 PM

It’s never enough

WASHINGTON — Sixty years after its founding, the National Reconnaissance Office is working to adapt to a changing space environment.

The Department of Defense has been consistent in its messaging in recent years: Space is now a war-fighting domain, and America’s adversaries are developing counterspace weapons to undermine U.S. space supremacy. Partly in response, the nation started both the U.S. Space Force and Space Command, reorganizing its military to maintain a competitive edge in space.

The National Reconnaissance Office is adjusting to these changes as well, according to the agency’s director. NRO is the intelligence agency charged with developing, launching and operating America’s fleet of spy satellites, supplementing its own capabilities with new commercial services. Like the Space Force and Space Command, NRO is also confronting the challenge posed by the growing space and counterspace capabilities being developed by America’s adversaries.

“NRO will continue to be a cornerstone in our nation’s strategic and operational upper hand in space through unrivaled situational awareness and intelligence through the best images and signals data on the planet. But to do that, we have to accelerate and we have to improve, particularly in our way to innovate and deliver capability on orbit,” Director Christopher Scolese said July 20 during a Washington Space Business Roundtable event.

Like the DoD, a primary goal of NRO is to change its architecture. American space capabilities have long been defined by so-called exquisite systems: constellations made up of a handful of large, expensive satellites. Counterspace weapons pose a challenge to that approach. If adversaries can destroy or disable just one satellite, they can severely limit the constellation’s coverage and capabilities. The Space Force has responded by pursuing a distributed architecture, with more satellites placed over multiple orbits. That way, the loss of one satellite isn’t debilitating.

NRO’s satellites are classified, making it difficult to understand its architecture. But according to Scolese, the agency is also working to adopt a more distributed architecture.

“We’re making architectural changes to improve resiliency, increase capacity and capabilities, and ensure the delivery of NRO mission essential functions,” said Scolese. “This is a diversified architecture, made up of national and commercial satellites, large and small constellations across multiple orbits.”

A major development for NRO has been the rise of commercial satellite imagery companies, which operate their own satellites and offer imagery as a service. The last few years have seen NRO take over responsibility for acquiring commercial imagery from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, issuing a number of study contracts to see how new commercial offerings can supplement the agency’s own systems. Other commercial capabilities, including launch, production spacecraft and cloud computing have helped the agency move faster and reduce cost while shifting its focus to other areas, said Scolese.

And while NRO is known for moving relatively quickly through the acquisition process, said Scolese, it needs to move even faster.

“Through programs like our Director’s Innovation Initiative, we’re actively seeking out new suppliers, cutting edge technologies and high payoff concepts across the entire spectrum of capabilities. This approach has already given us opportunities to explore applications for artificial intelligence, machine learning, experiment with prototypes and develop diverse and more efficient ways of distributing data,” said Scolese.

NRO has also launched a new Greenlighting program, which puts new technologies developed by nontraditional partners into space to evaluate their performance.

When asked, Scolese also made the case that NRO should remain independent from the Space Force.

“NRO serves a national need. We have a requirement to meet national objectives, not just DoD objectives,” said Scolese, saying the most important thing is to collaborate with the Space Force.

Nathan Strout covers space, unmanned and intelligence systems for C4ISRNET.

https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2021/07/21/the-national-reconnaissance-office-wants-a-more-distributed-architecture/