Islamic State claims control over village in northeast Nigeria
ISWA continues to defy announcements by the Nigerian government of its defeat. 
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Analysis: US military grossly underestimates Taliban, al Qaeda force levels in Afghanistan

AFRICOM launches 2 more strikes against Shabaab in central Somalia
The US military is clearly targeting Shabaab in Mudug province. There have been five strikes there in the past four days and 50 Shabaab fighters are reported to have been killed in the attacks.

US military kills dozens of Shabaab fighters in 3 strikes

US considers naming Venezuela state sponsor of terror over alleged Hezbollah links  
The Donald Trump administration is considering designating Venezuela as a state sponsor of terror in part due to its alleged ties with Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah, the Washington Post reported Monday. Congressional hawks led by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., have pushed to add Venezuela to the list, accusing Caracas of ties to Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Hezbollah backers Iran and Syria are already on the list.  Read More  ​

PROJECT SYNDICATE

Will Todman writes: As GCC states increase their interventions in Africa, they must continue to broaden and deepen their ties with African states. To secure their economic interests in an arena of greater international competition, they should enhance their lateral engagement with African governments significantly to ensure that their interventions are meeting African governments’ needs and priorities. – Center for Strategic & International Studies

Seth G. Jones, Charles Vallee & Danika Newlee write: Despite the Islamic State’s loss of territory in Iraq and Syria, an increasingly diffuse Salafi-jihadist movement is far from defeated. […]For the United States, the challenge is not that U.S. officials are devoting attention and resources to dealing with state adversaries like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. These countries present legitimate threats to the United States at home and abroad. Rath­er, the mistake would be declaring victory over ter­rorism too quickly and, as a result, shifting too many resources and too much attention away from terrorist groups when the threat remains significant. – Center for Strategic and International Studies

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"The Worst Deal in History": Theresa May's Surrender  by David Brown  • 

"Key take-aways from the new National Defense Strategy included: 1. The US Defense establishment would return, after almost two decades, to a recognizable military mission, and would rebuild its forces, its defense-related R&D, its doctrine, and its capabilities in line with the trajectory it had been on until the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, but taking into account the decline in its force structure caused by the 18-year diversion to the CT mission, and taking into account the totally transformed geopolitical and technological context;

2. To emphasize the geopolitical shift in the “competition” spectrum, the US had downgraded NATO to the second tier of its strategic alliance structures and raised to the first tier its existing and emerging alliances in the Indo-Pacific. This, by default, means the ANZUS Alliance (with Australia and New Zealand), its Japan and Republic of Korea alliances, and the emerging "Quadripartite" alliance structure linking the US with Japan, Australia, and India. Unspoken, but critical within this approach, would be — as Pres. Trump had already made clear — improved security relations with key ASEAN states and the Republic of China (ROC: Taiwan). The fact that the US has now moved to the “Indo-Pacific” contextual view, as opposed to the “Asia-Pacific” view was confirmed and important; it signals a shift in thinking1;

3. The Defense Dept. would substantially reorganize to improve flexibility, efficiency, and innovation, including improved relationship with private sector contractors. Indeed, private sector enthusiasm for working with Defense had essentially evaporated in recent years, with the exception of committed major contractors, because of the bias, difficulty, and bureaucratic morass which caused defense contracting to become something for most firms — particularly small-to-medium businesses — to avoid;

4. The document, apart from a few, non-substantive jingoistic comments, was low-key and professional and, if anything, played down the fact that it represented a total transformation of the US defense capability. Sec. Mattis presumably did not want the document to inspire concern among “competitors”, or for allies to think that the new strategic posture was anything other than a return to historical continuity;

5. The Strategy highlighted that Defense would act more frequently within an inter-agency context — a “whole-of-government” framework — rather than as a purely military instrument. This was particularly evident in the one brief paragraph devoted to the Western Hemisphere. “Supporting the US interagency lead, the Department will deepen its relations with regional countries that contribute military capabilities to shared regional and global security challenges,” it said, leaving open and ambiguous how the US would deal with the substantial growth of PRC strategic (but non-military) projection into the Caribbean and much of South and Central America;

6. With regard to Africa, the message was subtle, but clear: the Defense Dept would work to counter, among other things, “trans-national criminal activity, and illegal arms trade with limited outside assistance; and limit the malign influence of non-African powers”.

​This phrasing clearly — but without naming names — emphasized the PRC’s “malign influence”, but also that of Turkey, which has emerged as a key driver of the illegal arms trade.

UK INDEPENDENT:  CHINESE MUSLIMS GULGAG

China's Crackdown On Muslims In Xinjiang Is Sure To Backfire
by Michael R. Auslin via The Spectator
After repeated denials, Chinese officials finally admitted last month that they have set up internment camps in the far-western province of Xinjiang, where up to one million ethnic Uighurs, almost all of whom are Muslim, are being held. Under China’s anti-terrorism law and ‘religious affairs regulation,’ the government in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region publicly introduced the ‘Regulation on De-extremification.’ What it describes is a new gulag, where re-education and the suppression of Uighur identity is its main goal.

• "Uighur jihadist group trains with elite unit," Caleb Weiss, FDD's Long War Journal
  

China’s government delivered a defiant defense of its mass detentions of Muslims at a United Nations human-rights panel in Geneva on Tuesday that turned into a showdown with the U.S. and other critics of the Chinese policy. – Wall Street Journal

John Lee writes: A better-coordinated effort by the U.S. and allied nations that blends hard power with greater soft power will serve as a more effective strategy to defend freedom of navigation and uphold international law. Conceding China the soft-power advantage in shaping the historical narrative will greatly diminish prospects for an enduring and just peace in the region. – Hudson Institute 
Marc Champion writes: The U.S.-China realignment that began with President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to Beijing has been reversed in the most consequential geopolitical shift since the fall of the Berlin Wall. China and Russia are now as close as at any time in their 400 years of shared history. The U.S., meanwhile, has targeted both countries with sanctions and China with a trade war. – Bloomberg

Adam Taylor writes: Even at its lows, Putin’s approval is sky high by most Western standards. Then there’s the issue of cause and effect. We can certainly theorize that Russia’s actions in Georgia and Crimea led to a “rally around the flag” effect, but was that why the Russian government pursued these actions? In both cases, Russian aggression came after a number of other events not totally under Moscow’s control. – Washington Post 
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Anne Applebaum writes: The timing might also have been chosen with an eye to the political calendar in Ukraine, which is gearing up for a presidential election next March. Perhaps the Russians want to inject a polarizing element into an already divided society; perhaps this is an answer to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s decision to break away from Russia; perhaps they want to provoke a postponement of the election altogether. – Washington Post