February 2, 2015: Strategy Page

ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) was seemingly invincible and unstoppable in mid-2014. In July 2014 ISIL had recently taken control of Mosul (the largest city in northern Iraq) and was advancing on Baghdad, the Kurdish north and the capital of western Iraq (Anbar province).  Similar gains were being made in Syria. All that has changed in the last few months. ISIL still holds the cities of Raqqa (the largest city in eastern Syria) and Mosul in Iraq. But both cities are increasingly rebellious and require a growing number of ISIL gunmen to maintain control.  Now ISIL is in retreat in Iraq and Syria. Sunni tribes in Anbar and western Syria are in open revolt and subject to increasingly savage reprisals by ISIL gunmen (often foreigners, which makes the tribesmen angrier). Half the ISIL leadership has been killed by coalition (Arab, NATO and allied) warplanes since August 2014. This air support and a Iraqi soldiers, Kurdish troops, Shia militias and armed Sunni tribesmen have taken back much of the territory ISIL overran in early 2014. American and other Western troops are rebuilding the Iraqi Army and arming anti-ISIL Sunni tribesmen. Iran is training and sometimes leading Shia militias. In Syria ISIL is getting beaten by Kurds, Syrian soldiers and more Iranian trained Shia militias.

While still bringing in new recruits from outside of Syria and Iraq, ISIL has lost the propaganda war inside those two counties and the Islamic world in general. History often repeats itself and in the case of Iraqi Islamic terrorists there is, for the second time since 2007, a major dip in Islamic terrorist approval ratings because of the brutality of Iraqi Islamic terrorists. Back in 2007 it was the "Al Qaeda In Iraq" leadership that was out of control. At the time opinion polls in Moslem countries showed approval and support of al Qaeda plunging, in some cases to single digits. This came after the 2003 invasion of Iraq when al Qaeda managed to take itself from hero to zero in less than four years. Al Qaeda has since recovered somewhat but that kinder and gentler approach did not last and by 2013 the Iraqi al Qaeda (now ISIL) was again losing popular support. That was quite visible after June 2014 when ISIL seized control of parts of Iraq and promptly slaughtered captured Iraqi soldiers and police, mainly because these men were Shia. Then ISIL declared the parts of Syria and Iraq it controlled were the new Moslem caliphate.

Naturally the ISIL leaders running this new caliphate called on all Moslems to follow them in making the new caliphate work. Most Moslems responded, according to subsequent opinion polls, by expressing greater fear rather than more admiration for Islamic terrorist groups, especially ISIL. This was not a radical change in attitude. Earlier in 2014 al Qaeda leadership condemned ISIL for being completely out of control and not to be trusted or supported. Throughout 2104 opinion polls showed Moslems becoming more hostile to Islamic terrorists, seeing them as a cause for concern not as defenders of Islam. The same thing happened back in 2007. Then as now there continued to be young (teens and twenties) Moslem men who saw all this mindless mayhem as an attraction and kept rushing to join the slaughter (most often of themselves). The Islamic world has not been able to control these violent young men or the older men who encourage and organize this violence.

When al Qaeda could not, in 2007, exercise any real control over the parts (mostly Anbar province in the West) of Iraq they claimed as part of the new Islamic State and that claim was the last straw for many Moslems. The original caliphate came apart because the Islamic world was split by ethnic and national differences and the first caliphate fell apart after a few centuries.  Various rulers have claimed the title over the centuries, but since 1924, when the Turks gave it up (after four centuries), no one of any stature has stepped up and assumed the role. So when al Qaeda "elected" a nobody in 2006 as the emir of the "Islamic State of Iraq", and talked about this being the foundation of the new caliphate, even many pro-al Qaeda Moslems were aghast. The key allies of the Iraqi Islamic terrorists (the Sunni minority of Iraq), battered by increasingly effective American and Iraqi (Shia and Kurd) attacks, dropped their support for al Qaeda and the terrorist organization got stomped to bits by the "surge offensive" a year later. The final insult was delivered by the former Iraqi Sunni Arab allies, who switched sides and sometimes even worked with the Americans (more so than the Shia dominated Iraqi security forces) to hunt down and kill al Qaeda personnel.

Between then and 2013 al Qaeda in Iraq slowly rebuilt and received a major boost in 2011 when the Sunni Arab majority in neighboring Syria rose up against four decades of Shia dictatorship. While the Sunni Arabs are a minority in Iraq (20 percent of the population versus 60 percent Shia) it is quite the opposite in Syria (15 percent Shia and 75 percent Sunni). The Sunnis are most numerous in eastern Syria and western Iraq which the Sunnis see as one entity divided by artificial political boundaries imposed by Turks and the Western nations that replaced the Turks after 1918. This “Sunnistan” is the northernmost concentration of Sunni Arabs and long subjugated by non-Sunni or non-Arab powers. Turks and Persians (the Indo-European Iranians) have long fought over the area, with the Turks largely in charge since the 16th century. The Turks were Sunni and what is now called Iraq has long been, not surprisingly, a center of the long religious battle between Sunni and Shia sects of Islam.

Ever since al Qaeda showed up in the 1990s they were popular to Moslems in proportion to how far away the al Qaeda violence was. Once al Qaeda began killing people nearby Moslems tended to change their mind and actively dislike Islamic terrorists. Thus in 2013 37 percent of Turks were concerned about Islamic terrorism while by 2014it was 50 percent thanks to increased ISIL violence on the Syrian border and some inside Turkey itself. Similar situation further south where 54 percent of the people in Jordan were concerned in 2013 versus 62 percent now. In Lebanon, where the Syrian violence spilled over quickly after 2011 last year 81 percent were concerned in 2013 Islamic terrorism versus over 90 percent today.

The hostility towards al Qaeda in the region has tainted all forms of Islamic radicalism, including the Shia ones (especially Hezbollah in Lebanon). Yet once Islamic terrorism disappears again (as it does regularly) many Moslems will get nostalgic for those legendary warriors seeking to defend Islam. This is a cycle many Moslems would like to break, but so far the cycle of violence persists.

MOSCOU, 18 février - RIA Novosti

Moscou et Pékin sont unanimes à constater que la menace terroriste en Syrie s'amplifie, indique un communiqué de la diplomatie russe diffusée à l'issue d'une rencontre entre le vice-ministre russe des Affaires étrangères Guennadi Gatilov et l'ambassadeur de Chine à Moscou Li Hui.

"Il a été constaté que la menace terroriste en Syrie prend de l'ampleur et exige que tous les Syriens unissent leurs efforts en vue de l'éradiquer ", lit-on dans le communiqué.

Les diplomates ont également évoqué le comportement du médiateur international Lakhdar Brahimi aux négociations inter-syriennes de Genève.

"Les interlocuteurs ont été unanimes à affirmer que l'envoyé spécial sur la Syrie Lakhdar Brahimi devait effectuer son travail de façon objective et impartiale en encourageant les parties à rechercher un compromis et à tenir compte de leurs intérêts réciproques sur la base du Communiqué de Genève du 30 juin 2012", souligné le document de la diplomatie russe.

Moscou reproche à M. Brahimi d'émettre des accusations unilatérales et de rejeter sur Damas la responsabilité de l'absence de progrès aux négociations de Genève.

Le deuxième round de ces négociations s'est achevé le 15 février. D'après les diplomates russes, la tendance de Damas à privilégier la lutte contre le terrorisme s'explique par le fait que la Syrie ne cesse d'attirer des "djihadistes et des radicaux islamiques de tout poil". Ces derniers se battent contre les autorités syriennes pour faire triompher leur idéologie.

28/1/2014 EU source: Council Ref: CL14-011EN

Summary: 28 January 2014, Brussels - Joint EU-Russia statement on combatting terrorism

1. Guided by our common goals and noting with satisfaction the new format of the regular meetings within the political dialogue on counter-terrorism under the auspices of the MFA of Russia and the European External Action Service, that allows, in particular, an exchange of views in this field, we agreed to further develop strategic partnership between the Russian Federation and the European Union, especially in combating and preventing terrorism, and to this end, in particular:

- consider possibilities for further strengthening cooperation in response to crimes committed by terrorists and organised crime, including exploring prospects of signing cooperation agreements in the future, to ensure, inter alia, an information exchange between Russia and the EU in the sphere of combating terrorism in conformity with their respective internal legislation including data protection standards;

- expand cooperation in exchanging best practices in counter-terrorism and training experts in counter-terrorism through joint seminars, training courses and other activities, the list of which will be adopted at consultations on combating terrorism within the Russia-EU political dialogue;

- intensify our cooperation in the UN framework as well as other multilateral fora such as the G8, in particular G8 Rome/Lyon Group, and the Global Counter-Terrorism Forum (GCTF), OSCE, and the Council of Europe, as well as other international organizations actively involved in combating terrorism.

2. The Russian Federation and the European Union condemn as criminal any acts of terrorism as defined by article 2 of the UN Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (1999). Under no circumstances can such acts be justified, be it based on political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other consideration. We declare that we are united in countering terrorism based on the rule of law and respect for human rights and believe that an effective response to this global threat will be achieved through coordinated actions of the international community under the auspices of the UN, based on the UN Charter, the UN Security Council resolutions, the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and relevant principles and norms of international law, in particular international human rights law, refugee law and international humanitarian law.

3. We commit to ensuring that measures taken against terrorism, including by international bodies, fully respect human rights and rule of law principles, and that human rights laws are applied and implemented in counter-terrorism programmes and policies of national governments. We affirm that effective counterterrorism measures and the protection and promotion of human rights are not conflicting but complementary and mutually reinforcing goals.

4. We state that, in spite of the success in addressing this challenge in recent years, terrorism remains one of the most serious and constantly evolving threats to global peace and security. In the context of the increasing speed of globalisation and the growing use of advanced technologies, terrorism develops rapidly, extends to new regions of the world, and the range of activities by its supporters expands.

5. We act on the premise that the fight against terrorism is a long-term process, requiring from the international community a complex approach and united efforts for countering terrorists striving to impose their will on states, both at national, regional and global levels.

We consider it important that the legal protection for individuals is ensured as international regulation on counter-terrorism intensifies.

6. We note with concern the growing ties between global terrorism and cross-border organised crime. We call for joint efforts towards concrete and full implementation of the United Nations Convention against Organized Crime (UNTOC), signed in 2000, and the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), signed in 2003, as key multilateral tools to fight transnational organized crime.

We are concerned by negative effects of the integration between drug syndicates and terrorist networks which creates a new challenge - the increased link between organised crime, drug trafficking and counter-terrorism. We call for joint efforts, with the coordinating role of the UN, above all, against global centres of heroin and cocaine production, as well as synthetic drugs, from which a part of revenues is used for financing terrorist activities.

7. We intend to strengthen our cooperation countering terrorist financing activities, as well as legal cooperation, in particular in extradition and legal assistance on criminal cases, including identification, arrest, confiscation and return of property acquired through terrorist activities. To this end, we will promote cooperation between the competent agencies of the Russian Federation and EU including Eurojust and Europol.

We will further strengthen cooperation and interaction through Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as well as in the format of the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism (MONEYVAL) in order to ensure greater efficiency of joint efforts in blocking channels for financing terrorism and countering money laundering. EU and Russia will encourage a stronger commitment at international level towards fully tracking financial flows originating from illicit trafficking, including off-shore jurisdictions.

8. The European Union and the Russian Federation agree on further exchanges and developing cooperation concerning the prevention of terrorism, in particular on the radicalization and recruitment of terrorists, foreign fighters as well as on the protection of critical infrastructure in the energy field. In this context we also consider it important to focus on the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism. We express concern with the increasing threat of misuse of the internet by terrorists for spreading terrorist ideology and propaganda, and for recruiting and training new members and supporters among citizens of Russia and EU Member States. We welcome cooperation and initiatives to counter these threats.

9. We note the importance of developing public-private partnership in combating and preventing terrorism, and contacts with all the components of the civil society, including media, religious groups, business community, cultural and educational institutions in order to prevent the spread of ideology of terrorism and violence.

10. We stand together to assist and support victims of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, according to our national laws and principles of international law. We underscore that victims of terrorism can contribute to the prevention of terrorism, including by serving as credible messengers against the ideology of violence espoused by terrorist groups.

11. We declare our commitment to:

- continue, individually and jointly, our international efforts to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and to ensure and strengthen the widest possible global counterterrorism coalition,

- bring to trial criminals, organisers and sponsors of terrorist attacks on the basis of the principle 'aut dedere aut judicare' (extradite or prosecute) and ensure that persons responsible for hiding, financing, and supporting them are punished in accordance with obligations under international law,

- strengthen international cooperation in order to prevent, detect and suppress terrorist attacks, identify, search for, and extradite persons involved in terrorist activities, block channels for financing terrorism, including through full implementation of relevant international counter-terrorism conventions and UN Security Council resolutions, in particular UNSC Resolutions 1373 (2001) and 1624 (2005), and the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.

25 September 2013 by Staff Writer/UN - defenceWeb

Citing the deadly terrorist attack at a mall in Nairobi, Kenya, President Ali Bongo of Gabon used the podium of the UN General Assembly to appeal for full global support for Africa in the battle against terrorism.

“Africa, which is becoming a target for terrorism, must benefit from the full support and solidarity of the international community in its effort to combat this threat,” he told the Assembly on the first day of its General Debate, noting that poverty nurtures extremism around the world and the battle against poverty must therefore remain at the centre of national policies.

Turning to the post-2015 development agenda, the theme of the 68th General Assembly, Bongo said attention must be paid to Africa’s priorities, such as energy, access to potable water and sustainable agriculture, as well as the realisation of those Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) not met by the target date of 2015.

The MDGs seek to slash extreme hunger and poverty, boost access to health care and education, achieve gender equality and environmental stability and reduce maternal and child mortality and the incidence of HIV/AIDS, all by the end of 2015, while Assembly President John Ashe says he hopes the focus on the post-2015 agenda will set the stage for sustainable development in the decades ahead.

Bongo underscored the need for predictable funding for development from public and private sources, the importance of combating climate change and the threat to wildlife and biodiversity and voiced his concern over conflicts in the DRC and the Central African Republic (CAR), praising the efforts of the UN peacekeeping mission in the former country.

He repeatedly appealed for international support. “Africa cannot face all these challenges to peace and security alone. Its efforts must receive greater support, because the destabilisation of Africa will have implications for other regions.”

August 27, 2013: Strategy Page

Al Qaeda has survived by becoming regional, rather than international. The original al Qaeda is back where it was founded three decades ago, in the tribal territories of northwest Pakistan. Here, about a thousand members (many of them married into local tribes and semi-retired) manage to protect supreme leader Ayman al Zawahiri, along with a shrinking network of training camps and safe houses. About ten percent of these al Qaeda men are actually in eastern Afghanistan but are even less active. Al Qaeda is tolerated by the Pakistani government as long as it does no (or very little) violence inside Pakistan. Thus, the relatively large number of al Qaeda operatives “retiring” to the tribal territories. Many did this to survive growing hostility from local tribes against the largely foreign al Qaeda members. In the last decade over a thousand foreign al Qaeda men (mainly Arabs and Central Asians) have been killed by local tribesmen for, well, not getting along with the locals. Many al Qaeda members fled and this played a part in the development of the two major operational branches that emerged over the last decade in Yemen and North Africa.

AQAP (al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) has suffered heavy losses in the last year. AQAP was formed in 2009, after the remnants of the Saudi al Qaeda organization (several thousand full and part time members) fled to Yemen and merged with the Yemeni al Qaeda branch. AQAP also benefitted from hundreds of Iraqi al Qaeda members who arrived after the defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq in 2007-8. Growing unrest in Yemen (against the long-time Saleh dictatorship) enabled AQAP to recruit locally and take over several towns in the south by 2011. Then the government launched a counteroffensive last year and AQAP got hurt very badly. That offensive continues, along with the growing use of American UAVs in Yemen. At the same time there are few other places for defeated al Qaeda men to flee to. The sanctuary in Mali was destroyed earlier in the year by a French led offensive. The sanctuary in Pakistan (North Waziristan) is hostile to active al Qaeda and mainly for local Islamic terrorists. Surviving al Qaeda men are increasingly operating in isolation and under heavy attack. Sometimes, as is happening now in Syria, they attack each other. While the al Qaeda situation is desperate in Yemen, AQAP is still al Qaeda’s most capable branch and the only one that has shown any ability to support attacks (few successful) in the West.

In North Africa there are three major Islamic radical groups, as well as some smaller ones. Ansar Dine was originally from Mali and led by Tuareg Islamic radicals.  MOJAO (Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa) is from neighboring Mauritania. It is largely composed of black African Islamic radicals and led by Mauritanians. The largest of the three is AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) which has members from all over North Africa but mostly from Algeria. MOJAO is basically a Mauritanian faction of AQIM and there continues to be some ethnic and racial tension between the two groups. AQIM has the most money and weapons and used this to exercise some control over the other two major radical groups (who outnumbered AQIM in Mali). AQIM and MOJAO are sometimes at odds with Ansar Dine, which felt it should be in charge in Mali because it is Malian. Until late 2012 all three groups cooperated in order to maintain their control of northern Mali. Then Ansar Dine began negotiating with the Mali government for a separate peace and some kind of compromise over Tuareg autonomy in the north. In part this was because MUJAO and AQIM were bringing in reinforcements from Morocco, Western Sahara, Algeria, Pakistan, Egypt, Yemen, Nigeria, and Sudan and threatened to reduce the area Ansar Dine controlled. Ansar Dine saw itself as the only Malian group in the Islamic radical government up north and was determined to defend Tuareg interests against the many foreigners in MUJAO (which also has some Malian members) and especially AQIM (which wanted to run everything). Ansar Dine saw AQIM as a bunch of gangsters, dependent on its relationship with drug gangs (al Qaeda moves the drugs north to the Mediterranean coast) and kidnappers (who hold Europeans for multi-million dollar ransoms). All this cash gave AQIM a lot of power, both to buy weapons and hire locals. With the high unemployment in the north and the daring image of Islamic warriors, working for AQIM was an attractive prospect for many young men. Most of those new recruits deserted as their employers fled the advancing French in January 2013. The Tuareg members of MUJAO and Ansar Dine could find locals in the north to shelter them while the foreigners (mainly from AQIM) had to flee because they were too easily spotted by Mali civilians and pointed out to the French, Malian, and other African troops who now occupy the north. The French led invasion was a crushing blow to AQIM, just like the Yemen offensive last year was to AQAP.

In the wake of the Mali disaster, Islamic terrorists in North Africa have reorganized. AQIM has relocated to southern Libya while Ansari Dine, especially the Tuareg leadership, faded back into the many Tuareg living in the Sahel (the semi-desert region between the Sahara Desert and the tropical forests to the south). Recently two North African Islamic terrorist factions merged to create a new group: Al Mourabitoun. The new group has already been operating, largely in Niger, where it recently carried out several daring attacks (including a prison break in June and twin bombings in May). One of the merger partners is an al Qaeda splinter group led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar (the planner of the January natural gas facility attack in southern Algeria that got 37 workers and 32 terrorists killed). Belmokhtar has a reputation for always escaping the many efforts to kill or capture him. Belmokhtar was number two or three in the North African al Qaeda organization (AQIM) but formed his own splinter group in late 2012. Belmokhtar’s faction survived the French invasion. The other component of Al Mourabitoun comes from MOJWA.

This merger was another aftereffect of the French led invasion that began last January. Within months hundreds of experienced Islamic terrorists scattered and slowly reorganized via email, cell phones and hand-carried documents. Recruiting took a big hit as the operations in Mali this year showed once more that Islamic radicals cannot stand up to professional soldiers and their governing methods tend to turn the population against them. This caused over a thousand AQIM members to desert while nearly 500 were killed in the Mali fighting. Hundreds of local Islamic terrorists (Tuaregs, MOJWA, and other black Africans from countries in the region) stayed in northern Mali and continue to try carrying out terrorist attacks. There are a few larger groups of these Islamic terrorists still wandering around the far north but they were hunted by French aircraft and hit with smart bombs until most fled to neighboring countries. Some of these Islamic terrorists have renounced their alliance with al Qaeda and sought to evade attack by just being another group of Tuareg separatists. Most of the still functional Islamic terrorists have reformed in Niger, Tunisia, and Libya. Many individual terrorists made their way to Syria, which is the next-big-thing for murderous religious radicals.

Despite the senior leadership remaining in Pakistan, the most active, and dangerous, international terrorism operations are coming out of AQAP. AQIM survives by becoming a drug gang that smuggles various narcotics to North Africa and Europe. As a result of this, al Qaeda is urging Islamic radicals everywhere to try and organize and carry out terrorism operations wherever they are. Thus, even some large al Qaeda organizations (like the ones in Iraq and Syria) are devoting all their energies to killing people (mostly fellow Moslems) where they are and not in the West (which al Qaeda Central would prefer).

22/07/2013 Par Lefigaro.fr avec Reuters

Les ministres des Affaires étrangères de l'Union européenne réunis à Bruxelles ont décidé aujourd'hui d'inscrire la branche militaire de l'organisation chiite du Hezbollah libanais sur la liste de l'UE des organisations terroristes, ont rapporté des diplomates.

"Un accord a été trouvé pour y inscrire le Hezbollah", a dit un diplomate de l'UE. Trois autres diplomates ont confirmé ses dires.
Le Royaume-Uni, soutenu entre autres par la France et les Pays-Bas, cherchait depuis le mois de mai à persuader les autres pays européens de prendre cette décision.

Londres a mis notamment en avant des preuves montrant l'implication de la branche militaire du Parti de Dieu dans un attentat à la bombe contre un car de touristes israéliens en juillet 2012 dans une station balnéaire de Bulgarie. Cinq Israéliens et leur chauffeur avaient trouvé la mort.

May. 30, 2013 - by PAUL McLEARY  - Defense News

WASHINGTON — While the size and relative buying power of the US may be declining, American allies will depend on the US Army even more in the future than they do now, Army chief Gen. Ray Odierno said Wednesday.

While the question-and-answer session at the Atlantic Council in Washington contained the requisite talk of sequestration and how the mandated cuts will affect the force, Odierno spent the bulk of his time fielding questions about threats that the United States, and the Army, will likely face in the coming years.

Chief among his concerns is the evolving nature of international terrorist organizations and the fact that groups such as Hezbollah — which is very publicly fighting for the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war — are “not held to any accountability in terms of international law because they are not a nation-state. So to me that’s the problem … and that’s why [future conflicts are] so difficult to predict.”

Warfare in the 21st century is changing rapidly, Odierno said, as criminal and terrorist groups cross borders both physically and virtually, and “international law and other international bodies are yet to recognize this evolving conflict.” The fact that Hezbollah “is verbally saying ‘we are now going to support [the Assad] government,’ what does that mean?”

Of greatest concern, he said, is the “underlying Sunni/Shia conflict that we see in the Middle East; that’s what you’re seeing play out in Syria” as Hezbollah fights to support the Syrian government, which is also supported by Iran.

He also cited “both the internal stability of Pakistan and its effect on the region,” along with its nuclear stockpiles as a major worry. Next on his list are the unpredictability of the new regime in North Korea and finding ways to partner with China on an array of military and diplomatic issues.

Odierno is also worried about US allies, he said, and the fact that critical NATO partners are cutting their military budgets and troop numbers at the same time as the United States.

“We gotta make sure we stay in sync, because we might become unbalanced” within the NATO umbrella if the US and its allies don’t talk through their cuts and find ways to try and complement each other’s capabilities, he warned.

For example, “as the British Army continues to reduce in size we’ve had several conversations about keeping them integrated in what we’re trying to do. In a lot of ways they’re depending on us, especially in our ground capabilities into the future,” Odierno said.

While the French have not reduced significantly yet they may begin to slash military budgets soon, along with the Italians and the South Koreans, who are increasingly unable to maintain traditional troop numbers due to demographic changes in South Korean society.

The most recent plans for the South Korean Army call for a troop reduction from 560,000 to about 370,000 by 2020.

As far as the current US budget mess is concerned, Odierno complained that “since 2010 we’ve had 15 continuing resolutions. That’s killing us.”

In 2013, “we ended up with a $20 billion shortfall in operations and maintenance money. We’ve been able to get that back down to about $12 billion or so, based on new [reprogramming] legislation that was passed,” but the service is still short by about $8 billion.

That shortfall will have significant ripple effects in 2014 and beyond as readiness atrophies due to the lack of money to hold training exercises. And that $8 billion shortfall in 2013 will only get worse in 2014 because the sequestration cuts are “not part of our calculation for the ’14 budget, so we’re already in the hole before we even get to ’14,” he said.

And cuts to the Army’s end-strength won’t be enough to close that gap.

“In the Army, 45 percent of our budget is people,” he said. “I cannot take people out fast enough to meet sequestration numbers.”