A quick thought on evolution and teleology

Today I was re-digesting good conversations with a friend about religion and philosophy. I remember being struck by how he could accept both the theory of evolution and Christianity without the ideas clashing like two steamships in choppy waters. While natural selection does not rule out a creator-type god, nor does it specifically prove against one, a quick glance at the fossil record doesn’t show much teleological guidance or direction. Christianity relies on, no, needs for there to be a plan at the bottom of all this. For the religious, there has to be some semblance of direction or for this all to not be a cruel game or arbitrary experiment.

My friend sees nothing wrong with agreeing that life evolved over millions of years, accepting that evolution works through tiny incremental changes in response to environmental pressures, among other factors. For him evolution is absolutely compatible with the idea that god created all life and is most definitely still involved in its development today. While there’s no reason to believe he thinks god created life in today’s form at one distinct time in the past (as a creationist would), his inclusion of god in the natural process of evolution strikes is entirely redundant and dangerous for his belief. I want to try to explain why.

If life can start on its own (a proposition with a growing amount of evidence, but still no solid ideas on how exactly it might have happened on this earth) and if it is the case that life plods along slowly, adapting to environments by itself, no divine intervention necessary, then what role does an all-powerful creator god play? Sure, god could be responsible for all the changes. Perhaps it’s god who made the fish begin to breathe more gaseous oxygen and crawl out onto the dry shore. And perhaps god is causing all the small mutations making bacteria and viruses so damn resilient to our drugs. And further, I guess god could even direct where the amino acid groups fit in DNA structures, or even where the molecules and the very atoms of the molecules arrange inside an adenosine protein. And sure, god could ensure the strange quantum rules actually form the atom. God could do it all. God would be pretty tired from all this micromanagement, but who cares, it’s God we’re talking about!

This is all well and good, but something about this doesn’t seem right. If god is just a tinkerer, would there ever be a natural process? If god is in the details, just like his devilish antonym, how could saying god exists be any different from saying nature exists? Surely if god is at the bottom of everything like the turtles, then I would have to presume either god is tinkering with my atoms right now, or god actually IS my atoms. Maybe god and nature are the same thing, just like the eastern religions have said this whole time.

However, this doesn’t get us anywhere. If god really is doing everything, all the time, then what good is science? Of what possible use could the invented of a word like ‘nature’ be when we already have the word god? They both describe the same thing. Yet this is what you get if you purport some divine guidance for evolution. But thinking like this is a complete non-starter. After all, don’t you want to know HOW god does things? Don’t you want to know HOW to replicate these phenomena in a lab or in technology? Or is the idea that god does absolutely everything comforting enough not to care?

If god really is directing evolution, it must be assumed there’s a destination. God is proposed by the religious to have a plan (although how they would know of such a thing is beyond me). A direction proposes a destination. God has to be tinkering with life to get a result. But what is the end-game? Is it frogs? They’re pretty cool; maybe god has been working steadily for billions of years to finally create the Green Tree Frog species. Now god can watch them jump around on leaves and catch insects with their creepy tongues like the stupid looking things they are. Maybe god is keen to see how they camouflage themselves on bark or swim goofily through the water with their spindly legs. Or whatever god wants frogs for, I don’t presume to know what god wants, I’m not that arrogant. But if the whole purpose of evolution is frogs, then that’s cool with me.

I guess the Christian faith would have us believe that the ‘special’ homo sapiens is evolution’s destination. With us god’s tinkering was complete; god had found the end point of evolution, and god was pleased. It makes sense really; since god came down to earth in the form of a homo sapien then, obviously, god is some kind of ape. Of course, it also stands to reason that god appearing as an ape would be the smart move on god’s part if god wanted to talk to other apes. We’ve no idea if god also appears to frogs as a frog to talk to frogs. Or if god appears to rabbits as a rabbit to talk to rabbits. Or for that matter we have no idea whether god has assumed the form of every creature that has ever lived at any point in their evolution (or god wouldn’t have seen all the species) just to talk to them and save them from ‘sin’. We simply can’t know that, and god very well could have.

But if god’s mighty interfering in evolution was to eventuate the humble homo sapiens, then that’s fine too. Until you do a little more thinking. And here’s what’s been bothering me:

If you take the premise that the homo sapiens is the destination in the long, winding road of evolution, then you have to: a) agree to the vast age of the earth, b) agree with the theory of evolution, c) agree that natural selection has created and destroyed almost every species that has ever lived on this earth, and d) [this bit is optional] that evolution by natural selection is an on-going process.

All but (d) MUST be agreed to if we upright apes are the destination of god’s wonderful plan for evolution. But (d) is the problem, the fly in the ointment so-to-speak (biology puns). If evolution is an on-going process (and we can show definitively that this is the case) then it follows that evolution has not magically stopped as soon as humans arrived. Natural selection is still a force that humans, albeit in very minor ways, have to deal with each day. One of those nasty viruses might catch on a sneeze and destroy a fair chunk of our population. Or what if a natural disaster (sorry, a ‘god’ disaster) such as a rogue asteroid were to kill millions of people by ploughing into this spinning rock with the force of a million nuclear explosions? Anything could happen and humans might come off worse for wear.

That’s fine if you agree that no god controls anything (it’s a fine thought, but not a nice thought. Reality can be a depressing place sometimes…) but it’s a problem for any theist who thinks it’s all part of the plan. Consider what would happen if the next 100,000 years (a mere yawn in evolutionary time) was to be relatively asteroid-free down here on the third rock from the sun. A lot of evolution can happen in such a long time span. Granted it wouldn’t be enough time to see any radical changes in morphology on any one branch, but it would be enough to encourage speciation within many animal families. Surely if one agrees with the theory of evolution then it’s clear that humans are part of the living world and are therefore still subject to the biting claws of natural selection. In 100,000 years what are the chances of homo sapiens still being recognisable to us today? Very low I would predict. That is, such a time-span would probably result in a homo sapiens population becoming isolated and the inevitable speciation event occurring (perhaps this happens through some other process than isolation).

The point is, there is no evidence to support the theory that the homo sapiens are the final play of evolution. We’ve progressed technologically to the point of being able to offset much of the natural pressures that directly affect our survival, and the gene pool is large enough to dilute any significant morphological changes. But this doesn’t mean that evolution has been in closed off for our species. Our records can only reliably stretch back around 2000 years, and it shows humans looking and acting in pretty much the same way as today. But this is only 2% of the years I proposed earlier! What might occur in our species if we gave it another 98,000 years?

What if humans evolve away from what we are today? Does that mean that god didn’t intend for homo sapiens to be the final stage after all? What does that tell you about this god coming to earth as a homo sapien? Did god come too early? Was god mistaken in telling us we were who god was “most pleased” with? For that matter, did god also visit homo erectus or neanderthalensis? Those guys had brains comparable in size to ours, and, in the case of neanderthalensis, the brain was quite a bit larger than ours. What if humans evolve away from our current form, will god send down his son as a saviour for those post-human creatures too? Maybe god will tell them that it is their “sins” that are keeping them from entering heaven and they need to turn their ‘homo whatever’ hearts towards god.

For me, this whole idea of god and evolution being compatible falls apart when you consider not only how long evolution has been working in the past, but how long it probably still has to go into the future. Don’t stop thinking about the next 100,000 years, stretch your mind a bit more and visualise the next 200,000 or 1,000,000 or even the next 20,000,000. Keep going, if you can, and think how earth life might look in the next 600,000,000 years. Will homo sapiens still be around then? Maybe (if we can develop technology to a point where evolution no longer affects us), but I highly doubt it. I rather think the homo sapien will go the way of the dodo or the plesiosaur: extinction and into the great rubbish pile of failed species.

If god really is a tinkerer, working away furiously each and every second on each and every piece of the universe (even the bits we’ll never see in the Andromeda galaxy; can’t forget those atoms!), and there really is no natural processes at all, then I guess we just might be the destination of evolution. But you’d have to be incredibly short-sighted not to even ponder what things might look like in the distant future.

Maybe it will all end soon, just like the bible-bashers say it will. Maybe the universe is about to wrap-up and humans really will be the final stage of our small evolutionary branch on this isolated planet orbiting a mediocre star in a run-down stellar neighbourhood inside a rudimentary whirlpool galaxy. Yes, perhaps we are the final scene, but I’m not narcissistic enough to believe such rubbish. 

NATO summit displays serious scaling back of influence

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) leaders gathered in Chicago for a summit to discuss the security decisions of the future. The summit is one of the largest in history with over 60 nations included. The leaders will examine how to maintain and improve security in an age of austerity and serious economic challenges, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told the press ahead of the meeting, GlobalSecurity.org reported May 20.

Although the summit was broad, the exclusion of certain countries makes it also one of the most interesting. Vladimir Putin, the recently re-elected president of Russia, declined an offer to attend the meeting citing pressing civil responsibilities at home. Putin won last month’s Russian election convincingly, securing his hold on the Kremlin for his third and final ruling term. His control was arguably never lost, even as he rescinded direct management over the Russian government to Dmitri Medvedev, his current prime minister, in the previous presidential term. It is widely believed that Putin was directing Russian policy from behind the stage the whole time. Russia is less worried about NATO development than it is about dealing with its own internal economic problems. Putin’s decision to remain at home this weekend was not entirely a smokescreen.

Putin’s decision to not join the NATO summit is partly the result of the largely stalemated diplomacy between NATO and Russia over the positioning of a Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) in Turkey, Poland, and Romania. Russia is not convinced that the planned BMD shield is meant strictly to deter rising Middle Eastern powers such as Iran. It fears the shield plan will not only protect Eastern Europe and bolster Central Europe’s shield, but also interfere with Russia’s own ballistic missile emplacements and early-warning radar (EW). In fact, Russia is so concerned about the BMD Kremlin officials recently stated that Russia considers “pre-emptive strikes” as possible if they are to go ahead. Such a specific threat indicates Russia views the BMD plans as being more than just protective missiles: they are a direct military provocation to Russia from NATO.

It is quite likely however that Russia need not worry about the NATO threat in the coming years. NATO countries are not only facing a prolonged period of deep funding cuts for their militaries, but the institution itself has decayed significantly over the past decade at least. NATO, at initial formation, was expected to function as a team with the US doing the heavy lifting. European countries were encouraged to maintain their militaries and a semblance of personal responsibility against the threat of Russian tanks rolling across the North European Plain.

NATO’s problem today, as the Libya campaign demonstrated, is its creeping irrelevancy. The intervention in Libya showed that NATO struggle to agree to commit forces, with France and Germany very publically disagreeing on direction. The US assisted in the intervention in Libya in a logistical and support capacity, much of the work to enforce the no-fly zone over the North African country was completed by the US military. Aside from the United Kingdom, French, Canadian, and Italian defence forces during ‘Operation Freedom Falcon’, as it was codenamed, it was the US that supplied much of the raw materials of warfare. Many NATO countries could not get permission to use their missiles in battle and were on station flying patrols as more of a representative presence instead of for any direct strike role. European aircraft flew the bulk of the 26,500 sorties, but only a handful of countries allowed their pilots to use their weapons.

Indeed, the bureaucracy morass in many NATO governments considerably slow any timely military interventions, even in the relatively simple fighting in the Balkans at the end of last century. The US now accounts for over 80 percent of NATO defence spending, up from 60 percent in 1980. This is a huge increase that is starting to expose vulnerabilities in current NATO expeditions. The International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) troops in Afghanistan are mainly deployed to peaceful regions of the country and away from restive areas like Kandahar. Their limited equipment and hesitant political jurisdiction severely limit how those troops can be deployed. Indeed, when United States General Stanley McCrystal recommended a surge of troops into the country in 2009, he specifically requested that it should be US troops who consist of the surge, not ISAF.

NATO as an institution was created to limit Russian westward advance into Europe during the Cold War. Russia is unprotected by any significant natural geographical barriers on its western flank and therefore must push west until it reached some. This geopolitical imperative has resulted in heavy Russian influence in Eastern European affairs for over 50 years, especially in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Romania and the Baltic states. In response to this, NATO unified Western Europe against the encroaching Russian influence. In fact, during the weekend’s summit the Baltic States requested more a permanent NATO military presence be devised to deter Russia as the Kremlin begins to grow in power once more. It was subsequently announced by NATO commanders that air patrols would be increased over Lithuania and Estonia; clearly indicating that the feeling of Russian influence has not fully disappeared in the Baltics.

Today the Soviet Union is a relic of history but Russian geopolitical imperatives remain. As Russia stirs up support in Eastern Europe to maintain its strategic buffer, the very existence of NATO and all that it entails serves to encourage those outside states to look favourably towards the organisation. Being part of NATO ensures protection from the world’s only superpower, the United States, and guarantees inclusion into a strong economic system. An economic system that continues to perform superbly despite recent serious fiscal issues. The NATO ability to conduct war is becoming more limited as budgetary constraints begin to take more of an effect due to those economic downturns, but the US was meant to shoulder most of the financial and logistical burden from the beginning.

However, the two factors of limiting NATO militarily and the growing European distaste for all things military has forced some countries around Central Europe to create their own non-NATO alliances. The Visegrad group (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic) is a battle group independently preparing to address the return of Russian influence. Stuck geographically between two historical enemies, Germany and Russia, and realising that NATO support may not be reliable in the long term, Poland has felt it necessary to protect its interests. NATO leadership does not appear to be betting on any serious future geopolitical horrors, perhaps because of the relative calm it has experienced since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Poland is less sure of the future and, given its history, it makes a great deal of sense to arrange a back-up plan.

NATO may be a shell of its former self, but it is still useful as an organisation. Not only does it keep a restless Europe passive, especially an increasingly fidgety Germany, it is a natural extension of the growing US Empire. Washington can encourage NATO involvement in US foreign policy, thereby supplying a convincing veneer of legitimacy to its actions. It is clear in hindsight for instance, that if NATO was given a stronger role in the initial stages of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, those campaigns may have turned out differently. It is always good to have conflicting opinions presented around the table when organising military strategies. Certainly, a less unilateral approach to those wars would have smoothed the reconstruction progress and likely weakened the sectarian violence committed against US forces over the years.  

As NATO is scaled back, exemplified in Chicago, the strong legacy of the organisation is not forgotten by its members. Perhaps the organisation will fade into history to be replaced by something else, and perhaps it will perpetuate. However, today it is the Eastern Europeans who are worried about the steady Russian return to their affairs, not the Central Europeans. In fact, Germany is quite positive towards greater Russian political and economic influence. The eastern European states have already begun to take matters into their own hands to deal with a returning Russia while Central Europe is distracted by their deep economic hole and general ambivalence towards Russian influence. NATO is still useful, but the question is: for how long will it remain so?

Rising Australia, marginalised Pakistan and US diplomatic realignment

Alongside the Group of Eight (G8), the United States hosted the NATO Summit over the weekend. These are two important gatherings of the world’s most powerful leaders, bringing them together to focus on critical global issues such as the global Economic Crisis and the military operations in Central Asia. The NATO Summit will be especially important as the Afghanistan departure timeline for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) will be discussed.

The Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is among the notable major non-NATO ally invitations to the Summit in Chicago. Gillard’s attendance reflects the Australian Defence Forces contribution to the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. Given the recent positive political overtures between Washington and Canberra in 2012, it is not surprising the Australian leader was invited.

Washington has an agreement with Canberra for 2,500 Marines to deploy in the Australian Northern Territory by 2016-17, with the first 250 already arrived near the Australian city of Darwin. The US government is also discussing leasing arrangements with Canberra to potentially base troops on the Cocos Islands, a small archipelago located almost 3000 kilometres (1800 miles) from Perth in the Indian Ocean. Because the islands are too far from any economically important waterways, such as the Strait of Malacca, to be strategically convenient there is some speculation the islands could be used for US drone surveillance of ocean transit routes. US drone flying from the Cocos Islands will broaden the coverage of the Indian Ocean currently being surveilled from Diego Garcia, the US airbase and listening station.

Japan and Australia on May 18 signed an intelligence-sharing agreement, Japan Today reported. Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr and Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba met in Tokyo to sign the agreement. The two nations are strategic partners and need to increase the strength of their security relationship, Gemba said. This and other agreements are increasing Australian confidence in the Asia-Pacific region. Canberra is reengaging its near-abroad and assisting in security in Fiji and Papua New Guinea, long considered by successive Australian governments as marginal threats. But as Chinese economic power in the Melanesian Island chain rises, for Canberra to continue sanctioning Fiji will not counteract Chinese influence and it fails to meaningfully advance diplomatic relations between Suva and Canberra.

Australia is not threatened by Fiji, the small island nation is currently governed by a military junta that plans to draft a constitution by February 2013. Australia has diplomatically maligned Fiji because of the junta but the re-focusing of US strategy towards the Asia-Pacific region, and the changing face of Australia-US and Fiji-US bilateral relations, is encouraging Canberra to at least demonstrate that it is working on improving security in the region.

Canberra is rethinking its strategy towards Suva as a policy of self-preservation. Australia does not have the resources to design a defence force to confront the growing Chinese naval influence, and must rely on US protection. However, Australia has plenty of experience in the Melanesian Islands to assist the US as Washington escalates its presence there in the coming years. Aside from leasing geographically important real-estate to the US government and supplying cultural knowledge and intelligence of the Melanesian states, Canberra can do little else to effectively assist the US. Assistance it desperately needs.

This leaves Australia in the awkward position of needing US protection for its interests yet without the ability to reciprocate effectively outside its own economic zones, leaving it largely dependent on the Washington’s strategic focus. Canberra is trying to offset this dependency by purchasing advanced military hardware to bolster its force projection and is starting to advance relations with neighbouring  island nations. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s inclusion in the recent NATO Summit can be viewed as an reflection of Canberra’s increasing importance in the global community, especially to Washington.

Perhaps the most notable event to Chicago’s NATO Summit is the US refusal to initially invite Pakistan to the talks. While NATO eventually rescinded and invited Islamabad, US-Pakistan tensions were distastefully apparent. Obama refused to see Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, during the talks because Zardari arrived without intention to discuss the closed NATO supply route through Pakistan, The Guardian reported May 21. The locked supply routes have forced US Central Command (CENTCOM) and ISAF forces to rely on the expensive Northern Distribution Network (NDN) that runs mostly overland through Russia and Central Asian states from ports in the Baltic and Black Seas.

US President Barak Obama attended the NATO Summit but Zardari had to meet instead with US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, an indication of US frustration with Pakistan. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said May 20, that NATO cannot solve the Afghanistan problem without Islamabad, and that the reopening of the supply route was crucial. Zardari rejoined briefly that US drone strikes inside Pakistan are a serious compounding factor to the route remaining closed

Islamabad closed the Pakistan Supply Route on November 26, 2011 after a border skirmish resulted in 26 Pakistani troops killed by US gunfire. Islamabad stated they would end US and ISAF logistics in Pakistan and initially also called for the cessation of drone aircraft from Pakistani airbases in retaliation to the border strikes, backtracking later after intense US pressure. Focused diplomacy between the US and Pakistani governments are currently trying to reopen the route.

Pakistan is unlikely to remain so immovable on this issue, but if the behaviour of and tensions between NATO and Islamabad on the weekend are indicative of anything, it is that Pakistan holds the advantage geographically over ISAF. Ultimately it will be poverty and government deficits in Pakistan that will force Pakistani leaders to open the route once more. Islamabad will use their power of closure to squeeze more beneficial concessions from Washington. 

Australia and Pakistan are two nations separated by both culture and distance, yet they share a common interaction with the world’s only superpower. Pakistan since 2001 has been a highway for US and ISAF troops and a veritable warzone as drone strikes continue in the north. But US aid has benefited Islamabad. Pakistan has more control over its predicament than Australia, as shown by the recent supply route spat, but it is still only a temporarily useful country for Washington. Once the Afghan theatre closes in 2014, US military aid will drop significantly.

However, Australia is a maturing country politically and has the resources to become a significant regional player. Likewise, Pakistan has used the US distraction in Afghanistan to attract billions of dollars of US aid to build up an effective military-intelligence apparatus poised to dominate Afghanistan once the US end combat operations in 2014. But that is where the similarities end. Canberra and Islamabad are treated very differently by Washington, and ultimately it will be Australia that receives long-term meaningful US support. While Pakistan will fade into a power-balance between it and India, just as Washington intends.

Yemen engages Al Qaeda in fresh fighting

Backed by local tribesmen, Yemeni troops killed 45 militants in the Dovas and al Harour regions of Abyan province, Yemen's Defense Ministry said May 16, Xinhua reported. A military official in Aden said 15 soldiers were killed in militant battles near Yasouf Mountain.

Two militants and eight civilians were killed in two strikes in Jaar in southern Yemen on May 15, witnesses said, AFP reported. Two al Qaeda militants died in the first strike and residents who had gathered around the scene were killed by a second strike, unnamed witnesses said. Twenty-five civilians were wounded. It is not clear whether the Yemeni air force or U.S. unmanned aerial vehicles carried out the attacks. Meanwhile, two soldiers were killed in clashes between the Yemeni army and al Qaeda militants around Loder, an unnamed army official said, adding that 13 members of the Popular Resistance Committees fighting jihadists alongside the army were also wounded.

The on-going military operations in southern Yemen are part of a concerted effort by the transitional government to quell unrest as it tries to stabilise the government. Military reports suggest that perhaps 20,000 Yemen troops have participated in five days of coordinated assaults in the province of Abyan. The offensive has left at least 144 dead, including 98 Islamist fighters, 20 soldiers and 16 civilians.

Beginning on May 12, the new Yemeni president Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi ordered government troops to confront the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), also known as Ansar al-Sharia, a militant group that has made southern Yemen a stronghold. According to western diplomats in Sanaa, the US is supplying advisors to the Yemen military operations. Those US troops are deployed in an air base near al-Anad, Al Bawaba reported May 16.

U.S. President Barack Obama signed an executive order that will give the Treasury Department power to impose sanctions on those who obstruct a November 2011 power transition agreement in Yemen, The Wall Street Journal reported May 16. The sanctions will freeze U.S. assets and property of the individuals and will not allow U.S. citizens to engage in transactions with them.

The order did not name any individuals who could be hit with the sanctions. A Treasury Department official said the order allows the government to target individuals and entities inside and outside of Yemen who threaten Yemeni peace, security or stability.This executive order effectively makes the policy of past few years of US drone strikes in Yemen perfectly legal going into the future. And there is no sign of the Americans backing down any time soon, with unconfirmed reports of US naval units involved in this week’s fighting.

The US has conducted drone strikes in Yemen since 2002 when an RQ-1 Predator fired a missile striking a vehicle containing AQAP leader Qaed Senyan Abu Ali al-Harithi. Since then, hundreds of AQAP members have been targeted including the American editor of the Jihadist magazine ‘Inspire’ and AQAP member Anwar al-Awlaki. His death was significant as it was Awlaki who was the main force behind the Al Qaeda nodes efforts to become a transnational terrorist group. And it was Awlaki who was the single most effective jihadist advisor in the region.

Because of this, both US-Yemen forces and AQAP have played cat and mouse, with the terrorist group sustaining heavy losses. However, the group has been the most active of the Al Qaeda franchises, deploying the so-called ‘Underwear Bomber’ Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to the United States in 2009. This and other significant attacks focused the attention of US intelligence agencies on Yemen, the CIA using the nearby Djibouti air base, Camp Lemonier, to launch airstrikes and command drones against AQAP.

But Yemen, a country without properly defined borders, has found it difficult to abrogate the threat from al Qaeda. During 2011 and into 2012, the country underwent drastic civil unrest spurred on by militant groups against the then president Ali Abdullah Saleh. As Yemen quickly fell into uncontrollable militancy, Saudi Arabia launched its own strikes on Yemeni rebels in the nebulous border region of northern Yemen. But up until this week, Yemen government troops have not conducted military strikes of division strength due to the political uncertainty in Sanaa as the Saleh government transitions to a successor government.

The addition of US advisors in Yemen amongst this week’s operations is expected. The US has injected a lot of resources into countering the AQAP threat in Yemen; this includes supporting the government in Sanaa. US drone strikes and advisors will be only part of the military package promised to Yemeni president Hadi. Usually, any Special Forces presence is indirectly indicated by the admission of advisors or experts working with local forces. Two US aircraft carrier groups are currently stationed in the 5th fleet area of responsibility (AOR), along with a Big-deck amphibious warfare ship loitering off the southern coast of Yemen. Conventional strike aircraft can be launched from these platforms to assist Yemeni ground troops therefore it is very likely that US Special Forces teams are on the ground in Yemen directing airstrikes. Some reports suggest US Special Forces are directing Yemeni strike aircraft and artillery.

It is difficult to see a decisive end to the current military engagements. AQAP have shown remarkable resilience in the past few years fortifying themselves in Yemen’s southern tribal areas, the true Yemen demographic core, apparently even marrying into local tribes. US-Yemen forces are attempting to engage the remaining Al Qaeda fighters to keep them occupied in the south while the transitional government consolidates in the north. The buffer being created should give Sanaa ample time to craft a position of legitimate power as the country tries to recuperate from the unrest.

The Yemeni government faces uncertainty in the coming months and is trying to intensify the battle against AQAP and other militants. Al Qaeda has fed on the chaos in Yemen and the inherent political problem of maintaining such a vast, almost deserted interior in which resident Yemenis feel little affiliation with the government in Sanaa. US interests in the region are currently being managed with drones, Special Forces, and aid, so it is unlikely any further military assistance will be allocated. For the time being, Sanaa appears to have made a significant dent in AQAP operational ability. But this will only be confirmed when the dust settles in a few days and both sides return to lick their wounds and count their dead.